Below is a guest post by our friend Jenna Seter of Clutch.co – a premier resource for businesses looking to buy or sell development, marketing, or business consulting services. She asked us to provide our opinions on modern DIY website builders and graciously wrote a blog post for us that elaborated on our responses. Thanks, Jenna!
Clutch, a research platform for businesses, recently reached out to Designli to gain insight on a particular topic related to web design: DIY website builders and how they are being used by individuals and small businesses to facilitate online growth.
In a recent survey of DIY website builders, Clutch gathered the responses of 307 individuals who have used a web builder in the creation of their website. In particular, Clutch got an inside look at the challenges users face in building a website, the goals they have for their site, and the obstacles they encounter to reaching those goals.
To guide individuals in the process of selecting the right web builder for their needs, Clutch looked to Shawn Parrotte to share his own insight and advice around the web builder market and how people can get the most from the provider they choose.
Evidently, selecting a website builder is the biggest challenge individuals experience in the website creation process.
Shawn comments, “I’m not surprised that users face indecision when selecting which web builder to use for their website. Even though [web builders] are designed to be user-friendly, there will always be a learning curve to them. The struggle may be with finding an alignment between a user’s self-identified level of tech savvy and the level of sophistication that a web builder offers.”
As Shawn explains, the challenge with selecting a web builder is finding one that not only meets your business needs but also is not too technical to set up and manage on your own.
Once individuals have selected a provider, however, their biggest challenges are associated with the technical aspects of using the DIY tools, such as implementing advanced features and integrations.
As a solution, Shawn suggests experimenting with the tool before investing right away.
“Most website builders offer a free trial period, so my advice would be to test out the one’s you’re seriously considering. Ask yourself, ‘Does it offer the level of customization you’re looking for? Is it intuitive to use? What kind of support is offered when you get stuck? Will it support the needs of your business as it continues to grow?”
If after the trial period you trust your web builder to fulfill the needs for customization, support, and ease-of-use, then it most likely is a great fit for your business.
The survey data also finds that the main goal people have for their websites is to increase its overall traffic. But, the biggest obstacle that prevents them from working to improve the traffic their websites receive is a lack of time.
To overcome this obstacle, Shawn advises prioritizing creating content to publish on your site.
“Create some kind of routine into your schedule to be sure you’re creating new content and improving the user experience on a regular basis. Potential customers or clients will be searching for you, so it’s important to prioritize your web presence.”
Having content on your site increases your chances of being found organically in search engines and thus attracting more visitors.
Of course, building a strong website that fits your business’ needs will take some time, and the outcome will not always be perfect. With the combined insight from Shawn and Clutch’s survey findings of users’ challenges, goals, and obstacles to improvement, the process of using the DIY tools will be made that much simpler.
More insight from Shawn can be found in Clutch’s full research on DIY web builders: https://clutch.co/website-builders/survey
