Website builders or coded

[somebodynamedfin]

Hello,
I am new here, nice to meet you! I would like to know your opinion about whether it's better to build your site with a website builder or simply ask for developer's help? I want this small website, one-paged for my business and I was wondering about making one with a website builder. I used Wix in the past, not my cup of tea

 

[Deleted member 325090]

Depends entirely on how well the website builders meet your particular requirements.

If you can find a website builder that does what you want, and you're happy with the on-going charges then go for it.

If they don't do what you're after, or the hosting charges are prohibitive, then get someone to do something bespoke and get it hosted somewhere.

 

[TargetICT]

If you have the time you can use a builder, you’d learn useful skills in the process

If you have the money you can pay a professional and use the saved time to promote what you sell

Both ways get you to your needed destination

 

[fisicx]

Don’t use wix. Don’t use wix. Don’t use wix. Don’t use wix. Don’t use wix. Don’t use wix.

Or any other online site builder. They are ok for you hamster appreciation club but useless for a business.

Wordpress.com is a zillion times better.

Or if you want to self host Wordpress can be installed with one click.

You could get paid help but there are millions of guides and videos on how to build your own Wordpress site.

 

[gpietersz]

I agree with @fisicx except for a one page site I would definitely just go with wordpress.com and the £3/month package.

Do things like SEO matter to you or do you just need some sort of site up?

If you have the time you can use a builder, you’d learn useful skills in the process

What useful skills!

 

[Kidz Gifts]

Totally agree with previous comments. I would go for Wordpress. Specially for one page site.

 

[zomex]

I wouldn't recommend using a website builder, the negatives are that they generally create poor quality websites and you end up stuck with their platform.

As some people suggested it would be recommended to use WordPress instead. WordPress is a good balance between a website builder and bespoke website. The benefits are that it allows you to create a good quality website, the software is free and you have full control of your website (WordPress is supported by almost every popular web host).

 

[gpietersz]

I wouldn't recommend using a website builder, the negatives are that they generally create poor quality websites and you end up stuck with their platform.

Not really a problem with a one page site, which is what the OP wants.

I am not a fan of Wordpress for larger sites (unless they are blog like and/or Wordpress does what is required pretty much out of the box) but that is a different discussion.

 

[zomex]

Not really a problem with a one page site, which is what the OP wants.

I am not a fan of Wordpress for larger sites (unless they are blog like and/or Wordpress does what is required pretty much out of the box) but that is a different discussion.

A one page website does not mean not important. The OP mentioned wanting to create the site for their business. Using a website builder is not a good idea for any website especially one for a business.

I agree about WordPress, it is not suitable for every website and of course it has to be maintained but for a one page website for someone without experience it is very suitable.

 

[ukbf0001]

NEVER USE WIX - like others here have said.
It depends on what you want the website to do
Just purely informational ? , do you want to sell products from the website ? , do you want to be able to easily change content ? do you want to add additional things like contact forms, email subscriptions, memberships etc. Do you want it to be mobile friendly, fast loading, optimised for relevant keywords that you want to rank for

How much time do you want to spend doing this or learning how do it ?

Once you know the answers to the above you will know what the best path to take is

 

[V Narayan]

i used shopify - it svery easy if you fancy

 

[Ecommerce-Help]

For a really easy self hosted site builder have a look at Site Magic CMS. It might not be perfect but it will get you up and running.

 

[DazRave]

Quite a few people saying never use WIX/other site builder services.

I don't see any real explanation or science given as to why though*?




*Full disclosure, I have a heavy background in website and software development

 

[gpietersz]

Heavy slow loading pages, often not good across different screen sizes (I have seen several that either look like a mobile site on a desktop, or are not responsive so do not fit on a mobile screen), inflexible compared to self-hosted CMSs.......

Some are better than others.

 

[DazRave]

Some are better than others.

This was what I was looking for (and to be honest I was baiting for).

From my going on 18 year experience I've found it all depends on the goals and objectives of what the business is trying to achieve and that alone is extremely important before making any decision on the technology used.

