What should I do about my web site?
In today’s online world, most businesses want an online presence. But despite the ubiquity of site building tools (or maybe BECAUSE of their ubiquity) at KVA we still get asked variations on the question “What should I use for my web site”? Sometimes this is purely informational, a customer wanting to stay on top of things and make sure they and their site are up to date with modern trends. Sometimes the question is more direct: “Can KVA make me a website” (or “Can KVA make me a better website, I don’t like mine”). In those cases, the answer we give is “We definitely CAN, but let’s see if it actually makes sense for us to do it”. In this article, we’re going to talk about some solutions and who they are right for.
The do-it-yourself web site builders
This is the easiest group to talk about. In 2024, some of those tools are Wix, Squarespace, Webflow, and Shopify. All of these solutions are different, but they all try to do the same basic thing - make it possible for someone with no experience to come in and make a decent-looking web site from nothing, quickly and (mostly) painlessly. These tools are a great fit for small or very small businesses, services companies, the skilled trades, and more. And it’s easy to see why. These tools are cheap (~couple hundred dollars a year), fast (you can make a whole site in a week) and look good enough. They are the go-to choice if you don’t have any special needs for your site and just want something that looks respectable. They exist on a spectrum from easy to use (Squarespace, Wix) to extremely configurable but with a steeper learning curve (Webflow); and there are some that cater to specific market segments. (Like Shopify for eCommerce or D2C).
A common argument we hear against these builders is that the sites they build can look formulaic, but as they improve more and more that is less and less the case. For most businesses without unique technological needs these are perfectly sufficient. They also don’t typically require someone else to make the site for you, in fact making the site yourself with these tools can make upkeep and maintenance easier. Of course, you still have the choice to pay someone to do the work, but it’s typically cheaper and easier to do it yourself.
Making a custom web site
Given the above, why would anyone make a custom site? It usually comes down to a few things. First, if you are a larger company with detailed design and brand guidelines, making a custom site can make sense - at some point the level of effort it would take to modify and maintain a Wix site to fit a brand style guide can exceed the effort to just build it out in code. Site styles can be better organized, and your site can be more maintainable. The use of a good Content Management System (CMS) can make a custom site easy to tweak and add to as an end user, much like the DIY tools do for simpler sites.
The second scenario is if you need some custom piece of functionality in your site that prepackaged web site builders just don’t offer. Maybe some detailed 3-D viewer for products, an unsupported workflow, or some custom UI elements you can’t get with a prepackaged solution. These things are usually industry or company specific one-offs, and so need to be made custom. Sometimes, it’s possible to make just the unique portions of the site custom, and sometimes a completely novel solution is required.
That pixel-perfect control of your site is the big selling point. And there is a market for it, even though it’s more expensive. But that market is usually larger businesses or comes with a specific reason why the site absolutely must be custom. Beware of someone trying to sell you a fully custom site if they can’t provide sufficient rationale - it could be a waste of your money.
Conclusion
The bottom line here is that it’s pretty common at KVA Engineering to say “Unless you really really want a custom-built site, we recommend you save your money and use a site building tool.” It might cost us some dollars, but it’s often the right answer and it saves you money and time. And that’s what matters to us.
