Why you should avoid cookie cutter websites for your business
With plenty of “cheap” cookie-cutter web development platforms out there, you may be wondering why there’s still a need to hire designers/developers to do it for you. When you think of the budget, the small monthly fee these platforms charge may sound appealing. It may look good today, but, will a cost-cutting measure come back to bite you later? This article will explain why you should avoid cookie cutter websites for your business.
- Not good for SEO
The first and most important reason is losing your search presence. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the process of ranking your website in the list results returned by a search engine. In other terms, it is how potential clients find your company. If you want your website to be found, it is vital that you make use of keywords and your content to rank. Cookie-cutter platforms or website builders such as Wix, Squarespace, Web.com, and the like, can’t give you the help you need to achieve this essential piece of success for your business. In worst cases, you should avoid cookie cutter websites for your business because your website’s practically invisible once searched, as Google also penalise cookie cutting.
- You do not have complete ownership of the website
By using cookie-cutter platforms, even if you did pay for the platform, you basically agreed to rent out their themes and hosting. That means, if you decide to migrate to a different platform because the website is not getting you the results you wanted, you will have to start over from scratch. Even if you did manage to rank in the search results, this means that you will lose it.
- It’s not unique
First impressions always matter. That’s the main reason why it is important to design a beautiful and functional website. Cookie-cutter websites may, in fact, have a ton of pretty templates for you to choose from but, you’re limited with that design (even if you are able to edit a few parts here and there) and therefore, not unique. What’s worst, if the theme is widely used, you don’t want your client to make a first impression like “We’ve seen that before. Next!” or perhaps think that your brand is overall cheap.
Your company website is your window to drawing clients. Similar to a front liner sales employee, you hire somebody who knows how to present himself and do it right. By using cookie-cutter websites, sure, you may have saved money up front, but, later on you’ll come to realise that you’re losing clients and sales – it is definitely not worth it if you want to grow your business. Investing in hiring someone? Read how web design differs from web development.
Have some more reasons to add on why you should avoid cookie cutter websites for your business? Write them in the comments below. 🙂