Second to that is budget. It's extremely cheaper and quicker to create a content rich, good looking website with a site builder service* then it is to get a good looking wordpress website off the ground. So for a business that's small and has limited funds it's absolutely perfect.




*Some of them are pants though admittedly. But some I've dabbled with myself and was extremely impressed with both performance and quality.

 

[menetworkjadaltd]

If you have the ability, hand coding is the way to go

 

[gpietersz]

Second to that is budget. It's extremely cheaper and quicker to create a content rich, good looking website with a site builder service* then it is to get a good looking wordpress website off the ground.

I am not a fan of Wordpress (largely because its extremely badly suited to the sort of work I do but people nonetheless try to use it anyway, and partly because of the tendency of Wordpress sites to get hacked) but I prefer hosted Wordpress to most of the site builders.

 

[Aleksander_Gramm]

This was what I was looking for (and to be honest I was baiting for).

From my going on 18 year experience I've found it all depends on the goals and objectives of what the business is trying to achieve and that alone is extremely important before making any decision on the technology used.

Second to that is budget. It's extremely cheaper and quicker to create a content rich, good looking website with a site builder service* then it is to get a good looking wordpress website off the ground. So for a business that's small and has limited funds it's absolutely perfect.




*Some of them are pants though admittedly. But some I've dabbled with myself and was extremely impressed with both performance and quality.

It is the misconception and mistake for many businessmen to think that they choose "the cheapest way" and "save money". First rule for a business is no money, no business. You need enough money to make money.

You can't build a content rich, good looking website with website builders because they can't support these functions as responsive design, mobile-friendly, SEO and the main function "I can build website in the way I want to". To use additional functions you need to pay money. But you'll not get 'a content rich, good looking website'. But you get slow theme with bunch of JS code and CSS. Oh, I forget to write about ad on a site page.
WordPress tries similar approach with Gutenberg, but it is mistake as I see.
So, a business get non-scalable nothing for free.

A business can use other ways to save money and to optimize a budget. That is why businessmen should know basic things about hosting, web platforms, web development process, SEO, web developer rate, etc. For our website visitors I wrote blog post about these things especially for start-ups and small businesses.

 

[fisicx]

WordPress tries similar approach with Gutenberg, but it is mistake as I see.

Why?

Using blocks for content is a sensible way to do things. It doesn't change how pages are built nor how they are displayed. It just makes it simpler to add features like columns or tables - something you either needed a plugin or hand coding to do before.

 

[Aleksander_Gramm]

Why?

Using blocks for content is a sensible way to do things. It doesn't change how pages are built nor how they are displayed. It just makes it simpler to add features like columns or tables - something you either needed a plugin or hand coding to do before.

I was simply expressing a personal opinion about WP Gutenberg.

Yes, it is good for beginner but it is a headache for the experienced developer who can make it in better way without Gutenberg. On the other hand, it is another benefit of WordPress for small businesses.

 

[gpietersz]

The problem with blocks is when they are misused to format non-unique pages the same way. Its the same problem as anything WYSIWIG.

It is much better to have a solution that understands what each block of content is - so specific content is inserted into a template in the right spot. Much easier to redesign all pages for the same type that way, or to add new functionality, etc.

 

[fisicx]

Yes, it is good for beginner but it is a headache for the experienced developer who can make it in better way without Gutenberg. On the other hand, it is another benefit of WordPress for small businesses.

But the whole point of blocks is it does make thing easier for a developer.

In your theme you can register custom blocks that deliver the desired outputs.

 

[fisicx]

Its the same problem as anything WYSIWIG.

Blocks are not WYSIWYG. They are just placeholders for the content. All the layout is still in the CSS - not the blocks

 

[Aleksander_Gramm]

But the whole point of blocks is it does make thing easier for a developer.

In your theme you can register custom blocks that deliver the desired outputs.

From my experience (I work at web agency) developers don't use Gutenberg because they do many customizations. That is why Gutenberg remind me of Wix.

 

[DazRave]

You can't build a content rich, good looking website with website builders because they can't support these functions as responsive design, mobile-friendly, SEO

Why can't I?

