5 Reasons Why You Should Stay Away From DIY Website Builders

By Maulik Patel

15 Jan 2020

Today, the web world is all set with a plethora of website builders, well-equipped themes, and templates that promise you to create a website, on your own, in minutes. As appealing as it sounds to save some bucks on DIY website building tools, the truth is these tools rarely survive in the long term – and the side effects may result in sending the wrong message to end-users as well as Google.

Each month 16 million new websites enter the web world. From them, over 70% are built by professional WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal developers. And only 3% are the product of DIY website building tools.

There are many reasons why only 3% of websites are built with the help of DIY website builders. The top 5 reasons are explained below:

It’s Not Your Website

Most people want to develop a website that lasts for multiple years.

That’s totally unrealistic.

Web development is the world of ever-evolving creatures. Each year new technologies enter the world with a promise to upgrade your business. Sooner or later you have to integrate new features to keep your website competitive and adaptable. For this, you need a website furnished with clean and organised coding that’s easily changeable based on the current requirements.

When thinking of integrating new features or moving your website to a different platform, you need access to files, style sheets, and backend data which is very limited in case of DIY web designing tools. Also, you are not sure whether the site building tool offers updated features based on market demand. At that time, you will get only one option which is rebuilding the entire website with the help of tools offering current features. That means each year you are bound to rebuild the entire website and end up paying more than the fees of professional developers.

A Compromise with Your Dreamed Website

DIY websites are simple to use and easy to get live within hours or even minutes.

Very true.

Only if you are satisfied with what’s available. Or to be more specific, you don’t have your own set of requirements and are ready to take what’s there on the buffet.

Imagine the time when you are having fun with DIY site builders, the moment comes when there’s one feature you want but the theme doesn’t have it. You will ask Google on how to insert that feature which gives you a coding solution that requires “Custom CSS” (customiser). Here, you don’t even have a single idea of what that actually means, let alone including that code in your DIY website.

This is where you end up comprising your dreamed website and settling for less.

Your DIY Website is Not Unique

Have you ever been in a room full of the same people, telling the same stories?

Would you like to stay in that room for more than an hour?

Not at all.

You would likely to be on your own instead of hearing the same stories from multiple people. It’s true for your website too. DIY website builders have a similar set of templates and themes. Everybody uses them and all of your websites look similar. The problem here is each business tells its own story. If the website layout is similar, how will your story stand out from the others?

Next, imagine you create a website that looks exactly like Amazon? All it would do is to remind users of Amazon while hiding your brand behind the bars.

Would you like to leave that impression to users?

No Assurity for User Experience

Professional developers research the user base (a.k.a. your targeted audience ) before they even start thinking about your design, let alone developing it. They make fool-proof plans to make a website that make users feel familiar with your products or services. DIY website building tools miss such ingredients.

They give you ready-made themes and templates to choose from without even knowing whether they suit well with your users or not. They are simply auto-tools that have no connection with human beings. Professional web developers, on the other side, build custom websites that showcase your content in the best possible manner. Not only do they make your business look the best, but also hint extreme care towards users via unbeatable web experience.

DIY Websites are Not Google Impressive

Something which is not understandable by users is not worth of high rankings in the eyes of Google. DIY builders are all about drag and drop features. To make a site impressive for Google, you need on-page optimisation which requires a good deal of SEO knowledge and experience. A reputed SEO company gives you all the amenities of SEO to ensure they leave no stone unturned when it comes to developing SEO friendly sites.

DIY web design tools are built on a mass which limits them to poor coding. It confuses Google as the search engine giant crawls the coding first, followed by URL structure and content. This is where a DIY-enabled site loses charm for Google and later for users as well.

In Conclusion:

And now we know why only 3% of DIY websites reach completion. Who wants to see similar websites on smartphones and computers? What about developing a Google-friendly and user-friendly website? At last, how to ensure the best performance when you are already struggling with what’s available and what’s not in the DIY website building menu?

When it comes to website development, the famous quote “what you sow is what you reap” applies well. If you are ready to compromise web experience with DIY builders, make sure Google is ready to compromise your site for first page rankings.