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DIY web design – is it worth it?

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Can a DIY dental website present a professional image for your practice?

Occasionally we receive enquiries where the caller is considering a DIY dental website builder for their practice and wishes to know the pros/cons of that option versus a bespoke design. The type of site builder they’re talking about are the ones you will see offered by some marketing and web hosting companies, typically for a set monthly fee. On the face of it, this may look like an easy and cost-effective option but is it really all it seems on first inspection?

As with all purchases, it’s important to evaluate exactly what you are getting and the real value on offer. To assist you with such an assessment, here are the pros and cons of DIY dental websites builders:

Pros

  • The only obvious benefit is the facility to spread cost using monthly payments. Most services of this type come bundled with a hosting arrangement and do allow you to pay monthly. But, as a quick calculation will show, in less than 18 months you will have paid enough to have purchased a professionally designed site outright.

Cons

The negatives associated with DIY web builders significantly outweigh the positives:

  • Use of “samey” template design. Many “out-of-the box” dental practice website builders use old-fashioned designs and even where there are more modern versions on offer, the range suitable for dentists is limited. This results in your site looking very much like lots of others or worse, something designed 5 years ago.
  • Poor coding standards – site builders often produce poor code which can result in your site under-performing for users and in the search engines too.
  • Inflexible – the content management systems in DIY site builders are usually very restrictive meaning that you can’t edit much other than a few text areas and perhaps a logo. The results are often messy at best.
  • SEO – site architecture is extremely important for SEO. Most site builders do not provide the tools or code access necessary to build a fully SEO optimised platform.
  • Maintenance – maintaining a site using a DIY builder is not easy due to the restrictions imposed by the underlying framework. Need to add an “offers” button into the header or a quick contact form in the side-bar? There is very limited scope for this unfortunately. These are key features of high-performance websites and ones that you won’t see in budget DIY website builders.
  • Most home spun systems do not create web pages that are mobile and tablet optimised, necessitating an investment in a secondary mobile site. This methodology is rapidly becoming outmoded by the “responsive” design technique (one website for all platforms)

The financial consideration

Some DIY web packages are pitched to dentists at significant monthly costs. 18 month’s outlay on such systems would cover a professional, bespoke design with a feature-set that home site builders cannot match.

Your competitors

As we’ve discussed in earlier blog articles, the standard of dental web design is already quite advanced and moving ahead quickly – too quickly for DIY builders to keep pace. Dentists who understand the power of the web for new patient acquisition are employing professional designers to ensure that their websites are professional, fully standards compliant and rank well in the search engines. This is very difficult to emulate with an in-house build.

Summary

Careful budgeting is important for all businesses but so is understanding value and return-on-investment from purchases. The return delivered from DIY website builders is questionable due to unappealing designs and risk of under-performance in search rankings. A DIY system will get you online but not with a product that is likely to worry your competitors or attract many new patients.