Chicago Visit, June 2009 by gkristo on flickr

As you may have noticed, the format of smallbizgurl* talks tech blog has changed! I really love the elegant grunge theme, but when I saw sugar cane, I feel in love with it. I just like the whole big photos and easy to read format. (You can see a screen capture of the old look in elegant grunge theme here)

I don’t think I am a very indecisive person, but I’ve been changing *wordpress *themes over and over again for my various websites in the past few weeks. Especially the parent company website www.swiftreproductions.com, I probably changed the theme 5 times already, and I know I probably will explore couple more themes since I haven’t felt like I’ve found the perfect one that expresses what we do perfectly. Luckily that’s one site I don’t think people generally visit anyway since most of my work’s emphasis places on www.staged4more.com (and that site needs a major overhaul!) While it is fun to experiment, it is also time consuming. That’s the real downside of building your own sites. You can easily get obsessed about it, and little things are always popping up that you sink deeper and deeper…

(*If you are not familiar with wordpress, it is a blog publishing platform that allows you to customize your existing themes [or not, based on your preference]. *Themes usually mean the different looks and stylesheets, or templates if you will. Each theme has a different look and different purposes. Some are magazine styled, some are content management driven. Many are free and many are for a fee. Generally when you install a theme, many functions like layout of the site, etc. are already built in.)

I really really do love wordpress, despite the fact that there are times I just wanna pull my hair out and throw my computer out of the window because I just can’t get that one little thing to work perferctly. The amazing part about learning wordpress is that I feel liberated and in control. As a business owner, and someone who frequently speaks with other business owners, everyone’s concern about website is always

losing control of the content
can’t get updates immidately (depending on how web designer feels that day…)
costly
(this happens more often than you think…) being taken advantage/ hijacked by web designers

In general, the word FEAR generally sums up how small business owners feel when they hand over control of their virtual (often the only one!) storefronts. Leanring how to wordpress really helped me regaining control of my content, look and feel, and the best part: the budget. I’ve hired someone to build my website before. That’s a whole new experience. A lot of communications, patience, and many times swallowing my stomach when I saw the bill.

So should you build your own website?

Well, that depends. Generally when you do your own website, there are a few shortfalls:

You actually have your own day job, so you are actually taking time away from your business building activities like networking, visiting clients, etc. Or you may have to work after hours to make up the time lost.
Your own technical prowness (or the lack of) may limit the range of the type of sites you can build. Even if you have a super easy theme, knowing some coding will still help you a lot.
Really, how much time have you got? If you are somewhat obsessed like me, you can spend a lot, and I mean a lot of time tweaking and making everything perfect. Not to mention finding the perfect theme for your business!
Can you make a aesthetically pleasing website??? My job funciton is a stager, so technically I make people’s space look nice for a living. Soooo… My website should reflect that as well, right? When I first learned how to build a website, I used my hosting company’s sitebuilder, which was a cheap knock off of Dreamweaver (a professional website building tool). It looked terrible, horribly cluttered and unorganized. Curious what it looks like? Have a look here. This is what it looks like now (much better but still needs some updating & work).

“But doing it yourself saves a lot of money.”

Really? Does it really? Think about the math: how many hours you may need to build a website [times] your hourly rate vs. how much it will cost to hire a professional to do it.

These are the factors that you need to weight and decide: All the factors considered, what is the best use of your time and money that can yield the best results?

What do you think? Have you hired someone to do your website before? Will you hire someone again? Or Do it yourself? Leave your comments. I would love to find out your thoughts.

Also: Look for the upcoming post on How to Hire a Web Designer?