Why You Must Own Your Own Website

If a 3rd party platform makes things easy, how is that a negative thing? To make something easy, it needs to be convenient; to make something convenient, it needs to cut corners so it caters to everyone. This means that crucial aspects are left out, such as SEO optimisation, content structures and redirection buttons that will ensure sales and continued engagement.

3rd party builders allow you to throw a website together and publish it, but they will lack critical features that make a coded website more successful. You will want to implement call to actions that appear in the search engine results, as well make sure you have a reliable tracking system so you can keep a close eye on how you’re performing.

3rd party platforms make it easy to find an attractive design for your website that others will like. The problem is, there are basic elements they do not help users implement, that will significantly reduce their chances of engagement. For example, Google cares about how your page titles are structured and what they say about your platform. Although the leading website builders support SEO settings, they overlook small obstacles that users unintentionally place on their website. In short, if the algorithm doesn’t like it, you will get minimal hits from search results.

A problem with using the templates offered by a website builder is that they may look sleek and stunning, but there will be thousands of websites that look just like yours, only with different content. Hiring a good website designer will allow them to implement unique elements that incorporate your brand.

Because their end goal is to make a website visually pleasing to the customer, 3rd party platforms will leave out the trickier elements to a website, such as SEO, off-site listings, reviews, backlinks, business listings and citations. Without all these things, your web presence isn’t going to be as prominent to potential customers.

So if you have gotten lucky from a website builder and are performing well, you may want to use features that your platform doesn’t offer or cater to a bigger audience by expanding. The unfortunate truth is – you will have to begin again. Website builders do not allow you to export your data to rebuild elsewhere. This is mainly down to incompatible coding that is unique to the specific builder.

Starting fresh will mean you will need a new layout, theme and feel. Asking for a carbon copy of a website builder template will either get you in copyright trouble or will be challenging to recreate.

Though there are free options to entice those looking for a website, this offer will make you look unprofessional, as the provider’s branding and ads will be posted all over your site. Although the paid options are far cheaper than paying a website designer, overall you will lose out on far more potential earnings. Website builders are notorious for being sites that new visitors cannot find, whereas a good website designer will implement all the elements to make it visible and unique. This will encourage business and leads, which will cover the design and running expenses.

The question is, would you rather pay a smaller amount for no business or a little more for a lot?