[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":172},["ShallowReactive",2],{"writing-anyone-can-build-a-website":3},{"id":4,"title":5,"author":6,"authorImage":7,"body":8,"dateModified":143,"datePublished":144,"description":14,"editorsPick":145,"extension":146,"intro":147,"mainImageId":148,"meta":149,"navigation":150,"ogImage":151,"path":152,"readingTimeMinutes":153,"schemaImages":154,"seo":155,"series":156,"shortIntro":168,"sitemap":169,"slug":164,"stem":170,"twitterImage":151,"__hash__":171},"writing/writing/anyone-can-build-a-website.md","Anyone can build a website now. That was never the hard part.","Daniel Betts","/images/writing/author-daniel-betts.webp",{"type":9,"value":10,"toc":136},"minimark",[11,15,18,21,26,29,32,35,38,41,44,47,50,53,56,59,63,66,69,72,75,78,81,84,87,90,102,105,109,115,118,121,124,127,130,133],[12,13,14],"p",{},"When did a customer last find you through your website?",[12,16,17],{},"Not through Facebook. Not because someone passed your name along. Your website, doing the one job you built it for. If you can't quite remember, you're in good company, and it's worth understanding why.",[12,19,20],{},"When you started out building the site, it was all so easy...",[22,23,25],"h2",{"id":24},"building-a-website-is-fun","Building a website is fun!",[12,27,28],{},"Click, click - Squarespace account created in thirty seconds.",[12,30,31],{},"Now you're straight into browsing templates - scroll, scroll. This is the good bit, they all look great and there's something here for every business. You pick one you like the look of, and just like that you've got the shell of an entire website. You're only five minutes in.",[12,33,34],{},"You fill in a few page titles. Now you're, what, most of the way there? This is all highly rewarding stuff. Your website is coming together before your eyes and the dopamine is flowing.",[12,36,37],{},"Then you hit the first page that needs actual words on it.",[12,39,40],{},"Hmm. You have to write something here. This is a bit harder. You copy/paste in some text you wrote for something else and tell yourself you'll come back to it later.",[12,42,43],{},"Finally, you set up the all-important contact form and spend some time tweaking it to look really nice. Everybody that gets in touch with you via the site will use this so you want to get it right.",[12,45,46],{},"That's it. It was so easy! It's time to launch the site.",[12,48,49],{},"And then ...",[12,51,52],{},"Well, then nothing happens.",[12,54,55],{},"Nothing.",[12,57,58],{},"You check the analytics Squarespace gives you, and they confirm it: nobody is coming. Not the first day, not the next, not the week after. The contact form stays silent. Eventually you stop checking, because there's nothing to check. The only message you ever got from the site was the test message you sent to yourself.",[22,60,62],{"id":61},"who-cares-about-websites-anyway","Who cares about websites, anyway?",[12,64,65],{},"So you let it go.",[12,67,68],{},"The site isn't dead, exactly, but it might as well be. You could still send people the link when they hear about you some other way, except the homepage is a bit out of date now, and what's the point of fixing it when nobody's looking?",[12,70,71],{},"Better to put your energy where the people actually are. Update the Facebook page. Post on Instagram. At least someone sees those. And really, why even have a website? What is it for?",[12,73,74],{},"Who cares about websites! Right?",[12,76,77],{},"Here's who. The competitor sitting at the top of page one when someone searches for what you do. They care about websites enormously.",[12,79,80],{},"That spot, for a local service, isn't a vanity badge. It's a daily stream of enquiries from people who would otherwise never have found you. While your site sat there in the dark, theirs was quietly eating your lunch. They aren't lucky, and they aren't better at your actual job than you are. They simply understood something about websites that you didn't, and they knew what it would take.",[12,82,83],{},"So how did it come to this? What is it that makes two sites end up so far apart?",[12,85,86],{},"It comes down to one thing you were sold and never thought to question: that building a website is easy.",[12,88,89],{},"And it is. The part you did is easy now, and Squarespace made sure of it. But look at what they actually handed you. A blank canvas, beautifully prepared, with a cheerful note attached: \"the hard part's done, now just paint