How to Choose a Website Builder Near Me – DIY vs. Teams
Most businesses can’t be successful without a website. If you’re searching for a website builder near me, you’ll notice that you have two main options. First, you can use a DIY site builder to create your own website. Second, you can hire a professional web design team to handle the job for you. Which is the right option for you? The answer is going to depend on your specific goals, budget, and time. Here’s everything you need to know about website builders.
DIY Site Builder Tools are Limiting
There are over 100 site builder tools if you want to build your own website. Some even have a free plan. However, we want to caution you that DIY website tools are very limiting.
Some of the most popular options, include SquareSpace, Wix, and Weebly, all have drag-and-drop aspects which makes it very easy to quickly build a website. The problem is that you have limited opportunity to customize the templates and designs that have been pre-built. If you want to do anything outside the box, you have to figure out a work-around, which isn’t always possible. With a free plan, it is especially difficult to build exactly what you want, but even paid options don’t allow you a deep level of customization.
Many DIY website builders also limit how you can brand your website. They may force you to include mention on the page that your website was “designed with SquareSpace” or “built with Wix” for example. This can compete with your own branding and look unprofessional.
There are some web design tools that make it easier to build a custom website exactly how you want it. These tend to be more advanced options such as WordPress. Unfortunately, they aren’t as easy to use as website builders made for beginners. These options are hard to use if you don’t have professional training.
Your best option is to hire a web design company that can give you exactly the look and functionality you want in your business website. While a free website might be attractive, you get what you pay for. Here at conversionMOXY, our team of web design experts can create a site that perfectly fits your brand and helps you make more sales. After all, the goal of a website is to convert visitors into paying customers!
If Your Website isn’t Optimized for Search Engines, it won’t be Effective
Why do most businesses find that DIY website builders just don’t work? Well, here’s the secret: even if you know how to design and code a custom website from scratch without the help of a tool, it still wouldn’t really help your business. For a website to be beneficial, it has to be optimized for search engines.
You may have heard of the term “search engine optimization” or SEO. With SEO, you help people find your website among the millions of options online. Let’s say that you sell purple widgets. When someone Googles the term “purple widgets,” you want your website to pop up. This doesn’t happen randomly. We can optimize your website for the term “purple widgets” and any variation of the phrase, so it appears among the first rankings in search results.
SEO is part science and part art. Every search engine uses hundreds of ranking factors to decide which websites will show in their search results.
Some SEO-ranking factors are more technical in nature, relating to the speed and security of your website. If you use a DIY website builder to build your website, you don’t have much control over this. A web developer team like we have can ensure that your professional website is both fast and secure, with responsive pages that load well across all devices. Google actually punishes with lower rankings those websites that aren’t mobile-responsive. Since most people are searching from mobile devices today, your site must be easy to navigate and user-friendly, no matter what device your potential customer is using.
SEO isn’t just about the speed and security of your website. Our content team handles the other side of SEO. We’ll use top-quality professional tools to research exactly what keywords your target market is using to find information. Then, we’ll create helpful, engaging content around the keywords, based on SEO ranking factors and guidelines directly from Google.
This is where the “art” part comes in. Companies used to stuff keywords into articles that provided little helpful information. Search engines realized that this was not allowing them to show quality results to their users. So, they made the ranking factors more complex. No one knows the complete list of factors, but our content team knows exactly how to write website content that search engines love.
The results? Potential customers actually find your website quickly. Additionally, we build websites that attract and engage your target customer. That in turn, means that once they are on the site, they will fill out a form or place an order because we make those activities easy for them.
SEO is a huge topic. If you want to learn more, we recommend checking out this article.
A Website is a Living Marketing Tool, not a Once-and-Done Solution
Part of SEO is having a fresh website with continuously updated information. Search engines like to see websites that have established themselves over time. However, they also want to ensure that the information they show to people isn’t outdated.
When you build a website yourself, you need to constantly update it to keep seeing results. This includes updating content on static pages, as well as adding new pages. The simplest way to add new pages is with a blog. However, not every DIY platform is set up with a content management system for hosting blog posts. This is a problem, since one of the major criteria for search engines to rank a website high on its results page is for a site to have “fresh” content consistently.
If you aren’t a writer, adding several new blog posts per month can be extremely time-consuming. When you work with our team, you can get back to doing what matters most – running your business. We’ll take care of the website updates for you.
As we update your website, we’ll constantly be tracking metrics to see what is working best. If you’re just tracking your total pageviews or social followers, you’re not learning what is actually helping you get more sales. We take a deeper look at the data and provide independent reports so you can understand how we’re helping your business improve. Our goal is to prove that we are increasing your ROI.
Your Website Needs to Look Good Across All Platforms
Having a responsive website is extremely important if you want to maximize your results. Not every free website builder has responsive options. Unfortunately, without a responsive website, some potential customers will click away without even considering your business.
