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Creating your own website: build it yourself or outsource?
Read time: 6 mins Added date: 09/09/2024
Launching your first business website is an important milestone. However, the journey to the point where your site is finally live for the world to see is filled with decisions. In this article, we’ll walk through the decision-making process with you, answering the key questions on the options available, costs, technical skills and time required.
In collaboration with GoDaddy
This article is developed in collaboration with GoDaddy – one of the largest services platforms for entrepreneurs around the globe, offering website building tools.
Let’s start with an overview of the main avenues you can go down to launch a business website.
Broadly speaking, there are two options for launching a business website. You can either do it yourself or hire a professional to do it for you. Let’s look at each option in turn.
Setting up a website yourself
The good news is that it has never been easier to create a website yourself. Today’s web design tools, like the popular Website Builder from GoDaddy, offer everything you need to lay out a website, fill it with photos, text and videos and set it live.
Cost: Using a web design tool is one of the most affordable ways to launch a website. GoDaddy’s Website Builder lets you create and start using a professional business website for free.
If you’d like to use a custom domain name for your web address, add online booking or sell multiple products, the tool costs anywhere from £9.99 to £19.99 a month.
A special offer available to Lloyds Bank customers
Get a discount on any of GoDaddy’s Website Builder plans with the option of a free trial.
Tech skills needed: To use a website builder like GoDaddy’s, you really only need to have basic computer skills. The tool asks you a couple of questions, then uses AI (artificial intelligence) to generate a variety of layouts for you to choose from.
These templates are already filled with photos and words related to your type of business, but it’s easy to switch these out for your own. Note that the writing part is not that different from writing in a Word document. When it comes to publishing the website, all it takes is the click of a button and your new site is visible to the world.
Time required: As the templates available through GoDaddy’s Website Builder are auto populated with industry-related images and content, it’s possible to get a site live in under an hour. To find out more about the quick steps to launch a website with GoDaddy’s Website Builder, take a look at our guide on How to build a website quickly for your business.
Tweaking or adding new text, uploading videos, adding extra elements like photo galleries and menus, and playing around with colours and typefaces will obviously take a little longer.
Functionality: Web design tools like GoDaddy’s allow you to create everything from a basic website to an e-commerce store. Your site can feature all sorts of elements — photo galleries, audio files, videos, a blog, appointment booking, a newsletter signup form and more.
The cons: Not all web design tools offer the same functionality. Using the wrong tool can lead to issues like poor page displays on mobile phones, slow load speeds and a site the search engines won’t list in search results.
Hiring a professional to design a site for you
Web designers offer a variety of different services.
- Some will design your website and then hand the reins back over to you
- Others will design your site and then manage it for you once it’s live, dealing with any technical issues and making any alterations needed going forward
Cost: This will depend on what you want from your website. The cost of designing a website in the UK ranges from £495 to £15,000, with additional recurring costs varying based on the complexity and requirements1. Remember to account for expenses such as purchasing a domain name, website hosting, and regular maintenance.
Tech skills needed: If your web designer has agreed to maintain your website for you after it has launched, you won’t need any technical skills at all. However, if your designer is simply designing your site and handing it over to you, you will likely need some technical knowledge. For example, you might need to understand the basics of the content management system (CMS) your web designer has chosen (WordPress for example). A walkthrough of the CMS dashboard with your designer may be all that’s needed for you to be able to make basic updates to your website.
Time required: The time it takes a web designer to create a website will depend on how complex that website is. A basic blog site will take less time than a large e-commerce website for example.
Generally speaking, it takes between two and five months for a web designer to create a site from scratch. While you won’t need to invest your personal time in the design of the site, you will need to make time for briefings and update meetings with your designer. Communication is key to getting exactly what you want from your designer of choice.
Functionality: Professional web designers can deliver highly customised sites as well as sites with more complex features like database integration or gaming functionality, for example.
The cons: As with website building tools, not all web designers have the same capabilities. Before you choose your professional, be sure to:
- Ask for examples of their work to get a feel for their skills
- Get quotes for the work from multiple designers to be sure you’re paying a rate that works for both of you
Which route is right for you?
When deciding whether to design your business website yourself or hand it over to a professional, you need to ask yourself these questions:
1. How much do I have to spend?
If you’ve got less than a few hundred pounds, you’ll have to go down the DIY route.
2. How technical am I?
If you use a laptop on a day-to-day basis for work and apps on your phone, you should be able to get to grips with a website builder tool, too. If you’re using WordPress, there’s a learning curve to this tool, so it's not a DIY option unless you’re willing to dive into the many help articles and tutorials online.
3. How much time do I have?
Whether you decide to design your own website or hire a professional to do it for you, you will need to invest some time. Don’t forget, you’ll need to have meetings with your web designer to discuss the brief and to make sure everything is on track during the design process, so this route doesn’t always free up more time than the DIY option.
4. What features would my dream website have?
It’s important to be practical at this stage — what are the features that you absolutely must have? Separate the must-haves from the nice-to-haves. You can always add features as your business grows. Photo galleries, blogs, appointment booking pages, video sections, PDF downloads, an online store and gift card sales can all be added to websites built with tools like GoDaddy’s Website Builder.
Here are the things that every website should have at a minimum:
- An opening statement that says in a few words what your business does
- A single button high on the page that tells the reader what to do (e.g. request estimate, shop now, book your appointment, etc.)
- An 'About Us' section where you tell your start-up story
- Your contact details, including phone and email
- An email signup form (often called a 'Newsletter Signup Form')
- Links to the social networks where you have business profiles
- A secure socket layer (SSL) certificate to enable an encrypted connection
- A business logo, colours and tone of voice used consistently throughout
- Reliable hosting to keep your site running and loading quickly
GoDaddy’s site builders include SSL encryption and reliable hosting.
Many small business owners will find themselves in one of two camps:
1. Those who are willing to invest more time than money in creating a website
2. Those who have the money but not the time or interest in doing it themselves
If you’re in the first group, try a few of the DIY site builders available. Many have free trials, so you have nothing to lose.
For those who are in the second group, get estimates from two or three web designers or developers and look through their portfolios to see if you like what you see. You could also call one or two customers of any designer or developer you’re seriously considering and ask how satisfied they are. Then make your choice.
Whichever option you choose, it’s important to go down the route that’s right for you.
A special offer available to Lloyds Bank customers
Get a discount on any of GoDaddy’s Website Builder plans with the option of a free trial.