You’ve decided you need a website (or a better website, at least).

But that leads to an important question: Should you build it yourself… or pay someone else to do it?

If you’ve been putting off making a choice, you’re not alone. It feels like it should be an easy decision, but it’s one of those things that’s actually surprisingly hard to think through clearly — especially when doing a Google search brings up articles that argue persuasively for both options.

So what’s the truth? Like with so many things in life (and dog training): It depends.

And the deciding factor shouldn’t be whether you’re “good with computers,” or how much you care about your business. Instead, it should depend on a careful look at your budget, your schedule, and (maybe most importantly) your working style.

So let’s walk through those in a bit more detail.

When It Makes Sense to Hire a Professional Website Designer

Before we make the case for DIY, let’s be honest: paying a professional, if you can, may really be the smarter move.

(Not that I’m biased… ok, maybe I’m a little biased.)

If your budget allows for it, hiring a professional website designer to build your dog training website allows you to skip the learning curve entirely. A good designer will ask the right questions, translate your answers into a site that looks polished and works well, and hand it over to you ready to go. If that sounds appealing, it might be worth the investment.

A professional will know what works and what doesn’t — they’ll be able to work quickly and ensure your site follows industry and design best practices. The final design will look professionally done, which can often make it easier to ask for (and receive) more for your work.

Of course, professional web design runs anywhere from $3,000 to $8,000 or more, depending on who you hire and what you need. That can be a significant expense, especially if you’re early in your business and every dollar counts.

So when does that expense make the most sense?

As a professional website designer, I’d say that if you can realistically afford to pay for a professionally designed site — the investment is probably going to be worth it, even if you’re fairly tech savvy. Knowing and understanding how to apply best practices can really make a difference when it comes to how easy it is for potential clients to find you and how likely they are to hire you once they get to your site.

But I also realize that the reality is that many dog trainers truly cannot afford to make the investment.

If you’re on the fence, consider:

Do you genuinely have the time?

Building a website — even with good tools and clear instructions — takes real hours. If you’re training full-time, caring for a full household of your own dogs, and already stretched thin, adding a multi-week project to your plate may not be realistic. Your time has value, and if the hours you’d spend building a website would be better spent training dogs (or, you know, sleeping), that’s a legitimate reason to hire out.

Take a moment to consider what your hourly rate is as a trainer. If a pro can do in 20 hours what would take you 80, the math may favor hiring out.

Have you tried DIY before — if so, did it go well?

Note we’re not asking “Was it hard?” — most things worth doing are hard at first. But if you’ve started a website, gotten frustrated, and quietly closed the tab never to return… that pattern matters. A website that never gets finished doesn’t help anyone. If you know you have a tendency to start projects but struggle to get them over the finish line, that may be a sign that hiring someone else is the right choice. A good website designer will walk you through the process from start to finish, with a minimal investment of your time.

Do you have a specific vision?

Most dog trainer websites don’t need anything fancy — a clean, professional site that answers the right questions is plenty. But if you have specific design requirements that go beyond what standard tools can handle, a developer may be the right call.

The Case FOR Hiring It Out

To summarize, you probably want to hire a professional to build your website if…

• You genuinely have zero bandwidth — you’re full-time training and even finding time to think about a website is hard
• You have a specific, complex vision that requires custom coding or design work
• You’ve tried DIY before and it became an ongoing source of stress/shame you avoided updating
• You have the money but not the time. The honest cost reality: what’s your hourly rate as a trainer? If a pro can do it in 20 hours what would take you 80, the math may favor hiring out

If any of those sound like you, hiring out is probably worth the investment. Just make sure you go in with realistic expectations: even with a professional, you’ll still need to provide photos, write (or approve) copy, and communicate clearly about what you want. It’s not entirely hands-off — but it is a lot less hands-on.

When It Makes Sense to DIY Your Website

So when does building it yourself make more sense?

Honestly, for a lot of dog trainers — especially those earlier in their business — who have more time and less money, DIY is the only choice. With the tools available today, the gap between “built it myself” and “paid someone to do it” is smaller than it’s ever been.

Here’s when DIY tends to work well:

Budget is a real constraint.

This is probably obvious, but it’s often the deciding factor: if spending $3,000–$8,000 on a website isn’t realistic right now, that means your option is to DIY or not have a website. And if you’re a small business today, you need a website.

That’s not a failure — that’s just where you are. A well-built DIY site will always outperform not having a site.

