Should you have a DIY or Custom Website Design? The 7 Deciding Factors

Regardless of the size of your business, having a website is a must. However, smaller sized businesses often find themselves struggling with how best to develop their site. Typically there are two options a small business can pursue: hire a professional website design company or develop the site on their own using pre-made templates such as Wix or Weebly. There are, of course pros and cons to each option. Sydney Website Designer Gabi Woodbridge advises:

before choosing an avenue to pursue, it’s important to consider the pros and cons, so that you can make the best decision for your specific needs.

Neither option is the right or wrong way as it will largely depend on a variety of factors and how much they apply to your business.

The following are the most common factors businesses need to consider when looking at either building a DIY website or hiring a professional:

• Budget
• Flexibility
• Quality
• Technical Skills
• Scope
• Time
• The Future

In an effort to evaluate the merits of both DIY and custom website production in correlation to these factors, I’ll be writing about this topic over a series of posts.

DIY website software has come a long way, and the technical knowledge of people is improving making it easier for them to go DIY successfully. However, it is worth knowing the limitations of these platforms particularly in the long term so you know what to expect.

Similarly, when you engage a website design company to produce a website it is valuable to understand the benefits on offer, so you know if you’re getting value for money.

By understanding the pro’s and con’s in relation to each of the above 7 factors, you’ll be able to isolate what is the most and least important to your business. Once you know what you can do, what your website needs to achieve for the users and what you can live without- the choice be-tween DIY and Custom website design will be a lot clearer.