Why Shouldn’t I Build My Own Free Website?

Suppose you need a place to live. A “friend” offers, “You can live with me for a few months – no need to pay me!” Then, three months later, your friend tells you, “Okay, now that you’ve gone to the trouble to move all your things and have gotten settled, your ‘free trial’ is up. You need to start paying me now. And by the way, because I let you live here for free, all your things are now mine. If you decide to leave, they need to stay here as payment.” Crazy, right? Actually, this is a likely scenario if you enter into a contract with a company offering a free website.

One of the most frequent questions our team hears from small business owners is, “Why do I need you to build my website? Can’t I do this myself for free?” Becky Chumley, Evolve Impact Group’s Director of Digital Marketing, explains it like this. “The world of technology is constantly changing and it is important to stay on top of new design trends and resources that will help you get the most out of your website. Our developers live and breathe website development and are always working to maximize your website’s impact.”

Need more convincing? Check out this list of 16 reasons below.

1. Your website might not be free forever. Companies often lure customers in by offering a free service initially. A few months later, after your site is up and running, they will begin charging, knowing that you will lose all the information on your site if you leave.
    
2. When the company offering the website begins to start charging, it will be expensive. Banking on the fact that you have already put a great deal of time into your website, they will charge you a premium to ensure your website continues. Ironically, you may pay more for a “free” website in the long run than you would to just hire a professional website designer in the first place.
    
3. You lose ownership of your content. You can add great content to your website and make it look great, but it is never really yours; it’s owned by the provider. Sometimes, your uploaded content is even considered “payment” for hosting your website.
    
4. Free websites have unprofessional domain names. A website address like “mysmallbusiness.Freewebsite.com”, does not give your customers a good first impression.
    
5. These websites are often poorly designed. Cheap looking websites are not the best way to make a positive impact. Keven Crenshaw, the CEO of Evolve Impact Group, puts it this way. “When building a free website, you might not have access to all of the features and formatting to make your website look and function the way that you want it too. A professional developer can go all the way to the code level to ensure that your website is the best representation of your high-quality brand.”
    
6. Site visitors may doubt your credibility. Not only do free websites look unprofessional, they send the message that you aren’t willing to invest in your business.
    
7. Some free websites are not mobile friendly. As a result, you are losing many potential customers.
    
8. Your site could go down at any time.  The website hosting company can remove it at any time without warning.
    
9. If the site goes down, your content is gone for good. Sometimes, they may even charge you to bring it back.
    
10. Your site may be plastered with advertising. The company hosting your “free” website is doing so to make money. One of the way they do this is by placing ugly advertising banners on your site. You might even find out that you’re advertising your competitors.
     
11. Your site may be more vulnerable to hackers. Unlike a digital marketing company, security is not the top priority of free website providers.
     
12. You’ll have limited disk space. Uploading pictures and videos will quickly use up your limited space.
     
13. Bandwidth is limited. If you have a sudden increase in traffic, your site could be shut down without warning.
     
14. Search engines give less priority to free domains. A free website will show up lower in Google listings.
     
15. Little or no help if you have any problems with your website. Free websites offer little if any customer support.
     
16. Analytics are limited or nonexistent. To grow your website and your business, it’s important to gather and analyze the data on your visitors. Most of these websites do not even have the capability to collect this data, and even if they do, they are definitely not willing or able to analyze the data like a professional website design team will.

At Evolve Impact Group, our professional website packages start at $1800 ($150 a month). At $5 a day, this may cost less than your coffee habit! Do you need help establishing or improving your small business’s digital presence? Evolve Impact Group offers personalized website development solutions for your business to ensure improved market presence and sustainable, long-term impact in the marketplace.

Sources: https://graphpaperpress.com/blog/50-reasons-free-website-bad-idea/