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stay away from website builders

100 Reasons to avoid using Website builders

Let's create your website from scratch


BUSINESS OWNERS MUST READ THIS BEFORE ITS TO LATE

What is the difference between Create a Website and Build a Website using builders?

Thousands of companies are offering FREE WEBSITE BUILDERS!
Free domain, Free Hosting, Free website, etc..
This can sound like a great idea, you get to build a website yourself, and free or low cost

Lot of good reasons why you should stay far far away from these companies.
THEY own your website! You many own the domain, but that is just a URL, all the code that runs your website belongs to someone else.

Let me explain it to you in a simple way, to find out the huge difference between create and build.

I consider using a website builder, is similar to renting an apartment in a building.
Do you prefer to rent an apartment or have your own house?
I am sure about your answer....
If you invite some friends or visitors to visit you at home,  you will give them the address, which is the building address, and the apt number and your name.
So all your visitors go to the building first, means all traffic goes to the building owner first, then looking for the apt number which is a part of the building, then you.
You is the your domain name (its yours- only if paid), the apartment number is your website (usually same design as your next door), the apartment is the builder software, the building is the hosting company.
What are your limits as a renter?

  • Can you move a wall?
    NO, but you can add a wallpaper
  • Can you change the floor?
    NO, but you can add a carpet
  • Can you open a new window?
    NO, but you can use a fan or AC
  • More examples and the answer is always no.

By the end if you stop paying the rent for any reason, the landlord will kick you out.
and all what you get is your furniture, which is your photos and some articles that you uploaded to your website.

Since they own the site they make the rules. They can decide what you can and can not do with the site.

But as a house owner, all visitors comes to you directly, the address is yours, the building is yours, the apartment is yours, the furniture is yours.
Moving, renting, selling, renovating anytime without any restrictions. You put your own rules. You are the Boss.

ATTENTION Business owners!

Please don't make that big mistake,
If you think you are saving, no you are totally wrong,
I know people that ends by spending over a thousand dollars to keep their website running,
Some others are hiring people to complete their website,
Others have an online store with a limit of 3 products, and must pay a monthly fees to add more product.

Who can use a builder?

  • Someone who has an event, party or wedding
  • Personal home page to add some photos or videos and that's it.

Who must stay away from builder at all?

  • Any business with physical address.
  • Any professional person who use his name like doctors, accountant, lawyers, actors, singers.
  • Online stores with inventory.

2 Important things to ask about it before you start :

  • Full ownership of your domain name with access login to your registrar.
  • Full backup of your source code after your finish your design.

This is like your state Id and asset for your business, if the company don't offer these 2 options, so better stay away.

10 Advises from Josepi for new small businesses
(take it or Leave it)

  1. Don't even think to use builders, however we are offering builder for people who don't like to listen to our advise.
     
  2. Don't hire someone to create you a website using a builder, its the same result but you pay someone who has some practice but without knowledge.
     
  3. If you need an online store online, don't for a website like ebay to start with, unless you have min 5000 items
    If you are a boutique or small retail store, don't ask to have a website like apple store.

    All what you need to start is the following:
    - Domain name - this is the most important part of any business
      The domain name is same like your State ID with a unique name
      It will cost you $10 to $15 per year
    - Hosting service to host your domain and publish your website
       This is min $2 per month on safe servers, not public servers with tons of sites
    - Website even with 1 single page
       that have your business name, business phone number, address, and a photo with 1 paragraph to describe your services.
       Don't think that because you have a nice website, visitors will visit you....You are wrong
       Look to craigslist how ugly it is and check the traffic per hour, so its the service not the site.
     
  4. Don't be so smart and ask your designer to show you his portfolio just to start,
    You should ask first if he can do what you have in mind with your budget or not.
    Its very simple to show you a portfolio, and when you like one of them and ask for similar I will ask you for $1500 and give you 10% discount
    But when the designer agree with you requirements, he will show you some examples, or you can show him some ideas from websites you found it online
    Designer is same like a tailor, he do what the customer wants with his photos and articles, colors, so not all designs are his taste or ideas.
     
  5. Not all designers have the same knowledge and mentality, so always write down on a paper whatever comes to your mind, copy paragraphs and headlines from other sites, and make it ready with all additional information to start a conversation with your designer, your designer could be a good in his field, but not in yours.
    Me personally as a business man and running businesses for over 30  yrs, I am a little bit different and can easily understand about your needs more than you expect,
    I always ask 2 questions, if I don't get the answer right away, I will not work on your project, and you are the looser.
    What is your domain name? and what do expect from your website?
    If you are sitting beside me and already answers my questions, you can see your website online before you finish your coffee.
    And you will be surprised that I explored what ever you have in your mind on a web page, but this is not everything.
     
  6. You can have a small nice website for less than a $50, ...Great!
    WHERE IS THE CATCH?
    Your $50 website is now running online......Who knows about it? who saw it,.....No one
    Only you and your designer and probably your wife knows about your site.
    Traffic= 0  Rank= 0  Search engine= 0  Reputation= 0
    How to solve this problem? to solve this problem, could cost you 5k and up, if you are really serious about success online
    That's why from the beginning I said you don't need a big expensive website, start with a small one to build some reputation and traffic and find out if it will work with you or not.
    Don't waste your money for something you can drop it in a month or two.
     
  7. Make sure that the main pages are 100% created from scratch, then add any software or ready scripts or plugin on a different sub domain.
    Example: if you want an online store, its really good to use any ready software but don't install it on your homepage, create a folder with a name store and upload your script.
    another folder or sub domain for newsletter, etc. This way you can use builder and create any website and link it to your domain as a sub domain.
    The home page is the most important page for the search engine, this will help a lot.
     
  8. If you have a business with a physical address, and not really sure that you knows well about google.
    ask a professional to create and setup your Google+ page
    and to do the basic optimization for your website , claim it and verify it.
    We usually do half of the optimization job when we create any website, we charge approx $100 to do the basic seo with google
    This will save you a lot of time and money, and make your website searchable
     
  9. Ask your designer how to promote your website for free
    There is a lot of free ways, that companies are selling it.
     
  10. Please don't contact me to fix your Wix website, you could be in trouble