3 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Go For DIY Website Platforms
There are so many website platforms out there like WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, ShowIt and the number has been increasing.
We see a lot of entrepreneurs on social media channels, that are looking for cheap and easy solutions to create their own websites. However, easy and cheap solutions are not always the best for websites, as it may create difficulties and costs in the long term.
There are various reasons why you shouldn’t waste your time and energy on building a brochure-like website using DIY hosted platforms. Here are three of them;
1- Hosted platforms make you stay on their platforms
Let’s first explain the difference between a hosted platform and a self-hosted platform. With hosted platforms, you don’t need to deal with buying your own web hosting separately. The hosted platform offers you a plan including a web hosting, domain name and a website builder. These are sites like Wix, Squarespace, Blogger or Wordpress.com.
On the other hand, self-hosted platforms allow you to buy your hosting from wherever you want to buy and give you a free content management system that allows you to build your website. The leader of self-hosted platforms is Wordpress.org. This open-source software is 100% free and easy. Other examples of self-hosted platforms are Joomla and Drupal.
The biggest advantages of using a DIY hosted platform are their easiness, and connectedness with other bloggers. If you are a blogger who is just starting out to gain experience, a hosted platform might be a good choice. However, we don’t recommend building a professional business website on a hosted platform as you cannot simply migrate your hosting (all your website data) to another platform when/if you want to do so in the future.
Hosted platforms like Wix and Shopify are closed platforms, which means that they don’t provide an easy way for users to migrate their content away from their systems. There are of course ways to import your content via RSS, but it would only be a waste of time and requires technical knowledge to do so.
The smartest approach for entrepreneurs would be to create their custom websites on self-hosted platforms and start working on their content strategy to improve their visibility.
2- Search engines don’t like DIY sites
Ugly design can scare users away, and there is no doubt that hosted platforms like Squarespace offer beautiful templates. However, visibility and functionality come before design when it comes to websites. Otherwise, we would call websites online brochures right?
When it comes to basic on-page SEO tasks like changing title tags, meta descriptions, and URLs, hosted platforms may work just fine. However, technical search engine optimization is generally limited.
In addition, Wix.com and other DIY site-building websites host your website on a shared server with thousands of other users. This diminishes the speed of your own website which then affects your SEO.
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3- It is costly in the long run
It is no surprise that many hosted platform users realize at some point that their options are limited and adding extra features can become quite expensive.
When you go for a DIY website, you will often encounter several hidden costs. When you want to add new plug-ins, apps, or extra features, you are likely to be charged a considerable amount.
In addition, hosted platforms may offer amazing prices for the first year, however, they tend to increase their prices once the first year is up. When the price goes back to normal, you will end up paying a higher price than you expected. And you won’t be able to migrate your site anywhere else which will make you feel stuck.
For example, Wix’s Business Unlimited plan is $27/month, but you’d actually pay $324 upfront. If you chose to subscribe on a month-to-month basis, you would pay a lot more. When you go for a WordPress.org plan with a separate hosting, you will only pay for your domain name and hosting on a yearly basis.
Conclusion
Businesses grow, so do entrepreneurs. There are always new things to learn and a need for a room to grow! If you want to invest in a fully functioning website that can grow while your business grows (with no additional cost), then you shouldn’t even waste your time and energy building a website on a do-it-yourself platform.
If you would like to learn more or decide to invest in a website that works, contact us.
Social Influence.Co website: www.social-influence.co
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