Should you build your trades website yourself, hire a marketing agency or use a website specialist?
There is no single correct way to build a website. The right route depends on your budget, your time and how much work the website needs to do for the business.
Option 1: build it yourself
Platforms such as Wix, Squarespace and WordPress have made it possible for almost anybody to put a website online. If you are starting small, have very little budget and are comfortable using software, DIY may be perfectly reasonable.
The obvious advantage is cost. The less obvious cost is your time.
You still have to decide what the homepage should say, which services need their own pages, what photographs to use, where the phone number should appear, how the website should work on mobile and what makes somebody trust the business.
When DIY makes sense
DIY is worth considering when your budget is very limited, your requirements are simple, you have time to learn the platform and the website is not yet central to your marketing.
A simple website that exists is often more useful than the perfect website you keep putting off for another year.
Option 2: hire a marketing agency
A marketing agency normally offers much more than website development. That may include SEO, paid advertising, social media, branding, email marketing, content and strategy.
If you need several of those services at once, an agency can make sense. The trade-off is cost and complexity. You may be paying for account management, strategists, designers, developers and other overheads.
For a local trades business that simply needs a better website, that may be more than is necessary.
Option 3: use a website specialist
This sits somewhere between DIY and a full marketing agency. You are paying somebody to concentrate on the website itself.
For SiteSovereign, that means understanding what the business does, deciding how much website it actually needs, building it properly and making it easier for customers to enquire.
Where does AI fit into website development?
AI can make parts of building a website considerably faster. It can help with research, planning, early copy drafts, layout ideas, code and repetitive production tasks.
That efficiency is useful. But asking AI to make a plumber website and publishing whatever appears is not the service.
A website still needs somebody to decide whether the information is accurate, whether the wording sounds believable, whether the page makes sense on a phone and whether a customer can actually find what they need. We use AI where it saves time. A human remains responsible for the finished website.
Why not just use AI yourself?
You can. The same way you can build a website yourself.
AI has made producing things easier. It has not removed the need to know whether the thing being produced is any good. A generated page can look polished while still having weak copy, invented claims, poor structure or no understanding of the business.
The tool is not the difficult part. Judgement is.
Which option is right for you?
Choose DIY if money is tight, your needs are simple and you have the time to do it.
Choose a marketing agency if you need a broader marketing operation and have the budget to support it.
Choose a website specialist if the immediate problem is your website and you want somebody else to take responsibility for getting it right.
There is nothing stopping you from moving between these options as the business grows.
Not sure what your business actually needs? Book a call and we’ll talk it through without assuming you need the biggest package.