// website guide
Can I update my own website without a developer?
Short answer. Yes, but only if your site was built for it. Whether you can change your own opening hours next Tuesday was decided long before you asked, on the day someone chose how to build your site. Most small business owners find out the hard way.
The thing nobody warns you about
Here is how it usually goes.
You get a website built. You are happy with it. Six months later your prices change, or you take on a new service, or the photo on the home page is of a staff member who has since left.
You email your developer. Three days later you get a reply. A week after that the change is made. There is an invoice for R850 for what turned out to be twenty minutes of work.
You do the sum in your head and decide the photo can stay. And that is how a website slowly goes stale, one small change at a time, until it is quietly telling customers the wrong thing.
This is not always the developer being greedy. Often it is because the site simply was not built to be edited by anyone else. But the outcome is the same for you.
What a CMS actually is
You will hear the letters CMS thrown around. It stands for content management system, and it is a plain enough idea underneath the jargon.
It is a separate screen you log into where you can change the words and pictures on your website without touching any code. Type the new price, press save, and it appears on the site.
That is all it is. A back door for editing, so the person who owns the business can change things without needing the person who built it.
Some sites have one. Many small business sites do not, because adding one takes extra work at build time and it is easy to leave out of a cheap quote.
Your realistic options, honestly compared
WIX, SQUARESPACE AND OTHER BUILDERS
You can absolutely edit these yourself, and that is their whole appeal. Drag things around, change text, done. The trade-offs are real though. You are renting, not owning. Your site lives on their platform and cannot be moved off it, so if their prices go up or they change something you do not like, you start again from scratch. They are also slower than a hand-built site, which affects how you rank on Google.
WORDPRESS
Roughly four in ten websites run on it, and it does come with a proper editing screen. The catch is that WordPress is a machine with a lot of moving parts. Plugins need updating, and when one update breaks another, your site breaks with it. It is also the most attacked platform on the internet, precisely because it is the most common. You end up either paying someone to maintain it, or finding out the hard way that nobody was.
HAND-BUILT, NO CMS
Fast, secure, exactly what you want it to look like, and completely uneditable by you. Every change goes through the developer. This is the trap a lot of small businesses walk into without realising, because nobody thinks to ask at the quoting stage.
HAND-BUILT WITH A PROPER CMS
The best of both, in theory. Fast and custom, with an editing screen. The honest snag is that most CMS admin screens are built for people who work with them daily. If you log in twice a year, it is intimidating enough that you put it off.
How we do it: your content in a Google Sheet
We build custom sites from scratch, no templates and no WordPress. But we still want you to be able to change your own prices.
So the content lives in a Google Sheet. Your services, your prices, your opening hours, your gallery captions. One row per item, in a spreadsheet you already know how to use.
You change a cell. The website updates.
There is no new system to learn, no password to lose, no admin screen you have not opened since 2024. If you can use a spreadsheet, you can run your own website content. Your bookkeeper can do it. Your daughter can do it while you are on the road.
Where this approach has limits
We would rather tell you the trade-offs than have you find them out later.
CONTENT, NOT LAYOUT
You can change the words, the numbers and the photos. You cannot move a section to a different part of the page or change the design. That is still a job for us, and it is what the R750 a month retainer covers if you want it.
SOMEONE CAN BREAK IT
If a column gets deleted or renamed, things can go wrong. It is a spreadsheet, so the fix is usually undo, and we keep an eye on the site anyway as part of the R250 a month care.
IT SUITS SOME SITES BETTER
If your content changes daily, or several people need to edit at once, a proper CMS is the better tool and we will say so.
Full pricing for the retainer and monthly care is on our website cost guide.
What to ask before you commission any website
Whoever you end up using, ask these. The answers tell you a lot.
- 01Can I change my own text and prices after launch, and how?
- 02If yes, show me. What does the editing screen actually look like?
- 03If no, what does a small change cost and how long does it take?
- 04Is the domain registered in my name?
- 05Do I own the site files if I want to move on?
If someone is vague about the first three, you are looking at a future of R850 invoices for twenty minute jobs.
// common questions
Updating your own site, answered.
Do I need to know any code to update my own website?
No. Not for content. Changing text, prices and photos should never require code on a properly built site. Changing layout or adding new sections usually does, and that is normal.
Can you add editing to a website I already have?
Sometimes. It depends how the existing site was built. Send us the address and we will tell you honestly whether it is worth doing or whether you are better off rebuilding.
What happens if I break something?
On our sites, not much. The content sits in a Google Sheet with version history, so it can be undone. We also watch the site as part of the monthly care, so if something looks wrong we usually spot it before you do.
Is this the same as Wix?
No. With Wix you rent the whole website from Wix and you cannot take it with you. Here you own a custom built site outright, and the spreadsheet is simply how you edit the words on it.
Stuck paying someone every time your prices change?
That is a solvable problem. Send us a WhatsApp with your website address and we will tell you straight whether it can be fixed or whether starting again makes more sense. No question is too basic. Your website, sorted.
[ WHATSAPP US → ]061 382 9267