As a small business owner, its just good business to try and keep operating costs to a minimum. But there is also the old adage of "You have to spend money to make money".
Your company website falls into the second category.
Here are 5 Reasons why you shouldn't use a free website builder for your company site.
- Limited SEO Options Given what my company does, this is the most important reason we suggest alternatives to using something like Weebly or Wix for your main company website. Let me preface this by saying we are not completely opposed to using these type sites for micro-sites, quick one offs or for testing reasons. Ok, back to the SEO limitations.
SEO is an ever changing animal and to keep current with the expectations and trends, one often needs to get into the nuts and bolts of a website to really fine tune it to perform well in the search engines. The free sites offer very limited options when it comes to manipulating the code. The one size fits all approach to SEO that these free builders use makes it very difficult for you to rise above your competition.
- Customer Service- As with anything technology related, we all know that things break from time to time or don't quite work like they should. If you have engaged a reputable web development company, fixing your problem often times is as simple as picking up the phone and letting then know what the issue is.
In contrast, if something goes wrong with your free builder site, you are facing some potentially really long wait times on the phone, to end up speaking with an outsourced customer service agent that is reading from a script. Or you can pull up your hip waders and dive into the knowledge base and hope you find your answer. I don't know about you, but this looks like no fun and awfully daunting.
- Limited Design Options - Sure you can probably find something that will work for your company, but it doesn't do much to differentiate you from your competitors. Becoming a skilled designer takes years of training, knowledge and just plain doing it .... a lot. Website are more than just how they look. Designers take into consideration things like mobile experience, site structure, site loading times and a myriad of other factors. With the cookie cutter templates you are at the mercy of what the template dictates.
- You're Stuck. - If you decide to change platforms or want to mover your site over to another web host...well let's just say, it's not an easy task and you are looking at a long night of copying and pasting over to your new site. There are options to export your site, but there are elements that are tied to Weebly, Wix etc that are not going to work on your new host.
- Reputation and Branding Concerns. Your website is essentially your online business card. Ever been at social mixer and gotten a business card from someone that used a free business card template? The tag line of "Get your free business cards here" doesn't really do much to bolster your professional appearance.
The same can be said for your company site if its built on a free platform. The " CREATE A FREE WEBSITE " moniker on the bottom of your website isn't doing you any favors. Your company may be the best in town, but on the internet decisions are made in milliseconds...why not put your best foot forward?
In Conclusion :
Its a bit harsh, but your free website may actually cost you money in the long run when a visitor to your site leaves your site and decides to call your competition because they have a professionally designed website and they give the perception that they are a "real" business.
Sure building your own website is something you can do, but is it the best approach for your business?
If your transmission breaks in your car, do you fix it yourself? Nope. You find a mechanic.
A mechanic has the tools, expertise and experience to fix it and fix it the first time.
As a business owner, you realize that there are necessary costs involved in running your business. You pay for computers, phone service, advertising etc. Yet, we still see many business owners trying to save money by using a free website platform. In the long run, your free website may actually be costing you money and be a source of lost business opportunities.