Can I make my own website?

Written by

Theresa Woodward

Read it in 5 minutes

How hard can it be to create a small business startup website?

Starting a new business in this fast digital environment almost certainly means that will you need an online presence. Considering writing your own website ? How to get your start-up website designed, developed, and launched? Can you write it all yourself, is it better to get a DIY drag-and-drop website builder?

Here is my experience of setting up my own website design business.

I have spent many years in IT using various programming languages.

For my web development design, I used a content management system (CMS) called WordPress to handle the responsive nature of delivering a website in today’s fast-paced tech environment.

This enables the end user to easily create, manage, and modify the content of the website. I write, style and create my bespoke websites around WordPress at its core.

There are a few options for you to consider when creating a website for yourself or your business whether creating your website from scratch with a CMS or using a drag-and-drop service.

Can I create and write my website?

It is a bit like saying although everyone can paint to some extent, not everyone will be a Picasso.

A few years ago I thought it would be easy to transfer my tech skills to writing websites. How hard can it be?

CSS looks simple enough together with PHP, HTML, and Javascript

There appears to be a myriad of online tutorials out there to help with every aspect of web design and development.

What I had not considered was that these new skills are all used together at the same time. They are codependent. It is a seamless implementation of this that works behind the scenes.

The myriad of online tutorials are also similar to deep rabbit warrens at the beginning where you get led down with unhelpful content until you reach a point In your knowledge that you can safely navigate your way through.

Writing my startup website | The potential risks

Recognise that creating the website is just the start.

The point of your website is to be found, right?

Just because a website has been written does not mean that Google will automatically like or rank it. It will just float around in the ether with all the other masses of websites.

Things to help you to be found

Write your code to a certain standard. Carefully consider what keywords you want to be found for with Search Engine Optimised (SEO). Make it clear to Google or another search platform that these keywords are important and take note of them. SEO is a skill set in its own right. This field is so vast People specialise only in this. Spend time getting the keywords you need right – they will serve you well.

Market Research – do your homework

To begin you need to have a good understanding of the demographic you are going to provide a service to. Do your research into what their needs will be and anticipate and match those needs in your startup business website with the solutions for them right from the very beginning of the design process.

There are various free tools out there to help with the keyword research. However, nothing will beat the expertise and experience of a specialist in this field. The free tools available are a good beginning and with some effort, it will make your website stand out from the crowd and your competition. As with anything the more effort you put in the better the results will be but you can do all this for free.

How to write the content for your website

The content of your site is more important to Google than the ‘look and style’ of your site in terms of ranking.

This is difficult as most clients put the look and style as the most important feature of their site.

Using your website as a ‘bookmark’ to direct people to your website. SEO is not important for you or your business to be ranked by google and found organically? then in answer to the question can I write my own website the answer would be yes, if you have the time and enthusiasm to learn about creating your own site it is absolutely possible.

Creating a small business startup website versus using a drag-and-drop website builder.

The one-size-all-all approach for drag-and-drop websites requires minimal tech or coding knowledge. It is intuitive as you select a ‘theme or style’ that you feel is closest to how you want your website to be and drop in the content.

Different ‘Themes or styles’ which you can choose from a drag-and-drop site, are all written to be able to appeal to the biggest audience they can.

This has its own drawbacks as invariably you will find that you will not use all of the features or they will not be relevant to your business. This makes a lot of non relevant code behind the scenes of the website – additional luggage that your website does not need to carry with it.

Ranking with Google

When viewed by your search engine it will not understand why this code is there. It serves no purpose to your website? This could then potentially negatively affect your website in the rankings.

So the better option would be to code a site with a CMS.

Depending on constraints of time and budgets initially drag-and-drop could be a good option for the short-term.

Drag-and-Drop websites will almost never be flexible enough to grow with your business. invariably you will need to revisit this decision in the future, as your business grows and outgrows this option.