Should I Use a Website Builder?

Website builders are popular because they tempt you with infinite creation without a need to code. Actually what's important is your site works and is aesthetically pleasing enough to win customers and/or engagement. Don't waste time investing lots of time & money into customising a website before verifying your website is viable. Having said that, website builders from a functional perspective can save you the following:

• Time for content updates

Traditionally this would require a call to your web designer to update the content.

• Money
  The money your saving from having to pay a developer to update content is more efficient. But don't forget to ask yourself where's the best spending of your time. Is your time best suited writing website copy, or are you more suited to making connections and generating customers offline?

Should I use a free website builder?

Avoid free, and define the problem you're trying to solve. If it's a bog-standard e-commerce website see how to review and choose an e-commerce platform for pointers. Before even beginning to choose:

• Define the problem you're trying to solve (critical 'features')
• Understand that re-inventing the wheel is not your goal, don't confuse website visitors by being a weird website that overcomplicates the experience.
• Your website isn't an island. Think of your website as one of the places your potential customers will find out about you
  • See the video about "Common mistakes" regarding creating a cohesive plan between all your sites, offline & online presence.

What is a website builder anyway?

If you're asking yourself "Do I need a website builder?" the reality is you probably don't need one and will be better served by a default template and a landing page to get started.

By website builder, we're referring to site builders which promote '100%' control over design and layout. Unless you're an experienced web designer and want to seriously learn the intricacies of website development (have you considered testing across multiple devices, for example) then you're better off saving the time and foregoing the temptation. Everybody feels they can design a website, but that's not your business. Growing your business is (probably) your concern, so avoid the temptation and delegate!

You need to be involved, of course. Your role here is to:

Yes build your own website, use a website builder but instead of spending hours tweaking the design, spend that same amount of time instead of asking yourself: ** What is my value proposition?**

• Step 1: Identify your value proposition an purpose
  • [Avinash's Digital Marketing and Measurement Model](Digital Marketing and Measurement Model
    ) is an excellent free resource for this.
• Step 2: Join a website builder
• Step 3: Choose a reasonable template Stop and avoid the temptation to tweak for hours