A website builder – an online service that lets a user easily and quickly create a website without needing to write code.
To build a site with a website builder, you don't need to know programming or markup languages, nor do you need professional coding skills. You can develop it yourself without involving programmers, web designers, or other specialists. All you need – is to register on the service, choose a domain, use the editor's basic blocks to set up the design, and fill the site with content.
Main advantages of creating a site with a website builder:
1. Creating a site takes minimal time. Low cost.
Building a site with a website builder is generally relatively cheap – from $17 to $35 per month for an online store, and from $9 to $25 per month for a professional site. Many features are available on free plans, but with limitations. That means if you like the builder and want to enable an additional feature, you'll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Also, initially a site built with a builder is hosted on the internet for free (this refers to hosting), but on a test domain. It doesn't look as attractive as a custom domain. For example, intmagazin.site.kz – you have to admit, doesn't look very presentable. However, if you want to connect your own domain to the site – that's doable, but you'll need to switch to a paid plan. After one year the renewal cost for hosting may increase (this doesn't happen with all providers, but you should be prepared for it).
2. Fully independent site development.
With any builder you can develop a site yourself without hiring a designer or programmer. But in that case you'll have to spend a large amount of time and effort learning the builder's capabilities and its documentation.
Let's admit that most clients (not all, but many) have never dealt with website development and have no idea about web design. As a result, the sites turn out unattractive, fail to inspire trust in visitors, and therefore offer no practical value beyond merely existing on the Internet.
3. Variety of plans.
I already described approximate costs above. Almost all necessary services are paid, but they offer a range of plans: from budget to premium. The more features you plan to integrate, the more expensive it will be. But for a simple ordinary site minimal investment is usually enough.
Now let's move on to the disadvantages of creating sites with a website builder:
1. The first and main drawback – poor SEO optimization.
Today builders implement certain features to help webmasters and allow them to make adjustments to the site. Changing meta tags and other elements that directly affect search ranking. However, in practice sites created with builders do not reach the top search results. There are several reasons for this:
- SEO optimization requires correct configuration of the web page encoding. This ensures proper indexing by search engine crawlers. With a builder it's impossible to program the code, configure files important for promotion, set up redirects, and place the necessary meta tags. Only a small number of builders (and only on paid plans) provide access to the required files.
- Even though the site and its content are yours, you can't call them fully yours because you don't have full access. The domain is hosted on hosting that doesn't belong to you. That means if you need to move the site to your own hosting, you won't be able to. Only a small number of builders offer site transfer services, and those raise the plan price.
- Domain naming is not done by you, so a memorable name is unlikely. When the name is long and unclear, promoting the site becomes harder.
- Since builders rarely allow programming, adding custom components to the site is impossible. Builders only offer template-based form lists. In addition, you can't embed third-party content, media files, or your own additional scripts. All this reduces the ability to populate web pages and limits their customization.
- The same applies to the site's design – uniqueness is ruled out. Your site will be indistinguishable from competitors' sites. So it may be convenient for visitors but not reflect your company's specifics. This will also negatively affect conversion.
2. Hardly open to improvements and integrations.
Often the source code of your site on a builder is closed. The admin panel's functionality is very limited, for example, installing a visitor counter or adjusting the sitemap. And you simply won't be able to install an online consultant (like JivoSite). So you'll have to make do with the small set of standard "plugins" and "features" that the developers originally put into the admin panel.
3. Slow performance and frequent glitches.
Most often builder sites are hosted on the cheapest servers and cannot handle constant high loads. Therefore, if you plan to increase targeted traffic, you should consider launching your own site without a builder and workarounds.
4. Unprofitability.
From all the above, we can conclude that a site becomes unprofitable in the long term. A site needs to evolve, be strengthened and promoted to become a platform for users and customers and generate profit. But built on shaky builder foundations, a site won't last long. You'll have to keep pouring significant money into it for it to survive. Even then the returns will remain minimal.
Conclusion
I hope you've understood the main pros and cons of creating a site with a builder. And now you can decide whether you need such a site or not.
There are cases when developing a site with a builder can be a very good option. For example:
- Niche testing. If you're just starting and want to test a couple of hypotheses, builders are for you. You can quickly create several sites, run contextual ads on them, and after making the first profit understand which direction to invest in.
- One-off project. This is when you want to sell a single item (house, apartment, car, etc.). Yes, it's not a business option. Create the site – sell the item – delete the site or stop paying for it.
- Non-commercial projects. If there's no profit, investing in full site development isn't wise. It's better to build the site on a builder, and later, if it starts generating some profit, consider custom turn-key development.
Call us at +7 (707)-500-22-25 or fill out the application on our website, and you'll receive a free consultation on turn-key website development, as well as an estimate for your proposed project.
