Why you shouldn’t use website builders. You’ve seen the commercials before… “Build your own stunning website in just a few minutes!” Websites like Wix, Squarespace and Weebly offer do it yourself websites at a very cheap price. These website builder tools are making a killing off business owners who don’t know the difference between one of these pages and a real website with semantic markup and search engine optimized code.
Most importantly the problem is that creating a good website is more than just throwing a few elements on a page, slapping your phone number on it, and letting it go.
To make a really good website, you need to create an experience for the user. Because a website should be built with the user in mind to create a perfect user flow and smooth UX (user experience). This requires a good website structure and the latest SEO (search engine optimization) techniques as well as a professional design…
I have compiled 16 reasons why you shouldn’t use website builders or all-in-one sites.
1. You Don’t Own the Website
The first reason you shouldn’t use a website builder is like I mentioned before, you aren’t able to migrate a site created with a website builder. Which also means that you don’t even own the website. If you wanted to move it, you couldn’t… which means the company you built it with, owns it. You don’t even have root access needed to customize code, back up and restore.
2. Not ‘Stunning’
Many website builder companies like to say that you can create a stunning website with their software. The problem is that ‘stunning’ has a context. If the last time your website was redesigned was 10 years ago, then a 1 page Wix website may seem stunning to you. But technology is growing very fast and the web design market has grown with it.
Stunning websites these days are much more than just a single page that a lawyer, doctor or chiropractor throws together in 30 minutes. When we build a website we create an experience for the user that engages them and builds trust. A stunning website is a website that brings in traffic and converts that traffic to paying customers and most website builder sites don’t do that. They do not offer multi-level marketing campaigns with pop up funnels for those campaigns. Site builders cannot capture leads and send newsletters. They cannot do live chat with you and your site visitors. And they don’t have a deep level of function customization.
3. Only 1-Page
Most website builders only offer a single page to be created which is bad for SEO and terrible for creating an online presence. Websites should be multiple pages and constantly be growing in pages. That is the only way to keep Google bots coming back and keeping your website relevant. If you are not adding new content after a while google will consider your site dead and that will be detrimental to your ranking.
It should not be possible to showcase your business in just one page. No one wants to scroll down an extremely long page that goes on forever. Websites should be sectioned off into different pages and levels to explain the business, who are you, what you do, where you are located and how to contact you.
4. No Support
In order for a website to grow, you have to water it. When you create a website with Weebly, Wix or Squarespace you don’t get the support you need or deserve. Is should not be your job to keep your website running and up-to-date!
What if your website goes down or something stops working on it? Do you have the skills it takes to fix it before your customers notice? A lot of the time, certain pieces of a website can stop working and you may not even know it. Customers may be trying to contact you, but you’re not a webmaster, how would you know?
Having a dedicated support team is essential and necessary to have an online website. They can make sure your website is up, running and functional so that your customers can find you 24/7, 365.
What about the learning curve of that builder to initially get your site up and going? How much is your time worth? Can you delegate your companies first impression to one of your employees? Would you want to trust your online image to the person answering your phones? If so how many hours is it going to take them to get it right in conjunction with your expectations? Don’t forget the revision that you want to make. Let’s say you are paying them $10/hour(and most people make more) it could easily take 50 hours to get even a basic three-page site built by someone who is not an expert. Don’t forget they also need to know how to select the right images and how to edit those images for your site.
5. Bad SEO
One of the worst parts of using a website builder to create a business website is that the builder spits out a jumble of code that is not structured well. It doesn’t contain the necessary elements to help websites rank better in Google.
SEO Stands for search engine optimization and its the methodology of making your website show up higher in Google and other search engines. There are many pieces to SEO but one of the most important parts is on-page SEO. This is the code and structure of the site and they have a large impact on the SEO-friendliness of the website.
When you build your site with these website builders you do not have control of the code…just the design. You can’t use structured data to increase your local SEO or even add content. Growing your online presence is a huge part of getting more online visitors and customers. These website builders don’t allow you to create new content so you will rarely rank in Google.
6. Flash Based
Another reason website builders are bad for SEO is that they are flash-based. Google and other search engines can’t read flash so they have no idea what the website is about. Not to mention that flash is very slow and kind of old school.
Flash is also very insecure, can’t be searched, doesn’t have text content, and is a nightmare for search bots. I highly suggest staying away from website builders that use flash.
