Building a website has never been easier. Building a good website is still surprisingly difficult.
If you're a small business owner or sole trader, you might be wondering whether it's worth paying a web designer anymore.
With WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, Shopify, drag-and-drop website builders and now AI, you can potentially build an entire website yourself without writing a single line of code.
And that's genuinely a good thing.
But there's an important distinction between being able to build a website and knowing how to build a website that does its job well.
A website can look reasonably professional, work on your phone and contain all the necessary information while still leaving potential enquiries, customers and opportunities on the table.
That's where experience still matters.
Yes, You Can Build Your Own Website
For some businesses, DIY is absolutely the right choice.
If you're just starting out, have a very limited budget or simply need a basic online presence, modern website builders are incredibly capable.
AI has made the process even easier.
You can ask AI to write your homepage, generate headlines, create code, suggest layouts, troubleshoot technical problems and even help with SEO.
The barrier to entry has collapsed.
The question is no longer:
"Can I build my own website?"
You probably can.
The better question is:
"Can I build the right website for my business?"
The Website Builder Isn't the Hard Part
Learning how to put text, images and buttons onto a webpage isn't particularly difficult anymore.
The harder questions are things like:
- What should your homepage actually say?
- What does a potential customer need to see first?
- What makes them trust you?
- What should you leave out?
- Where should your calls to action appear?
- How should the website work on mobile?
- What search terms should you target?
- How should pages be structured for Google?
- Is the website fast?
- Is it accessible?
- Are your contact forms actually working?
- Do you have analytics installed?
- Is your domain, hosting, email and security configured properly?
- Are visitors immediately able to understand what you do and why they should choose you?
A DIY website can save you money upfront, but it can also consume a surprising amount of your time.
You may find yourself learning WordPress, domains, DNS, hosting, plugins, image optimisation, mobile design, forms, analytics, SEO and a dozen other things that have very little to do with actually running your business.
If you enjoy that process, great.
If you don't, your "free" website can become quite expensive when you calculate the hours you've put into it.
AI Helps, But Knowledge Still Matters
AI has transformed web design.
I use it myself.
But AI is a tool, not a substitute for understanding what you're trying to accomplish.
You can ask AI to create a headline, but you still need to recognise whether it's a good headline.
You can ask it to create a website layout, but you still need an understanding of design and user experience to know whether that layout works.
You can ask it to optimise a page for search engines, but you need enough SEO knowledge to know whether its recommendations make sense.
You can ask it to write code, but when something breaks, somebody still needs to understand what's happening.
This is true of almost every powerful tool.
A great camera doesn't automatically make someone a great photographer. Professional kitchen equipment doesn't make someone a chef.
AI dramatically increases what one person can accomplish, but knowledge and experience determine how effectively those tools are used.
AI Has Also Changed What a Good Web Designer Can Do
There's another side to the AI revolution that doesn't get talked about as much.
AI hasn't made professional web designers obsolete. It's made a good independent web designer dramatically more capable and cost-effective.
Not long ago, building and marketing a professional business website could involve multiple people.
A designer.
A developer.
A copywriter.
An SEO specialist.
A graphic designer.
Sometimes a whole agency.
Today, an experienced web designer who understands these different disciplines can use AI to dramatically accelerate parts of that work.
That means a knowledgeable independent designer can potentially accomplish work that previously required a small team, without the overheads of employing that team.
AI can help with development, research, troubleshooting, content, optimisation and repetitive technical work.
The web designer still provides the judgement.
And that's the valuable part.
Your Website Doesn't Just Need to Look Good
One of the biggest DIY traps is concentrating almost entirely on appearance.
A beautiful website isn't necessarily an effective website.
Your website has a job.
For most small businesses, that job is some combination of:
Get found. Build trust. Explain what you do. Convince the right person. Get them to take action.
Design supports those goals, but so do messaging, usability, SEO, speed, structure and conversion.
Sometimes relatively small decisions make a substantial difference.
A confusing headline.
An important service buried three clicks deep.
A phone number that's difficult to find on mobile.
A page targeting terminology your customers don't actually search for.
A generic AI-generated paragraph that sounds professional but says virtually nothing.
A slow page.
A weak call to action.
Individually, none of these things necessarily destroys a website.
Together, they can quietly cost you business.
The Biggest Cost May Be the Customers You Never Knew You Lost
This is the part that's difficult to measure.
If your website costs you $3,000 for an agency, or a quarter of that for someone like me with low overheads, you know exactly what it cost.
If you build it yourself for $300, you know what that cost too.
But what if the $300 website loses five potential customers over the next three years?
Ten?
Twenty?
You'll probably never know.
They don't usually email you and say:
"Hi. I was considering becoming a customer, but your website didn't convince me, so I went somewhere else."
They simply disappear.
That's why I don't think businesses should judge websites purely by their upfront cost.
The real cost of a website is what you spend building it, plus the opportunities it wins or loses during its lifetime.
For a hobby website, that might not matter much.
For a business website representing you 24 hours a day, it matters considerably more.
When Does DIY Make Sense?
Building your own website can make perfect sense when you're starting out, your budget is extremely limited, the website isn't particularly important to generating business, or you already have good design and technical skills.
It can also be worthwhile if you genuinely enjoy learning this stuff.
But there's another question worth asking:
Is building websites the best use of your time?
If you're a plumber, accountant, consultant, electrician, landscaper or other small business owner, spending 30 or 50 hours learning web design has an opportunity cost.
Those are hours you aren't spending serving customers, finding new customers or improving the part of the business you're actually an expert in.
Sometimes DIY saves money.
Sometimes paying someone who already knows what they're doing is cheaper.
So, Should You Hire a Web Designer?
It depends.
If you need something basic, have plenty of time and are comfortable learning as you go, try building it yourself. The tools available today are better than they've ever been.
But if your website is an important part of how customers discover, evaluate and contact your business, professional help can still be a very worthwhile investment.
You're not simply paying someone to operate a website builder.
You're paying for the knowledge behind the decisions.
Design. User experience. Technology. SEO. Messaging. Conversion. Performance. Troubleshooting.
AI hasn't removed the need for those skills.
It's given people who already have them much more powerful tools.
Already Have a Website? I'll Take a Look
If you've built your website yourself, there's no reason you necessarily need to throw it away and start again.
Sometimes a website simply needs another set of experienced eyes.
I offer a free website assessment for small businesses and sole traders.
I'll take a look at your existing site and identify obvious opportunities around design, usability, messaging, mobile experience, SEO and the technical side of the website.
There is no obligation to rebuild your website.
You might discover that what you already have is perfectly adequate.
You might find there are a handful of relatively simple improvements worth making.
Or you might decide it's time for something better.
Get in touch for a free website assessment, give me a call, or send me an email and tell me a little about your business and website.