I'm no advocate of site builders at all and your statement is true for the 95% of them that are built by a non-techie, usually the business owner themselves.

However, (disregarding Wix completely here as it's the devil) some (SquareSpace isn't too bad) offer extremely good templates (they score pretty well with Google PageSpeed Insights for example) are better then some WordPress websites that cost a business a few grand and were "designed" and "developed" (a template installed and tweaked) by some sort of small marketing/design agency. Using SquareSpace as an example, a competent developer (or designer, for that matter) could knock up a website in less then a few hours that fulfilled the needs of the business completely.

Again, it all depends on the requirements of the business and who is actually doing the work.

 

[gpietersz]

some WordPress websites that cost a business a few grand and were "designed" and "developed" (a template installed and tweaked) by some sort of small marketing/design agency

Yes, I have seen it too. Usually bad designers picked by a business that wants things cheap. It depends on whether you want to compare best to best or worst to worst.

Blocks are not WYSIWYG. They are just placeholders for the content. All the layout is still in the CSS - not the blocks

The standard blocks to layout things (like multiple columns). Letting end users decide things like "lets have this in columns here". The paragraph block has font size, colour (which as already there) and drop cap options. There are things like cover images.

When someone has a 1000 product pages consisting of a cover image, description in columns, and drop caps on all paras decides they want to change them all to have no drop caps, no columns, and heading outside the cover image, its not going to be as easy as changing one template and a bit of CSS.

Fine for really small sites, of course.

 

[Aleksander_Gramm]

Why can't I?

I'm no advocate of site builders at all and your statement is true for the 95% of them that are built by a non-techie, usually the business owner themselves.

However, (disregarding Wix completely here as it's the devil) some (SquareSpace isn't too bad) offer extremely good templates (they score pretty well with Google PageSpeed Insights for example) are better then some WordPress websites that cost a business a few grand and were "designed" and "developed" (a template installed and tweaked) by some sort of small marketing/design agency. Using SquareSpace as an example, a competent developer (or designer, for that matter) could knock up a website in less then a few hours that fulfilled the needs of the business completely.

Again, it all depends on the requirements of the business and who is actually doing the work.

I agree with you. The "quality" of website depends on many factors (a marketing, a design, a qualification of a webdesigner and a web developer, tech things).
It's true. I'm afraid of JavaScript frameworks but recently I saw a good one-page website that was built by JS frameworks.

Google PageSpeed Insights is evil It is a long story. If you implement Google Analytics, Google Ad, Facebook Pixel and more "analytics systems", you will get bad score.

People misunderstand that the good Google PageSpeed score give some benefits. Certainly we all need a light website but sometimes it is impossible.

 

[fisicx]

Google PageSpeed Insights is evil It is a long story. If you implement Google Analytics, Google Ad, Facebook Pixel and more "analytics systems", you will get bad score.

No you won’t. You may get a bad score but that’s more to do with configuration.

 

[Aleksander_Gramm]

No you won’t. You may get a bad score but that’s more to do with configuration.

It depends on some factors. You can configure the analytics scripts, but your page speed "score" still worse than without analytics scripts.
See this post from reddit https://prnt.sc/r513oh
and https://prnt.sc/r514bh
I have been implementing "analytics scripts" for 5 (or more) years and I've gathered some information to make own conclusions. Although, frankly, I read your posts on different sources with great interest. You have a great experience.

Website builders (like wix or others) give tons non-optimized JS code. Unfortunately, many web developers (and WordPress developers) follow this bad practice. That is why people think that to hire webdeveloper is expensive. To create a simple WP website takes 5-15 hours. It will scalable, configurable with a lot of plugins.

 

[DazRave]

Other then our mobile site which has a few flaws in it regarding design etc, our desktop site currently scores strongly in the 90s and we've got so, so many of the things you claim will bring the score down. Our biggest problem regarding the score is our backends API speeds. Everything else that's on the front end is done properly and doesn't bring the score down at all.

I understand where you are coming from as any analytics system will slow things down no matter what. Most people who see problems, as @fisicx says, simply have poor configuration though. Simple as that.

