So you need a website and you’ve come to a cross roads. The main question burning in your mind is what should I choose, a cheap website builder or a freelance web designer.

Firstly here’s some examples of a cheap website builder and the 5 main reasons why you might think this is your best option.

5 Examples of a Cheap Website Builder

1. Wix website builder
2. Godaddy website builder (see all the hidden costs)
3. Zyro website builder
4. Ionos website builder
5. Google Sites

5 Reasons you may choose a Cheap Website Builder

1. You have a lot of time.
2. You have no web design or web development skills
3. You’re happy with a basic design template website
4. You have hardly any money to spend on your site
5. You have no strategic marketing plan in place

5 Reasons why a cheap website builder for your small business may not be the best option for you.

1. Cheap Website Builders Still Take Time

They’re user friendly … but!

Cheap website builders like Wix website builder come accross as very user friendly, which they are and they work very well, up to a point. With the cheap package you get a good looking template, add your logo, change the colours to suit your brand, tweak the few lines of text included in the package, add some images of your choice, add your contact details and bam, you have yourself a website in no time. Well not really.

Actually you now have a very small amount of information, that’s in very a small space on the world wide web, that’s near impossible to being ranked by Google or other search engines.

Why the heck is my website not showing up on Google?!

This is possibly one of the biggest surprises when you build your own website with a cheap website builder. You build your website, easy! Then you search online for your service or primary keyword and your website is nowhere to be found. One year, two years and still nothing. Well what do we expect if our entire website is a mere 250 to 500 words amongst the trillions of words and optimised sites Google is searching for with regards to your service.

Time or Money?

You have to ask yourself, am I willing to invest time or money in my website. If you’re new to the world of optimising your website content for the Google search engine then you’re going to need a lot of time. You will spend months on the University of YouTube to understand the science and to optimise your site. You’ll start to climb the ranks and appear in the search results with good quality content creation and keyword research which takes a lot of time.

That’s why with our Small Business Starter Package we will create 3000 words of content for you, keyword researched and optimised for Google to give you a flying kickstart into the world of Google.

So the myth that a cheap website builder doesn’t take time to build your small business website is busted!

Check out this helpful article from Wix about setting realistic expectations regarding how long it will take for you to build your website.

If all you need is some information and pics online that you can point people to by giving them the link to your site, then a cheap website builder is definitely for you.

2. A cheap website builder still requires some technological skills

It’s not as easy as I thought!

So you’ve decided to go the cheap website builder route for example with a Godaddy website builder. You’re on the annual subscription, which you’ve now discovered was a bit more costly than you originally thought. Why? This is because along the way you’ve discovered that you need some addons, like hosting and a domain, email, marketing .. anyway I’ll get to this in “You’ve “got a tiny budget part.”

You’ve added your pics and info, your logo, changed the colours to suit your brand and added your company information and it wasn’t as easy as it looked in the promo video with those flashing colours and groovy sliding images. Now depending on your website package, you’re left with a stock website template that has very limited functionality and it doesn’t look as cool as you thought it would, man it looked so easy in the promo video!

Your site doesn’t make any impression.

Your site doesn’t stand out, it doesn’t really impress, and it doesn’t really work to convert any visitors who look at your site into customers. If your site doesn’t stand out people will not remember your brand, very simple. Where are the pop ups, image effects, dynamic sliders, scrolling images, borders, tabs, dynamic blurbs all custom designed to suit your brand, business and industry. Well, you need some design skills to get the basic template site up and running, but then you’ll discover the limitations and wish your site could do more.

That’s why there are many cheap website builder sites on the internet that look half done. Someone has discovered how much work and time it actually takes to make a professional looking website (that doesn’t yet include the wordy content) and given up. The result is clear, an unprofessional, unfinished looking website. The trade off between should I invest time or money still stands.

Maybe I need to hire a web design professional

That’s why cheap website builders like Wix or Godaddy now have services called Wix Professionals. Now you can pay the Wix professional to make your site look unique and professional. Which means you pay the professional and you pay Wix. We’ll look at these costs in a bit.

The question still stands, am I willing to invest time or money in my website?

Hire a freelance web design professional they’re way more affordable

With our Small Business Website Package you get our professional freelance web design skillset. We use the powerful WordPress Content Mangement platform combined with Divi Website Builder software to give you a unique custom designed site that not only looks awesome but converts and get results. In addition you get a lifetime license to this software when you build with us included in your package.

3. You’re happy with a basic template website design, or not?

All I need are some pics, few words and a link

That’s it, if all you need is some pics, a very small amount of info and a ‘contact us’ form that you can point people to by sharing a link with them, then a cheap website builder package from Godaddy or Wix is perfect for your small business website.

