No one likes feeling stuck and lost.

I often get approached by people who have tried to build their own website to save time or money, but now they’re lost.

Either they’re not sure what went wrong when adding a new feature or they can’t get their site to look the way they want. In the end, they’ve spent hours, days and weeks struggling to become an overnight web development expert, but they’re suddenly overwhelmed.

Attempting to build a website when you don’t know what you’re doing is commendable, but I’ve discovered from experience that it’s usually a bad idea. In most cases, you end up still hiring a professional developer to fix or finish the site.

No Support When You Get Stuck

The biggest issue people come to me with is they’re stuck. I hear how they researched how to change this piece of code or customise their theme, but didn’t get the expected results. Each change they make only makes the situation worse.

When you’re doing it all on your own, you don’t have any type of support to help you out when you do get stuck. Developers have years of experience to fall back on. At the very least, it’s a good idea to have a professional developer you can call to help fix problems when they arise.

Building A Site Takes Time

I realise many people think they can build a quick site without hiring anyone. After all, why spend time consulting with a developer, testing features and going through the development process if you could do it in a few days or weeks yourself?

The reason it takes developers longer than you might expect is because a professionally designed site takes time. Would you want a mechanic to quickly repair your car and have parts left over or let the mechanic spend a little longer and do it right? When you try to do it yourself without knowing what you’re doing, you actually spend more time than if you’d hired someone to begin with.

Customisation Takes Know How

The thing I love about WordPress is how easy it is to customise. The problem is I hear from people who installed a theme or a few plugins, but now don’t know what to do next. I’m happy they have a good foundation, but many customisation options that make a site look and feel unique require changing code.

These are the types of changes that showcase your individual brand and make the difference between a simple personal blog and a professional site that impresses visitors. If you’re not sure what you’re doing, you could potentially edit the wrong section of code and cause your site to not work at all.

Google Might Not Like It

One major purpose of a website is to gain organic traffic through search engines like Google. For professional developers, designing around Google’s requirements is simple. When you’re completely new to web development, you might end up with things like messy code, poor site structure, broken links and images that Google can’t understand. I see people everyday who can’t understand why their site isn’t ranking well and this is why.

Fast Builders Aren’t Always Better

A common starter solution I see is people using quick site builders. These are the places that promise you can have a site up and running in 30 minutes. While you technically can do this, you get a generic looking site with very few customisation options. The pricing usually starts off cheap, but with each new change, you’re charged more just to manage your own website. While they’re a good idea, they’re not always better, even for beginners.

Security Falls To The Wayside

A vital element I find missing from many sites developed by people who don’t quite know what they’re doing is security. They usually have a security plugin installed, but their code or settings might still leave them highly vulnerable to an attack. Security is important and without it, even the best looking sites fail.

Conclusion

I love to see people wanting to learn more about developing and managing their sites. But sometimes, it’s not the best idea if you don’t have any experience. This is especially true if you need a high quality site developed within a certain time frame. Spending the extra to hire someone often costs you less and gets your site up faster so your business gets online quicker.

Stuck after trying to do it yourself? No problem. Contact StuartMedia today to turn your web project into the site you first envisioned. 

Image: CWCS Managed Hosting