When small businesses go online, they often face a key decision: Should they build their website with a page builder, or hire a professional web developer? Platforms like WordPress, Wix, and Squarespace make it easy to get online, but they come with trade-offs. Let’s break down the pros and cons of each option.
Ease of Use: How Easy Is It to Build a Website?
DIY Website Builders
Tools like Wix, Squarespace, and WordPress with Elementor let you drag and drop to create a website. They’re great for businesses just starting out, offering a low-cost way to build a simple site without coding.
However, even with these “easy-to-use” tools, there’s a learning curve. Customization, troubleshooting, and updates can take more time than expected if you’re aiming for a polished look.
Pro Tip: Keep it simple with DIY. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the features.
Hiring a Professional
Hiring a professional designer saves you time and eliminates technical headaches. A professional can create a custom, fully optimized site that works perfectly on all devices, freeing you to focus on your business.
Flexibility and Customization: How Far Can You Go?
DIY Website Builders
Page builders are affordable and give you access to pre-designed templates. However, it’s very hard to learn advanced concepts like dynamic content or responsive design. To create a decent website, you might go through a lot of different resources and waste a lot of time.
Pro Tip: Many businesses face a design barrier, simply because they are businesses, not professional designers. A web designer will do it much better than you (sorry!) and build an amazing website from the start.
Hiring a Professional
With a professional, you aren’t stuck with templates or limited plugins. A custom-built site meets your specific needs and is scalable as your business grows. Plus, a professionally designed site creates a seamless user experience.
Important: 89% of people shop with a competitor after a poor user experience. When trying to save some money by creating a website by yourself, you might be actually losing them.
SEO and Performance: Will Your Website Attract Customers?
DIY Website Builders
Website builders have basic SEO tools, but they don’t cover everything. Optimizing for speed, creating clean URLs, and managing SEO properly requires additional effort or paid tools. For most business owners, balancing SEO with daily tasks becomes overwhelming. Also, bloated code from DIY platforms often slows down your site, hurting your rankings.
Pro Tip: If you want to learn the basics of SEO, start with this guide from Moz.
Hiring a Professional
A professional designer builds with performance in mind, ensuring fast load times and clean code, which improve your SEO ranking. Professionally built websites tend to rank higher, bringing in more customers and revenue.
Cost Considerations: What Will You Really Pay?
DIY Website Builders
DIY builders are attractive because of their low upfront costs—plans can start at $15 per month. However, as your needs grow, so do the costs. Premium plugins, higher-tier plans, and commissions can make DIY much more expensive than expected.
Worth Mentioning: A study from Adobe found that 59% of visitors prefer to engage with well-designed, beautiful websites rather than basic and boring ones.
Hiring a Professional
While a professional may cost more upfront, it’s a one-time investment that pays off long term. For example, a custom site could start as low as $150 compared to the ongoing costs of a DIY platform. A professional also ensures you won’t face hidden fees or surprise expenses down the road.
To compare: Wix Business plan costs $36/month, which is $430 per year! Always look on compounding costs rather than initial investments.
Time and Effort: How Much Is Your Time Worth?
DIY Website Builders
DIY builders promise quick setup, but the reality is more complicated. You’ll spend time learning the platform, fixing bugs, and managing updates. Instead of focusing on your business, you might find yourself dealing with website issues.
Hiring a Professional
By hiring a professional, you save significant amount of time. A designer takes care of everything—design, development, troubleshooting, and SEO—so you can focus on what really matters. If you have a growing business, this is a much more efficient option.
According to statistics, it takes from 3 to 6 months to learn basic web design. This is what website buiders don’t tell you.
Conclusion: What’s Best for Your Business?
If you need a basic, no-frills site on a tight budget, DIY builders are a reasonable option. They offer affordability but come with limitations in customization, SEO, and long-term scalability.
For businesses aiming to grow, a professionally built website is the smarter long-term choice. It’s custom, scalable, SEO-optimized, and designed to drive revenue.
If you’re ready to invest in a high-performing website that’s tailored to your business, contact me to discuss what can be done for you!
