Back to: Zero to WordPress
Site Builders
Right now there are quite a few places on the Internet where you can go, give someone a bag of money, and have them provide you with hosting and means to build your website.
On the surface, these options (i.e. Squarespace, Wix, Weebly, etc) appear spectacular, and the truth is they might be. If you already have a business up and running and you know precisely what you need to build – then yes, site-builders can be a real time-saver.
However, if you’re just starting out, and you aren’t sure how your business is going to grow then going the site-builder route can cost you tons of time later.
Three Things Site Builder’s Won’t Tell You
1) Site Builders trade functionality for aesthetics.
Simple and easy-to-use tools often come at the price of what you are ‘allowed’ to do with them. Site Builder companies have a pretty good idea on what you’re going to want later, but have them locked up behind a pay-wall.
2) Chief among the functionalities mentioned above, is whether or not the site-builder plays nice with your email list.
This is HUGE! Your site should have the ability to both add subscribers, and send out content.
3) Even outside of the functionality required to build the site how you want it, or connect it to your email service there are other features you might want, or worse, need later that the site-builder simply doesn’t support. The only solution if you run into this wall, is to rebuild the entire site on the platform that does support it.
The Site-Builder Price
I went and looked at several site builders and found the following were NOT guaranteed:
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And I’m thinking “really!?”
No. I don’t want mysite.theirsite.com as my website.
No. I don’t to have to decide between whether or not I want an About page or an extra products page because I’m about to hit a site-builder limit.
No. I don’t want there to even be a question as to whether or not I can secure my site with SSL for both me and my clients.
No. I don’t want to pay you extra for Google Analytics. They made it free for a reason!
No. I don’t want to pay extra so I can password protect my site. That’s insane.
No. I don’t want to have to pay you if I upload a video higher than 1080p. Also insane.
No. I don’t want to….
You get the idea: Site Builders hold features hostage.
Building Your Website Should Not Be a Hostage Negotiation
Period.
But to be fair, learning WordPress can be difficult, can take time to learn, and it really does help to have a guide. However, once we clear those hurdles, you will have a platform with an edge over anything anyone can build with a site-builder: adaptability.
I say all this early on for two reasons:
1) To solidify your decision to go the WordPress route.
2) To provide you with some concrete reasons WordPress is, what I think, the better choice in the long run.