7. No Website Structure or Data
The other issue with only have 1 page is that you do not have a website structure which is essential to SEO. When a website is organized nicely and according to a site hierarchy, you make search engines very happy and they are often going to rank that website higher. A URL structure should be organized to match the hierarchy. When you create a website with companies like Wix, Weebly or Squarespace, you aren’t going to get a good hierarchy or structure…
8. Devalues Your Business
Let’s do some math… Wix.com currently has over 90 million users. On their website, they mention that they have about 500 customizable templates. If we do some simple math… 90,000,000 users / 500 templates = 180,000. That means that if you use Wix, you are probably using the same template as 180,000 other people.
This really diminishes your brand in so many ways. Not only do 180,000 other peoples websites resemble yours, customers know you are using a cheap website builder to create a website and brand.
48% of people cited a website’s design as the number one factor in deciding the credibility of a business (source: IronPaper)
Customers want to know you are a legitimate business that spends more than $30 on their online brand. This builds trust and brand awareness. When you go the cheap route with your business website, you are going to get cheap results.
9. No Competitor Diversification
With 180,000 other people using the same template, how are you going to differentiate yourself from your competitors? If a customer had the choice between a business with a Wix website or a business with a custom-designed website, who do you think they would choose?
10. Not Mobile Friendly
Having a mobile-friendly website is probably the most important thing on this list. This should be obvious since pretty much everyone has a cell phone with access to the internet.
62% of companies that designed a website specifically for mobile had increased sales. (Source: Econsultancy)
When you use a website builder you aren’t going to get responsive website design. Sure, it may look decent on a desktop computer, but did you happen to check it out on a mobile device? or a tablet? It’s very important for a website to work on all devices because users are accessing the web from a lot of different ways and your website should be ready.
11. Not CMS (content management system) Based
CMS systems are a powerful tool to help manage websites and their content. Content management systems like WordPress facilitate writing, editing, organizing, and publishing content online.
You can have full control over files, design, documents, and how you display your content.
When you use a website builder you are creating static HTML web pages that are no match for content management systems.
12. Your Stuck With It
Migration is not possible when you use a website builder. That means that if you wanted to move your website somewhere else, you wouldn’t be able to.
Having your website run on a CMS system allows you to migrate from host to host easily without website interruption.
13. Slow Website Speed
Having a slow website is bad for visitors, sales, and even search engine rankings. Google knows everything about your website including how long it takes to load it. If it takes a long time to load, you will get dinged in the search engines and probably by your visitors as well.
The change in a website bounce rate spikes to 100% when a page takes 4 seconds or more to load. It jumps to 150% if a page takes 8 seconds or more to load. (Source:Hubspot)
With companies like Wix and Squarespace, you are on a server with a ton of other people. This creates fewer resources and slower websites which is bad for everyone.
Websites should be hosted on a fast server that doesn’t have a large number of other websites hosted on it.
14. No Analytics or Reports
Knowing what’s happening on your site is really important for testing and evolving your website. You need a good way to track visitors, leads, and what people are doing on your website. With website builders, you simply can’t do this. My sites come with live statistics and reports. So when you are spending money on ads we can track their performance.
15. Advertisements
Having a large advertisement to create your own site for free is not something you want to display on your website.
Not only does it devalue your brand but it takes away from the user experience of a website. It instantly tells me that this website owner doesn’t care enough to invest in a real website. Other signs are the icon on the browser tab, the loading text on the bottom right while its loading, or the “Powered by:” at the very bottom all right there in plain sight.
16. Not an Actual Domain Name
Another reason why you shouldn’t use website builders is with some you don’t even get your own domain name. They will give you a URL like mycompany.wix.com or goodbusiness.weebly.com which is pretty much worthless. This diminishes brand value, trust, and the likelihood that anyone is going to contact you to do business from your website. You can pay to remove their name from the URL but that only hides the problem slightly.
Having your own domain name is what sets you apart on the web. It allows you to build backlinks to your domain increasing the traffic and customers.
Spirit Tribe Studio 4.0 Tour
Wrapping Up
In conclusion, its a very bad idea to create your business website using a cheap website builder like Wix, Weebly or Squarespace, and others. Many customers shy away from businesses that use these types of services to create their website. It makes your company seem less professional.
Instead, enlist the help of a professional website design company that can create a responsive website for an affordable price. Stop trying to do it yourself and redesign your website to adhere to the latest standards and SEO practices so that you can grow your online presence resulting in more traffic, leads, and customers.
I suggest buying your domain and hosting yourself at the very least if you want to do the design yourself. You can search domain names and buy your hosting from me at shop.rhondacosgriffdesigns.com then you own it yourself and can decide if you want to do the design ourselves or hire a professional from that point.
