The SiteRoot team7 min read
There is a browser tab that has been open since March. It is a website builder, on a blank page, with a heading that says "Your Business Name Here". You are going to do it properly on the weekend. It is now September.
If you recognise that, here is the answer to the question in the title, and it is not the one the comparison articles give. The deciding factor is not whether you are capable of building a website, because you almost certainly are. It is whether you will finish one, and what an hour of your own time is actually worth when the alternative is billable work. Judge the decision on those two things and it usually resolves itself in about five minutes.
The real question is not can you, it is will you finish
We build sites for 42 businesses. The largest group by a clear margin is trades, thirteen of them, then IT and consulting, then finance and property, then health. Across all of them the pattern that predicts a finished website is not technical skill. It is whether there is something concrete to react to.
A blank canvas is where a website project goes to die. The owner opens it, stares at the empty page, decides the weekend is the right time, and six weeks later the tab is still open. Reacting to a real page is easy, and everyone can do it: that heading is wrong, we do not do that any more, that photo is the wrong van. Starting from nothing is a different skill, and plenty of people who are excellent at their own job do not have it.
Answer this honestly before deciding. Have you already tried once and stalled? If yes, that is data about you, and the fix is not trying harder the same way.
What doing it yourself really costs
The subscription is the smallest part of it.
A realistic first website, built by the owner, is somewhere between fifteen and forty hours. Not because the tools are hard, but because the work is not tool work. It is deciding what your five pages are, writing the words about your own business, finding photographs, and the three hours you will spend on the alignment of one button.
Price those hours at what you charge for your own trade. Twenty hours for a sparky billing A$100 an hour is A$2,000 of unbilled time, more than a small studio would have charged. That does not make doing it yourself wrong. It makes the comparison honest, and most articles on this question quietly leave your time out at zero.
The hardest part will be the words, and nobody warns you. It is easy to describe your work to a customer standing in front of you and strangely difficult to write the same thing down for a stranger. Everyone's first draft reads like a brochure.
What paying someone really buys
Worth being clear about, because it is not "a website". You can get one for nothing. What money buys is four other things.
Judgement. Someone who has seen a hundred of these decides what goes above the fold and what gets cut, and they are usually right.
Accountability. There is a person whose job it is to finish, which is the biggest difference from the tab open since March.
Industry knowledge. A designer who has built for your trade before knows what those customers ask and what the enquiry form needs on it.
Your time back. Two hours in a briefing instead of twenty across four weekends.
What it usually does not buy is the ability to change things afterwards without paying again. That is the part to pin down in advance: hourly rates in Australia typically run A$80 to A$200 an hour, often with a one hour minimum, so a ten minute price change costs A$150 and a four week wait. That is how a good site slowly becomes an out of date one.
When paying someone is obviously right
No argument from us on these.
- You need bookings, payments, stock or a customer login. That is software, not a brochure, and it deserves a professional.
- You have multiple locations, or a lot of services with real differences between them. The structural thinking is the value.
- Your brand is the product. A designer or a studio with a portfolio you love is buying you something a template cannot.
- You are migrating something complicated, an old site with hundreds of pages, or a shop with a catalogue.
- You have tried twice and stalled twice. See above. Pay someone.
When doing it yourself is clearly right
Equally honest.
- Five or six pages, one location, services you can list from memory.
- You know exactly what you want people to ring you about.
- You will want to change it often, and you would rather not ask permission or pay for an hour to do it.
- You want to be trading this month, not next quarter.
The middle option most people actually want
The two ways this is usually framed leave out the shape that fits most small businesses: have the first version made for you, then own the editing yourself.
That is not a compromise, it is the division of labour that matches where the difficulty actually is. The hard part at the start is the blank page and a first draft. The hard part forever afterwards is keeping it current, which is fast if you can do it yourself and slow if you cannot.
Split it that way and the work left for you is the work only you can do: checking the facts are right, writing in your own voice where the draft sounds like a brochure, and walking around your own job with a phone in daylight taking photographs. A real photo of your own van, your shopfront or your finished work beats the best stock image in existence, because the only question in a visitor's head is whether you are a real business near them. It is the highest value hour available, whichever route you pick.
Three things your site must do, whichever way you go
Non negotiable, and the way to test any option.
- Your phone number is a link, so tapping it starts the call. Not text they have to memorise.
- What you do and where you do it are visible without scrolling, on a phone.
- There is an enquiry form and it emails you at an address you actually read, so a 2am enquiry is in your inbox with the rest of your morning.
Check those three on whatever you build or are shown. Most failed websites fail one of them, not the design.
Where SiteRoot sits
We are the middle option, so take this with a pinch of salt.
You answer questions about your business rather than facing a blank page, and a finished site comes back in about fifteen minutes, with hosting and the padlock certificate handled. Then you edit it yourself, in plain language, for as long as you have it. The three items above are done at build time.
Building it is free, so you can see your actual site before deciding anything. 14 days free, then A$16.50/month (A$15 + GST). Card asked for during your 14 days, one free trial per customer, cancel anytime. That is A$15 plus GST, hosting included, no setup fee.
What you are not buying is a designer who knows your trade, a photographer, or anybody doing your marketing. If your brand is the product, or you need bookings and payments, a A$5,000 quote is the right answer, and we would rather say so here.
The five minute decision
- Have you tried to build it yourself already and stalled? If yes, stop trying that way.
- What do you charge an hour, times twenty? That is the real DIY price.
- Do you need bookings, payments or stock? If yes, pay someone.
- How often will you want to change something? If the answer is monthly, you need to hold the editing yourself whatever else you decide.
- Do you want to be live this month? That rules one of these out.
Whatever you choose, the website that gets finished beats the better one that does not.
