The Truth about Website Builders and Website Leasing!
Yellow Pages, GoDaddy, and HostGator three names we have all heard now these companies and counterparts are offering Website Design and Website Building but are these cheap alternatives worth it?
With major companies offering website design at lower rates or leasing them to businesses more and more clients are choosing this route.
Web Design is just like any other service you typically get what you pay for however these more “affordable” options will often times lead to buyers remorse.
The first two companies we will look at is GoDaddy and HostGator. GoDaddy is a Domain Registration and Hosting company. HostGator is known more for their Hosting but also offers Domain Registration. GoDaddy offers website building at times as low as $1.00 a month. The major problem with this website design route is that it the designs are prefabricated. Hundreds if not thousands of their websites have the same design. If almost all of your anticipated traffic is direct or you have an extremely established brand this is a good option however this is rarely the case. Websites are built to give information to new customers and attract new customers. The number one way to reach new customers is either paid advertising (which we will discuss in another article) or Search Engines. Google, Yahoo, and Bing spend countless hours and millions each and every week to ensure that their search results are of high quality. Search Results are based on hundreds of factors but the biggest are content and relevancy. If the content is not original you can expect to rank poorly. These websites often times are not optimized for Search Engines including Keywords and other factors.
Yellow Pages is one of the major companies that offers what we call Website Leasing or Website Renting. Yellow Pages will build typically a good looking website however as with Godaddy and HostGator they are prefabricated templates. But these companies register the domain and lock your business into a 1 year contract. By registering the domain they have control of your branding and Internet presence.
NEVER LET A COMPANY REGISTER YOUR DOMAIN
By letting someone else register your domain they own your business name online. Often times they register the best name for your business and / or industry. Some companies will charge you to buy your name back from them. The worst companies will even threaten to send your website to your competition and extort you. Yellow Pages locks you in a 1 year contract and gives you the option of having your domain after.
Another drawback of Yellow Pages is the cost. Typically yearly Yellow Page websites can cost over $1,200.00. This kind of investment would be better spent on hiring a Website Design Firm.
Experiment: Go to a Search Engine of your choosing and type in your business category and your city. Look at the top 3 listed websites and look on the website to see if it says designed by Godaddy or Yellow Pages. You will notice some have footers saying by a design firm or no information at all so most likely was by a website designer. What does this mean?
Website Design Firms are the way to go if you are a business. They are able to build the website exactly the way you want, tailor it to your business, and get the most for your money. While you will spend more compared to GoDaddy, having a Website Design by a Website Design Firm is quite a bit more likely to yield a better Return of Investment (ROI).
If you have any website design questions feel free to ask!