In today’s competitive online market, very cheap options for designing and building a website are available. Whether it is by outsourcing the work to India or the Philippines, using free online templates, using a free website host or hiring a company who specialise in low-cost website creation, there are risks involved that can end up being incredibly costly for any business as they risk financial loss, as well as losing customers due to an inadequate website.
If you are considering a low-cost website solution, some factors to consider are:
User Experience
Usability and web accessibility go hand-in-hand and are vital for the success of any website. Users expect that navigating the website will be easy, with clear links and an intuitive design. Disabled web users expect image descriptions to be readable by a screenreader, as well as having the option to change the text size or background colour where necessary. These features usually make it easier for non-disabled visitors to use the site effectively, too.
However, these are features that low-cost websites often lack. Cheap designs focus on the basics and can fail miserably at making the site usable and accessible. The images chosen for the site might be of poor quality or even breach copyright, and a poor overall design will detract from the purpose of any website.
Ads you have no control over
When a website is built on a free platform, the host company will often run advertising on your pages. You not only receive none of the income from the ads, you also have no control over what appears. A flashing banner ad could wreck the appearance of an otherwise stylish, minimalist site and contextual adverts could even be promoting your competitors in your site’s sidebar.
Website owners should make an informed decision about whether or not ads have a place on their corporate webpages, and this is normally based on how much profit they can bring in. On free website platforms with compulsory ads, you have no choice about the type of advertising that appears and you receive no revenue from them at all.
Cookie-Cutter, not Bespoke Designs
In order to make very cheap web design financially viable, many companies need to produce a large number of websites. This means that, rather than personally designing and crafting websites to meet a client’s exact requirements, they may instead have a series of cookie-cutter solutions which they can adapt in minor ways to build a new website for your business.
This means that your company’s new website could end up being identical to many other sites on the web who have used the same designers or developers, purely because of the competitive pressure they are under to make such low fees workable and profitable. They simply cannot spare the time to assess exactly what you need and discuss your precise requirements.
Features
A very cheap website design is likely to only offer a limited number of features. Anything which goes beyond the basics is probably not going to be available or will incur extra costs. If you want to make your site mobile-friendly, be able to embed videos, customise your RSS feed or offer e-commerce solutions for instance, cheap web design options are not generally suitable. If they are available for an extra fee, by the time you have added all the features you need your “low-cost” website might not be such a bargain any more.
Cheap web design is often a false economy. Sites which are difficult to navigate or which lack vital features will make potential clients go elsewhere, and errors in rushed design work can be very costly to fix. Scrimping in this area risks a business’s reputation, as a website is often the first port of call for new customers. However businesses who invest a little more in a custom-built, top quality website will almost certainly reap the benefits over time.