 

[Ola1]

I think Wordpress is like the office 365 for websites, very easy to use and learn.
Meanwhile, I am not sure that a few milli seconds of extra speed is going to improve search rankings

 

[Aleksander_Gramm]

I understand where you are coming from as any analytics system will slow things down no matter what. Most people who see problems, as @fisicx says, simply have poor configuration though. Simple as that.

Ok, sounds reasonable. How did you improve a configuration? Could you explaine "analytics code configuration"?

 

[fisicx]

Ok, sounds reasonable. How did you improve a configuration? Could you explaine "analytics code configuration"?

For example, GA want's it's code in the head. This means your page has to wait for Google. Same if you use Google fornts and other external scripts.

But clicky doesn't have this problem because their code is the last thing to load on the page. My current wordpress theme with analytics installed scores around 96.

 

[gpietersz]

For example, GA want's it's code in the head. This means your page has to wait for Google

GA is now async so that is not a problem any more if its properly configured. I just got a 100 Pagespeed score for a site with GA with that config - and looking at the order in which things work GA is working correctly - the initial script is loaded after the site logo which is in the page body.

My company site (which is static, but has a more complex design, and no GA) gets 99, and my personal blog with an off the shelf Wordpress theme gets 97. All three have statcounter on them.

 

[Aleksander_Gramm]

For example, GA want's it's code in the head. This means your page has to wait for Google. Same if you use Google fornts and other external scripts.

But clicky doesn't have this problem because their code is the last thing to load on the page. My current wordpress theme with analytics installed scores around 96.

I know about practices to place GA code on body section, localize scripts, self-hosted and optimizing standard GA code. People use plugins for WP sites.

But you are right, the first step is optimizing of a theme.

In some cases I saw websites which use a lot of analytics and 3d party scripts as https://prnt.sc/r5oopy

 

[iTechnoLabs]

Hello,
I am new here, nice to meet you! I would like to know your opinion about whether it's better to build your site with a website builder or simply ask for developer's help? I want this small website, one-paged for my business and I was wondering about making one with a website builder. I used Wix in the past, not my cup of tea

In general coded website is better as you can get it customized according to your needs. In your scenario I would say you can go for page builder and make website because you want one page website to make your business presence.

You can use wordpress and there arevarious page builders available to make your website.

Also, you can ask for a quote for web developer and if that money make sense then I would say get the website full fledged developed not just one page.

 

[Aleksander_Gramm]

In general coded website is better as you can get it customized according to your needs.

Actually that's a common misconception. Because there are very few people who know their own needs.

 

[Alex Calinov]

I think it all comes down to what exactly do you need?

I'm a strong believer in - no point reinventing the wheel. Why code something from scratch for days, when you can do the same thing in 10 minutes using a page builder?

The other benefit of using something like WordPress + a Page Builder is that you don't need to completely rely on a developer should you need to make a small change or add a blog post.

And of course, all this will reflect in the price as well. A WordPress website, in general, is cheaper than one developed from scratch.

With that being said, sometimes you might need something developed from scratch. In general, I find that I can do pretty much anything in Wordpress, however, if you want something specific, it needs to work the way you want to, or it needs to connect to who knows what database, and work in a certain way, that might not be possible in Wordpress, so you will need a custom-built solution.

Also, take into account your plans for the future. yes, you might need just a one-page website now. But what if, down the line your business expands, and now you want to add extra pages? Or extra functionality to the website. So make sure you're on a platform that can allow you to expand. For me, that's WordPress.

 

[fisicx]

Don’t use a page builder. Most if the time it’s unnecessary as the majority of browsing is done on a phone.

page builders are designed for desktops by default.

 

[Alex Calinov]

Don’t use a page builder. Most if the time it’s unnecessary as the majority of browsing is done on a phone.

page builders are designed for desktops by default.

What you're saying doesn't make sense. How is the tool you're building a website in, relevant to the device the person is using?

When you code a website, you don't code it from your phone, do you?

You still use your computer. Same thing here. Many popular page builders like Elementor, Beaver Builder, provide you with a lot of tools, and breakpoint to optimise the website for mobiles, tables, desktop etc..