What Exactly Is Your "FREE" Company Website Costing You Each Year?
I hear it all the time: I have this website because it's free or I'm skeptical about paying a monthly fee to host a website because my current website doesn't cost my anything but a small annual fee. There is no such thing as a "free" website because a website is a TOOL used for bringing in clients ... and if you have a "free" website, then I'm here to tell you that it's costing you a LOT of money each year ... a lot of money in LOST paying clients.
A saying we are all familiar with: You get what you pay for ... well, you also don't get what you won't pay for ... here are some considerations when you weigh the cost of paying for a fantastic website as opposed to just throwing up a free one so you can say you "have a website" for your company:
- Mobile and Device Friendliness: Is your free website 100% mobile friendly? I am going to go out on a limb and say a big fat NO. Paying a small monthly fee for a hosting company that guarantees mobile and device friendliness is worth every penny in my opinion. Think of all those clients attached to their device who can't access your website properly and will move on quicker than they found you :(
- Automatic Updating: If you have a free website you probably won't automatically get updates when the internet decides to change the way it does things ... so if Firefox or Safari decide they don't like specific images or text or whatever it is they decide to change, your website could end up looking like sh*t on certain browsers and you'd never know! Eek ... just the thought of that is terrifying :(
- Technical Service: Did your website go down just for the hell of it? Are you getting a service error code and you have no idea why? Is one of your pages suddenly gone? If you have a company who has your back and is there to help you then these irritations will be short lived and your website will be back on track in no time ... have not these services?? You're in for some freak outs until you get it figured out yourself.
- The Ugly: I can only call this 'the ugly' because that is what free websites are ... and worse: they stay 'the ugly' for as long as it takes for you to pay someone to redesign it for you. Letting a website get dated is the worst thing you can do if you are a wedding professional ... that bride or groom will click out right away if they see something that looks like the 1990's attacked it with full on force ... and if you have a free website, making quick updates to make it CURRENT will probably take more than a wink and a smile ... paying for a fantastic website service host means you can make updates with a few clicks of the mouse and keep up with the ever changing wedding trends.
- Social Media Links Made Easy: Social Media is huge right now and clients want to know you give a sh*t about being out there in the world online. Being well branded with your social media buttons is important, whether you will admit or not ... paying for a great website hosting interface means you can not only set those up super quickly, but you can also brand them for your company as opposed to the hideous pull and plug options out there for 'free websites' to use.
- Search Engine Optimization: OMG is there anything more important for a company website to have?? Nope!! Free websites rarely come with what you need to really prepare for Google to love and adore you ... so this is where the dollars really start to matter the most ;)
Are there more things I could mention?? Yeah!! But mostly I just want you to know that if you think you are being all savvy "not" paying for a website monthly, you need to consider that you probably have a lot of lost business based on what people see online ... just sayin' ;)
I'm here to help!! Contact me and we'll discuss some other and much better solutions for your wedding company website.
XO~ Heather
