Free vs Professional

Which one is really cheaper?

I admit it, I have an ulterior motive for sharing this information with you.  That is to convince anyone building a web site for any business purpose to hire a professional web developer to build it.  Even if you hire someone besides us.  We have nothing against the free web hosts.  They're great for some things.  Just not business.

I bet you're thinking this is going to be a pretty tough sell.  After all, what could be better than free?

It's not as tough as you think.  Perhaps you have heard the adage, "You get what you pay for."  That is true of web sites if it's true of anything, and it's not just looks that matter.  If we didn't offer some major advantages over those free web hosts, we wouldn't have clients coming to us after trying them.

This article might just save a few of you the trouble.

How do we define "cheap"?

In business, there are two basic things that impact your profit line: Expenses, and Income.  That's a simple idea - maybe oversimplified - but basically true... for a high profit, keep your expenses low and sales high.

Being more profitable does not mean avoiding expenses at all costs.  It can mean that something you pay nothing for could actually end up costing more if it results in lost business.

So what about that web site?

Think about it... do you buy from sites that look like they were put together by a 13-year-old?  Then what makes you think your customers will?

What do you want your site to say about your business that gives customers the confidence to do business with you?  Here are a few messages our clients have told us is important to them:

• We can be found (when someone is looking for what we offer, they find us).
• Our business is credible, legitmate, trustworthy.
• We are well-established.
• We do everything with professionalism.
• Details and quality matter.
• Our customers love doing business with us.
• Our products are a good value, but we are not cheap.
• My work is exceptional.
• I am capable of producing exactly what you want, and delivering it on time.
• It is easy to order from us; we do business the way you want us to.

These are some of the things that give customers the confidence to do business with you.  All of these things may be true about your business.  But if these things are not also true of your web site, your customers won't get the message, or worse, they could believe you're trying to decieve them.  Either way, you most certainly are losing business.

So how can a professionally-produced web site show the finer qualities of your business?

1.  You get an official site address, registered in your name.  A registered web site address ("mybusinessname.com") not only looks more professional, and makes your business more credible, it also makes it easier for your customers to find your site.  Another advantage of using a registered site address is that you can use that address with any standard web host; you are not just locked into one specific web host.

• Our business is credible, legitmate, trustworthy.
• We are well-established.

2.  Better search engine rankings, resulting in more traffic.  Sites with properly registered domain names are ranked higher by the search engines than the "sub-domain" sites running on the free hosts.  There is even some question as to whether some search engines even bother to index the free sites at all.

A professionally-built site also contains code that makes the best use of search engine features, and makes the site appear higher in search engine results for relevant searches.  In other words, if someone is searching for what you offer, they are more likely to find you, and the search engines will display better information about you in the search results.

• We can be found (when someone is looking for what we offer, they find us).

3.  A huge assortment of site design options.  The free web hosts offer hundreds, or perhaps thousands of site templates to choose from.

With a professionally-built site, you can choose from hundreds of thousands of designs, or even have an original design made exclusively for you.  Your site can have exactly the look you want, and exactly the look you want your customers to see.

• We do business the way you want us to.
  
• Details and quality matter.
• My work is exceptional.

4.  A more professional look.  The free web hosts have site builders that make it easy for most people to create a site that certainly does look better than something they could create themselves "from scratch".  There still are some differences between them and a professionally built web site.  There are limits to where you can place content, how it can be styled, etc., which often makes the content look out of place, or otherwise incongruous with the design of the page.

There are no such limitations with our sites.  So content can be placed pixel-perfect wherever it needs to go, and styled precisely to fit where it goes.  If you want your site to say, "quality matters", this is how you get it to say that, loud and clear.

• My work is exceptional.
• We do everything with professionalism.
• Details and quality matter.

5.  No ads (unless you want them).  Along with a piggy-back site address, another obvious tell-tale sign that a business is operating on the cheap is the appearance of a block of advertising from the web host.  It says very loudly, work in progress... dabbling... not established... here today, but very possibly gone tomorrow.

When you consider the trade-offs between a free web host and a professional one, consider this difference very carefully, because this can make a free web host a very expensive choice.

• Our business is credible, legitmate, trustworthy.
• We are well-established.

6.  Cater to a wider variety of customer demands.  Set up custom online order forms for your unique or customized products.  Create questionnaires for your customers to tell you what products they would like to see.  Set up a digital delivery system to sell your publications as downloads, automatically.

• I am capable of producing exactly what you want, and delivering it on time.
• It is easy to order from us; we do business the way you want us to.

7.  Email addresses that use your site address.  This allows you to send and receive email at your registered domain name, such as "myname@mybusinessname.com".  This is another professional touch, but also lets business owners manage their communications with their customers more easily.

• We do everything with professionalism.
• Our customers love doing business with us.
• I am capable of producing exactly what you want, and delivering it on time.
• It is easy to order from us; we do business the way you want us to.

8.  Better information about who visits your site.  Where is your traffic coming from?  What sites are referring visitors to your site?  What words and phrases are people searching on to find your site?  What are people looking at when they visit your site?  How long do they stay?  What's the last thing they see before they leave?

This kind of information can provide intelligence about your site visitors that can tell you what you can do to adapt to their interests and needs, and increase your sales.

• I am capable of producing exactly what you want, and delivering it on time.
• We do business the way you want us to.

9.  Better support.  With a professionally-built site and web host, we are directly responsible for the support.  We don't turn the support over to a forum, where other visitors may or may not be able or willing to help.  We don't outsource to India.  We answer our own emails and phone calls, at least within 24 hours, and typically within a couple of hours.  Sometimes, we even find and fix problems before our clients notice them.

Keeping your site going helps you meet your customers' needs before a problem gets in the way of a sale.

• Our business is credible, legitmate, trustworthy.
• We are well-established.
• We do everything with professionalism.
• Our customers love doing business with us.
• It is easy to order from us; we do business the way you want us to.

10.  Hosting freedom!  Sites that are built using the site builder the free and cheap hosts provide are very difficult, to move to another host.  So once you build the site, you're pretty much stuck with that host, unless you want to start over with a new site name and rebuild your site from scratch.

A professionally-hosted and built site can easily be moved to another host, so you aren't locked into one host.  That makes it extra important for us to keep you happy so you'll never want to move.

• Our business is credible, legitmate, trustworthy.
• We are well-established.

The bottom line is...

Profitability is not just about avoiding expenses.  It's also about gaining sales, and your web site is your sales rep.  If you hire a "sales rep" for nothing who can't bring you any business, you get what you pay for: nothing.  If your free sales rep gives your business a bad reputation, "free" could end up costing you more than just what you pay for a professional site.