There are seemingly limitless site builders on the market today. Some are free, others require a license, still others are original theme & page builder combos for WordPress, in online and offline formats. What’s wrong with site builders?
Remember all the marketing collateral you always designed and produced yourself years ago? Like business cards, letterhead, envelopes, printed brochures, printed newsletters, magazines, literature, packaging, point of sale, direct mail, advertising, and signage.
I didn’t think so! You didn’t create your own promotional material. You farmed it out. Right?
So what’s different about websites that are way more technical, complicated, and effective than direct marketing products that you are now the DIY expert?
The truth? Not all sites need to use a page builder. For example, a modern blog, whether it deals with food, fashion, travel, or any other subject, rarely needs one. Blogs are meant to focus on content with as few bells and whistles as possible. Blog followers expect quality content that’s easily accessible and looks great on all devices.
No need for fancy landing pages, animations, or spinning images.
Here are 5 More Reasons To Forgetabout Site Builders
1. They are overly complex and come loaded with many different elements, often multiple elements for creating the same or similar types of output. A steep learning curve is often required.
2. They lock you in with their own unique code. Once you build a page with a page builder you are stuck with it. They generate their own output so you cannot switch to a different page builder.
Personally, I feel this is of huge importance, and a major reason I’d stay away from Wix, Weebly, Squarespace, GoDaddy, Shopify, Yahoo, etc. The website files and code belong to them, not you!
3. Slow and additional time required to load and save changes. Myriad elements and options add time to the task. Tedious content editing.
5. Bloat is added and slows the website frontend. They add numerous files such as stylesheets, scripts, font files, etc., that increase load time for a web page and are not even used.
6. Non-standard ways are used to work with content. A page builder replaces the standard WordPress way of editing content with a totally different interface and process. Each page builder has different quirks, bugs, capabilities, and limitations. There are more than 20 different page builders for WordPress!
7. Lack of customization. Limited tools, fonts, templates, and a lack of custom code result in bland, everyday, cookie-cutter websites. Prospective clients typically can identify free websites – not a great first impression of your company!
Happily, there is a solution to this page builder mess. It’s called Gutenberg. It is the brand new editor for the WordPress platform and the one we use exclusively at the J&M Group.
If you want a new website and don’t want to use one of those “easy” DIY site builders, give us a call at 561-906-3436 or fill out the form below.
And remember. Your company’s website is the best business card you have!