Sam Makad
Sam Makad is a business consultant. He helps small & medium enterprises to grow their businesses and overall ROI. You can follow Sam on Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin.
A simple well-designed website can give an edge in your field, it will help your site to open up new markets and expand your business easily. But what works best? Buying or Building a website? Find your answer here
Things that are required to run a business keep changing every year. In these modern times, it’s impossible to find success without a business website. As much as 47% of people visit a company’s website, it will almost be like your business doesn’t even exist unless you have an online presence.
There’s no need to explain why a website is necessary for every business in 2020, but there’s still some debate regarding the best way to get a website. There are two options you can choose from – buy a website or build it yourself.
Both options have their positive and negative aspects, and you can read about them below.
Buying a website
First off, let’s talk about buying an already-existing website and what you can expect if you choose this option. This option has a lot of benefits, but also some downsides you need to be aware of.
1. The cost of purchasing a website is high.
Starters need to note that purchasing a profitable website is something you can only do if you already have a big enough budget. If you’re someone who’s hoping to make a lot of money without a significant financial investment, you won’t be able to do that with this method.
This is because websites that are already successful can cost several thousands of dollars, if not more. So it all comes down to what you’re ready to invest. If you would much rather spend your money than your time, purchasing a website would be a better option for you.
2. Your chances of profitability are much higher.
Profitability is what most people who own a website are looking for. If this is your goal, too, keep in mind that a website is more likely to be profitable when you buy it than when you make it yourself.
When you buy an existing website, you’re buying a real business that’s already established and earning money. On the other hand, if you’re building a website, you don’t know how long it will take for it to make a large enough profit you would be satisfied with, and if that will even happen at all.
As a website buyer, you’re able to predict how successful your website will be based on the money it already earns every month. Instead of taking on many risks and investing your time and money into building a website, you can enjoy knowing the difficult part is already over.
3. The learning curve is much smaller.
One of the biggest reasons people choose to purchase a website instead of building one themselves is because they don’t know anything about website development. If you buy a website, you will avoid most of the difficulties of that learning curve.
It’s certainly much easier to find websites for sale and buy one instead of going through the hassle of making one. The development process can sometimes be tedious and requires a lot of work on something that will need a lot of investment before it has the chance to become profitable. And even then, success isn’t guaranteed.
You won’t have to worry about the time it takes to make a website look perfect and optimized. All you have to think about is how much money the website is currently making.
4. It will require some research.
Since you’re reading this, the chances are high that you never purchased a website before. If that’s the case, you need to know that as you’ll be spending a lot of money, you need to do extensive research to figure out what exactly makes a website for sale a good investment.
Don’t just rush into a purchasing decision that seems good at first glance. If you make a poor investment choice, there is no going back, so make sure you always know what you’re looking for.
Building a website
While buying a website seems like a great idea, don’t rush into it before looking at both sides of the coin. Let’s explore what building a website entails.
5. Lower investment
As we already mentioned, purchasing a website isn’t something everyone can afford and the high prices of websites for sale can deter a lot of people. On the other hand, creating a website on your own requires minimal investment.
Instead of investing several thousand dollars on a website, you can create a beautiful website yourself and spend only a few hundred dollars. If you don’t do everything yourself and hire someone to write your content and create a custom logo, your investment will still be significantly lower.
Even if you don’t have any coding knowledge, you won’t have to break the bank and hire a programmer to build your website. You can simply pick one of the best website builders for small business ventures and create a website easily and without too much investment.
6. Learning valuable skills
We already mentioned how buying a website allows you to avoid the struggle of creating a website yourself. However, sometimes that struggle doesn’t have to be a bad thing. After all, while you’re working on your website, you will be able to pick up a few valuable skills.
Issues with your website will arise sooner or later. It’s an unavoidable part of website ownership. It’s better to learn how to deal with those issues early on so you can tackle them more easily when your website grows.
If you’re not an expert on websites and buy one without learning at least the basics, even one small issue can cause you to lose a lot of profit down the line.
7. Higher potential ROI
While a purchased website will allow you to earn a profit right away, you should also consider how high your investment return would be. For instance, a website that makes around $3,000 per month can cost you approximately $60,000, which isn’t a very good ROI.
On the other hand, a website that can cost around $200 to build can bring you somewhere about $1,000 per month with proper website optimization. To make this happen, you need to know some of the best SEO tips and use them wisely.
8. It’s a high-risk and long-time commitment.
With over 200 million active websites currently online, it’s hard for a new website to breakthrough. If you decide to build your website, you need to get ready for an uphill battle and a lot of hard work.
Building a website from scratch is a long process and making it profitable is an even longer one. If you’re expecting profit from day one, you’d be better off buying a website. Of course, you could wind up making thousands of dollars from the website you build, but it certainly won’t be instantaneous.
Final thoughts
Buying or building a website has been an ongoing debate for years, and there isn’t one correct answer. Both have their pros and cons, but at the end of the day, the choice you make depends only on what you believe is the better option for you.
Think about how big of a budget you have, whether you would instead invest more time or more money, how soon you’re hoping to see a profit, and if you’re willing to take some risks. This certainly isn’t an easy decision to make, so take everything you just read into consideration and don’t rush when picking one.
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