Why do small businesses pay so much for websites?
If any business wants to survive in today’s consumer-driven market they need to have a website – FACT
We know we need to have it, but the more important question is why so many pay thousands for the privilege?
When it comes to building your website you’ve got a few choices:
- Create a small & basic site on a free service such as Wix or Weebly
- Create a design unique to your business from the ground up (The most common choice)
- Base your site on a content management system such as WordPress or BigCommerce
If you are looking to build a new site from scratch or just a modern re-design, a CMS is your best solution for long term savings, as well as a professional looking site you can rely on.
A content management system provides a robust & reliable platform to build your site on. This doesn’t mean you’re going to be playing with a drag-and-drop facility either (although that is a possibility). They are used by thousands of professional organizations as a platform to develop their site on.
What a CMS does do is make it easy for non-programmer types to login and make any changes for themselves.
How a CMS can save you money
There are countless benefits to using a CMS when building your website; two of the biggest are the amount of time & money that you’ll save.
- They are free to use – The best thing about most content management systems is that they are usually completely free to use, no subscription fees or commissions (as a general rule).
- Quicker to launch to market – A CMS will almost always be far quicker to get set up than building a static website from scratch.
- Limit costly security issues – Since most CMS’s are worked on by thousands of developers they are generally quite robust in their programming and regular updates mean that your site is provided with the latest security enhancements, saving you money on any potential loss of sale or customer dispute.
- Access free (or cheap) & easy to use enhancements – Most of what you might need or want to enhance your website with will probably be available as an extension from the wider community. You don’t have to worry about compatibility issues with your website and if it’s not free it should not cost too much anyway.
- Extend your site with ease – If you want to add a significant feature to your site such as a blog or a gallery a CMS will usually allow you to do this within a few simple clicks, no need to pay a developer to integrate it from scratch.
- Save on training – Because CMS’s are well documented you don’t have to worry about creating training for internal or even external people using your website. Just direct them to the documentation provided by the CMS.
There is often a misconception that content management systems are unprofessional or lead to a “generic looking website”. This couldn’t be further from the truth, in fact 22% of newly registered domains in the U.S. run on WordPress which is trusted by the likes of:
- Forbes
- WSJ
- AT&T
- Reuters
- & thousands more house name brands
A CMS Is likely to cost you less to build the website you want, with the features you want but at the same time it’s no less of a website than it would be if built from scratch.
Take a look on the web and you’ll find millions of websites, 90% of which look pretty similar to the rest, so what does it matter if your site was built on the same platform as another? Who is going to know? What difference does it make to your customers? If anything it benefits them!
Elvin Web Marketing always builds client sites with a CMS so they can take advantage of a secure platform that allows their business to take full advantage of all the web has to offer.
Is your website built with a CMS? If so which do you use and how has it helped your business…?