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It’s time to create your business website, and you’re thinking of doing it on your own, especially if you use WordPress. But before you research your options, you need to understand that web development is not for everyone. There is a certain finesse and deep understanding that goes into coding and building a website from scratch. Even with WordPress, where a user can play around with the code or utilize the existing options offered, you need to know more than the basics. Becoming your own WordPress developer offers pros and cons, but the negatives can often sabotage the success of your business.
WordPress was made to cater to both ends of the coding spectrum: those who have no idea how coding works and the deeply knowledgeable coders. For a business owner, however, your time and efforts may be better spent running your business rather than learning how to use WordPress and consistently monitoring and managing a website.
Your website is the most essential marketing tool at your disposal. If you’re unsure how to maintain it, leaving it unattended won’t do you any favors. Think of it as if you were responsible for a space shuttle lifting off into orbit when you have no knowledge of the rockets, mathematics, engineering, or the science behind it. Expertise is important—and while you won’t hold the lives of astronauts in your hands—you are responsible for the life of your business, which is much more fragile than you may realize.
So if you’re thinking about becoming your own WordPress developer, here are some reasons why it may be a bad business decision:
WordPress is constantly changing
WordPress goes through periodic changes from format to backend alterations. If you don’t maintain and monitor your website properly, you’ll miss the WordPress updates and may be unsure how to work it in the future. Aspects of your website itself may begin to break down and stop working, plugins can be easily broken and require monitoring, and more importantly, your site could be left vulnerable to security threats.
Plugins are tricky characters. Most plugins for WordPress have been written specifically for WordPress, which sounds like a good thing. However, when the website itself updates or another plugin is added, the codes can conflict with one another, causing the first plugin to break. If more than one plugin breaks, the functionality of your website becomes compromised, as well as the security.
Hackers get into WordPress fairly easily, and quite often. Coders love the thrill of the chase, messing with WordPress and trying to break into your website for their own purposes. This means that unless you have someone monitoring your WordPress site daily, it could be susceptible to viruses, hacking, and even complete decimation. One kink in the chain can wreak havoc and open your website to untold risks.
Too many focuses
As a business owner, there are a lot of hats for you to wear. You’ve got your hands in multiple projects, and you can’t afford to place all of your attention in one area. Instead, focus on what you excel in, and let a pro handle the WordPress development.
Hiring a web developer whose sole focus is on your WordPress site will be beneficial to everyone in the long run. You’ll be able to put your mind to one task at a time—tasks that require your full attention. A web developer can spend all of their time monitoring and managing your website to keep it up to date and secure. This leaves you free to run your business, and the web developer free to maintain the WordPress website.
Some people have the mentality that they have to do everything themselves. While this is admirable, it’s not always the best idea. If you have the experience, know how to use WordPress, and can spare the time, by all means, do it yourself. However, most business owners are extremely busy and spending time on just the maintenance of WordPress alone would be too much.
Don’t overly rely on yourself
While you know your business best, there are aspects to WordPress development that you won’t be able to accomplish as well as a professional web developer can. If you feel like you’re selling yourself short, don’t. Your skills are impressive, but everyone has their limitations. What you can create, an experienced web developer can create twice as nice and twice as fast.
WordPress was designed to be geared toward website designers and developers. The average business person will probably not know how to use it. Coding is a major part of WordPress, and without having in-depth knowledge of coding, you won’t be able to edit certain aspects of your website. A professional web developer will know this technology backward and forward and will make your website a success.
Don’t be afraid to hand this project over to someone else. You will still get everything you want, and you’ll have a professional web developer who can keep things running smoothly and make any alterations going forward without the guesswork.
Getting too close
It’s not surprising that when people become passionate about a project, they put a lot of thought, effort, and themselves into it. The problem is that they may become too close and lose sight of the end goal. If certain aspects of the project need to be altered or deleted, it can be hard to see past what you want versus what is best for the final product.
WordPress development is a little more enhanced than people may realize. You can become stuck on one idea that you think will work, without taking a step back to see the bigger picture. At the end of the day, web development isn’t for amateurs. When you’re setting up a web page for your business, it shouldn’t be your first foray into the coding or development world. Web pages for business purposes should be polished and pristine, not a first attempt. A web developer will be able to create an amazing web page with all the bells and whistles necessary to create a successful WordPress site.
As a business owner, you already have plenty to juggle, so adding the management of your WordPress site isn’t something you should take on alone. Moreover, it’s not something that will take a couple of minutes each day. Maintaining a website requires continual monitoring and management so that content remains fresh and new things are constantly being populated on the website. Hiring a professional may seem like a scary step, but it can mean the difference between a mediocre website and a professional and polished WordPress.
Contact David Taylor Digital
We are committed to excellence and want your website to be everything you want and more. One of our WordPress developers will work with and for you to help you create the online presence necessary for your business to grow to new heights. Please contact our office when you’re ready to start building your website. We’d love to learn more about your business and get your website up and running as quickly as possible.
