MARKETING: DIY Design? Uh, Don't.

7 reasons why + have your say about website design for solopreneurs like us 🤓

Apr 26

It’s another day, another addition of the Frolics

I’m, as always, Ellen “Jelly” McRae, the writer/solopreneur/content creator/whatever you want to call me, with the goods.

By trade, I write ‘💜 1 Lovelock Drive 💜’ and relationship articles using my experiences.

To my faithful, welcome back. I’ve missed you!

If you’re new to my blogletter, I’m pretty happy you’re here. Stay awhile, get to know me, and come with me as I stuff up life, make amazing and dumb-ass career decisions, and share my *cough cough* wisdom.

OTTDIY

I don’t blame the money poor entrepreneurs and side hustlers turning to DIY website design.

I know the financial hurt. I’ve been there, hunting for anything I can do to save some coin.

And you could say some of my DIY attitudes remains to this day, as my screen sits propped up on two reams of printer paper.

An unglamorous picture to represent my unglamorous situation

Sometimes you have to find cheap, do it yourself alternatives, all in the name of financial preservation.

But my stacks of paper aren’t ruining my business. Nor is this DIY approach going to backfire because I’ve ventured down the cheap route. This isn’t one of those moments when my business is suffering from my cheaper choices.

Yet some of us freelancers are suffering from OTTDIY.

We overdo it, falling into the trap of doing everything ourselves when we should pay professionals to do it instead. And when it comes to website design, especially, we’re headed for disaster with the DIY approach.

As a retired website designer, I’ve seen this before. It’s not that my former clients weren’t smart, skilled, or have the passion to give it a go. But they weren’t masterful in everything in business.

And from their DIY website design attempts, there was little success.

Despite what the internet tells you, doing your website design yourself comes at a risk. Here are the areas of website design, and reasons why you shouldn’t DIY your next freelancing site.

HAVE YOUR SAY 🗣

If you want to hear more about tips, tricks, advice and what to do / what not to do with your online presence, drop a comment and let me know!

#1: The Complicated And Everchanging SEO

The first issue is that SEO is impossible to learn.

The people who offer professional SEO services for a living are masters. They have studied the complexities of this changing marketing necessity, and know how to get it right without lengthy trial and error. It’s not possible to learn SEO on the fly with the same accuracy as a professional.

This means it’s almost impossible for DIYers to get SEO right.
I stress almost, by the way.

It’s virtually impossible to get SEO right if you’re not up to date with the changes. Trends in SEO change on a whim, as well as approaches to optimising content.

You have a business to run, which means your focus is elsewhere. Unless you love SEO, you’re going to quickly fall behind industry changes.

I like to compare SEO to studying law versus practising it. You can learn it, but it won’t help you in court if you stop following law changes.

#2: Let’s Talk Time Wasting

If you’re thinking about taking on the design yourself, how long is it going to take you versus a designer?

You have to learn how to design, study website design, followed by execution, editing, and then more editing. What takes you an hour takes a professional designer five minutes. And what takes them a week to create takes you a month.

When time isn’t on your side, this is a sacrifice that makes little sense.

Here is the trap I recommend you avoid.

Most freelancers focus on how much a professional design costs, rather than the time saved. But your time has a dollar value too. Know where best to spend it.

#3: Designing In The Dark

A humble designer might not tell you how you’re paying for their expertise as well as their skills. But you are paying for their knowledge about websites, what works best, what doesn’t and what to put where.

And if you find a designer who specialises in freelancing websites, they take the guesswork out what constitutes the perfect website.

This is where you need to think about everything unseen on a website, too. If you choose to DIY the design, you potentially miss all the details. This includes things like hidden pages, subpages pertinent to giving more information, and redirects.

A designer will also tell you what content your site needs.

When you’re debating over design choices, a designer can teach you industry standards and what others like you offer on their website.

#4: You Have, Like, ZERO Objectivity

How good is your DIY website, really?

Many freelancers don’t ask themselves this with unclouded honesty. Nor do they ask the people in their life for their frank, unfiltered feedback.

What this lack of honesty results in is a website that ticks basic functionality criteria but rarely intrigues the customer.
In short, it’s a website that doesn’t sell.

There is a difference, in website design, between good and good enough.

Considering how many thousands of people you’re competing with, this isn’t the time for good enough.

I refer to the computer screen stand I described. My screen sits privately in my home, where my customers can’t see it. I save money on what doesn’t impact them, and what doesn’t become part of the buying decision making.

Considering the impact a website has on buyer decisions, why would you settle for good enough?

#5: Putting Functionality First

One of the biggest issues I needed to fix for my former website design clients was functionality.

Through the DIY approach, there were always issues with how a visitor would use the website. If you hired a website designer, you eliminate the following functionality issues:

Broken menu — where the menu doesn’t go to the pages it describes
Broken links — where the hyperlinked image or text doesn’t go to where it promises
Broken buttons — where the button doesn’t link to the page it promises
Untested processes — where complex design choices don’t work as intended, such as payment screens and booking pages
Confused information delivery — pages that don’t make sense, with too much information, not enough information or delivered in the wrong order
Neglected functionality — lack of essential links on headers and footers to the menu, social media links, contact information and the alike

Form over functionality

Most designers don’t subscribe to form over functionality. Nor do they prefer it the other way around. It’s about balancing both. This is something a lot of DIY designers struggle to master, simply from the lack of experience.

#6: Money, Money, Money…

But surely there is an upside to DIY design, right?

DIY costs less than paying a designer, especially those who charge thousands for what you believe you can create for free. Yet, the DIY design process is rarely completely free.

Depending on how you design the site, you will need to pay for access to images, fonts, the design suite and anything you can’t do yourself. Without a doubt, I can confirm there will be something you need someone else to help you with.

When I was designing, I used to charge for ad-hoc work. The hourly rate was more per hour than if I included this work in a design package.

It was not to be greedy. It was because my workday and other projects would face disruption whilst fitting in the extra work. The money compensated for the inconvenience. I’m not the only (former) designer who subscribes to this philosophy, costing you more.

If budget is your issue, there are always cheaper alternatives that aren’t scams or leave you with an ugly design.
It’s a matter of seeking out people who are within your budget or using templates to keep the costs low.

#7: It’s Time To Sacrifice

Many of the DIY designers I’ve met ended up coming to me because they simply couldn’t handle the sacrifice. Not them personally. It was their business that wasn’t going to survive if they kept up this DIY journey.

Because to create the website, everything else, everything you need to do to run your business, gets moved to the side.

DIY sabotages making money. It’s the opposite of passive income. It prevents you from doing your money-making tasks. It stops you from serving customers. It stops you from marketing.

It stops you from finding opportunities for growth.

HAVE YOUR SAY Another Hint Hint 🗣

If you want to hear more about tips, tricks, advice and what to do / what not to do with your online presence, drop a comment and let me know!

Always Leave On A Song

Back in the day, I wanted to recite these lyrics to some of my clients. The line:

“I'm looking at the bright lights, but still chasing fireflies.” Success is the bright lights, and DIY Is the fireflies.

Need more inspo? Check out my new playlist (more tracks to come): Make Money Motivation

You’ve freakin’ got this!

This journey isn’t the same without you. And I sure know you can’t find success without support, somewhere to vent, and people just like you. Join me here on The Frolics as we grow our careers together!

Ok, so this isn't enough for you?! Damn, I love your style! You can reach me and get more right here 👇

The Frolics According To Ellen