I have so many people ask me weekly why would I pay someone to design a website for me when I can use a free website builder. This is the most annoying question, but I understand people don’t know the reason. Everyone thinks they can use the website builder to develop a stunning website. It’s true you can create a website on there, but trust me it won’t be stunning. Here are my top 10 reasons why you shouldn’t use a website builder. Pay the money for a developer. It’s all about the quality of work.
1. Not Google’s Friend
These website builders are not Google friendly. Google needs to be able to verify your site webmaster tools and it can’t. You might not have a clue of what I’m talking about, but if you want a good site you want webmaster tools in the backend. These tools do a number of things like monitor the site downtime, crawl rates, search traffic, and others. You want to make a site that will be Google’s friend otherwise kiss your traffic goodbye.
2. No Data
With the drag and drop features you can’t create page titles, have keywords, and some don’t give you an option to add meta data. Meta data is very useful for talking to search engines and helping your organic page ranks.
3. No Supoort
If you mess up or do something wrong who are you going to call? No one. You have no support with these builders. Pay for a developer so you can call when you want something fixed or changed. Don’t waste your time dealing with your website builder and getting angry. I’m sure you do some time of advertising, do you do it yourself as well? If you don’t then why would you do your website by yourself?
4. First Impressions Can Be Horrible
Your website should be treated like your actual store front or office. Do you want someone to walk into your store or office and hate it? I didn’t think so. Don’t do this with your online presence either. You want that wow factor when someone visits your website. This will help those visitors return to your site, spread the word about your company, and possibly become clients. Almost all sites I’ve seen built with these free builders look like crap. Please prove me wrong if you can, but they’re all bad. Those free templates look like a second grader designed them.
5. Hidden Costs
Yeah they say the sites are free to build, but that’s just for a basic site. You are just added as a subdomain to their domain (e.g. www.yourbizname.sitebuilder.com). If you want your own domain name you have pay for it. Then you’ll need hosting for your website which costs as well. Then you might want to pay for a theme. It all adds up and adds up quickly. Before you know it your paying a couple hundred a month or more. Don’t get blindsided with these hidden costs and go with a designer of your choice.
6. No Difference
Plenty of companies and individuals use Godaddy or Pix (what ryhmes with pix) for their site builders. So do millions of others and there are only so many templates to go around. I’m sure someone else out there has a website that looks exactly like your site. Stay away from these.
7. Not 100% Mobile Friendly
For the most part these are mobile friendly, but you can run into issues with your unique features. You may add an image that looks great on the desktop, but it looks bad on your mobile device. Think you have the power to fix that? Think again, for one I’m sure you don’t know coding and two they don’t give you an option to fix this.
8. Ad Placement
They always have to show who the site was built by. Example, “This site was built using blah site builder.” You’re given this company free ad space on your website and everyone knows your cheap. You don’t want to do this, it’s bad practice.
9 Nothing is Built in One Day
You can build a site in about the same time it takes to bake some cookies, but will it hold like the Wall of China? The wall wasn’t built in one day why would you think your company website can be built that fast? It’s all about quality. Your developer and designer will make the coding very Google friendly and the layouts will be unique. It just takes time so be patient.
10. Developers Are Here For You
Developers and designers take pride in their work. For me it’s an artform so I want my sites to look the very best. We are always here for you when you need something or want explanation on how something works. We care a lot about our clients and want to make them happy. We want to help your business grow. The good we do for you we hope to get in return. This can be by referrals or someone visiting your site noticing who built it.
There are plenty of reasons to stay away from these free website builders. I could only name a few. Be sure to do your research and find a developer you like and trust. They’ll make your website unique and stand out. Also, they’ll be able to make your website responsive and it’ll be Google friendly. All these things will help boost your traffic and quality of leads as well.
If you want more info about web development or design please fill out my contact form. I would love to hear from you about anything and everything. If you have a question about your site or just want me to look it over I’d be more than happy to help.