The Importance Of A Great Bike Rental Website: Should you do it yourself or hire an agency?
When it comes to growing your bike rental business, having a quality website can make a huge difference. Nowadays, people use the internet to answer almost any query, whether it’s to do their shopping, find out the football score or learn more about duck-billed platypi. This means that when potential riders want to see your opening times or book their bike rental session, the first place they’re going to look is online.
Why do you need a great bike rental website?
In today’s society, your website needs to look good and create a positive first impression. As websites and user habits grow more sophisticated, this has become increasingly important and user expectations are constantly being set higher. Even the slightest bit of friction or bad design could reflect poorly on your services and cause your visitors to look elsewhere.
This is so important that 75% of people assess a company’s credibility based on web design alone. This means that when creating an online base for your bike rental business, you’ll need to make sure you have a site that’s user friendly, on-brand and does exactly what your visitors expect it to do. That way, you can give your customers an enjoyable experience that inspires trust in your services right from the start.
But do you need to hire a professional agency to build your website, or would a DIY website be good enough? This is one of the biggest questions facing many of our bike rental managers, and the answer all depends on your personal circumstances and what you want from your website.
Let’s take a look at some of the benefits of creating your own bike rental website compared to those using a website design agency.
The benefits of a DIY bike rental website
1. Lower costs
When you’re just beginning your journey as a bike rental manager, cost is going to be the biggest factor when choosing between a professional agency or making your own website. Completely free templates will typically involve ads that will come across as unprofessional. However, paid versions can offer a professional-looking result for a more affordable price than an agency, making them a great choice for starting up a bike rental business.
2. Ease of use
Nowadays there are multiple website builders like Squarespace which are easy to use, featuring a straightforward drag and drop system with pre-made themes. With plenty of tutorials and guidance available online, these are fairly straightforward to use when it comes to creating a basic website. And if you’re willing to learn some coding, there are hundreds of WordPress templates available to choose from along with thousands of plugins, giving you added customisation and functionality.
3. Quick launch
Creating your own website also puts you in control of your timings. If you use a template or web builder and you’re a fast learner, then creating a website by yourself means you can get it up and running fairly quickly without waiting for others to schedule in your project. Building your own website is a great option if you want to get your online presence established quickly, making it the perfect off-season project.
The Benefits of Hiring an Agency
1. Standing out from the crowd
When using a template, you could end up forcing the layout to work which results in a not-so-perfect design. On the other hand, if you can make it work, then it’s not going to be anything original.
In contrast, an agency will give you a website design that’s completely unique to you. This means you’ll have an online home that’s on-brand for a seamless experience across all touchpoints, reinforcing your brand’s credibility while helping you stand apart from your competitors.
2. Full functionality
Given that templates have their limitations, forcing them to work for what you need can also impact the user experience. This is where a bespoke website shines, giving you the power and flexibility to adapt to the changing needs of your growing bike rental business.
By working with a professional agency, your website can go beyond the basic premade plugins. This means you could have one custom plugin to do the job of several ready-made ones, clearing away any unnecessary parts for faster load times and a website that does exactly what you need.
3. Great user experience
Agencies keep up with all the latest trends in user habits, giving them the insight needed to create a website that’s enjoyable to use. Drawing on this expertise, they’ll be able to make sure your website is fast, responsive and easy to navigate. In other words, it’ll be designed in a way that encourages your visitors to take action and convert them into customers.
You can read more about how to improve your bike rental website and get more bookings here. Working with an agency will give you the best chances of ticking off each box on this list.
4. Help with SEO
If you want to grow your online presence and get your organic traffic flowing, then you’ll need a website designed with SEO in mind. SEO, or Search Engine Optimisation, helps make sure your website ranks higher for the most relevant searches. This increases your exposure to the right people, giving you more chance of reaching your target audience.
While keywords are important, SEO goes much deeper and is embedded within the very structure of your website. Closely related to the overall user experience, your website needs to be built in a way that’s clear and easy to navigate. This is much harder to remedy once the website is built, but by working with an agency right from the start, you can make sure you have the foundations you need without having to start again at a later date.
5. Security
An agency will help keep your plugins updated and make sure your website is hosted on a secure server. This prevents hackers from finding an entrance, keeping your website safe and secure. If you choose to build your own website, you’ll need to stay on top of your plugins yourself which can be difficult during peak season.
Should anything go wrong, then they’ll also have a backup of your website. This will give you peace of mind that your website is both secure and accessible, while also giving you the option to upgrade or move your site should your needs change later on.
The Bottom Line for DIY Websites Vs. Hiring an Agency
Whether you choose to create your own website or hire an agency will all depend on where you’re at on your bike rental journey. If you’re just starting out and have a low budget, then a DIY website is a great solution for giving you some form of online presence quickly. However, this can take some learning and as your business grows, the functionality becomes restricted. This is where an agency can help.
Once you have the budget available, a web design agency will create a fully functional and responsive website that’s entirely on-brand and does exactly what you need. And by choosing an agency that specialises in SEO, you can use it to extend your reach even further and continue to grow your business.
If you’re happy to use a WordPress template or a website builder like Squarespace, then make a list of what features you want it to have and take a look at what’s available. If they have exactly what you need, then that’s fantastic, but if you want more functionality or guidance, first put together a realistic budget.
There are some agencies out there that support start-up businesses, so no matter how small your budget might be, it’s always worth asking. Here at yoyo, we know that starting out can feel like an uphill cycle which is why our bike rental management software is free forever for 1-10 bikes. We even offer a free 1-month trial for all our other packages, too. So before you rule out an agency based on price, ask around and see what advice you can get.
Whichever route you choose, our support team are on hand to help integrate our bike rental management system within your website. This gives your visitors a direct line to book out your bikes, helmets and other accessories from anywhere in the world at any time. Click here to find out more about how we can help boost your bookings and streamline your bike rental business.