Creating your own website versus paying someone else to
October 3rd, 2008It’s easy for anyone with a dollar and a dream to think up, create, publish and market a website. Sounds easy right? Throw a few bucks at Godaddy for a domain, another few bucks at a hosting company, and you have a website! Well, actually you have a domain and a host, you can create a website by installing wordpress, a forum or a list of other free CMS scripts. Then find or write some content, and there we go - your very own website for less than an initial 20 dollar investment and very little effort.
Well not really.
Why not? Well you made a site that looks like a clone of every other wordpress website out there. I bet you’d love to change some things around, maybe move this box over there and that box over here, but alas it’s not so simple. You can always download free templates to change the look of your site, but you’re still looking at standard templates that other websites could be using. In doing this, you’re going to be adding content to your website to fit inside this standard template. This isn’t good, in fact it’s backwards. Your website design should be created around your website content. If your content is really good, you can use a generic template and do pretty well. However, having a professionally made will ensure your website design and content compliment each other, which can make a difference on the amount of visitors you receive, and of course your bottom line.
How does a complimentary website do better?
When a website is semantic & designed around your content, a few things occur:
- You have complete control as to where your content is placed. This means your important information is strategically placed so it’s delivered to your visitors in order of importance
- You will be taken more seriously. People tend to take professionally built websites seriously. Your visitors can recognize which sites were slapped together, and which sites were created to function and look professionally.
- Your bottom line will be better. It’s a fact that the better-ranked your site is with search engines, the more people will click your link, and the more potential you have for revenue or visitors.
- Semantic websites are programmed so that all of your visitors (firefox, internet explorer, apple users, etc) are looking at the same website. If your website is not programmed correctly, some users will not see a fully-functioning website, which will either take a chunk out of your bottom line or cost money and time to fix.
What exactly does semantic mean?
A semantic website is organized, well-structured and correctly programmed. Why does this matter to you? Being organized and structured will allow your visitors to find what they want with little to no time wasted. Being correctly programmed means that your site will display correctly on all web browsers, will be available to those with mobile browsers, and disabled visitors using special browsers will be able to browse as well.
In closing
Whether you slap a website together, or invest a few bucks into it’s creation, you’re going to see a difference. If you aren’t that serious about your website idea, then go for the do-it-yourself route. I did, and it was one of the greatest learning experiences I’ve ever had. But if you want a serious website then you need make semantically & SEO friendly. If you don’t at first, you’ll very likely have it done at some point in the future when you want to expand. When do you think it’s easier and cheaper? When you first plan out the site or months/years down the road when you’ve site has grown considerably?