Say ‘Bai’ to Build-Your-Own-Websites

By now you’ve probably seen or heard mention of the crowd-favorite Super Bowl commercial for Bai, read your social media feeds’ opinions of the political car ads, or even had enough of the various cell phone companies attempting to top each others’ ads as if it’s enough to make you want to switch providers. If the ending of Super Bowl LI wasn’t crazy enough, at least Lady Gaga’s half time show made up for the lack of funny commercials this year. Surprisingly, there seemed to be a rise of advertising for build-your-own website platforms.

From Squarespace and Wix to the online giant, GoDaddy, the tools that claim to help build your online presence seem to be increasingly popular on Super Bowl Sunday. What is it about these companies that consumers seem to be attracted to? It’s cheap, it’s easy, and it’s at your fingertips. These are all attractive qualities of building your own website, and it’s a great option if you’re in the beginning stages of starting your own business. If you have an eye for design and knack for marketing, these options could be for you. But what about the 90% that aren’t in that exact market?

Creating your own website can entail a steep learning curve as well as a dedicated amount of time to creating graphics, content, and finishing touches to represent your business on the world wide web. The following 3 criteria are what we refer to our clients as the most critical to evaluate your business on to reveal if you’re a candidate for build-your-own website platforms, or if you’re ready to contact a web designer:

1.) Audience

If you have a low budget to start, and your goal is just to generally create an online presence for yourself or your business to list your services and provide a phone number, we recommend starting with a build-your-own-website platform, such as Wix or Squarespace. It’s a quick & easy solution to provide a low-cost starter website for your business. If you’re looking to dive deeper into your main audiences and speak specifically toward your audience’s pain points and walk them through their specific user journey, customization becomes a priority.

2.) User Experience

User experience encompasses visual design, information layout, structure, and organization to enhance the overall user experience while viewing a website. Oftentimes, with build-your-own-websites, the user experience is one-in-the-same from user to user across the board. There is little-to-no customization for different users, even if they’re from vastly different demographics. When looking for more information about a company, potential customers want to feel understood. If you speak directly to one direct target market, a build-your-own-website may be of interest to you. If you have more than one target market, by customizing your website, you let your website speak to each market individually and help guide them through your unique process that will solve their want, need, or problem.

3.) Search

Are you trying to find your audience or are they trying to find you? In both instances, having a build-your-own-website does not allow much room for growth in your business–in real life or online in search rankings online. When people start paying attention and your audience becomes a priority for you, you will need to be found online through search and organic rankings. While we have the opportunity to work within build-your-own-websites to optimize the site, customized websites allow our team to fully design and plan unique layouts that allow for ideal search optimization moving forward.

In short, your business’s website (whether currently existent or not) is integral to your business growth. If you’re a startup with a low budget, or perhaps you’re a company not specifically looking to grow online, providing your customers with a website you built on Wix or Squarespace is a solid first step. If you’re looking to grow your business or tailor your messaging to your specific audiences, make sure your website is unique and easily navigatable with clear messaging that lets your audience know how to connect with you.