At the risk of ruffling some feathers in the web development industry, there are cases when you shouldn’t have to hire a professional for website creation at all. You might think that as a website builder, it’s natural for us to make this biased claim against professional services. Do note that our website templates here at Strikingly were created by some of the best professional web designers in the industry. It’s just that DIY web design and professional web design both serve their own purposes and there are actually times when the former trumps the latter.
In the past, the task of building beautiful website creations was left to the hands of professionals. The assumption was that, to get ahead in the digital world, you have to hire a developer to build your site for you. But eventually we discovered that a well-built website is just one part of online success. A lot goes into building a brand online - content marketing, paid ads, search engine optimization, etc. Small businesses find their limited budgets stretched too thin.
Free web site creation platforms level the playing field
If you’re running a small business with a very limited marketing budget, you want to make sure that you’re spending every single dime on something that will work. You cannot go and put all your capital on website creation. You probably don’t have the time to learn how to build a website from scratch either. This is where web site creation freeware offers more value than a professional developer.
Website builders like Strikingly level the playing field by making it possible for small business owners to build professional websites and compete with larger brands on the internet. They enable you to build your website even without programming or web design experience. You get started with one of the many web templates they have in their collection, implement a few customizations in color or typography, add your content and you’re ready to launch.
Don’t spend so much on a website… yet
Before you go and spend hundreds of dollars on professional web design, wouldn’t it make sense to make sure that your business will take off first? It’s like putting the cart before the horse. The hard truth is that all business ideas seem so great at first but setting them in action is a huge gamble. If you’re not sitting on a ton of disposable income, it might work to your benefit to take a more conservative route on website building.
Website builders enable you to dip your toes into the sea of online entrepreneurship without the huge cost of entry. You don’t need to spend a lot to get a site up so you can try things out and see if your concept will gain traction. In fact, you can even build a website for free on many platforms.
Prioritize on what’s important
A website is essential for a business to thrive in the digital era but it is definitely not as important as other things that you should be prioritizing: identifying the needs and challenges of your target market, building and improving the quality of your product or service, communicating with your target market in a way that resonates with them. Be that brand that solves their problems for them. At this point in your brand’s life, you could do with a website built out of a website creation platform. In fact, you will find that for the most part, a site straight out of a template might be more than enough for you to build your brand online and manage your online presence. Strikingly, for instance, is very accommodating to new entrepreneurs but it also provides sufficient bandwidth for scaling up as brands grow on its platform.
