About that “free” website…

There’s no such thing as a free lunch… and there’s no such thing as a free website either.

The hidden costs of a “free” website

Free WordPress instances make their money by posting advertisements on your site, which may be incompatible with the values of your site. This costs you reputation. The free version of WordPress also does not give you access to all the themes and colours that you can use on a paid instance.

Some sites will give you one page for free, which is enough for a very simple website, but you still need to spend time designing your site and organizing the information on it. At the very least, a free website will have “powered by [name of company]” on it, and it may also have adverts on it, which are annoying for your website visitors. And for a professional website, you probably need at least five pages, probably a lot more.

Domain name and hosting

If you want your own domain name, you’ll need to pay to register the domain name (this is never free, but do shop around for the best deal). If you want the domain name to appear permanently in the address bar (instead of redirecting to a free website instance), you’ll need to pay for hosting as well.

Design elements

A lot of the design changes that I have made on the Carnelian website involve extra CSS and HTML code, additional plugins, and a lot of design changes to the template that I am using. I can also build database-driven websites and mobile applications, automate your social media integration, and connect your website with your e-commerce, payment, and customer relationship management solutions.

Some of the “free” sites don’t seem to ensure that your site will appear at the top of search results, or that your site is accessible to people with visual impairments, which is a legal requirement in Canada, the USA, and the European Union. So you’ll either need to spend a lot of time to fix this yourself, or pay someone else to do it.

Building your website with AI is not free either: you have to get the prompts right, and you have to fact-check everything it produces, and edit the copy by hand so it doesn’t read like AI-generated copy. The resulting website may not be accessible or optimized for search engines, either.

Time is money

Making your website look professional, be accessible, and appear at the top of search results is a very time-consuming process. As a busy owner of a small or medium-sized business, do you have time for all that? Wouldn’t you rather be focusing on your marketing strategy, developing your product or service, and maintaining relationships with customers? Why not invest in the services of a professional web developer who can build your website for you, and show you how to update it?

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