“Responsive” means that your website looks good across all devices. The website responds (hence the name) to the screen size. So, if you look at your website on a large desktop monitor, it will look fantastic. If you look at it on a smartphone, it will look a little different, but still fantastic.
We’ve seen people make really bad mistakes when it comes to responsive websites. These mistakes include:
- A pop-up box for lead generation that you can’t minimize or even submit because the buttons don’t work when the website displays on certain screens
- Text that becomes too small to read on small screens or laughably large on large screens
- A non-responsive menu that is impossible to navigate when you are on a mobile phone
- Links that are easy to accidentally click when scrolling with a finger versus using a desktop
This isn’t a complete list, but just gives you a few examples of why responsive design matters.
The Best Website Builder Near Me Will Create a Website that Converts
When searching for a website builder near me, you’ll find teams with varying levels of investment in your business. In other words, some website development teams simply take your idea and make it a website while others listen to you during the process to ensure you get a website that actually works.
At the end of the day, you aren’t just paying for the website. You’re also paying for the experience the website design team brings to the table. If you don’t hire a team that knows how to maximize your lead generation, you might as well be flushing your money down the toilet. After all, what good is a website – even a very popular website – that doesn’t lead to sales?
Our team understands sales funnels and how to create a lead generation machine with your website. We’ll start by talking to you about your sales goals and your target market. During your initial consultation, we’ll learn about your brand and what is already working well for you. Then, we’ll turn up the volume. We look for low-hanging fruit first (i.e. leads that you can easily capture with a few tweaks). Then, we dig into the data to increase both the quality and quantity of your leads.
There is a lot of psychology in the layout of a website. Just placing a button in a different place or changing the color of a graphic will make a difference in the sales conversions. Our designers understand the use of colors, graphics, photos and most of all, the placement of various functions and tabs on a website. We don’t use “conversion” as part of our name for no reason, after all!
Does Your Business Require an Online Store?
If you want to take orders online, of course, the DIY issue is no longer on the table. Building an ecommerce store does require a professional, but the return is tremendous. We invest in all top-quality software to enable your ecommerce website to function smoothly and efficiently. From product/food photography to shipping method integration, we understand the needs of an online store and its functionality. It must be user-friendly and provide the information the buyer needs exactly when they need it, then confirm the transaction quickly.
An ecommerce website builder today must be well-versed in setting up the ecommerce function, since online shopping is becoming more the norm with every passing day. Customers are relying on companies that make it easy to shop online or order food online. We can integrate all food delivery services, if you have a restaurant business.
Your Website Should be Part of a Bigger Digital Marketing Plan
Speaking of your digital marketing plan, as noted, we understand sales funnels. When you work with conversionMOXY, you don’t just get a website design you love; you get an entire digital marketing plan.
You see, we’ve discovered that marketing doesn’t really work if your teams are in silos. Everyone might be doing their job, but you don’t have a well-oiled machine unless all the cogs are working together. We can help you combine social media, SEO, local lead generation, digital advertising, and more together into one large strategy. Your new website can truly shine when everyone is working together.
Keep in mind that we have plans to meet your needs. So, if you already have an amazing social media director, for example, we don’t have to take over. Instead, we’ll work with your in-house and freelance marketing teams that you already have in place. Our goal isn’t to take control if there is someone already at the reins. Rather, our goal is to help you with the missing pieces of the puzzle.
A Professional Web Team Will Save Time and Money
Creating a new website from scratch can be time-consuming and expensive, if you’re doing it yourself. As a business owner, you have to think about how much your time is worth. When you’re stuck in the day-to-day, doing tasks that aren’t your forte, you’re not working on actually building your business. Your business can’t grow if you’re taking on tasks that professionals in that business can handle more efficiently.
A high-quality professional web design company is going to give you a return on the money you spend. Instead of looking at it as an expense, look at it as an investment. If you could spend $100 and get back $300, $400 (or even more!), wouldn’t you? We can show you results for clients who are very happy to spend a small monthly sum to gain much more in sales.
This kind of ROI is what a team like ours brings to the table. We’ll create a custom website that works well for increasing your sales, without taking time away from your busy day.
So Which Option is Better – DIY or a Website Team?
Obviously, we have a biased opinion. However, we think there are many substantial reasons that hiring an actual team is the better option. DIY website builders look very attractive when you see the low price tag. Unfortunately, they take so much time to customize, that you’ll often end up saving money by hiring a team of professionals.
Plus, you can get the results you really want if you work with a team. The right layout, graphics, and optimization can help you double or even triple your conversions. We provide ongoing maintenance to continually ensure you’re getting a good ROI. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. If you’re ready to learn more about the solution that is right for your business website and digital marketing plan, contact us today! Simply click the “request a quote” link above to begin with a free consultation and quote. Or, simply give us a call at 336-245-1640.