Should I Build My Business Website Myself or Hire a Web Designer?
Decide whether to build your business website yourself or hire a designer using a practical comparison of time, skills, risk, editing and ownership.

Decide what your website needs to do, prepare a useful brief and protect the parts of your existing site that work.
Start with an inventory and a clear business outcome before choosing a design or changing a URL.
Request a FREE website redesign
Get the bigger picture with our introductory guide.
A practical guide to replacing or improving an old business website, from auditing what works to planning your budget, protecting SEO and launching confidently.
Pick the guide that matches what you need to do next.
Use a completed example and a blank worksheet to record decisions with your team or supplier.
32 guides and answers
Decide whether to build your business website yourself or hire a designer using a practical comparison of time, skills, risk, editing and ownership.
Create your first business website with a clear purpose, sensible pages, the right platform and a practical checklist for content, testing and ownership.
Check whether a free website meets your business needs, including domain, branding, features, support and the cost of upgrading or moving later.
Understand what controls a new website timeline, from content and approvals to testing, with an illustrative sequence and clear launch criteria.
Compare a business website with social media and Google Business Profile, and decide whether a small owned website would help your customers.
Budget for a new UK business website by separating build fees, content and ongoing costs, with an itemised worksheet and a clearly labelled example.
Choose between a one-page and multi-page business website using customer tasks, service differences and two practical example site structures.
See how a website can support word-of-mouth referrals by helping recommended customers verify your services, understand your fit and make a useful enquiry.
Compare a website template with bespoke design by testing real content, usability, flexibility and maintenance rather than relying on appearance alone.
Write a useful website brief with a reusable structure and worked example covering goals, audience, scope, content, ownership and acceptance checks.
An outdated website can make a good business harder to choose. Learn how to spot the problems, prioritise improvements and decide whether you need a refresh or rebuild.
A practical starting point for reviewing your website, deciding what needs to change and agreeing what a rebuild should include.
There is no fixed redesign timetable. Learn which business, customer and technical signals show that your website needs attention and how to choose the right level of change.
A practical guide to replacing or improving an old business website, from auditing what works to planning your budget, protecting SEO and launching confidently.
A refresh improves selected parts of a sound website; a redesign rethinks the wider experience. Learn how scope, risk, cost and business goals should guide the choice.
An outdated website is one that no longer serves customers or the business well. Use these 15 signs to identify the most important content, usability and technical problems.
An old website can hold a business back when it creates customer friction, presents inaccurate information or consumes excessive maintenance time. Learn what to measure before changing it.
An outdated website can create doubt when its content, evidence or customer journeys feel neglected. Learn which trust signals matter and how to improve them without empty claims.
A website replacement should preserve everything that still serves customers and the business. Use this practical inventory to protect content, search visibility, accounts and essential services.
A practical small-business website redesign checklist covering discovery, content, technical requirements, migration, testing, launch and ongoing responsibility.
An ageing website does not always need replacing. Learn when repairs make sense, when a rebuild is worthwhile and how to preserve existing SEO value.
Replacing a website safely means planning the new experience while protecting useful content, URLs, data, domains and customer journeys.
A replacement website can normally be designed and tested separately while the existing site continues serving customers.
A website replacement can take several weeks or several months, depending on scope, content, integrations, approvals and migration risk.
A web designer needs clear business context, customer priorities, accurate content, useful evidence and access to the systems affected by the project.
A new website can reuse valuable existing content after checking ownership, accuracy, purpose, quality and fit with the new structure.
Your domain can usually stay registered in the same account while its website records are updated to point to the replacement site.
Business email can usually continue unchanged during a website rebuild when its provider and DNS records are identified and preserved.
A URL redirect sends a visitor or search engine from an old web address to a more appropriate destination.
A thorough pre-launch check proves that a new website is accurate, usable and ready to replace the current site without avoidable disruption.
Post-launch checks confirm that the public website, its customer journeys and its supporting services work outside the test environment.
Plan a useful small business website with clear home, service, about and contact pages, plus practical examples for trades and professional services.