Blog - CB Web Solutions

Recently, I have noticed a number of photocopied adverts around Torrevieja that promote the idea of a ‘free website’. Well, eye-catching as it is, when you delve a bit deeper, a number of issues arise. However, we should firstly start by leaving aside the person who wants a free personal site although in fact they would be better served by a couple of other larger providers who are far better known with better options. This blog will discuss the concept if it is that, of a free website for your small business.

Well, firstly, and perhaps most importantly of all, a website is an investment in your business when it comes to a CB Web Solutions built-site. That is, it will pay for itself due to its quality and usability. So, as with any investment, you need to invest more than zero Euros to receive a return. Indeed, as I have mentioned in other blogs if you are serious about your business, don’t you think that it deserves investment of a level somewhat greater than zero? After all investment is the lubricant of any business and without it, it will probably fail.

My next point is does the company in question that offers a free site actually offering a free service? The answer is no. In fact like most things on the net that purport to be free, they are often some distance from being so. How so? Well, you may need to register your email address and other personal details to access the service available. This means you have divulged personal details that have a value and are now potentially at the disposal of organisations that you know nothing of. At a low level, this may result in the increase of targeted adverts and junk email being sent to you. At a more serious level it could be used in fraudulent operations. That said, just this alone should put off most potential clients from ever using a largely unknown free website service.

Whilst mentioning targeted advertising, you will notice that your own free site may actually have to carry adverts of your competition as part of the conditions of use. In other words, the free provider is using something like Google ads to fund his operation and thereby you are actively promoting your rivals on your own site. An exercise in shooting oneself in the foot perhaps?

From the point of view of a web developer, when you look behind the sites at their coding, it is usually a ‘dogs’ dinner’ that will hinder ranking on the key search engines. That said, if you are used to some of the rubbish churned out by certain so-called ‘Joomla designers’ (never has there been a greater contradiction in terms) you’ll feel quite at home. In short, the design is as it is because it requires an automated or semi-automated system to operate which therefore takes the focus away from quality design and therefore ranking.

Other issues quickly arise from the free site services. For example, portability , should you wish to use your web presence with another host. Worse still, if you seek to expand by perhaps using a more sophisticated facility such as an online shop. Furthermore, you may also wish to use your domain should you own one rather than a suffix name as is common. This is a far more important point than you may think as people are more likely to remember a dot com domain than you name as a suffix of a free website provides domain. That’s the reality. I also wonder at the option they give you to put your key words into a box to help your ranking. If only it were that simple. Most probably this will have little bearing on your ranking but they obviously have worked out that many people have heard of key words and how they apparently ‘improve your sites’ ranking’.

From the point of view of a potential client for your business, you may need to ask yourself a number of questions. Firstly, does it send the right message when they see your site is free? It certainly suggested you are running a low budget operation which may lack financial stability. Secondly, whilst a few of the sites are aesthetically acceptable, you run a high chance that someone else will be using the very same design. For those businesses that have developed a corporate brand or identity using colours, fonts and other artwork ‘sharing’ a template from a free site is marketing suicide. What is more, internet users are increasingly sophisticated and are increasingly capable of spotting a poor website when they see one. They will usually act with a click of the mouse and never return to you.

So, a free website is rarely if ever the best option for a small business and as I have shown above. It will also help little if at all in your marketing efforts. The solution is a professionally built site that uses quality code and construction so that you will have a highly useable site that will be capable of returning on your investment. Free is rarely so on the net and in this case your business will pay for your mistake so why not contact us at CB Web Solutions to discuss your website requirements.