With the prevalence of online marketing and the growing need to have an online presence, many business owners find themselves trying to not just run their company, but also be a full-service marketing consultant.

It can be really overwhelming.

While WordPress and its ilk have lowered the barrier of entry into designing and creating a great website, they can’t replace the value and expertise that a full-time web developer and digital marketing team can bring.

If you find yourself trying to “do it all”, here are the top three things to keep in mind:

1. Art and Copy are still king. Your site has to look good and, almost more importantly, it has to read right. Your copy and your images should speak to the type of clients you want to attract.

2. UX/UI are really, really, really important. If your site is hard to use, lacks mobile and tablet compliance or doesn’t have the right information in the right places, your site won’t turn visitors into sales or conversions and may even turn people away.

3. Functionality that serves your clients is an important consideration when building your own site. Would your clients benefit from online bill pay? What about some sort of client portal? If you don’t have the skills or technical team to implement the functionality that would help your clients, you should definitely consider hiring a web development or software development team. In the long run, it tends to be more cost-effective for a company to be able to build the site from start to finish instead of trying to integrate more complex functionality into a pre-built site.

Let us know in the comments if you’ve tried the DIY website approach and what your biggest successes and frustrations were.  We’d love to hear from you!