Do you want to create your own website? Before you create your own website, read this first…
You’ll see plenty of ads around the internet that say how easy it is to create a beautiful website all by yourself.
And that’s wonderful for people who are tech savvy and have a lot of time on their hands.
What the ads don’t tell you is how long it will take, how well your website will perform, how it will help your business or how much it will ultimately cost you in the end.
There’s an assumption those ads are making that ought to insult you. They are basically telling you that you have no idea what you’re doing.
They do this by playing in to your vanity. The advertisers who create these ads want you to think that what really drives your business is having gorgeous website.
If you believe that, chances are you’re just getting started with a business and will be easily persuaded by that. However, nothing could be farther from the truth.
You Can Never Make Up For Lost Time
The first question you need to ask is, “How much is your time worth to you?”
Have you ever tried to build a website before? Most people haven’t. The first time you do anything it takes exponentially longer to do than you think it will, and the results are often disappointing. You know how it is. You get really excited about something, but then you get started, and it’s a little bit harder than you think, and then you put it off and put it off and it never gets done.
Advertisers make it look really easy, simple and quick to create your own website. How long do you honestly think it will take to create your own website? Take your best guess and then multiply that by about 10. If you can realistically justify the amount of time it will take you to create a website, it may be worth it to you. If you have no start up capital, it may be your only choice.
Time is money. You can always make more money, but you can never make up for lost time.
What’s Your Experience?
Creating a website means way more than having a little design experience, which most people don’t have, a little bit of tech savvy and some project management experience. A beautiful website is the fruition of a great deal of ground work. These website platforms are not going to teach you about that.
Do you know anyone who has successfully created their own website? What was their experience like? A friend of mine tried building her own website. Her husband also tried helping her out. She is an artist, so she knows quite a bit about design and graphics and what things ought to look like. Months went by. It got to the point where she even felt like giving up on her dream because of the frustration they both encountered trying to create their own website.
It may seem a bit extreme, but not only do you need to count the cost of time, but you also have to ask yourself if it’s worth sacrificing your dream.
What is the real cost?
Aside from the time and frustration it could cost you to try to create your own website, it could also cost you more money. Let’s do a price comparison.
For this comparison, I am going to compare Wix, Squarespace and a self-hosted WordPress website. Price reflects a yearly subscription.
[easy-pricing-table id=”1413″]
Some of them will tell you they will give you $75 worth of Google AdWords. Everybody does that. In fact, both Wix and Squarespace, in order to bolster their packages, boast many features that may seem important and attractive, but are basically standard features on any platform.
A note about “unlimited”. There are always limits. Typically most websites do not approach the limits, so it’s safe for most website companies to say they give you unlimited email accounts, storage, bandwidth, etc. You’re probably not going to use nearly as much as you think, and do you know why? Because people are concerned with building gorgeous websites and not how they’re going to drive traffic to their site.
Mobile Optimized. Everything is mobile optimized these days. No need to worry about that.
Analytics. Everyone offers their own brand of analytics. Google Analytics are free and are easy to integrate with your WordPress site. WordPress also comes with its own powerful free analytics features.
*The price reflected for a self-hosted WordPress website is taken from the Hostgator website. A one-year hosting plan with the most basic package at Hostgator will cost $6.95/month at the full rate. They will give you a discount of 33% for your first year. ALSO, if you want practically free hosting, making your total costs almost nothing, check out Lifetime.Hosting. You pay ONE TIME for hosting for the rest of your life, and you’ll pay about the same or less than you would at Hostgator or similar platforms for one year.
**Free E-Commerce for WordPress is based off of the idea that there are several free e-commerce plugins available for WordPress. Most e-commerce plugins will also offer premium plugins for their shopping cart that you may or may not need, depending on your situation. Some plugins are one-time payments, others are yearly subscriptions.
Gorgeous Websites
Wix plays off of your main concern of having a gorgeous website. Rest assured, each platform comes with its own array of gorgeous designs. In fact, in a previous blog post I discussed the fact that WordPress actually has the largest and most competitive base of designers fighting for your attention. Wix and Squarespace do not have that.
Conclusion
The bottom line – don’t be fooled by ads that make it seem so easy to build yourself a gorgeous website. Learn the facts.
Now, if you truly are a DIY kind of person, then what you’re going to need is a proven method to guide you through the process of creating your own website.
If it isn’t obvious from the above article, my suggestion would be to go with your own self-hosted WordPress website. Fortunately, I have created a tutorial program just for you. It’s called Rockstar Website in a Weekend. It’s waiting for you now to guide you through the steps of creating an online presence that will be a great experience!
Contact me for a FREE Consultation if you are thinking of updating a current site or creating a new site.