Ranking highly for your target keywords is important for obtaining new traffic to your website. Many DIY website builders produce sites that look great on the surface, but like a shiny car with an old engine, they’re not built to go the distance.

When you look “under the hood” of a site built with Wix or Squarespace, you’ll see a lack of heading structure, misplaced page elements, and unparseable text and images. You can manually configure some elements that are important for SEO, such as your meta description, but Google will always prioritize a well-structured page over one that’s filled with fluff. Indeed, many DIY sites focus too heavily on images, graphics, and special effects rather than content that Google can crawl and deliver as compelling search results. (Learn more about SEO for business websites.)

A Wix or Squarespace site’s data is tied to its platform. If you set up a hosted website via WordPress, you can always export that data to another platform. This means when it’s time to revise or upgrade your site, you can easily extract your content. Not so with Wix or Squarespace, which embeds your content within its proprietary software as part of its hosting. Redeveloping your DIY site would entail rebuilding every single page from scratch.

Wix and Squarespace may seem cheap at first, but the maintenance costs quickly add up. For example, Wix requires you to pay more in monthly fees for each feature you add to the site. If you add a store, payment portal, analytics, custom domain, and all the basics of an eCommerce site, you’re looking to pay up to $49 per month, as opposed to a yearly domain registration/renewal and $13/month GoDaddy hosting plan. And because a site created with a DIY builder often doesn’t rank highly or drive conversions, it won’t generate as much revenue. This means you could be paying more on an annual basis for poorer results.

Like WordPress, Wix and Squarespace offer pre-made themes with customization options. While these are fine for personal sites, your business website should elevate your brand, not compromise on it. If you cannot use the fonts or colors that your brand designer selected, for example, you’re holding your digital presence back.

Also, a key part of conversion optimization is designing pages for a specific outcome. With Wix or Squarespace, there’s no easy way to set up product pages, funnels, or service pages that meet your unique marketing needs. Your target audience and goals have to be shoehorned into a plug-and-play template. The best-performing websites bring content and design together to support marketing goals, rather than relying on generic layouts. (Plus, DIY sites often perform poorly on mobile devices.)

The primary problem with DIY builders is precisely that they advertise “easy” websites. To drive results with your business’s website, it will take work. If you take the easy way out, you’re skipping the crucial steps in the development process: content mapping, SEO strategy, conversion optimization, and so on. The best websites are those that are built after careful planning. Every aspect of your site, from the nitty-gritty code to the large banner images, needs to be geared toward your marketing goals. This means it’s worth the time and money you spend on a professional website. As your 24/7 selling tool, your website deserves better than a quick DIY build — and a custom-built website can usually pay for itself in
the long run.

For professional web design and development that ties into your marketing strategy, reach out to Dotlogics. Our talented team is ready to give your business a powerful digital presence.