Whether you want to create a blog to journal your new houseplant obsession or create a flashy storefront to sell Bluetooth speakers, you'll need an attractive website. Reportedly, it only takes 0.05 seconds for users to form an opinion about your website and determine whether they want to leave to stay 1 . It should come as no surprise then that great visual design is paramount.
For example, if you have a blog, you'll want to make sure your best content is front and center. You'll also want to unclutter your website, ensure navigation is simple, and carefully balance your whitespace and colors. Beyond visual design, other features are also equally important. For instance, if you have a beauty product storefront, you'll want to make sure that customers experience limited friction when purchasing products. How? By ensuring adding items to the cart is straightforward and checking out can be done in only a few clicks. And then there's backend automation - ensuring customers get a confirmation email after purchase.
Put simply, no matter what type of website you want to create; it needs to be attractive, purchase secure, scalable, and easy to find (SEO friendly).
However, one question remains - do you build your website from scratch or use a website builder like blogger.com, wordpress.com, or batoi.com?
Advantages of Website Platform Sites (Low-Code Website Builders)
In the past, building a website used to be a lot more complicated. If you wanted to build a website, you'd need extensive coding knowledge, bundles of time, and an abundance of creativity. However, today, websites like batoi.com and wordpress.com allow you to create business pages, publish products, manage inquiries, and accept payments with relative ease. Gone are the days where you need to be a tech mastermind to build an attractive website. But are these builders worth it? What do they actually offer that you can't get from going it alone?
Quick Set-Up
If you have an exciting business idea, you're probably ready to get moving today rather than in six months. Website builders are equipped with all the functions needed to create a website, saving users a significant amount of time. In addition, you don't need to learn complicated code to create a functional and eye-catching website.
Top-Notch Design
One of the strangest aspects of design is that most of us can recognize when something looks good, but we have a much harder time replicating those principles. In other words, we can recognize when a website is ugly, but we still struggle to make an attractive website.
This is exactly why graphic design experts exist. Luckily, website building platforms use design principles from the experts to ensure you get a beautiful website without the headache of figuring it out yourself.
Freedom to Edit From Anywhere
Since website platforms are online and cloud-based, your web files are hosted by the service provider rather than sitting on your own computer. This means you can log into your account from any computer and edit your website.
Support and Community
By using a website platform, you become both a customer and part of a community. You benefit from customer support while you create your website, and you can also reach out to other users on forums for advice.
Affordability
Tools like batoi.com, wordpress.com, and blogger.com are affordable for entry-level users like casual bloggers or small businesses.
Advantages of Building a Website From Scratch
The main advantage of building your own website from scratch is control. You're in the driver's seat when it comes to every decision, even the most minute of details. You need to create, maintain, and promote your website, which is a lot of work, but you get complete control in exchange.
A second advantage is security, but this one is debatable. Essentially, since website creation platforms use the same code across their product for all users, this code is an attractive target for hackers. If hackers can exploit vulnerabilities in the code, they could potentially access a trove of user data. By contrast, a lone hand-coded website isn't a desirable target to a hacker because the potential gains are small.
With that said, the coding and cybersecurity knowledge needed to create a secure website from scratch is beyond the reach of most internet users. Additionally, website builder platforms invest heavily into security to ensure vulnerabilities are patched, and your data is secure. Put simply, the vast majority of people will enjoy a higher level of protection using a website creation platform than building their own website.
What's the Verdict?
While both options have pros and cons, website creation platforms remain the best choice for 99% of online bloggers or entrepreneurs.