Free Websites: Do they save money or become a bane in disguise???
There is nothing new about getting tempted by the idea of free websites.
If this sounds luring to you as well, here is a piece of a good read!
Getting a free website built is not a great idea to save capital as it has serious implications that most of us are not aware of.
If, like others, you are also trapped by free website templates and services promising you free hosting, etc., think again before choosing them.
We have come up with an elaborative idea of why you should never make a website for free.
The companies offering these free services do this for their monetary benefits and hence there are a lot of limitations and difficulties in SEO.
Here are the reasons why you should avoid these websites at all costs.
These Websites Look Completely Unprofessional
A website address is your online identity; whether you are just a blogger or marketing yourself or have a corporate website; you would not like to have a website address as unprofessional as thermacool.freewebsites.com.
Nobody likes to get a distorted first impression.
One of the biggest problems with free websites is that you cannot have a proper domain name without which you cannot expect to appear professional.
Your official website should have a simple and clear URL.
Users of your website should know what your company is all about and what they can expect from you. Free websites do not have any Urls similar to your website name.
These “urls” do not look professional and in all chances your websites may get penalized by Google in the search results, as in the eyes of Google, these sites are not reliable.
Users will not find your website on Search Engines.
Even Google free sites are not recommended, find out why here:
Free Actually Means “Not Free” As There Will Be Limited Free Trials
The word “Free” is just a trap. It is true that nothing comes for free. So, it is good not to over-expect.
To lure potential customers, the word “Free” is just a gimmick as there will be limited trials only.
Initially, you will feel that everything is free, but the price that you actually pay is higher than the normal WordPress hosting service.
Apart from that, when you will be charged, you will end up paying more than what you in paid services.
Once you are trapped with the “Free” term, you will end up paying more. So, when you are charged later, do not think that you will get a cheaper deal.
Here are the top 5 free website builders.
You Do Not Own Your Website
You can use content, images, graphics, or whatever you want, but you do not actually own the website.
The service provider owns your website and can use your content, images, or anything valuable contained in your website for his vested interest.
It is regarded as compensation to let you use a free website. Sometimes users do not even know and they end up giving their ownership rights to the free website builder service provider.
Besides that, as you do not own your website, you do not have any control over it.
Your host can decide to pull your site at any time without giving you a prior warning to you.
It happens to a lot of people and when this happens you cannot expect to get your content as it is.
Once your website is down, you will have to start from scratch to rebuild it.
You Lose Domain Metrics When You Move
When you host your own site, you do not lose the SEO advantages of the old domain.
However, when you choose free sites, you will have a difficult time moving your site.
You cannot automatically redirect your visitors and they have to click manually to get to your newer website.
You will also lose all the domain metrics and every new website building effort has to be started at the ground level.
Your Website Will Appear More Like A Pamphlet
One of the commonly faced free website issues is that it appears more like an advertising pamphlet.
Free website builders are all across the Internet. Why do you think they will not charge you any fees?
Apparently, they want to have monetary benefits from the traffic to your site and can make your website look like a poster.
They will stick advertising banners in all the premium spaces.
Not only this, there can be pop-up ads; also that can leave a poor impression on visitors.
The Service Provider Can Get Several Other Monetary Benefits That Actually Harm Your Website
A lot of people have poor experience with free websites.
They complain of their websites being used as a link farm, which means that free websites service providers may sell links on it.
If this happens, the user has a risk of facing Google Penalties or even getting black-listed and de-indexed by the Search Engines.
A Lot of Security issues
This is one of the biggest issues that free websites have today.
They are vulnerable to malware and your information can be stolen, encrypted or even deleted without your permission or even without your knowledge.
This is perhaps the biggest disadvantage of a free website.
You can imagine how it feels like when you open your website and find it hacked with your hard work nowhere to be found.
Free Websites Are Too Slow Which Distorts Their Image
Incredible though it may sound; but yes, it is true that no visitor stays on your site for more than 15 seconds.
Free websites are normally slower and a few of them get extremely slow, sometimes to an annoying extent.
This happens so because the free hosting services have a shared hosting platform.
Like yours, thousands of other websites are also hosted there and hence you share the same bandwidth which results in slower speeds and a negative influence on SEO.
If you have a poor experience with free websites, this is due to shared hosting. Slow websites are a pain in the back and losing visitors will be the last thing you want.
Forget about uploading Elaborative Content
Free website services offer only limited disk space.
Enabling users to offer more disk space costs money and hence you cannot expect this investment from a free hosting service. So, uploading a lot of videos, images or other heavy files is not possible on these websites.
Visitors Will Doubt Your Credibility
No business should make a decision to make a website for free because unprofessional domain names affect its credibility.
Websites are online identities through which customers from all across the globe recognize your business.
So, if you choose to make your website for free, do so at the risk of your reputation and credibility.
How to get a low-cost domain name? Crazyegg has the answer here.
