That seems like a pretty obvious statement. A hammer doesn’t build a house. But good luck building a house without a hammer.
I want to talk about a trend I see with online website builders like Wix and Weebly. Let me ask you a dumb question.
Websites and marketing, they’re much the same? Building a business really is a lot like building a home. You have to start with a good plan–called blueprints, and then find an experienced contractor to help you build it. You really wouldn’t embark on building your own house just because Home Depot gave you a free hammer and nails, right? The hammer is just a tool. It’s the skilled carpenter who knows how to use the hammer who builds the house.
OK, so We’ve all heard of Wix and Weebly. And right now thousands of people are lured into these website builders with the idea that it will somehow result in having a thriving business.
I’ve been watching this trend for years now with all the “free” or “cheap” website builders out there, and frankly I’ve had a number of clients who came to me after using them unsuccessfully. Why are they largely unsuccessful? A website is just a tool. It’s not HAVING a website that matters. It’s in how you USE your website, and how it works for you that matters most.
And people flock to Wix and Weebly because they think web designers and marketers like me are expensive, and they just don’t have a lot of money to spend to get a website up and running.
But here’s the bad news. Wix and Weebly — they’re just hammers. Even worse, they’re just rented hammers that you don’t even own.
One of the worst parts of this trend is how many Wix users simply lose faith in a website’s ability to help grow a business. They get locked into annual subscriptions they can’t get out of for websites that aren’t effective, because they’re actually not free or cheap in the long run.
In their boardrooms they call it “significant lock-in”.
Let’s face it, if you were building a house, you wouldn’t even want a hammer anyway. You’d want a big powerful nail gun and someone skilled who knows how to use it!
Your business is the home that needs to be built, and a custom WordPress website crafted by a skilled marketer like me is the nail gun. I know how to build effective websites that will help your business grow, and I can show you how to use these tools for maximum marketing impact.
I’m guessing you started your business for a reason, and I doubt it was so you can spend hours, days and weeks behind the computer screen doing web development. Leave that part to experts like me who know how to make these tools work for you.
If money’s tight, I can help you get started for peanuts and help you grow your business. When the money’s flowing, we’ll talk about those bigger budget things to put your business on steroids. This is the part of my business that I love the most–helping other entrepreneurs like you reach their goals and grow their businesses.
Let’s talk pricing. Wix gives you a free website builder, and charges for hosting. Their pricing for online sellers starts at $23 a month, and goes up to $500 a month. Yes, every month. With the free plans you’ll have to accept Wix branding on your site, and the icon shown in the browser bar will be a Wix logo. That’s not effective branding, nor does it shout professionalism. You also can’t add-in Google Analytics until you get onto a premium plan.
Here’s four reasons to avoid Wix.
1. Wix Makes It ‘Really Easy’ To Build A Website
If that’s true, isn’t that a good thing? Well, if you approach building your website as task that should be as easy as possible, instead of how to make it as EFFECTIVE as possible, then you’re already on the wrong foot. If it was supposed to be ‘easy’ to build an effective website that helps you succeed, then there wouldn’t be thousands of articles about search engine optimization (SEO), effective graphic design, content structure, and how to create effective funnels.
Sure, Wix makes it easy to jump in and throw together a web site. But “good enough” seldom is, and your business deserves more than something easily thrown together.
You need to consider how your website engages and retains visitors, how your content is structured, what page titles and keyword weight and balances you will use, the calls to action that prompt your visitors to do something. You need to properly implement online tracking analytics so you can track effectiveness and even watch user sessions to see how users navigate your site. You’ll also probably need other tools to garner insights that may drive your marketing and content decisions.
These are all important reasons why it shouldn’t be ‘easy’ to build a website.
2. Wix Simplifies Complexities
This is definitely not a good thing. Sure, Wix makes it easy to create websites much like a brochure. But your website is not a brochure, nor should it be. What your users see isn’t what Google sees. Google cares more about content, mobile friendliness and security. Wix claims to do SEO, but very few Wix sites that I’ve seen truly are optimized.
Google doesn’t really care if your content looks nice, or if your photos are beautiful. But your visitors do. Both sides of the equation need to be addressed. By simplifying these complexities Wix makes it very easy to knock out a “nice” website. But this doesn’t mean you’re getting a website that will be effective towards your success.
3. Wix Locks Your Website in Their Proprietary System
Many Wix users complain that their website runs slow or sluggish. This is the fastest way to make visitors run away. Wix packs thousands of websites onto their servers, and you can’t take your website somewhere else. But if your website is custom built on WordPress, you can quite literally take it to virtually any web host in the world.
If over time you begin to dislike the Wix service, or your business outgrows them, you’re stuck. You have to start all over again, and you flush every dollar you spent on Wix down the toilet.
4. Wix Isn’t Free at all.
As a matter of fact, it may be the most expensive option. Sure, Wix is very attractive since they lure you in with the “free” claim. But with the free plan you’ll have to allow Wix to brand your website, and the icon shown in the browser will be the Wix logo. That’s not effective branding, nor does it shout professionalism. You also can’t add-in Google Analytics until you get onto a premium plan.
The biggest cost of using Wix is a hidden one that few people consider. It’s called opportunity cost. This is the cost of all the customers you lose because your website isn’t engaging them.
Crunch your own numbers, but let’s use this hypothetical scenario.
Let’s say your average sale is $300. If one order a week comes through your Wix site, that’s $15,600 per year. That might seem good on it’s face. But if you see your retention/conversion rates are very low, and you don’t know how to improve that, you’re losing business.
If a professionally built and optimized website cost you $3,500 to build and it’s well managed by a good marketer that charged you $6,500 in ongoing consulting this year, and it brings in five orders a week, then your annual revenue jumps to $78,000 and you can easily see that the Wix site wasn’t free. It actually cost you $62,400. That’s a quarter-million dollars over 4 years that you didn’t get!
My hosting has been $12 a month since 2005. That price has never changed. Not $12 to $500. Just $12 a month. And that includes e-commerce, Google Analytics or AW-Stats if you choose, and an SSL certificate.
Website pricing? I’ve done simple e-commerce websites for as little as $250, and I even accepted payments for it. Typical website builds range anywhere from $1200 on up to $3000-$5000 on the high side. Building websites isn’t really where my bread and butter comes from. The real money for me is helping business owners USE their website to grow their business. Once money is coming in, business owners typically want to budget for marketing in order to keep it growing, and that’s how I establish long-term, successful relationships.
I can show you how. So Let’s talk. Seriously, call, text or email me.
-Preston W. Kincaid
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