Why do people think that they are good at I.T?
I cant tell you how many awkward situations I have been in when someone has designed and created a digital file like a Powerpoint, Word document, .jpg design, website, you name it I have seen some serious tosh! It’s so awkward because all I want to do is tell them that their design is crap and that they have no idea what they are doing but I cant bring myself to be that blunt so I politely deal with the situation.
Lets break it down so that you have some context to my point. Take a word processed file, you can change the font, font style, font colour etc. I have seen documents that have 5 different fonts, different font sizes, colours, styles, underlined, capitalised, bold, clip art all in the same document. Yes it looked like a mess, yes it looked like my 8 year old did it and yes the client thought it was amazing! (OMG… and breath!).
So the lesson to take away here is that it simply is not enough to be able to use design tools, you have to know what you are doing. Oh and just in case you are thinking “yes but I’m quite good at design”, it’s not just about design, its not just about making something look good, nor is it about understanding I.T and getting things to work either, its simply more complicated than that.
Just because you can, does mean that you should
Companies with big marketing budgets have been selling their website builders for years and technology advancements have resulted in some impressive versions of said services however, that does not mean that you can build a website that is worthy of showcasing your business to the world by using a website builder. Yes they can allow you to make a pretty looking website, connect it to Amazon and start a business, but in this day and age, your website has to outperform your competition, it has to generate revenue, it has to be optimised for users, search engines and different devices. When you take these things (and others) into consideration, websites start to get very complicated indeed. I could write educational courses (my previous job) on just how complex websites have become.
Hiring a Graphic Designer to design your website is like asking a Kitchen designer to design the next Tesla Model XYZ
It is worth mentioning that this is also the case when you hire a so called professional to do the job for you. For example, hiring a Graphic Designer to design your website is like asking a Kitchen designer to design the next Tesla Model XYZ! So why is it that people think that they can design a proper website? That goes the same for a programmer too, there are exceptions of course but as a general rule programmers know how to get things to work, that’s not enough to beat your competition because your competitors are not using a website builder. Would you rather your leads go to your competition because they rank higher than you, or they have a superior bounce rate (how quickly users hitting the back button) than you? Or would you rather that your website smash your competition and makes you money?
Is there a case for a website builder?
I’d like to highlight one point here, different businesses require different levels of performance from their website. Apple for example need to have the highest levels, whereas your local phone shop does not need the same. The point here is that due to the different levels of performance, you need specific flexibility from your website. For a startup that simply wants a website to showcase their business and don’t care about competitors taking their leads, they don’t care about improving their website to compete against local businesses and they don’t care about where they want to be in 3 years time then fine go use a website builder and do it yourself!
For businesses that do care, consider these questions;
- Will SEO companies be able to perform all the necessary tasks on your website if you use a website builder? No
- Will Growth Hackers be able to perform all the necessary tasks on your website if you use a website builder? No
- Will a programmer be able to perform all the necessary tasks on your website if you use a website builder? No
- Will a web designer be able to perform all the necessary tasks on your website if you use a website builder? No
If the individuals mentioned above can’t do their job properly then how do you expect your website builder to beat your competition? How are you going to secure the potential leads that your competitors are getting right now? It’s the finer details that go into designing and building websites that ensure that a website reaches its full potential. You can speak to any reputable web designer or agency and they will all not use website builders.
Conclusion
So although it is possible to create a website and make it do something, it might look pretty, it might work but its not enough to perform on the worlds stage any longer. Businesses are hiring professionals like UI Designers, UX Designers, Web Designers, Programmers and Marketing Professionals to carefully plan, design, implement and tweak websites that outperform competitors, generate leads/sales, meet new guidelines set by companies such as Google and accessibility standards.
Let me tell you some inside knowledge, come closer, shhhhh, even the professionals mentioned above struggle to keep up with the advancements in their fields!!! It’s a nightmare, I literally spend half my professional life reading, learning and practising new skills that allow me to offer market leading services.
So that’s why I say that you can’t build your own website using a website builder or by hiring a so called professional. So what do you do? Well you can either find a freelance web designer (who would need to understand UI/UX design) and an SEO expert or go to an agency that has the professionals at hand.
What you don’t do, is be naive and think that anyone can slap up a website online and it will be enough.