a masterpiece\".",[12,91,92,93,97,98,101],{},"Building a website has ",[94,95,96],"strong",{},"two"," hard parts. There's the technical scaffolding: the hosting, the security, the business of getting a page to load on a stranger's phone. And there's the real work: making the thing get found, earn trust, and turn a visitor into an enquiry. Squarespace solved the first part brilliantly, then quietly convinced everyone it was the ",[94,99,100],{},"only"," hard part.",[12,103,104],{},"It isn't. The second part is the whole game. And nobody is doing it for you.",[22,106,108],{"id":107},"the-hard-part","The hard part",[110,111,112],"blockquote",{},[12,113,114],{},"A platform can sell you the canvas. It can't sell you the painting.",[12,116,117],{},"So what is this second part, the one left entirely in your hands? It's actually three separate jobs, and every one of them is big.",[12,119,120],{},"The first is the site itself. Not assembling it (anyone can assemble a website now) but making it good. And good isn't something that just happens. A page that turns a stranger into an enquiry was very deliberately built to do it: to catch someone's interest, answer the question in their head at the moment they're asking it, earn their trust, and then lead them to the point where getting in touch feels like the obvious next step. And while it does all of that, it has to look like your business and nobody else's, not like a template a thousand other businesses picked too. None of that is accidental. It's a real discipline that people spend whole careers getting good at.",[12,122,123],{},"Then there's getting found, which is harder still, and the part a platform won't do for you. A site nobody can find may as well not exist. A search engine has to understand your site, trust it, and decide it deserves to sit on page one, in the very seat your competitor is currently occupying. And they're not going to shuffle up for you. It takes deliberate work, woven into the site from the start rather than sprinkled on at the end. Speed plays a part. So does structure. Almost without exception, template sites are heavier and slower than they look, and it counts against them.",[12,125,126],{},"And then, even with all of that working, you have to keep it alive. A website is never finished, only maintained or neglected. It has to stay current and accurate, it needs watching, and it needs fixing when it breaks. Things do break. Content goes stale. Your competitors don't sit still.",[12,128,129],{},"Here's the catch. Each of those three is a real skill on its own, and doing all three, properly, at the same time, is a full job. That's exactly why no platform can ever sell it to you. A platform can sell you the canvas. It can't sell you the painting.",[12,131,132],{},"Which leaves an honest choice, and both answers are respectable. If you've got the time, and you genuinely enjoy this enough to learn the craft, then build it yourself, with your eyes open this time about which part is the hard one. And if you haven't, or you'd sooner spend those hours running the business you're already good at, then you find someone to do it for you.",[12,134,135],{},"The one option that never works is the one most people take without realising: assume the easy part was the whole job, and then wonder, months later, why the website never brought them anything at all.",{"title":137,"searchDepth":138,"depth":138,"links":139},"",2,[140,141,142],{"id":24,"depth":138,"text":25},{"id":61,"depth":138,"text":62},{"id":107,"depth":138,"text":108},"2026-06-19T13:20:14.4574925","2026-06-18T12:00:00",false,"md","Building a website is easy now. So why does yours sit silent? Because assembling a site was never the hard part, and nobody is doing the rest for you.",null,{},true,"https://api.missionsystems.co.uk/api/images/2","/writing/anyone-can-build-a-website",5,[151],{"title":5,"description":14},{"name":157,"slug":158,"parts":159},"What a website is for","what-a-website-is-for",[160,163,165],{"title":161,"slug":162,"current":145},"People think websites don't matter. They do.","does-your-business-need-a-website",{"title":5,"slug":164,"current":150},"anyone-can-build-a-website",{"title":166,"slug":167,"current":145},"Solving the hard part: what a website actually needs in 2026","what-a-website-actually-needs","Squarespace sold you the canvas and called it the painting.",{"loc":152},"writing/anyone-can-build-a-website","X7urpmiD0Mg9Ajx8NggVELqsSvuYkMyeHCXnOew6OQs",1781883853979]