If you’re a start-up business, beginning life with minimal budget, limited time and basic resources, then the advantages of making your own website are obvious. Platforms like Squarespace, Weebly and Wix allow users to quickly and easily create a website through masses of set templates and ready-to-go features.
BUT – while this is a useful way for a new business to get themselves established quickly online, should you really rely on this type of platform as your company and reputation grows?
At Kraken, we believe that our websites should reflect the personality and brand of the business behind it – so if your website has clearly been cheaply made and looks like a hundred other sites made using the same templates, doesn’t that inevitably reflect on your business?
Of course we’re a little bias – but here’s 6 reason why we believe that a growing business should choose a professional site over self-made…
- IT’S PERSONALISED – No two business are ever the same. They may share similar products or location or even target customers, but they will always differ in their brand, colours, personality and principals. Designing a professional website allows your businesses ‘uniqueness’ to be front and centre, for all the online world to see – designed in a way that reflects YOUR business.
- FLEXIBLE DESIGN – Having fixed templates can be handy as a shortcut. It saves time and money. But when it comes to your business, saving time and money will only ever result in one thing – a lower quality product. With a professional website you can choose how you want your website to look and feel, how it’s navigated and how best to introduce your new customers to who you are. You can be inventive, inspiring and different! All the things that a fixed template will never quite allow you to be.
- CONTROL OVER YOUR SEO – while it’s still possible to be deliberate in the keywords and content of a self-made site, you will never truly have control over all the elements that fully optimise the site’s search results. With a professional site, a developer will be able to ensure that your site is responsive, has a HTML structure that is easier for search engines to understand your content and catalog.
- YOU CAN ANALYSE AND ADAPT – There is nothing more valuable for a business owner than the ability to constantly analyse the data behind their website and see how it’s performing. With a professional site you will be able to monitor how your site is navigated, how far your users go, identifying any weak spots or dead areas. This allows you to continually upgrade your website so it is as efficient as possible, maximising your conversion at every opportunity.
- YOU CAN GROW – As your company continues to expand, your website will always have to evolve with it. If you started as two people working in a garage then that website will look very different by the time the business has grown into two offices with over 400 employees. Self-made websites are a great place to start, but give little opportunity to grow and evolve, at least not with the freedom and flexibility of a professional site. Give your business the space to GROW!
- YOU OWN IT – Not only can you take control of your own site, but you can own it. Driving traffic back to Squarespace and Weebly does more for their business than it does for yours. So put that effort into your own site, and reap all the benefits for your business – all while ensuring that your website looks modern, bespoke and 100% professional.