Your website is an extension of your business, so it puzzles us how attracted to so-called “free” websites many businesses are. Certainly we understand that the prospect of paying gobs of money for a new website may not be in your thought process…especially after not being entirely certain your current one has done you any good. So let’s put the value of a good website into proper context.
- It’s a harsh fact, but they have to find you first before they consider doing business with you. Yes, you’ll probably come up first in search when you search for yourself, but new customers who don’t know who you are, where you’re located, or what you have to offer won’t necessarily use your business name to find you – even if you believe “everyone knows you.”
- A website is the first contact you are likely to have with new customers. A low quality website may trigger potential customers to believe you may not be worth their time and/or expense. If they can’t learn what they need to learn before doing business with you, they’ll find someone else.
- Cost-free websites most often don’t enable you to have much control of your domain name. A free domain can cause visitors to doubt your credibility. For example, which URL adds more credibility to your business?
- Free URL: http://www.smallbussiness.freesite.com
- Paid URL: http://www.smallbusiness.com
Furthermore, owning your own URL also allows you to create more professional email addresses: For example, [email protected] is going to add more credibility than [email protected]
- Just updating your current content on a new design won’t be much different. In the content on your site, are you answering questions no one is asking? Are you explaining who you are and what you do? You should see site design as you might see a conversation with a new customer. Find their pain and solve it with clear and easy to understand content. If you’re simply regurgitating the same old tired information, you won’t see much improvement.
- A no-cost site also gives you very limited variety in design. You end up looking like 10,000 other businesses and I’m sure you probably consider yourself to be different. A skilled designer can make that fairly clear.
Yes, an easy-to-design, DIY site seems like a good idea, but easy design can be deceiving. It may be effortless to use, but it also can mean large limitations. The idea behind these sites are to get you hooked on how easy it is, only to upsell you on over-priced extras in the future.
If you’re unsure of how a new site might benefit you, find a quality web-designer to first show you how your current site is being used. A good design firm will also show you the potential (within reason) you can expect with a clean, functional, and high-converting website for your business category.
