It?s easy to get swept up in adverts for website builders such as Wix or Squarespace that promise the ability to build your own website in minutes. As a small business owner, you?ve got to watch every penny. So why should you pay a couple of thousand bucks to a web designer when you can do it yourself for a low monthly fee?
But there?s a catch. There is always a catch. The kind of website that you build with Wix or Squarespace is a million miles away from the kind of website a professional web designer will deliver. As one of your business? key pieces of collateral, it is important that your website does more than looking good. Don?t believe us? Here are five ways a Wix or Squarespace website will let your business down.
1. Your website won?t get found
Part of the reason many business owners get a website is to reach a larger customer base. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a great way for websites to attract users through search engines like Google. Website builders have notoriously bad SEO, however. Because these builders are drag-and-drop, they spit out a jumble of code that is so poorly structured it is hard for Google to crawl it. If Google struggles to crawl it, you'll rank badly. And there?s nothing you can do to improve it, either. That means that even if you hire an SEO agency, they will have a tough time working their magic on your website if it?s built using Wix.
2. It will look bad on mobile
You look at websites on your smartphone, right? Exactly, and so do millions of other Americans. In fact, more people access Google on their phones than on desktops or laptops. With so many potential customers using the Internet on their smartphone, it?s important that your website looks great on mobile devices. Unfortunately, these website builders primarily care about how your website looks on desktop PCs. There are no guarantees that it will work well or look good on smartphones. A web designer, on the other hand, will usually build up from mobile first to ensure that your site looks great on any device.
3. It will be slow
A fast website is key for great user experience. No one likes using a website that takes ages to load. In fact, most users will leave a website if it takes longer than a few seconds to load. If you want to convert visitors into customers, you need your website to be fast. Unfortunately, the bad code that makes it hard to rank a Squarespace website in Google also means your website will be slow. And just like with SEO, there?s very little you can do to improve it. A professional designer, however, will minimize code and images in order to make your website load as fast as possible. Your customers will thank you for it.
4. It won?t scale with your business
Most web designers will use a Content Management System (CMS) to build your website. This will usually be WordPress. A CMS lets you add new pages to your website and edit the content of your website after you have built it. So when you need to add a new service or write a new article, it?s incredibly easy to do. This isn?t the case with a website builder. Once you?ve built it, there?s very little you can do to change it. You?re stuck with it.
5. You can?t move it
Using a website builder like Squarespace or Wix doesn?t just mean that your website won?t scale, it?s also very difficult to move it if you decide to go in a different direction. Worse still, you don?t actually own the website. Wix or Squarespace owns the website and you must continue to pay them in order to use it. If you want to move away and have a website that you own or control, you?ll have to start from scratch. It?s much easier to hire a professional web designer from the start who can build a great website that is actually yours to own and use as you wish.
See? Using a website builder like Wix or Squarespace isn?t all it is cracked up to be. If you care about your business and want to hire a professional web designer, get started with a free quote from us today. We can build the WordPress website your business deserves.
http://www.throlson.com/free-quote/