Everything else after that as described above you will either have to invest the time or money. I’ll talk about the money investment below, and I’m guessing that as a small business owner you don’t have that much time. You’re busy running your business which requires loads of dedication and time. Learning new skills like web design and digital marketing along with your current workload is stressful and overwhelming.

Even the simplest cheap website builder package still requires time

We have clients who have spent days, even months trying to design and build their own sites before turning to us to help them. Hiring a freelance web design professional will save you precious time and energy which will allow you to focus on building the core areas of your business. While you’re doing that we’ll build you a web site that’s a lean mean business marketing machine that will work for you day and night attracting potential leads and customers.

Check out our Small Business Website Package if you’d like to invest in some professional help. Are you satisfied with just a basic design template site with very limited functionality?

4. You have hardly any money to spend on your small business website

You must think long term

If you only have £100 to £200 GBP to spend on your small business website then a free or cheap website builder is your best option. There are many free options out there like a Free Google Site, or a Free Wix Website, but please be aware they are extremely limited and still require time and energy to design, build and the most difficult part of web design is still content creation (the words), aah shucks.

What? I have to pay for every website add on?

So then you decide to get something with a bit more functionality which is your entry level cheap website builder for £80 GBP / year. The problems you’ll then encounter is that to add functionality to your brochure site you have to keep paying for addons. These will include a professional email address, a professional logo, marketing, scheduling, any kind of online payment and the list goes on.

As you’re now paying monthly the costs gradually increase to £30GBP / month. You’re locked into a subscription because Wix and Godaddy do not allow you to export your information from their cheap website builders, so it’s a mission to move your site to another platform and you don’t have the time or expertise to do that anyway.

A monthly subscription adds up

So let’s say you end up paying £200 GBP / year which is a very conservative figure for a site with intermediate functionality. If you multiply that by 5 years then that’s £1000 GBP and a whole lot of your time learning the cheap website builder and trying to come up with content. The more time you spend on learning these things the less time you are establishing the core areas of your business. Or you hire the Wix professional to do it for you and double or triple your cost.

WordPress is FREE

So now the question. Why not just hire a professional to do it for you from the start and save time and money. Our small business website package works out way cheaper than a 5 year journey with Wix or Godaddy. There is the initial cost of £795 GBP, and after that you simply pay for your yearly hosting and domain, why because WordPress is FREE. We offer Small Business Website Hosting for £48 / year and a co.uk domain for £8 GBP / year. Your site is built on WordPress so any functionality you need to add is either included or you get a premium plugin for a fraction of the cost of a cheap website builder like SquareSpace, Wix or Godaddy.

Fact! An E Commerce shop on WordPress is actually FREE with a plugin like Woo Commerce. If you know how to set it up and have the time it won’t cost you a penny, or you can hire a professional to do it for you. Again time or money? Our E commerce package is the most affordable there is so please enquire when you request our Small Business Website Package.

Cheap website builders are actually not cheap

Conclusion if you choose a cheap website builder to build your small business website it will cost you more within 3 years when compared to our Small Business Website Package. Furthermore, you’ll be locked into a monthly subscription so you keep paying that monthly cost which month on month will add up to a lot of money.

5. You have no strategic marketing plan in place. What?

Why should I be concerned about marketing for my website

If you choose a cheap website builder there will be no functionality included to assist with any kind of marketing strategy. Search engine optimisation will not be included so you will have no idea what Google is seeing or not seeing with regards to your site. If you remain using the small amount of standard text that comes with the cheap website builder template your site WILL NOT RANK on Google.

Welcome to the world of Google

Adding marketing to your cheap website builder functionality will increase the cost. Once you’ve added the marketing functionality you’ll hopefully be able to do keyword research and optimise your site for Google. Creating content that’s optimised around those keywords to get your site seen and ranked by Google takes time and expertise to learn the tools and the science. You can hire a Wix professional to do this for you which will increase your cost.

Again if all you need from your website is some pictures and some standard words that come with the template site, then a cheap website builder is definitely for you.

We’ll blast you off online with 3000 words of optimised content

With our Small Business Website Package, we give you a Google kickstart to your website with 3000 words of keyword-researched Google-optimised content. I do believe you will not find this value anywhere else. if you are looking long-term at your marketing strategy we’ll happily offer you some advice and if you wish you can employ our services to take care of this for you. The key to getting your services found by Google which means more potential customers is optimised content creation and this takes time. You can try do it yourself or we can do it for you.

So there we go, 5 reasons why a cheap website builder like Wix or Godaddy may not be the best option for your small business website.

Grumpy Guy Studio are a small team of web design specialists based in South Queensfery. We’re freelancers which means we’re way more affordable than a web design agency. If you want to learn more about the difference between web design freelancers and agencies, then see our blog.