• 1
Copy Link

David Miller

Knowledge Areas : Gardening, Floods, College, Professional Certifications, Wine, Healthy Eating, Veganism, Fitness, General Health, Nutrition, Sleep, Meditation, DIY Projects, Remodeling, Stock Market, Making and Tinkering, Handicrafts, Decorative Arts and Crafts, Crafting, Camping, Hiking, General Outdoor Questions, Retirement Planning, Growing your Savings, Mortgages, Dog Ownership, Cat Ownership, Real Estate Investing, Rentals, Swimming, Triathlon, Biking, Roadtrips, Europe, North America

Reputation Score: 480

Related Questions
Answer this Question

Submit An Answer

Answers ( 1 )

 
  1. Nicholas G 310 Community Answer

    Hi David,


    This is a great question and I hope I am able to help clear things up. For one, yes, you can totally build a basic portfolio website yourself. There are tools out there like Wix, Squarespace, Weebly, etc that will allow you to do so. However, the complexity of what you need to be built and whether it even makes sense to build it yourself is really the question.


    Q: When is the best time to set this up?

    - In my opinion, you should have some clear ideas as to what you are going for.


    1. Figure out your business first and then worry about building a website.
      1. What do you offer?
      2. How much do you charge?
      3. Who are your customers?
      4. How do you want to present yourself to your customers?
      5. Have you thought of branding at all?
        1. Do you have a logo?
        2. Do you have a business name?
        3. When you have a business name, do you have a doman name?
      6. How do you plan on getting business in the first place?

    Once you've figured out your business, then you can think about taking these concepts and setting them up in a website. By doing it this way, you'll have a much clearer visionas to what you need to be built and how to preset yourself.


    Q: Should I hire a professional or do it myself?

    - As a professional programmer who owns a digital solutions company ( https://www.synapsedigital.io ), here's my two cents:


    1. Basic Portfolio Website
      1. You can definitely build this yourself on Wix, SquareSpace, Weebly, etc. If you just need proof-of-concept or are testing out design ideas and seeing what you like, this option might work out fine for you.
      2. Keep in mind though, at some point when your business gets moving, I'd seriously consider hiring a professional to rebuild the website in order to provide his/her expertise in the design and functionality. Many people think a business website serves the purpose of just putting up information. I see this all the time when businesses hire my company to rebuild their sites that they had set up themselves. They had missed out on the benefits of even having a website in the first place and now it needs to be rebuilt. Your business website exists to ultimately serve a goal. That goal can be anything from increasing sales to getting people to sign up as a member of your church. For most businesses, you're there to make money, so your website should provide the best way for a potential customer to go from point A to point B. The design is an important aspect of that. Some designs can be confusing or annoying to the user, so they'll ust leave the page and you'll lose their business. Also, there is metadata in the website that people don't really see but it provides search engines like Google with information so that you can show up in searches. Many businesses spend thousands a month (let alone the large businesses that spend millions per month) on advertising and search engine optimization. So, having a professional build and manage your site can make a big difference in your businesse's success.
      3. With all that being siad, if you are just starting out and all you need is a website that makes the statement "Hey, I am open for business", then you should be fine with a website builder like I referenced above.
    2. Web Application (has advanced functionality)
      1. If you are building out a service-based website or something with some level of advanced functionality, then it just makes more sense to hire a professional. You'll be doing yourself and your business a disservice by trying to figure it out all on your own. Firstly, you'll spend too much time on building out the web app that you'll lose track of other important work that needs to get done. Depending on the complexity of the site (are there accounts, payment processing, other functions that users can do?), I'd even say that figuring it out yourself is a complete waste of time. You can piece together apps to make things work kind-of the way you envision it, but it will not really be the same as having a professional build a custom solution for you and I honestly just think it'll be frustrating. Plus, you'll be stuck in this setup which means that making changes will be a serious chore which might put your whole business on hold or even break the existing website if you mess up something while changing it. I just don't see the benefit of doing it yourself in this category.

    I hope this helps and feel free to let me know if you have any questions.


    Sincerely,

    Nicholas Gati

    UTC 2021-05-05 01:48 PM 0 Comments

To answer this question, you must be logged in.

Create an account

Already have an account? Login.

By Signing up, you indicate that you have read and agree to Sage's Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy