Think Twice Before Using Website Builders Like WIX, Weebly, or Squarespace

by Emily Caddell | Director of Marketing


Should your small business use a website builder like WIX, Squarespace, or Weebly? On the surface, these template builders seem like a great idea. They are straightforward, cheap, and user-friendly. When a small business is starting out, it’s easy to get swayed to use a template website builder. However, it can cause you major headaches down the road. Here are the top 6 reasons you should not use a template website builder and what you should do instead:

1. Lack of Customization:

Using one of these template builders prevents you from getting the customization your business needs. Your business is unique and your website should reflect that. If you use WIX, Squarespace, or Weebly, you are using templates that many other small businesses are using. The lack of customization can mean that your website isn’t ideal for your business and can deflect from how special your business is. 

The lack of customization can also prevent your website from bringing in leads. If your website does not have the customization you need, you might be missing out on new customers. The header, call to action, and messaging on your website are extremely important and may be missing from these templates. Once you choose a template on one of these sites, you may have to completely rebuild the site if you want to change the template after going live. Your business changes and adapts, and your website should not hold you back from that.

2. SEO Problems:

These platforms are not very search engine friendly and can lead to your website having bad SEO. This means that your website is not optimized and can be very difficult for potential customers to find you. Customers ask us all the time, “how can I get on the front page of Google?” If you use a DIY site builder, you are already falling short. These template builders cannot replicate the importance of good SEO that can come from SEO professionals and good design. 

3. It’s Permanent:

Once you’ve built a website on one of these platforms, it’s impossible to move to your own hosting account. These platforms own your website which means that you cannot transfer your site to a more open-source platform like WordPress. If you ever want to change your hosting, you will have to completely start from scratch. 

4. Slow Page Loads:

These website builder platforms are notorious for being slower than WordPress sites. The complex content management on these sites that make it easy for non-developers to use also slows down the sites. Google prefers sites that have quick load times so your website could be penalized by Google if it’s too slow. Customers will also quickly move on from a site if it does not load as quickly as possible.

5. Locked into Poor Services

When using one of these platforms, you may get locked into one of their built-in services like email campaigns, customer management, payments, etc. A small auto detailing service shared their issues with us about WIX’s payment issues:

“Unfortunately the payment platform that WIX has is not sufficient with our needs as a mobile detail provider as they require us to type in the exact amount to be paid (tax included minus the deposit) when the customer pays.” -Lauren V.

6. Customer Support

The customer support for these platforms can be very difficult to work with. Since these website builders are not a personalized solution, their customer support can let you down. Tech support on these platforms is extremely limited and can lead to major frustration from business owners. Lauren also explained the issues that they have had when dealing with WIX’s customer service:

“Another drawback is the customer support when reaching out about a problem, it’s basically non-existent. We’ve had issues where WIX will do an update to their website and it has completely erased our packages on three occasions. Being that we heavily advertise online booking, this is quite frustrating when that issue arises, and takes a bit of time to re-input the various packages.” – Lauren V.

What Should You Do Instead?

If your small business is looking to create a website, you should start off with a professional web design. As mentioned above, starting with one of these template builders will hurt your business rather than help. Your website is often one of the first ways that a new customer interacts with your business and first impressions matter. Investing in good graphic design and marketing messaging will make your business more successful. 

If you are looking for a new website but don’t know where to start, book a free consultation with one of our experts.

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See some of our work here:

Dr. Buff

Neff Consulting Group

North Creek Dental Care

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See our recent blog post:

Your DIY Website is Costing You Money

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