Nothing beats that feeling of satisfaction when it comes to DIY, especially when you can save some money and take your time with the project at hand. What separates a smart DIYer from a rookie is the ability to know when you should do the amateur job and when to hand over the reins to the professional. When it comes to building a website, a ‘good enough’ job will not cut the mustard, especially when Google is crawling every other option on the internet and ranking in terms of quality and value. Let’s take a look at when you should and should not DIY your web building and troubleshooting.
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The original build
When you are planning for the original build of a website, this is something you are going to want to be done correctly. How you start will set you on a path, and the last thing you want is to launch a website that has issues from day one. When working with a professional Melbourne web designer, you can map out the flow and function of your website, with the professional or team able to flag any potential issues and impart some insights and ideas that might make your website even more effective.
Professional web developers have trained across all platforms and encountered different builds, so they will be able to design your original build with greater quality than a DIY job would. If you have a set budget for web development, feel confident in assigning most of those funds to the original build, and explore other maintenance options thereafter.
Website content
Crafting content and telling a brand story is definitely an art, but it can be owned and executed by the website owner. This is a great example of what can be a DIY job, and there are countless resources out there that will guide you in writing informative or inspirational content for your website. That is not to say that a professional job will not be worth the investment, but if you are doing a needs assessment, then professional website content will sit below the more technical elements of a website.
Another option would be to use a professional for your service pages and the core content, and you can DIY the blogs and supporting content. Your content split will depend on the budget of your website build and maintenance, and it may also depend on the internal resources you have and what confidence they have in creating content for your website.
Data and analytics
Setting up data analytics might be second-nature to some digital natives, but others may struggle with putting all the pieces together. Google has its own analytics tools and systems that integrate with the website to collect accurate and real-time data, and there are other specialized data programs available, like Looker and Yellow Fin. This can be set up professionally or as an amateur, depending on the nature of your website and how instrumental these data insights are. If you are running an e-commerce business and need to dig into the insights to better advertise to your target audience, then you may have a way to work with a professional data analyst to put the right systems and programs in space.
Creating an SEO-friendly website
When building a website, you want to be considering SEO from the start. This will save you from having to engineer elements afterward and have to change all the things you love about your website. An SEO-friendly website is more than just optimized content, it is also about website structure and using the right headings and image attributions. If you have decided to work with a professional web designer, ask them about their SEO experience so you can gauge what you will be getting from the build. It might be that someone in your team is experienced with SEO or you have a consultant who can work with your web developer or the professional web developer that you have chosen.
Economy of scale
If you have never heard of economies of scale, it is the cost advantage reaped by companies when production becomes efficient. What does that look like in practice? Companies can achieve economies of scale by increasing production and lowering costs, and the same can be applied to your website build. By working with a professional, you can brief in a large amount of work and get a better price per volume, rather than doing a DIY job and then having to brief in smaller, more frequent work. When working with a professional web designer, do not be afraid to ask for your work to be itemized and see if you can negotiate new tasks in place of tasks you can DIY so that yours go further, and less paid production is required.
Knowing when to DIY and when to take the work to a professional will save you a lot of time and frustration in the long run. You can still commit time to upskill yourself in the areas that you predict will require ongoing professional support, but do not skimp on the initial build.