Wix and similar website builders have made it genuinely possible for anyone to create a website without technical skills. So the question of whether to build it yourself or hire a professional is a real one. Here's how to think through the decision.
What Wix Offers
Wix is a drag-and-drop website builder. You pick a template, customise it with your content, and publish — no coding required. It's fast to set up, costs around £15–£30 per month on a paid plan, and is manageable by someone with no web experience.
Where Wix works well:
- Very simple sites with minimal content needs (a landing page, a basic portfolio)
- Businesses testing an idea before committing to a full investment
- Individuals who genuinely enjoy managing and updating their own website
- Tight budgets where some online presence is better than none
Where Wix falls short:
- SEO performance — Wix has improved its SEO significantly, but it still lags behind a custom-built site in technical SEO foundations, page speed, and structured data implementation
- Local SEO — ranking for "your service + your town" requires more than a website; it requires SEO knowledge and strategy that a builder doesn't provide
- Credibility — many Wix sites look template-based to anyone familiar with the web; a professional-looking site builds more trust
- Your time — building a website on Wix still takes time; and if you're not experienced, it takes a lot of time to get something that looks acceptable
- Ongoing work — you become responsible for all updates, content, and technical issues
- Scale — as your business grows, you may outgrow Wix and face the cost and disruption of migrating to a proper platform anyway
What a Web Designer Offers
A web designer handles the build for you — and brings expertise in design, user experience, SEO, and conversion that a DIY builder can't replicate.
What you get:
- A professionally designed site built for your specific business and audience
- SEO foundations built in from day one — page structure, meta data, load speed, local relevance
- A site that looks unique rather than template-based
- Your time back — you brief someone who delivers a finished product
- Ongoing support — someone who knows your site and can make changes, fix issues, and improve performance over time
- Strategic input — advice on what to say, how to structure content, and how to convert visitors into enquiries
What you give up:
- Lower upfront cost — a professionally built website for a small business typically starts from £1,000–£2,500
- Immediate control — you're reliant on someone else for changes (though most designers make this easy)
The Time Factor
One thing people underestimate about DIY website builders: they take much more time than expected. Building something that looks genuinely professional, not just "acceptable," requires learning the tool, creating content, sourcing images, and testing across devices. For most business owners, that's 20–40 hours minimum.
If your time is worth anything as a business owner — and it is — that hidden cost often makes the comparison much closer than it first appears.
The SEO Factor
This is where the decision often becomes clearer. If you want your website to rank on Google and generate enquiries from local search, a Wix site is unlikely to get you there on its own. You'd need to invest significant time learning SEO, or pay for SEO services on top of your Wix subscription.
A professional web designer — particularly one who specialises in local businesses — builds SEO foundations into the site. That means your site starts from a much stronger position and requires less ongoing effort to maintain rankings.
For more on why SEO matters from day one, see our post on signs your website is costing you customers.
Which Should You Choose?
Choose Wix if:
- You're testing a business idea and want a minimal online presence quickly
- You have a genuinely tiny budget and DIY is the only realistic option
- You enjoy this kind of work and want to manage your own site
- Your website doesn't need to rank on Google — it's just somewhere to point people you already know
Choose a web designer if:
- You want your website to generate new business from Google
- You want a site that looks professional and unique
- Your time is better spent on your actual work
- You want ongoing support rather than managing everything yourself
- You're serious about using your website as a sales and marketing tool
The Long-Term View
Many business owners start with Wix, realise it isn't generating enquiries, and end up hiring a designer anyway — paying twice. If you know from the outset that you want a website that generates leads, it's almost always cheaper and faster to hire a professional from the start.
If you're based in South Wales and want an honest conversation about what the right option looks like for your specific situation, get in touch with NC Digital. We build websites that rank and convert — and we're happy to tell you honestly if you don't need us yet.