Would you prefer expensive website design or low cost DIY?

[JiffyDomains]

Hello

I own a web hosting company in the UK and we've just launched our website builder with all of our packages. However, we're looking for advice on what small business owners would prefer.

Would you prefer to have a custom made website for your business or would you rather have a lower cost do it yourself website?

 

[koolpanda]

Hi Jiffy

Everything I say from here on in, I mean no disrespect to you personally. My first instinct is, always go bespoke, and never use a site builder.

Website builders are very much a get you away product. They will never offer the flexibility of a bespoke design, or look as good. They can also hurt a companies image, if the site looks cheap, or doesn't render well across all browsers.

In addition, the need to link a website up with back end business management systems is key (or at least it should be in the 21st century). The website builders I have seen, remind me of those business card kits you get from staples, which are perforated to print yourself (yuck).

If a website builder system was to link directly with CRM systems for example, this would definitely make me look to changing my mind. There are also many API's, and it appears on the business front at least, these are the most glaring omissions.

But if I am going to be fair to you, I would have to look at your site builder before really commenting on your offering.

If it would be ok with you, please PM me a link. I would be very interested in having a look at the system. I also promise to keep an open mind and give you an honest, constructive opinion.

Kindest regards

John

 

[fisicx]

I tell people to avoid site builders. Two reasons. 1. They are always restrictive. 2. They tie you in to a single provider.

So far better to go with your own site using freely available platforms that can be moved between hosts. They do not have to be expensive.

EG: wordpress is free. You can get a whole range of theme for next to nothing. There are zillions of plugins and masses of support.

So to answer your question: low cost custom made put together by someone who knows what they are doing.

 

[burn1972]

I prefer the custom option always, the nature of a small business means that you are prone to constant alteration, especially in regards to messaging. A DIY site best facilitates this, affording your web portal the ability to reflect the changes in your business.

 

[web-design-stories]

Buying a website is very important for a business owner, it's not like spending few pounds in the store. Most business owners go for Gumtree, find cheap person to do it for them.
Unfortunately most of those people are not doing all they can to help your business..

The ones who want to build a successful company on a solid foundations, will contact the right company, this choice is also very important as many companies "Just build websites" while company like mine.. We specialize in branding and marketing too, so we get you on the right tracks before you even start.

In general, website builder can be a great tool to empower your user experience, although many people prefer not to do that.

Not many people buy domain name before they find someone to build the website for them.

Sorry for long response.. =)

 

[Denchr]

Buying a website is very important for a business owner, it's not like spending few pounds in the store. Most business owners go for Gumtree, find cheap person to do it for them.
Unfortunately most of those people are not doing all they can to help your business..

The ones who want to build a successful company on a solid foundations, will contact the right company, this choice is also very important as many companies "Just build websites" while company like mine.. We specialize in branding and marketing too, so we get you on the right tracks before you even start.

In general, website builder can be a great tool to empower your user experience, although many people prefer not to do that.

Not many people buy domain name before they find someone to build the website for them.

Sorry for long response.. =)

You specialize in branding but you use a Yahoo email on your website?

(Hands over face).

 

[web-design-stories]

It's new website, and we are experiencing problems with smtp details therefore I decided to provide this email rather than having none.
This is temporary

 

[mcgb]

It's new website, and we are experiencing problems with smtp details therefore I decided to provide this email rather than having none.
This is temporary

Is this something you need help with?

 

[Talay]

I think the biggest benefit someone can get from a website builder is that it asks you the question whether you are really going to get up to speed in managing and updating it yourself or whether you need help.

I found that whilst I would love to get really into it, I simply didn't have the time. I happily changed the CCS and html to my very basic level and incorporated stuff I self taught from the net but then I came up across the limitations.

Now I'm going to play with Wordpress and probably end up with someone managing a site for me and them doing al the back end stuff with me simply updating content.

