Nowadays, anybody can put together a cheap website with a DIY tool like Wix or Squarespace. These are great for getting started, but when you want to start growing your business, they become less effective at helping you achieve your goals.

In fact, over the long run, a cheap website can cost your company much more than you save from using one.

In this article, we’ll look at cheap vs. professional websites. We’ll examine how cheap websites can cost you money and why professional websites are almost always the better long-term investment.

Let’s get into it.

An Overview of Cheap vs. Expensive Websites

First, let’s examine what differentiates cheap and expensive websites from one another from a definition standpoint.

A cheap website is one that you can create without a professional web designer. Cheap websites include sites made with DIY platforms like Squarespace and Wix.

These services get your website up and running quickly, so they’re great for new businesses. But they lack many features, which means you won’t get as much out of your website as possible if you use this type of site.

Professionals design expensive websites. These website designers know exactly what features you need to start attracting more business through your online presence. They can leverage their expertise to create a site for you that helps you establish your brand identity, attract more leads, and convert a higher percentage of those leads into paying customers.

Cheap Websites Are Cheap For a Reason

There’s an old saying, that you get what you pay for. And that’s absolutely true when it comes to websites. Companies that launch a site without doing any research or planning will likely have to put up with each of the following problems.

1. They often lack responsiveness on mobile.

Today, up to 70% of web traffic comes from mobile devices, and 83% of mobile users expect a flawless mobile-browsing experience. But many cheap websites aren’t designed with mobile users in mind. That means their layouts, images, plugins, and forms could be very difficult for mobile users to take advantage of.

Research shows that mobile users are 5 times more likely to abandon a task if a website isn’t optimized for mobile. So you could be missing out on a massive chunk of potential business by not organizing your website in a way that’s easily accessible to mobile users.

Unfortunately, many cheap DIY websites don’t feature integrated mobile responsiveness. If you want to appeal to this vast group of users, you’re likely going to need to invest in a professional website at some point.

2. They may not be effective at turning traffic into leads

Well-designed websites are highly effective at capturing web traffic and converting it into actionable leads for a business. But if your website is lacking in features or challenging to navigate, its effectiveness as a lead-generating tool goes down significantly.

The best way to optimize your site for this is to customize it based on:

• Your industry
• What you know about your target audience
• The products that you sell
• Your sales sequence

And you simply can’t make most of these customizations if you’re using a pre-built website template.

3. Their DIY appearance can turn away potential clients

81% of people do research online before making a purchase. And the first impression that these people have of a company often comes from its website.

That means if your site has a subpar appearance, people will automatically start thinking of your brand as subpar. It’s another reason why building a cheap website could cost you business.

4. They may not be optimized for search engine performance

Almost 30% of web traffic is sourced from search engines. That’s why it’s essential to create a website that consistently ranks well for the most relevant search queries in your line of work.

But DIY websites give you very little customizability regarding how you organize your website. That lack of customization severely limits your site's potential to capture leads from search engines.

5. They often limit what you can build.

When you use a cheap DIY website, you can typically only choose between a handful of pre-built templates. Unfortunately, that limits what you can do to make your site stand out from the competition.

If you want a site that truly captures your audience’s attention and gets them hooked on your company, then you need to work with a professional who can both bring your best ideas to life and help you brainstorm new ways to reach your target users.

Here’s Why Professional Websites Are Often Worth Paying For

Whereas cheap websites leave you with a series of problems with no resolutions, professional websites create new opportunities for your brand to excel in cyberspace. Here are five features of professional websites that help to set them apart from their DIY counterparts.

1. They enhance your brand’s reputation.

Data suggests that people form an opinion about whether they will stay on your website or leave it in as little as 50 milliseconds. If you want this first impression to go well for your company, you need a site that immediately stands out as high-quality.

That’s one of the most prominent features that professional web developers offer. They can help you create a cohesive, engaging site that immediately pulls people into your brand instead of pushing them away from it.

2. They’re more effective at engaging the traffic you get

Your website may already be getting a lot of traffic, but you still need a way to convert those visitors into leads that you can push through your sales funnel. Professionally-designed websites make this easier to do.

That’s because a professional website gives you much greater control over how you organize your website. It’s also easier to make changes to different pages on your site based on the website visitor data. So you can keep tinkering with your website until it’s consistently achieving whatever your target conversion rate is instead of just having to pick a template and live with it.

3. They often rank higher in search engine results.

Another benefit of the customizability of professional websites is that they’re much easier to optimize for SEO performance. A designer can help you figure out which keywords you want to rank for and then customize a strategy for improving those rankings. This simply isn’t possible with a DIY site.

4. You can build whatever you want.

Your company’s website is an opportunity to make your business stand out from all others in your industry. But you can only bring the most accurate form of your vision to life if you work with a professional website developer who can build whatever you can dream up.

This means that it’s easier to establish the specific brand image that you’re shooting for when you partner with a professional web developer. That could have a substantial impact on how much you’re able to engage your target audience.

5. You’re much likelier to provide a positive experience to users

At the end of the day, your website exists to provide users with an easy way to connect with your company. If someone has a poor experience when visiting your site, they’re going to be much less likely to buy from you.

Expensive websites cost more to make. But they give you the customizability that you need to deliver a truly wonderful web-browsing experience to your target audience. This can turn your website into a powerful tool for winning new business.

What’s the bottom line? Do I really need an expensive website?

You don’t have to spend more than you can afford on a website. But it’s wise to allocate a sizeable chunk of your budget into creating one. You get more out of your website when you invest more into it. This can lead to:

This can lead to:

• Discovering more leads
• Creating a better image for your brand
• Delivering a better web-browsing experience to your users
• Converting more of your website traffic into paying customers
• Ranking better in search engine result lists
• And more

The question comes down to how much you value these things. If you’re happy with the performance of your business right now, then you may not need to invest in improving your website right away.

But at some point, you’re likely going to want to start getting more out of your company. And one of the most effective ways to achieve that is by swapping from a cheap DIY website to one designed by a professional

Okason Software Can Help You Get More Out Of Your Website

If you’re looking for a professional website developer to partner with, consider contacting Okason Software. We can answer your questions and provide you with a free look at what we can do to help your website become a better tool for capturing new business.

Our websites:

• Look like professionals made them
• Can help you generate more leads
• Are optimized for mobile
• And can help you solidify your brand image

What are you waiting for? Get in touch with us today to learn more about how we can help.