You’ve made the decision to get a website for your business, and now you need to determine what your options are for choosing a website provider. We’ll look at three aspects of each option: cost, time commitment, and credibility, so you can make an informed decision.
Facebook/Social Media
Many small businesses start here, and don’t go any further. In fact, many business have a Facebook page long before the business as a legal entity is even setup.
Facebook, and other social media platforms include the option to have both a Profile, and a Page. The profile, to showcase who you are, and a Page to showcase a business, or something you are passionate about.
Time Commitment
Low – The time commitment for setting up a Facebook page is very small.
Add an image, describe the business, and start posting content. It’s something you can do on a whim any night of the week.
Cost
Low – The cost of a Facebook page is free, which is a major factor for businesses just starting out.
No upfront costs, and no long-term costs. However, there is an opportunity cost. An opportunity cost is the value of other potential options (aka opportunities) that are missed because of the current approach.
Having just a Facebook page, in the long run, may seem like it’s pulling its weight in bringing in new customers, but could you get more business online if you took another approach? That brings us to credibility.
Credibility
Low – Your business credibility will be low if this is your only online presence.
Facebook works well in a local community, with a brand new business. From a search perspective, Google and other search engines are fairly good at promoting social media pages that match keywords.
It’s not a bad branding decision to have a Facebook page. In fact it can be very useful to interact with your customers on social media. It just can’t be the only online presence for your business.
Here are the problems.
- You can’t really do e-commerce on Facebook. You can use Facebook marketplace to sell one-off items, but you can’t setup product listings and inventory, and let it work for you. That’s an opportunity cost, for sure.
- As a business, you are limited to how you display, and what information you can display to your customers. It’s a template at best.
- You are limited to Facebooks policies. Facebook is heavily left-wing biased, and if they don’t like your products, or your message, they can deplatform your business.
- Your website, much like your storefront, is an opportunity to set your brand apart from everyone else. If you are using Facebook, you can’t do that.
- Consumer expectation is that you have an actual site.
- You can’t get good analytics on conversions. In other words, aside from “follows” and “Likes”, you have no idea how many people actually use your facebook page before they become a customer.
Having just a Facebook page is fine for a hobby business, or maybe a micro business that’s just starting out. If you are serious about your business, this option isn’t enough for the long haul.
Template Websites
This category is really about tools like Wix, managed WordPress, and others that give you the ability to setup a business website using a standard online template for a very low price. As far as website providers go, this category is the basic, entry level option.
Time Commitment
Low – It only takes a few minutes to setup one of these sites, and often you can set it up before paying for it, to see if you like it. You enter your logo, your business description and name, and your services, and that’s it!
Cost
Low – Often these sites will have free options and cost less than $100 annually. Wix, for example, has plans as low as $17/month. WordPress.com has personal plans as low as $4/month. For business not yet generating revenue, this can be a good option to get your name online.
Credibility
Low/Medium – While the sites look nice, your business won’t stand out against the competition. Your site will have the same look and feel as thousands of other sites, and how you can interact with your customers is limited.
If you don’t purchase your own domain name to save money, that reduces your credibility for sure. In other words, you have something like https://smalltownbakery.wordpress.com. That gives off the same impression as a retail shop in the main walkway of a mall. You can buy things from it, but there are probably better options out there.
DIY Site
Many small businesses try to build their site themselves. Perhaps a cousin of the owner has a degree in IT, or a spouse convinces you that they can do it for you. So they purchase a GoDaddy hosting package, pick a domain name, and build it themselves.
Being your own website provider is totally doable, but spoiler alert, probably not the best option.
Time Commitment
Astronomically High – or at least that’s what it feels like 2 years later when your website is out of date, content that’s still misaligned, and only a vague idea of how you even login to manage it.
Seriously though, as a DIYer, it will take you 40-60 hours to get your site where it needs to be. If you get it done in less than 10, you probably think my estimate is way off, but you’ve definitely missed something. Your favicon isn’t set. That’s the icon next to your page title in the browser tab.
You didn’t do keyword research to make sure your content is what people are looking for. You didn’t secure your login page to minimize the possibility of getting hacked. Your images are not sized appropriately to both be crystal clear, and to load fast.
You didn’t minify your Javascript for performance reasons or enable AMP. You didn’t setup Site Kit for google analytics, to see who are coming to your site. And so many more.
Cost
High – Most people choose this option because they think it saves them money. For $150-250 a year, it feels like a good mid-range investment, but doesn’t break the bank. However, your time is money. If you spend 40 hours on a website, you’ve just lost a week’s worth of providing products and services. And 6 months down the road, you are going to be too busy to manage it yourself. I’ve talked to so many business owners who complain about their spouse, their nephew, their cousin, or a friend who setup their site for them, but don’t have time to make updates to it because they are off doing something else.
Don’t get tripped up thinking this is a low-cost option, it’s not.
Credibility
Low/Medium – It’s going to be tough for you to build a professional looking website and keep it up to date, while checking all of the boxes for a strong SEO strategy.
If your favicon is the default WordPress logo, content gets out of date, or worse, your site gets hacked, your credibility erodes pretty quickly. If your site is not a secured site (e.g. https), then your customers won’t stick around at all.
I’ve not yet a business owner that can manage their retail shop, and keep their online DIY website up-to-date and professional looking.
Professional Build
Obviously this is going to be our recommendation. We’re a professional web design company that is passionate about helping businesses get their businesses online. We would love to be your business’ website provider. Regardless, there is a ton of variability in the marketplace for how much you pay, and what you get!
Time Commitment
Low/Medium – Depending on your level of preparation, the time commitment may be minutes or it may be hours. A website is made up of your content. The text you want, the color schemes and fonts, the graphics, and the interactions. A professional web design company can bring ideas, suggestions, and even recommend a site layout, but they will need a lot of information from you. Most will have a template/checklist either in a Word document or PDF, or just ask for it over e-mail. For the most part, it will probably take you 1-4 hours to gather or decide on everything that is needed.
Cost
Medium/High – There is a lot of variability here. We hear from many small businesses that our competitors are selling websites at $2k+ with a $150/month maintenance fee. One customer spent over $6k on their website. Most of these companies don’t return calls, or say they’ll fix something but never do. It’s a hassle, to get something changed, and you aren’t quite sure what they are paying for.
Some professional design companies forego the upfront cost in favor of a higher monthly maintenance fee. We’ve seen fees over $250/month. That might sound good, since you don’t have to pay $2k+ for the initial site setup, but in the first year alone you’ll spend $3k. Rinse and repeat that year over year, and that’s an incredible cost to pay for a website, especially for a small business.
Here at 120 Web Design, we want to provide unbelievable service at an affordable price so you can focus on your business and your customers. For everything we do, we charge a fixed hourly rate that’s probably less than your local car mechanic. Call, email or text us at any time, and we’ll get your site updated, typically the same day.
Our customers tell us their experience with us is hands-down the best they’ve ever had, and we want to keep it that way.
Credibility
High – A great web-design company will put your best possible foot forward online. Their focus on your brand, your customers, and the value of your products enables them to put together a website that wows your customers.
They’ll incorporate security, interaction and flow, SEO (search engine optimization) so customers can find your online business organically, and much more. Focusing on your potential customer’s first impression, tracking their behaviors, and converting them to an actual customer is what both you and your customers need.
Next Steps
If you haven’t yet made a decision, why not give us a call? We’d love to help you understand the pros and cons of these options and how each might affect your business’ bottom line. We want your business to be successful. Visit our Contact page and let us know how we can help! Also, visit our Special Offers page for the latest ways you can reduce the cost of getting online!