 

[businessopportunityseeker]

What I don't get is that no site builder, free or otherwise, seems to offer a selection of the standard things which a generic website might offer. To use a building analogy: They seem to think that by giving you the bricks and mortar, the builders and the tools on a plate, they've made it easier. But what the customer is looking for is a complete, empty house which just needs a bit of decorating and furniture put in.
For example: we don't want to 'build' a forum section. We just want to click on a tab which makes a forum and we fill in the titles. We don't want to have to build the entire site again for every new language we want to present the site in, we just want to click a link which allows us to translate windows and then the program takes over and duplicates the site. We don't want to 'build' the WebPages, we just want a selection of WebPages to already be there and we just choose the ones we want. We don't want to have all the tools to build pages; we want to have empty templates which we just have to fill in. There should just be a series of options at the beginning: Do you want an Estore, an online magazine, a forum standard business introduction website etc? Then you just have to click that option and it will have a list of templates appropriate for it. The key is convenience. As long as the list is exhaustive then it would be less restrictive than the standard web builders today.
If we wanted to build a website we wouldn't come to a website builder in the first place, we'd just hire someone else to build it for us. That's the problem with website builders. Rather than have what we need already built, they just want to gives us the tools to make it easier, and with constraints. And that, in short, is why a lot of people who don't mind the restrictions that a web builder comes with nevertheless don't use them, simply because web builders still think that people want to 'build' their sites rather than buy complete but empty ones and then customise them.
People know what are the generic structures of websites today. A useful website builder would just offer an exhaustive selection of templates of all of those different variations. Then we can colour it in etc. If anyone knows a site builder like this please tell me about it because I want to use it. If there's anyone out there who can't find something like that but they like the idea I've proposed then PM me about it and we'll get to work on it!

 

[Murray Cowell]

My opinion is that if you're going for a DIY with Wordpress, for example, you can use the rest of money for investing in media buys or any other form of marketing that could help bring traffic or leads. That involves email marketing as well and I think it's the better solution!

All the best!
Murray from inboxincome.co.uk

 

[Clodbuster]

My first website was a bespoke build and when the guy moved to Australia no one would take it over - stuffed. Next was an EROL package that worked well and chuffed with it but that company went bust so had to change again. Now I use an off the shelf Magento template and there are many people who can look after it. I've moved it once from a firm I decided were not giving me value and the transfer was seamless and easy.

 

[anthonyp01]

Depends on the budget and clients requirements. Sometimes I get calls from people that only have £50.00 to spend and sometimes they have £4k+ to spend. You provide a service that's tailored to what the client can afford most of the time.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

My opinion is that if you're going for a DIY with Wordpress, for example, you can use the rest of money for investing in media buys or any other form of marketing that could help bring traffic or leads. That involves email marketing as well and I think it's the better solution!

All the best!
Murray from inboxincome.co.uk

I agree keep the costs down on building the site and blow the budget on a good seo campaign because what's the point in building a good site if its not going be competitive on the search engines

 

[Billmccallum]

It depends what the customer needs (as noted by @anthonyp01), I have but together sites using a site builder, but only basic set up's to have a presence whilst waiting for a functional site to complete.

 

[confused-new-starter]

personally, I'd prefer low cost DIY.

But that's because I can* make a sort of decent looking website with plenty of functions etc.

On the other hand, I completely understand those who want to just drag and drop whatever object into place and not worry about messing about for ages, with this or that offset,

*When I say I can make a website, I have no design ability what so ever, but if you were to give me a picture I'd make a pretty good pixel perfect copy using notepad. I never quite got round to learning any graphical way of creating websites, so I personally find website builder apps really pointless.

 

[RapidFormations]

A combination of both is probably the only real answer. It is dependent on budget - it's good to be able to offer a high quality product with full flexibilty and integration options for those with the budget. For many small businesses they don't have any option but to keep their site cheap and cheerful though, and depending on their line of business that might be all that's required.

 

[asbesting]

lower cost DIY website is a illusion. you forgot about a loss of profit. if your website was created by unprofessional, it can lower your sales. website is the system of many things (color, font, highlights, banners, buttons etc) and only pro knows about a their cooperation. by the way, sometimes, even if a color was selected wrong, user could not to click.

 

[bwdgroup]

A lot of our clients have migrated from BT / Yell and 1&1 who have all had bad experiences with using free website builders , not only are the websites templates they are actually paying more for a low-budget website building service each year than a standard VPS hosting and local support.