You want to be able to update it yourself.

This one is underrated. Your website isn’t a one-and-done project — services change, prices change, photos get stale, and your business evolves.

While we do our best to ensure you can make the types of updates you’re most likely to want to make on your site after it launches, there’s nothing quite like having built it yourself to ensure you know how to change every detail.

You’re invested in staying involved in your marketing.

Understanding how your website works makes you a better steward of your own marketing. Even if you hire someone to redesign it down the road, knowing what you’re looking at means you can ask better questions, spot problems earlier, and never feel completely dependent on someone else to keep things running.

You actually have the time to do it properly.

If you decide to DIY your website, you’re going to need to carve out a few hours a week and follow a structured process. One of the places a project like this can go sideways is when a small business owner tries to build a site without a structured process… they fall into a never-ending wormhole of youtube videos, get halfway through building a site, then switch tools or technology because they learn something new, and have to start all over again.

So the key word here is structured — which brings us to the most important question of all.

The Question Nobody Asks: What Kind of DIYer Are You?

Not all DIY is created equal. There’s a big difference between:

• “I’ll figure it out from YouTube” (often leads to a half-finished site that never launches)
• “I’ll follow a structured process with support” (much higher success rate, and a very different experience)

The real risk of DIY isn’t that the result will look bad — it’s that it won’t get finished. Accountability and structure matter enormously here.

“I’ll figure it out as I go” may feel flexible and low-pressure, but it’s actually the reason so many websites never get finished. You spend three hours going down a Squarespace rabbit hole, watch a few YouTube videos, get overwhelmed by conflicting advice, and quietly close the laptop. A month later, you’re back to square one.

The second kind of DIY — where you have a structured process, clear steps, and some accountability — is much more likely to lead to success. Because the problem with most failed DIY websites isn’t the tools, and it isn’t the person. It’s the lack of a roadmap.

Before you decide to DIY, think about which kind of DIYer you tend to be.

Signs you might be able to DIY your site successfully:

• You’re comfortable learning new software (it doesn’t have to be your favorite thing — just something you know you’re realistically able to do)
• You have a few consistent hours a week to dedicate to the project
• You do well with step-by-step instructions
• You can ask for help when you get stuck rather than just… stopping

Signs DIY might not be the right fit right now:

• You’ve started a website before and never finished it
• You tend to work in bursts of inspiration rather than consistent progress
• The idea of following a process someone else designed makes you want to close this tab immediately

None of these is a dealbreaker — but they’re worth spending some time to think about before you commit one way or the other.

How to DIY Your Website (Without Inventing the Process Yourself)

If you’ve read this far and think DIY is going to be the best fit for you, the next step is choosing the right tools and process to help you build your site. That’s where my upcoming class with Fenzi Dog Sports Academy comes in.

The course, Building a WordPress Website, walks you through the entire process of building a website from scratch, step by step, over six weeks. Every lecture includes a video walking you through the steps, so you can watch exactly what to do before you do it, and screenshots.

And if you get stuck, you’re not alone — there’s support built right into the class structure at all three levels. I’m there to help students at Gold and Silver, and my TA, who works for me here at Click and Repeat, is there to help the bronze students in the student study group. Students who follow along consistently walk away at the end of six weeks with a finished, professional-looking website.

Not a half-finished project sitting in a browser tab. An actual, live website.

If that sounds like what you’ve been looking for, registration opened March 22nd and closes April 15th. You can find all the details — including what tools you’ll need and what the class costs — on the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy website (just click here).

So, Should You DIY Your Dog Trainer Website?

If you can afford to hire a professional and the idea of handing it off sounds like a relief — I’m going to recommend you do exactly that.

If budget is a constraint, but you can realistically dedicate a few hours a week to DIY, AND you’re the kind of person who does well with a clear process to follow — DIY is a completely viable option.

More than viable, actually. With the right tools and a little structure, you can end up with a site you’re genuinely proud of.

Just remember: the worst DIY outcome isn’t a DIY site that could look a little more polished (if you built the site yourself, you can work on that over time). It’s a website that never gets finished — or worse, never gets started — because the decision felt too hard to make.

If reading all this made you decide you want to hand it off to a pro, I encourage you to reach out! And if it made you feel ready to tackle building your site on your own, I’d encourage you to check out my upcoming class, Business End of the Dog – Building a WordPress Website. I’d love to have you join us.