his is the question if you are just starting a business or expanding the business you already have from a Facebook page or Etsy shop to a full fledged website with a custom domain. If you throw this question out there to your colleagues, family or friends, you’ll probably end up more confused. So I’m here to help you sort it out.
Two of the biggest factors you will always need to consider in business involve time and money. What is your budget, and how much time do you have to spend on it? Let’s explore the DIY path first.
Building a website yourself will cost you considerably less money–but make no mistake about this—it will cost you considerably more time. Even with drag and drop website builders with built in templates, there is more to building a website than plugging in your own images and changing the text.
However, website building platforms, like Wix, Weebly and Squarespace have made building your own website possible without having to know any code. This makes it a lot less scary.
Squarepsace is the platform I recommend because their modern templates have beautiful esthetics and lots of functionality, and the learning curve is not too steep.
There is a learning curve though. Building a website can take time if this is your first rodeo. If you have a slim budget and plenty of free time to research “how to’s” on Pinterest, Youtube and Google, reading articles, watching videos and making notes, then this may be a good path for you.
You should know before you choose your template how you want your website to perform or you could end up stuck with a website that doesn’t do what you want it to, or that won’t grow with you as your business grows.
Build your website now for what you will need to do later, making sure you can add features without starting completely over. You will be surprised how much your new business morphs in the early years.
Researching what each template can and cannot do is super important. Will you need a sidebar? Then compare the templates that offer that option. Do you desire full width banners? More than one navigation menu on a page? Or like stacked index pages? Not all templates come equipped the same. So compare them and choose wisely right out of the gate.
Here is a link to the Squarespace Template Comparison Chart.
No doubt you’ll want your website to include images. If you build your own website, you’ll need to know the right format and sizing for images for your platform so that the images look sharp and crop correctly across all the devices that users will view your website on.