Should you build it yourself, or hire someone
Doing it yourself is a real option — here is the honest tradeoff.
When doing it yourself is the right call
If you have a few evenings, one simple page, and a name people already search for, a builder like Squarespace can carry you a long way. Plenty of businesses launch this way and are right to. If that is you, spend the money elsewhere and come back when the site is holding you back.
What tends to break six months in
The site launches, then quietly stops keeping up. Search rewards specifics a template rarely lets you add. Pages that felt fine start feeling slow. And every fix routes through you, so you become the tech support for a thing you built to save time. None of it is dramatic; it just adds up.
What you are actually paying a person for
Not typing skills. Judgment about what to say and cut, a site that stays fast and findable, and a name to call when something breaks so it is not your Saturday. What you are buying is the problem staying solved for good, and a set of pages is only how that gets delivered.
These are the searches this page is here to answer.
Building it yourself is a real option, and worth understanding before you pay anyone. There are three honest routes. None is wrong. They just trade money, time, and control differently.
Squarespace · Wix · GoDaddy
Pick a template, drop in your words and photos, and hit publish. No code, and the hosting is handled for you.
Good for
Getting online this weekend with one simple page, if you have a few evenings and a name people already search for.
The catch
A monthly fee that never stops, a template you fight the moment you want something specific, and a slower site that is harder to rank. Squarespace looks the best of the three; GoDaddy's builder is the weakest.
Lovable · v0 · Cursor · Claude
You describe the site in plain English and an AI writes real code for it. It can look custom, with no monthly builder tax.
Good for
A truer-to-you result and real control, if you are comfortable being a little technical and patient with rough edges.
The catch
The AI hands you a car, not driving lessons. You still host it, connect the domain, and catch it when it is quietly wrong about speed, forms that actually send, or how Google reads the page. Those parts do not announce themselves.
Vercel · Netlify · a domain
Where your site actually lives so the world can reach it. Builders hide this from you; vibecoding hands it to you.
Good for
Understanding even a little, since it is the step most guides skip and the reason a 'finished' site still is not online.
The catch
Domains, DNS, certificates, and the 'why won't it update' panic all live here. Easy enough after your first time, and the part no guide warns you about.
How to make it actually good
Say you go for it. Here is the gap between a site that is merely live and one that works, and it is the same list whether you use a template or the tools I use. The tool was never the hard part.
Shoot in real light
A phone photo taken by a window beats a dark one with the flash on, every time. Watch your framing, keep the background clean, and never blow a small photo up big. One blurry hero image undoes everything around it.
Leave a lot of space
Empty space does real work: it gives the one thing that matters room to be seen. The urge to fill every corner is what makes a site feel cramped and homemade. When in doubt, take something out.
Hold one style
Choose a couple of fonts and a couple of colors and use them everywhere. A fresh look in every section reads as thrown together. Most of what 'professional' means is simply staying consistent.
Size images for the screen
A photo that is crisp on your laptop can be a five-megabyte download on a phone. Serve a version scaled to the device, or the person on a weak signal stares at a blank box and leaves.
Build for a weak connection
Design for someone in a parking lot on one bar, because your fast home wifi hides how heavy the page really is. Every oversized image costs you a visitor, and Google factors load speed into where you rank.
Say it, then stop
People skim; they rarely read. Give them the information and get out of the way. Extra words do not add weight, they bury the one line that would have made someone call.
Everything on one scroll
Most people just scroll to see what you have got. Put the whole story on a single page with clear sections, and let a button open the depth for anyone who wants more. A wall of tabs makes people hunt, and they will not.
Never let it go stale
Old hours, a closed location, last year’s prices: an outdated site costs more trust than no site would. Whatever changes in the business has to change here the same week.
The honest part
None of this is hard to grasp. Doing all of it, every time, while keeping the site fast, findable, and current, is the actual work. The tools sit in everyone’s hands now. The judgment about the thousand small calls they do not make for you is the part you are hiring.
Still deciding?
Tell me what you are working on and I will give you a straight read on what your site should do, before you spend a dollar.