Your Agency Website: Can you do it yourself?
There’s a hell of a lot to take into consideration when you build a website for your business. Do you go down the template route? Should you get in a professional? Can you manage the project on your own? Especially for a digital novice, it might be a little overwhelming! Never fear though, I’m here as your digital guide to walk you through the pro’s and con’s of the different paths you can take…
Let’s start with DYI WordPress.
There’s no two ways about it, WordPress is absolutely massive. There’s currently around 75 million websites that depend on WordPress; that’s about double the population of Poland! This mainly comes down to how easy it is to get to grips with, users don’t need to have much web experience before they can start putting things together. What’s more is for the simplicity of the sites, they’re pretty well put together.
Being open source there’s literally thousands of plug-ins to help your site get going. Everything from SEO tools through to mailing list sign-up forms and lead pages are available and on top of all that, it’s very cost effective! Many of the plug-ins, depending on the service you require are actually free. All in all they’re pretty well rounded.
So if it’s so easy, why wouldn’t you use a WordPress site?
The open source structure that makes it so easy for you to use does have a downside. One of the main ones being that it’s very easy for hackers to attack your site and for malware to be put into your plug-ins. Where these holes in security need to be constantly plugged, numerous updates are going to be required, which not only can be inconvenient, it may out-right break parts of your website that aren’t ready for the update.
Even from an aesthetic point of view, unless you have a professional developer you’ll be left using one of the templates. As many templates as there are, you just won’t have a personal website that truly reflects your business.
So how does an independent developer match up?
Right out the gate, security is much tighter! Where the template code isn’t available for the general public and isn’t as easily obtainable, hacks and malware are far less common. This means your mailing lists, customer information and any other details you hold are safer.
It’s much easier to achieve a design you want. Any developer worth their salt will be able to create a site from scratch that doesn’t rely on template designs. Bringing in a professional means that you’ll be able to get the site that you want with-out having to settle for the “next best thing”.
DIY WordPress sites, without plug-ins, just aren’t very SEO friendly. This can be a real big issue for smaller and new businesses that rely on being found through Google. While the plug-ins needed are often times free, to get the best from them or to use some of the more advanced features you may need to pay. Independent websites will always have a much better SEO focus and you won’t have to pay extra for the privilege.
So what’s the draw back?
Not having everything prebuilt and ready to go can be a pretty big issue for businesses that want get up and running “now!” Even with our own rather speedy turnaround of 6-8 weeks for a fully responsive SEO friendly estate / letting agency website, sometimes that’s just not quick enough.
Another factor is cost. During the 6-8 weeks of development time, like most other humans, we quite like to eat dinner! The problem with dinner is that it’s almost never free, meaning we have to charge for our services. Most of the time, the initial cost of the website will be more than if you take the DIY approach, sometimes scaring off new businesses that have little budget.
So what should you choose?
Both options have merit and in the end it comes down to what you need.
WordPress and various other platforms offer a great service if you’ve got a little know how and want to get up and running quickly and at little cost.
We on the other hand, take a little longer and may cost a little more (emphasis on “little”), but you get to talk to a human being who can create something unique for you and your business helping you stand out from the crowd. We’ll never undertake work without a design consultation and everything we do is purpose built for you.
Confused? If you want a little more advice or want to see how our dedicated property service can help you stand out, give us at Estate Apps a call! We’re always happy to help.
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