Free… this word has a magical impact on the human mind. We all love freebies and there is nothing wrong with it. However, every free thing is not worth accepting… for instance, free websites. While there are lots of digital platforms that allow you to create a free website, you should also remember a famous saying in the marketing world- when something is free, you are the product. It essentially means that the users of free websites aren’t the customers who can demand premium service, but just a “product” that can be used for the vested interests of the smart vendors. It doesn’t sound good but there are many other disadvantages of free websites that we are going to present in this blog:
An unprofessional address (indicating that you are just a tenant- not the owner)
The free website comes with a rented domain which is indicated in the name itself like yourbusines.maindomain.com. It is no brainer that such names look both irrelevant and unprofessional like ABCITsecurity.freepicks.com. How can you expect the business prospects or potential buyers to be impressed by such websites.
You still need to pay for unlocking features (plus there’s catch)
Most of the free websites have a freemium model where they would offer you only the limited features with the free account and for unlocking more professional features you would need to buy their premium packages. In many cases these sites don’t support easy transfers to other paid website services. It can be a tricky affair as you have already built a website on a free platform and it is practically better to switch to their premium plan as switching to other services is quite difficult.
Your content is owned by the provider (not you)
The awesome content that you have produced after investing lots of time and attention is owned by the free website. In many cases, if you would read the fine print you would know that the free website is the actual owner of your content. What is even more disturbing that they can pull off your content whenever they like. When you click the"I agree" button or checkbox, you are accepting these conditions and there is nothing you can do afterward.
No control over user experience
The backend services like hosting and underlying platform plays a vital role in defining the user’s experience. However with free sites you don’t have any control over these factors. Moreover you cannot claim support services or demand the owners to repair your site. It means that your site may slow down often, experienced downtimes and straggles with connectivity interruptions- and you just cannot help the situations while your visitors will get annoyed and many of them might even abandon your site.
Not a practical option to initiate SEO strategies
You build websites to earn revenue or reputation. So, at some point in time you may need to invest efforts in SEO strategies. It could be a risky affair on free websites as these sites can take your domain off the air anytime. In such cases you lose all the SEO juice that you acquired after investing so many resources, efforts, and attention. So you have to make a hard choice between remaining obscure by not following any SEO strategy or risking your SEO strategies by initiating them on a free website.
Conclusion
Several digital platforms across the globe claim to offer you a completely free website. While it is true that they offer you a free website, it has many limitations and instead of helping your business to grow, a free website hurts your brand and makes your site look unprofessional. Moreover, due to the high competition, it is now possible to buy a domain and hosting at very affordable prices.