You Cannot Get the Top Designs
An appealing UI is the first impression that you make on visitors.
Free website building services provide you only limited templates which are not sufficient to create your websites.
Contrary to this, when you choose to go in for a paid service, you will have a lot of options and you can demand customization also.
On the other hand, there is no scope for customization in free websites and you have only a few options.
Sometimes you may be able to change the fonts or colors on a template or theme or upload a header graphic, but this is what you can do the most.
You Will Experience a Lot of Downtime
As mentioned, free websites mean that you do not have ownership of the website, which means you do not have control over it when it is live.
Your host can pull your website at any time without giving you any prior warning.
Not only this, you have no control over your site going down.
Free hosts are notorious for pulling your websites down every now and then.
Moreover, since there are thousands of websites on the same hosting platform, there is a lot of downtimes which keeps even your loyal visitors at bay.
You Will Have a Difficult Time Optimizing Them
Among other issues with a free website, one of the most prominent ones is that you will have a difficult time optimizing them.
This happens because you cannot get into the backend of these websites.
Hence, on-site SEO is not possible and other opportunities to do SEO will not be there as well.
You can better imagine the difficulty in doing SEO for a website that is being penalized by Google for its unprofessional domain.
In the name of SEO, what you can do is just place keywords in the content and titles.
Search Engines do not prioritize free websites and it becomes very difficult to get them ranked.
Your Official E-mail Will Not Be Connected With Your Brand
If you are an enterprise, your e-mail address gives a great impression on clients.
If you go in for paid website building services, you will be provided with a professional e-mail address that will end up with your website name like info@thermacool.com.
Contrary to this, as you do not own the domain on the free websites, you cannot have branded e-mail addresses.
This again gives a feel of unprofessionalism.
No Customer Support for the Set-Up
When you try to set up your website, you will get no support.
This will leave you confused.
The support staff is expensive and so free site providers do not hire them.
There would be customer support to help you out.
When you try to build your site, this will become a major problem. You would be in a situation where you experience downtime but will not get the desired help when you need it.
Thousands of Other Websites Will Look Like Yours
Most bloggers come up with a website to make money.
They lack resources and make a website for free.
If a similar goal is on your mind, you should never go in for a free website. Thinking about making a bit extra cash by putting adverts should be given up.
Free website service providers forbid this.
If your site is making any money, it will not come to you.
This is the reason why most of the bloggers who want to monetize their blogs stay away from the free website building services.
Your Website Will Lack Uniqueness
Free template websites do not have their unique identity.
There will be thousands of other websites that will look just like your website because there are only limited templates and all the users have to use those only.
So, your website will be no different from the others.
People May Steal Your Images and Content
If you are a professional artist and thinking to go for a free-of-cost website service, you should not do this.
Your images will become the property of the service provider.
Your images can be stolen and you cannot stop others from hot-linking images as you do with a plug-in when you choose WordPress.
They Have Bad Track Record
As mentioned, these sites are run by service providers for monetary gains.
There are thousands of free website services that have a bad track record and have fared poorly on Search Engines.
In short, when you go in for these websites, your websites will have no credibility; they will be insecure and undependable.
Why is Paid Hosting Important?
There are apparent reasons to get attracted to free hosting.
Most people think that if free hosting can cater to all their needs, why they should go for a paid one.
Here are the reasons why paid hosting is far more important and useful than free hosting.
Take a look at this before taking any decision.
Your Domain Name is the hostname
When you get a free hosting service, the name of the host becomes your domain name.
Contrary to this, in the paid hosting service, you will be given an opportunity to create your unique and professional-looking URL.
Using a domain name with a third party in it looks unprofessional and you will have a difficult time in ranking your websites.
You Get Full Technical Support
Free hosting services have several limitations and one of them will be the lack of technical support.
Whatever your technical issues or questions may be, the same will be answered by inviting you to send an e-mail and the tech support will be available to you in 2-3 days.
Contrary to this, paid hosting services would render you 24X7 support and unlike free hosting services, your websites will never have downtimes. Whenever the site is unavailable, you can get the issues rectified without delays.
Customize Bandwidth and Storage Space
Unlike free accounts where storage space and bandwidth are limited, you can customize both your bandwidth and storage space with paid hosting.
Free website accounts do not offer backup security support and can leave you high and dry.
In case of paid website services, you have to pay an upfront fee initially, but you will be saved from a lot of troubles.
Free hosting Vs Paid Hosting – there are remarkable differences here.
So, look no further whether you have an enterprise that is trying to build an online presence or you are a blogger with the thought of monetization in mind, paid hosting services will be a better option in both cases.
Say no to free website templates and hosting services as an investment in the right direction always pays!
Get your website from a trusted place.
Let's build something great together😎
Turn your ideas into reality. Get a brand design that your customers will love.
Web DesignUI UX DesignBranding Identity DesignSocial Media DesignCorporate DesignMarketing AutomationEmail MarketingContent Marketing
