For most of us, the days of building websites from scratch have come and gone. That is the good news. Better still website prices are all over the map so you can even get a decent site for the best price of all — zero. But, what is the real reason to avoid site builders?
Should you even have a website? If it’s to build your brand, reputation and customer base, don’t you put quality first and focus on the long-term?
Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
If you can turn on your laptop and check out your Facebook page, does that qualify you to create a website on Wix or one of the other scores of easy, automagic website builders? Not to mention optimizing it for Google search.
It does! But here’s why you shouldn’t. When things go wrong, who is there to help you out? No web designer who is ready and able, and knows everything about the modern web, digital marketing and much more.
Sadly, support among site builder services varies widely from email-only service to online FAQs, etc. If you can fly solo, you will be fine with this arrangement!
The WordPress Advantage
How many web designers/developers out there specialize in Wix, Weebly Squarespace, and Shopify? Not many. On the other hand, WordPress now powers 30% of all websites on the web so there is plenty of help when you own a WordPress site.
Scarce Support and No Migration
In order for a website to grow, you have to water it. When you create a website with Weebly, Wix or Squarespace, you don’t get the support you need or deserve.
What if your website goes down or something stops working? Do you have the skills to fix it before your customers notice? Certain parts of a website can stop working and you may not even know it. Customers may be trying to contact you, but you’re not a webmaster. How would you know?
Want to move say your Wix site to another site builder or to WordPress in the future? Unfortunately, you can never export this site so you’ll need to rebuild it from scratch — which means you don’t even own your site builder website!
WordPress vs Website Builders
WordPress is a content management system (CMS)— not a website builder. CMS’s are flexible but have a learning curve. Website builders are less flexible but easier to use.
The Genesis Framework
When starting a business, it’s more important than ever to establish and maintain an online presence. I use the Genesis Framework and StudioPress themes for WordPress exclusively for all the websites I build.
Genesis provides the secure and search-engine-optimized foundation that takes WordPress to places you never thought it could go.
Need to get started on your new website? Fill out our discovery questionnaire and/or give Marcia a call at 561-906-3436.
“I’m not against page builders, but here’s the deal … if you have 300+ posts/pages full of your page builder blocks, it’s going to cost a ton of money to redesign your site or switch to Gutenberg or anything else.
– Rafal Tomal
