In the last two weeks I've noticed an emerging trend amongst professional businesses looking to be online for a low budget. In a bid to save money could it be said that they are compromising their professionalism and reducing the potential number of clients?
Of course I could be wrong as I'm biased in the extreme as a professional website designer and developer providing websites to small businesses! I wonder if this is really a threat to my business / industry or if these types of clients are not desirable anyway?
What are they doing then? well they are using cheap or even free website building and / or hosting solutions. Basically they choose from a limited number of templates what their website will look like. Then enter their content, maybe change a bit of styling then launch their website.
I'm not sure what you would call these solutions but are a few I've noticed being used recently locally:
Yahoo Business solutions - you may need a free Yahoo account to see this. It's a web based solution.
Sandvox - this is a Mac application, and actually looks quite good!
Vistaprint - well it look pretty pro and is a lot cheaper than me!
but wait what are the pro's and con's as compared to a pro Joomla based website?...
| Cheap solution | Pro solution | |
| Price | Very cheap or even free | High initial setup cost |
| Usually ongoing monthly payments | No ongoing costs apart from hosting or upgrades | |
| Upgrades | Most likely included in ongoing costs | Only needed when security risk is found |
| Code | Generated code should be good in theory but varies with solution chosen | Good code |
| Client generated code highly likely to be very poor | Pro | |
| SEO | Depends on solution but should be OK in theory, just quite limited in what can be done to enhance it | Any |
| Professionalism | Depends on the user of the solution but highly likely to look amateur | It's going to look and be pro for sure ! |
| Perception | You could risk creating a negative perception of your business in your clients minds using this cheap option | Your clients will know you are a pro and mean business! |
| Uniqueness | There will quite likely be a fare number of other businesses with almost exactly the same website | Depends on the budget but most likely to be a highly unique |
| Return on investment | This all depends on many things including your business type, competition, business objectives, cost of cheap solution and what your time is worth. | Likely to pay for itself within a year at least (depending on your competition and business) |
I suppose in the end you get what you pay for. Ultimately after writing this post I feel that the cheap website solutions make my life easier. Firstly by filtering out the clients who can't afford me. Secondly by coming to me when they are more ready and educated about what they really need for their website to be and do for their business.
Comment please! :)...
written by Suze , November 27, 2009
I always get comment from clients on the uniqueness of my site- a very good thing in my business! I get remembered. ;)
written by Abi , November 03, 2009
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Yes that is a valid point I had not mentioned - that the amateur sites all look the same and therefore don't do what they where intended to do.