The Pros and Cons of Building Your Own Website

The Pros and Cons of Building Your Own Website

You have your business idea, you may even have registered your business and started trading, but your online presence is non-existent. In the digital age, websites often are the cornerstone of a company’s marketing efforts, so the importance of a well-working and attractive website cannot be understated. This article will lead you through some of the most important pros and cons of building your own website for your business.

Your Options when Building Your Own Website

The first thing to consider when building your website is how you want your site to be created. If you are building your website, there are only two options available to you:

  1. Learning web design and building your website from the ground up
  2. Using web builders with easy-to-use templates and tools

A third option would be using a web design agency that specializes in building bespoke sites at fees ranging from $2,000 onwards. This article will primarily cover the first two options.

Pros of Building Your Own Website

From the Ground Up

If you fancy yourself a tech-savvy individual with a common website design language experience, building a website from the ground up maybe for you. 

The greatest advantage of this approach is that you have complete freedom over the design of your website and you will own all the content you create. Everything from visuals to website security is in your control. Additionally, you will be in control over who hosts your domain, and by doing so, get to choose your domain name. You also have full control of the analytics and SEO capabilities of your website.

The path of building your website from the ground up can be an extremely rewarding one, putting your code-based skills to the test whilst building something that truly fits your requirements.

This is a great option if your skills are adequate and you require a website with unique functionalities and bespoke design needs. 

Using Web Builders

Ok, so maybe you’re more like me, the creative type who cannot write a single line of code. The concept of printing “Hello, World!” is a daunting one that causes night sweats. Luckily for you, and me, there’s a multitude of epic web building platforms that remove the technical complexity of building a website.

These platforms are generally cost-effective with many using a freemium model. Monthly expenses range from $0 to $30 for basic packages. Including your domain name and additional support will increase the expenses, but this option is still far cheaper than hiring an agency to build your website. 

These platforms allow for easy-to-use drag-and-drop functionality to create amazing portfolio-based websites. Many platforms host 1000’s of templates with detailed how-to-guides to get you to build your website in no time. Additionally, website security is handled by the platforms, and many offer basic analytics and SEO functionality.

This is a great option for businesses that need a portfolio-based website or a website with limited functionality. 

    Web Building Platforms

WiX.com Weebly SQUARESPACE Webnode JIMDO
webflow Duda GoDaddy WordPress.com strikingly
one.com SITE123 WebStarts webs homestead

Cons of Building Your Own Websites

    From the Ground Up

Building from scratch requires a lot of time and technical know-how. All that “control” you have over your website requires a lot of work and attention to detail. Finding the right host for you can be difficult and handling website security can be a tough challenge. 

    Web Builders

You are probably thinking that web-builders have it all, unfortunately, if you want an amazingly looking website with complex functionalities, you need to be handy with WordPress.com. WordPress.com makes up 35% of the internet today! Most other platforms are run with templates with limited freedom and SEO functionalities. Additionally, the best examples of the platforms are almost always built by tech-savvy individuals working for the platform.

A major concern is that end-user-license-agreements claim all of your work and content. Finally, it is often argued that most of these web builders are great for hobby or portfolio sites, except for WordPress.com. 

Building your website is an extremely rewarding experience, no matter which way you do it. You can be the technical web builder creating from the ground up with complex code, be extremely proficient with the best platforms out there, or merely use in-platform functionalities for pretty, but limited websites. It all depends on what your business requires. 

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