This is a quote from a fellow web developer Andy Stratton in the US, presenting at a recent conference.  Every client wants an ‘AWESOME’ website they can be proud of. But Andy reminded us that there’s still a trade-off when supplying any product or service. When I worked in the print industry back in the 90s, it was Quality, Speed, Low Price – Pick two.

When developing websites there’s a similar one: Fast, Cheap, Effective. Pick any two

His topic was around the use of cheap design themes and amateurs building their own websites. It often falls back to professional developers to fix these nightmares when they don’t work and get no traffic.

Beware the Fast + Cheap Combo

Fixing up the cheap-quick solution has happened to me several times. The worst was a Joomla CMS installation last year. I quoted for a few days work as part of an annual ($2,000) coding update and design makeover for this large client. Instead, they utilised their new, quite bright marketing assistant, who self-taught herself how these things work as well as selecting a new design theme off template monster.

Almost 5 months later and some quiet nagging from me, they gave up and employed me to ‘help out’ as she was hitting brick walls. I was kind and only charged the $2k, but realistically, it took me longer to fix her work, than if I’d done it myself from scratch. Some of the illogical content structure she setup I could not really fix unless I spent a lot longer on the project. This is often the case and why most professionals in any trade will charge more when DIY experts have had a go, no matter how well intentioned. I’m reminded of a slogan in an automotive  workshop, left. It’s a rate chart I’m now applying for myself.

There’s thousands of suppliers that will  provide a cheap, seemingly easy shortcut to your own business website. Say how easy it all is to get started. One option I recommend for family sites is www.weebly.com The reason I like it is simply because it doesn’t get traffic and hence perfect for home use or somewhat private viewing. But there’s thousands like this. Sales pitch is always superb and comforting. Even Yahoo and the likes of MYOB have some instant website offerings, that suck.

If you read my recent Yellow Pages website review, one could almost put these ‘professional’ offerings into this category, even though it is not strictly DIY.  There’s several advanced eCommerce providers around too. Some of these, like BigCommerce,com are superb in the hands of a professional developer, but for the newbie, can be a real challenge. One of these I spent one hour on to resolve a minor layout issue she had tried to fix for months by reading the many tutorials.

Fast and Cheap comes with Hidden Costs.

Not only can they take up loads of personal time, they’re seldom, if ever effective. Sometimes they can be easy to update and even ‘look nice’. But slick features or design alone will never bring you traffic or sales results. Good coding, content and SEO needs to be in the mix too. I find those with a little IT or marketing knowledge are often the worst offenders, since they don’t want to get to a point of asking for help. Even though the technology is improving, the internet is becoming a more complex beast every day. It’s not what we see on our screens, it’s what’s hidden beneath that differentiates the winners from the rest.

Bottom line is these amateur, self-built sites almost never rank well in Google and from a branding perspective, are too often seen as an amateur effort, which can affect sales and credibility.  The urge to save money and do it ourselves is costing everyone business.

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