You decided to create a website, and while doing a bit of research, you thought the site builder could be the great solution. Then you did some research and found out that there are many tools in the market and then you got a bit puzzled, which prevented you from going ahead. Know that this doubt is very normal and making the right choice is a key to avoid wasting time and disappointments in the future.
Although there are excellent and very popular tools (I have already recommended in several situations), but the site builders are not suitable for everyone. There are at least 5 situations where it is not the best alternative, in which you may find yourself.
Follow the article and find out when the site creator is not right for you!
1. You want to be free to take your site anywhere
Every site creator has a company behind who owns the tool that allows you and millions of users to create a website on their own.
This system is proprietary and for it, you pay a monthly fee, which works as a tool rental. Because your site is built on this platform, it is “stuck” to it, so it cannot be transferred to another company.
The reasons for this happen far beyond the will of the company and involve issues related to the programming and operation of the platform. Because each site creator has its own editor, a site created on one of these platforms could hardly work on another. And if it worked, it would probably have incompatibility issues.
When a user creates a site in such a tool and then decides to change it, he is forced to create a new site on the other platform. This is the biggest disadvantage of a site creator that many people have discovered.
What to do when switching platforms?
Changing the platform is a laborious process, but the user can always take advantage of the texts and images for the new site, and even reproduce the structure of the site in the new tool. Looking on the bright side, it is an opportunity to create a better website than the current version.
Just be careful not to get the website offline, nor lose the indexing already done by Google. Pointing the domain to the new tool and keeping site URLs (or redirecting) already solves part of the problem.
So if you want to create a website and evolve with it over time, thoroughly analyze your options and choose a tool that meets your long-term needs, so you do not have to change later. Or, opt for a tool that allows you to take the site wherever you want, such as WordPress (.org).
2. You have knowledge in web design or development
If you are a web designer, developer or into IT, you will probably prefer building your site straight in the code or using an open source tool like WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal. In addition to free, these tools are more flexible and scalable.
Although these site designers are interesting options, they have several limitations. Although they may not bother a lay user, they often cause frustration in technical people, accustomed to tinkering with code and customizing the site as they choose.
So, if you are from the area of web design, development or familiarity with the subject, know that you have many (even better) options to create your website.
3. SEO is one of the pillars of your strategy to gain audience
Long ago the creators of sites have a reputation for being unfriendly to the searchers. And the fact is that this really does not seem to have been their priority for many years. However, with SEO’s popularity and the growing need for sites to be present in search engines, tools have begun to invest in this area and have evolved significantly in this regard. Nowadays, the best website designers offer at least the basics of SEO.
What does that mean? You’ll be able to customize some of your site information, such as titles, page descriptions, and URLs, which will then appear on Google’s search result pages. Your site will probably also have friendly URLs (ex: www.site.com/we-we) and you’ll still have a responsive or mobile version of your site, which will give you an edge in mobile searches.
Okay, this is all very useful, but it’s little when we talk about SEO.
Professional SEO is another story
Contrary to what some claim, doing SEO professionally is hard work and long-term. Without saying it involves dozens of internal and external aspects of your site. These include performance and loading speed of the site, the relevance of its content, compatibility with mobile devices and site authority, as well as many others.
On the other hand, thousands of online businesses exist based on organic traffic, which is directly linked to SEO. So if reaching a large volume of organic traffic is a premise to the success of your website, the site creator is not really right for you.
As much as these tools have evolved over time (and a lot), they are not yet optimized enough to potentiate your SEO. And you also do not have access to the code to make the necessary settings.
A friendly tool helps, but it’s not all
A very friendly tool for search engines is WordPress. Its structure is optimized and in the installed version (WordPress.org) it is possible to customize almost any aspect of the site, in the sense of making it more interesting for search engines.
Now, you need to know that having a WordPress website will not make it appear first for a particular word. It takes a lot of sweating to get there and choosing the tool is just the first step.
As we have seen, professional SEO and site creator do not match (yet). If your online business depends on your organic growth and SEO is something you want to invest heavily in, choose a tool that allows you to configure all the components of your site.
4. Do you plan to create a blog?
It is true that many builders have blog functionality, but always to a limited extent. Having a blog on this tool may be worth it only when you have a website on this platform and want to create a news space with no commitment to generate organic traffic. It’s just a place for your customers, who already visit your site, to know something new.
However, if you want to create a professional blog, there are other tools much more interesting. Although it seems repetitive, WordPress (installed) is the best option in this case, for its flexibility, although Blogger is a tool known and even older than the first.
Also Check, Basic components required to create a blog on WordPress
Like Blogger, WordPress was created as a blogging platform. Over time, it has gained in popularity, until becoming the most used content manager of the internet. It is currently used by 28% of all websites in the world.
5. Do you plan to create a virtual store?
There are a myriad of ways to create a virtual store, and most of the times the site builder is not indicated as the ideal solution. With the exception of Wix, which actually offers an eCommerce feature tailored for India, most site creators are left wanting in this respect.
In some cases, not offering eCommerce is a choice of tool, which makes sense, since a virtual store requires a number of features that are not used in common sites.
So if your plan is to build an eCommerce, study the tool well or consider possibilities, such as ready-made virtual stores or open source platforms such as Magento, OpenCart or Prestashop. They were created for this purpose, and so tend to do a better job in that area.
Who can choose the site creator then?
It is true that the site creator is not suitable for everyone because each site has its own characteristics and needs. Likewise, WordPress is not unanimous, however good it may be.
However, incredible as it may seem, the site creator is suitable for large numbers of people. It is no wonder that the leader in this segment, Site PRO, has already been used by more than 100 million users.
I will cite below some situations in which it may be the ideal solution:
- For those who want to create an institutional site, personal or a local business;
- For those who want to create the site on their own and do not have technical knowledge;
- For those who do not want to depend on third parties to create and maintain their website;
- For those looking for an easy to use and maintain tool. In that, it is not necessary to make updates to plugins, to take care of the security of the platform, nor to manage the web hosting, since everything is done by the company.
If you have identified with at least one of the points above and opted into the site builder, my recommendation is that you should choose your tool well. And before you commit to it, take the time to test it. Several tools offer a free version or allow free testing for up to 15 days, sufficient time to evaluate and get to know the tool.
