Free Website Builders – Asset or Hype?
You’ve heard the old adage: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
This concept applies in life and certainly in business. If you’re like us, you’re probably bombarded daily with advertisements from digital marketing services that will “help you gain thousands of customers” and “generate millions of dollars in sales,” and – get this – they’re FREE!
It sounds like an amazing deal, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, the reality doesn’t live up to the hype.
Free website builders and companies that advertise they’ll build your website for free sound particularly attractive to business owners. You know you need a website in the digital era, but the cost of building a custom website can be a major expense on top of all the other startup costs. The reality is, the true cost of a “free” website builder is more than most businesses can afford.
Free Doesn’t Always Mean Free
Many website builders promote free versions, but you don’t learn until after you’ve signed up that many essential features are only available with a paid subscription. Their free website builders offer a narrow selection of design themes, limit the number of pages you can create, or require you to include advertisements, among a multitude of other restrictions.
Is it Really Your Site?
Most free website builders are hosted on the provider’s own servers, so you don’t have access to your own website files. When you eventually decide it’s time to upgrade your site, you’re locked into the website builder platform unless you’re willing to start from scratch!
Will Anyone Find You?
Search engines don’t care about fancy front-end design; instead, web crawlers interpret well-organized URL structure, fast loading speed, and relevant text-based content to rank your site on search engines. Free website builders generally don’t offer control over back-end functions like search engine optimization (SEO). They don’t allow you to set meta descriptions, meta keywords, alt text for images, title tags and other optimization essentials. Free website builders also tend to include a lot of unnecessary code, which slows down your site.
Need Help? You’re Out of Luck
Let’s face it, if you’re looking for a free website builder, you’re probably not a website designer or developer. Thus, there will come a point when you need help, and – surprise, surprise – free website builders don’t offer free support.
You Get What You Pay For
The bottom line is, investing in a professional website is a worthwhile expense. The web development experts at VIB follow best-practices in all our web design services without the limitations of free website builders.
Not only do we handle all of the technical aspects of development, we create websites that you own. We work closely with you to design a website that embodies your brand. And our sites are designed and written for both search engines and readers to understand.
If you’re ready to present a new, fresh digital look for your Very Important Business, call us at 844-304-7536 or email info@vibmarketing.com. We look forward to hearing from you!