Free Website? Just Say No

Giv­ing the wrong impres­sion will kill your chance for busi­ness suc­cess before you even get started on-line. Build­ing a web­site is a lot eas­ier than it was 10 years ago but there are still cer­tain skills required to build and present some­thing that is func­tional and pro­fes­sional look­ing. When it comes to your brand and your pro­fes­sional rep­u­ta­tion you should never use a free web­site or free hosting.

Your web­site is often the first chance you have to make an impres­sion, and if it looks free or cheap, what will peo­ple think about the rest of your oper­a­tion? If you don’t spend money on you why should they? Although it may seem like a pretty expen­sive pur­chase, a pro­fes­sional web­site is an invest­ment in your busi­ness, that will help build your image and cus­tomer base.

Poten­tially the most dam­ag­ing con­se­quence of using a free web ser­vice is the mes­sage it sends cus­tomers about the faith you have in your­self. By invest­ing in a pro­fes­sional web­site that accu­rately reflects your brand image, you are show­ing cus­tomers that you have faith in your busi­ness abil­ity. Rep­utable and suc­cess­ful business’s do not use free web­sites or host­ing. They are seri­ous about their busi­ness and will invest money into it. Busi­nesses Invest Money, period.

Although these free ser­vices are use­ful for those look­ing for a quick page for a one off event, or for a per­sonal blog, they are not meant for the busi­ness world.

Instead of build­ing a free web­site and get­ting an infe­rior prod­uct, it is bet­ter to work closely with a pro­fes­sional that can help you put together a com­plete plan for build­ing, grow­ing and mar­ket­ing your web­site. There are many pow­er­ful strate­gies for con­nect­ing with your mar­ket, and an expert can help you pick which ones to take advan­tage of, and then help you imple­ment a win­ning strategy.

If you are build­ing your site inde­pen­dently with no input from an expert, you are los­ing out on infor­ma­tion and advice that can only be gained through years of expe­ri­ence. A web­site mar­ket­ing expert can help you make some of the best deci­sions that you will ever make.

Here at Win­ners Web Design, we use the best that tech­nol­ogy can offer to build our web­sites. No instant web­site builder type of prod­uct offered for free could ever com­pare. The advan­tage of work­ing with us is that we han­dle the entire build­ing of your site, and can con­tinue to man­age it for you once that process is done, or we can train you to take over.

Other rea­sons why you should NEVER use a free web­site for your business.

1. Free web­sites do not build legitimacy

When shop­ping for prod­ucts online, vis­i­tors are bom­barded with a num­ber of dif­fer­ent sell­ers. What dif­fer­en­ti­ates the web­site they use from the oth­ers is legit­i­macy. This is espe­cially more so when pur­chas­ing online. Con­sumers are very con­cerned about the legit­i­macy of the busi­ness they are giv­ing their money to. Using a free web ser­vice, with a cookie-cutter tem­plates and ads for other ser­vices will drive your cus­tomers away to your com­peti­tors who have invested in a pro­fes­sional site.

2. Search engines give more cred­i­bil­ity to paid domain names. When using a free web ser­vice, your domain name will often be some­thing sim­i­lar to www.freewebservice.yourcompany.com  While you may think Google will pick up on this just the same as www.yourcompany.com, it actu­ally treats this as an inter­nal link. This means that Google will treat your busi­ness’ page as a page within the free ser­vice you are using. So, if your busi­ness name includes a product/service you offer, and you want peo­ple who search for that product/service to land on your site, this will not hap­pen with a free web ser­vice! Once again, your cus­tomers will be directed to a busi­ness who has their own domain name.

3. Free web­sites only allow lim­ited space for your web pages

4. Free web­sites limit cer­tain func­tion­al­ity on your website.

5. You often can­not add addi­tional fea­tures (shop­ping carts, plug-ins, forums, chat rooms, etc.)

6. You don’t own a free web­site, you’re rent­ing it and there­fore there are no guar­an­tees of site avail­abil­ity and longevity.

7. No branded emails addresses (you@yourdomain.com) will be available.

8. Poor help and sup­port options.

9. Your site/hosting may not be free forever.