Should I Build My Website Myself?

Just this morning I was participating in a discussion over at the linked-in group Business of Diving Institute (BODI) where someone asked:

Did you design and build your website yourself? How much time did you spend and do you optimise and run it yourself or pay someone to do it...

I gave my honest opinion and tried to be objective as possible in my reply. In doing so I failed to see a little bit about the person who it turns out wasn't a dive center but another company in the web design business. Basically, he was trying to create the discussion so it would possibly generate a few leads. Nothing wrong with that...I just should have checked before replying. So shame on me for taking the bait! That said, here was my reply for any dive centers considering building their own website.

Here's my take on this. Granted this is what I do so I have a vested interest in this. But I'll take a crack at being objective. :-)

Mostly it boils down to time, energy, experience and frustration.

Can you build, host, optimise and run your website yourself. Yes, absolutely you can.

However, you need to be honest with yourself upfront before hand. Assess your current experience level, as the less experience you have the more time it will take to get things up and running.

• Do you know at least the basics of css and html probably a little php wouldn't hurt either.
• Do you have a good graphics editing program like Fireworks or Photoshop and understand why it's a bad thing to put a 2mb photo on a webpage.
• How many hours do you have to spend learning search engine optimisation techniques.

The list is actually quite a bit longer but you get the idea.

After that, before you start making your website you need to ask yourself, what do you want your website to be able to do?

This will determine what platform you should use.

Examples of Different Dive Center Websites:

If your main site is selling gear and you have more than 500 products then Magento is probably a good choice to run your shop. It's free and open source but has quite a large learning curve. Also you need to remember that you need to have descriptions, photos etc of all of these products and entering them can be very time consuming.

If your main site is going to take diver reservations for classes and charters, and rely heavily on content (course descriptions, blog, photo albums, your own mini social network for divers, etc) then I'd go with Joomla. Again it's free and open source. The learning curve isn't as steep as Magento, but there is still quite an investment in time and resources to get everything set up.

If your site is going to be mainly course descriptions and a blog then Wordpress is a good free and open source option. The learning curve is probably the easiest but still an investment.

Note that for each of these platforms, you'll want to modify a template to match your own individual look and feel for your business. Additionally, you'll probably need to install extensions/plug ins/modules whatever you want to call them for your individual platform. These may also need some customization to have them fit in with your site. Some are free, some are paid extensions.

So yes, you can do it. It just depends on how much time you have to first learn your platform and then execute. It all comes down to time vs money.

What many people do is have their website set up for them initially, then maintain it themselves.

Hope This Helps.

Rich