There are certain lessons you only learn from making a mistake. For most business owners, buying a cheap website is one of the first mistakes they make when going digital. So if you’re one of the many considering a $500 build made by a friend of a friend, make a 180 and go with a professional web design company.
If you need more convincing, here are 4 lessons you learn after buying your first cheap website.
Cheap can’t grow with you
Let’s assume you did get a site built for $500. What can it actually do? Chances are the bare minimum. If you intend on monetizing your website- you have to be ready for the web traffic you spend your time wishing for. If you’re website crashes once you start bringing in traffic, you’re going to miss out on a lot of capital. Data limits are a very real aspect of website hosting and if you’re not educated on how that works, now is the time.
But more than that .. you want a website that can grow with you over time. Whether that be as you add more pages or get more traffic (but hopefully both).
Cheap doesn’t serve your customers
The number one reason customers leave a website is that it doesn’t serve their needs. Yes, they want fast load times and clear information but ask yourself… can a cheap website really provide that? No.
From chatbots to customer support, the average consumer is expecting a lot more from a website. In fact, having a bad website can turn them off your company entirely. And if you think about it, it makes sense. How many times have you searched for a site, landed, and thought: “This website sucks”. Taking that idea a bit further, how many times have you had to say to a friend: “It doesn’t say what their return policy is on their site”.
Hold your website to the same standards you hold big companies.
Cheap is expensive to fix
Perhaps the most painful of all lessons is the fact that cheap websites are expensive to fix. More often than not, cheap websites are held together by free plugins and one-year licenses. Unfortunately, this means for most of the technical problems you’ll run into- there will be no support available. Furthermore, if you’re website was built years ago- there is a good chance you won’t be able to update those plugins due to your CMS having a major upgrade.
If you can find a fix, be prepared to pay a premium price. Going in and fixing another developer’s mistake is a headache any web designer is all too familiar with. There is no way to ‘quote’ and as they dig… they’re likely to find the shortcuts your cheap developer took along the way. In most cases, business owners will end up buying an entirely new website. Which means you’ll either end up spending a lot of money to fix a bad site or spending the money to build a good site (and being out the cash).
Cheap isn’t better, period
When you’re hiring some to do a job you have three options, but you can only pick two. You can pick
- Cheap
- Good
- Fast
Plan your projects accordingly. Be aware that if someone is offering you all three, they’re blowing smoke. You may not know it now, but as you may have guessed… you’ll quickly find out why.
Final thoughts
Your website is an extension of your business. Treat it accordingly. If you wouldn’t cut corners in your kitchen, don’t do it on your website. Over 90% of Americans have a smartphone in their pocket. Over 70% percent of Americans check a business out online before they buy. If your website is the first impression you make on a new customer, what would it say? Hire the right dc web design company the first time.
Have you suffered the date of buying a cheap website? Did you learn all of our lessons or just a few? Share your horror stories in the comments.