Creating a website used to be a great deal more complicated. You needed time and money to learn coding back then. Even to this day, not everyone is super technical or savvy with web technology. A lot of businesses are also new to the world of online promotion and may not know where to start.
Website builders were developed for these reasons and more. Many, many companies now exist that offer these builders to budding entrepreneurs and new web designers who want to build a website themselves. They’re cheap to purchase and cheap to use…and if you read our past blog post, you know that cheap isn’t all it’s cracked up to be…
These builders are a good launchpad for some companies starting out. However, there’s always a catch with things like websites, and we’re to tell you about that cost. Here are the downsides of using a website builder for your business and why it’s better to invest in a professional web design company like V3…even if you’re only beginning to blossom as a business.
- Lousy for professionals
The whole appeal of website builders are generally for those who don’t have the money or time to learn coding, or they have a basic enough knowledge but they’re not entirely advanced. We get it, too; not everyone can afford a new website from the get-go, and depending on the type of business you have, it can take a while to build your brand (and for some, time isn’t something they have a lot of). That being said, first impressions always count and the same applies to sites built from builders by people who don’t know anything about website design.
If your very first customer’s very first impression of your new website built from a builder is that it’s cheaply made and looks like your competition’s site down the road (minus the actual effort put into making it), that means you’re going to have that much more trouble convincing everyone your business is professional and credible. If you’re deciding on using website builders because they are cheap, let’s remind you real quick: ‘cheap’ is not an appealing word anymore because it means giving up quality for speed (coincidentally that’s another thing you may lose…more on that later).
If you want your business to be taken seriously from the get-go, ditch the website builder and ask for help from website development professionals who have the combined experience and education to build a website properly. While it’s great to encourage students and those starting out, it’s less great to let them take full responsibility of building a website all by their lonesome, from top to bottom.
- No custom design options
Compared to the really good websites we’ve come across and built in the past, we’ve seen that most website builders are not actually as well-designed for unique customization as you may think. The majority of builders offer free templates, but these often appear very generic and unsuitable for that logo you worked hard to improve already. It’s also likely they don’t function very smoothly on mobile devices either, nor do they allow for any additional SEO features your website will really need going forward. On top of that, if you need something extra added, that’s impossible with most builders.
At the end of the day, when it comes to customization, website builders are just simply inadequate for the job. If you’re aiming for a professional layout and design that’s unique to your brand and logo appearances, then skip the builders and ask for professional help.
- Worse SEO & load times
Looks aren’t everything, and that rings especially true for websites. While website builders are usually relied on for appearance’s sake, the devil is in the details. Unstructured, messy codes in the programming are an absolute no-no when it comes to web design and development alike. The better structured the coding and the more organized it is in terms of category, the happier the search engines will be to rank your site highly.
So…guess what website builders are filled with?
Here’s the thing: using website builders doesn’t automatically mean you are in complete charge of the code it’s built upon–you don’t have that control. The only thing you can control is the design, and that’s it. And as we’ve mentioned before, speed means a lot when it comes to SEO and credibility for websites alike (we wrote a whole blog post you can read here about it and everything).
Having a great website for credibility’s sake isn’t everything. You need a website that loads fast and is well-organized. Sites that rely on free website builders load way too slow and their code is too messy for Google’s requirements. In comparison, solidly built websites on paid platforms rank much higher and function better, and they even look better too.
- Limitations, limitations everywhere
Another perk you won’t find in standard site builders is the ability to customize a website however you see fit. Plus, once a site is built for you by our company, you own it—it doesn’t belong to anyone else. In contrast, you need to sign up for an expensive premium plan in order to access the better features from site builders, and even then they have their limits. An account will only allow you to create a certain number of pages. Some allow up to five, while others only give one or two, and that’s it. And we know that the less content a website has, the less keywords you’ll be able to use which equals way less traffic and searches for your website.
People pay attention to sites that frequently update content, especially their blogs, and grow constantly. You won’t get that kind of growth by settling on a website builder. And while a small handful of these builders offer better features in premium plans, most don’t.
- Poor customer service
Need help while using your free website builder to build your site? Tough luck, because the technical support for that sort of thing is usually of lower quality. So, if you should encounter a technical problem while using your site builder…you’re on your own. The only solution you will have is to scour forums and consult there, or pray that the tech support team will finally respond to your email.
In contrast, our support team is pretty much on the job 24/7. Even if our regular office hours are closed, we’re still responding to your concerns and we deal with technical difficulties right away. That’s how seriously we take our work at V3.
Bonus: Reliance on Flash
Some website builders are still using Flash, and as we all know, Flash is basically dead at this point (you can read our article all about that here). Not only will your site not appear on search engines (they can’t read Flash anymore already), but also your site’s growth will be stunted or ground to a halt completely.
Get the Website Your Company Deserves
We know you care about your business and how you want it to look. Trust us when we say that functionality matters just as much as looks! If you want to get your business the website it truly deserves, don’t go cheap and rely on site builders. It’ll only amount to not only a severe headache and wasted time, but also wasted money. Give us a call today if you want to get a website built for your company, and built professionally every step of the way.