The True Price of "Free" and Cheap Websites

Free and cheap websites, typically, end up costing a great deal more in the long run. Although, the free and cheap websites may have a low beginning monthly fee with (possibly) no upfront cost, the 'affordable' options can actually cost you so much more in lost revenues and not being able to be found as easily in the searches.

Businesses LOSE Money with Free / Cheap Websites!!!

I am going to tell you something that most people don't understand or want to hear - and, every time I say it, I can see the eyes roll back in their heads and they instantly get this look like on their faces that tell me "You're just trying to get me to pay more for a website and I don't want to."

I can, honestly say ... if you choose to go with a free or low-cost "easy" set-up website, you can seriously be hurting your own business potential more than you will ever know. In the world of websites and hosting, what you don't know will hurt you!

The number one objection that I hear to getting a quality website, from the start, is ... "I can't afford to pay for a website right now - My business isn't big enough and I'm not making enough money." And, with THAT thinking ... all I can say is that your business will probably never be big enough to justify it if you are not willing to invest in the most important part of your online business marketing strategy.

Now, don't get me wrong ... I'm not trying to be mean or insulting here but when you start out with a free website or free web hosting, the truth is YOU do NOT own your website and you don't have full control over what happens to your website. In fact, it can be taken away and deleted permanently in a matter of seconds and you will have no recourse.

I know of a few different people who've tried using a free website or free web hosting. They invested all of their time and efforts into making their website very nice for their visitors. Then, one day, they woke up to the realization that their website had been deleted and all of their hard work was gone. It sounded like the place where they had gotten their 'free' websites had made some upgrades to their web hosting server - and didn't bother to backup the websites. Now, all of a sudden, this company wanted to start charging for those free websites - at the price of $29.95 per month.

Don't make the same mistake. Having your own website is so incredibly inexpensive that it just makes more sense to have your own website - on your own hosting account, especially if you are using your website for business purposes. By owning your own domain name and having your own web hosting account, you retain full rights to your website and noone can take that away from you. Isn't your peace of mind worth more than this small initial investment for your business ?!

And, if you're thinking about just starting a temporary website to get yourself started, I have another suggestion ... DON'T! It is so easy to keep putting it off that, before you know it, years have gone by and your website is too huge to move easily.

Besides, having to move an existing site, the search engines will consider your new website a brand new website - and rank it as such. You will lose ALL credibility that your existing website currently has. You may as well just start off and let the search engines see your website as the authority - from the very start!

Ok, so you're still not convinced and you are STILL thinking about getting a free or cheap website ... read on ...

If you have a free website, you will probably never be found near the top of the searches. Instead, you will probably end up being buried in the way back pages of the internet, never to be found unless someone actually knows your business name or your exact web address. Even then, I've seen 'free' websites that never come up in the searches. Some of our best clients are ones that had a free website, and then trusted us to get them found. When we started, most of them were not even in the top 100 pages of the search engine searches for their main keywords.

Simply put, free websites do NOT promote your business ... they count on you to add content and that content helps them promote THEIR websites company.

Disadvantages of Free Websites & Free Web Hosting

• Little to no support, when you are experiencing issues.
• Your website may have space and bandwidth limits so you might not be able to have all of your information on your website or after you get so much traffic, your website will not be able to be accessed because you've used up all of your bandwidth.
• Your website is down or not showing fast enough. This is frustrating to visitors if they have to wait for your website or have issues due to a bad server. Many times, people will leave without waiting. After all, there are millions of other websites out there that they can get what they need from - without the problems.
• Your website may not always be available to you. There is no guarantee that they will keep this available for you. They can lock you out to do maintenance and upgrades, making it very inconvenient for you to do your 'work'.
• Your website will probably not stay 'free' forever. They may start charging you after a certain length of time for that same free website that you currently have.
• You will have no branding on emails (example: your-own-name@yourwebsitedomain.com). Your business will look unprofessional using someone else's domain name (example: yourname@theirwebsitedomain.com). Your visitors may not want to do business with you as a result of not being professional or because your business doesn't look credible.
• Your website address will be harder to remember because it's longer and not just your name. Ideally, you only want it to be: www.yourwebsitedomain.com.
• Your website may end up with inappropriate or unwanted banner advertising and pop-up advertising on all pages of your website. This advertising is how they make their money. They give you a free website and your website advertises to everyone for them.
• You may not be able to add important interactive features to your website such as: chat rooms, forums, membership areas, games, etc. You can have these features with your own web hosting accounts.
• Due to the spammy websites (that free web hosting provides), your website may be ignored by the search engines so you will not get many web visitors. I've analyzed many websites who were not found in the top 100 pages of the search engine for ANY search term. After we re-created their websites and hosted them on their own web hosting accounts, they can now be found on the first page of the searches for MANY search terms.

And, in the same respect, you will have advantages if you invest in your initial website marketing strategy by getting your business setup properly to start with your own website, domain, and hosting.

Advantages of Paid Websites & Web Hosting

• Support will be there, if you need it.
• Your website will have the space and bandwidth that you need so you don't send your customers away with a downed website or broken pages. Plus, you can grow your website as your business grows.
• Your website will have more uptime and you won't frustrate your potential customers when your website is on a good server and not an overloaded server.
• Your website can't be taken away from you without your permission, nor, will you have to worry about it being down at random times due to overload and too many visitors on neighboring websites.
• You won't have to worry about unexpected expenses cropping up later.
• You will have branding (ex: John@YourWebsiteName.com) and you will look more professional and trustworthy online.
• Your website address will be easier to remember and grow customers by word of mouth advertising.
• You will not end up with unwanted banners or pop-ups that turn visitors off. You will have control over how your website looks and what is on your website. Plus, you won't be limited on the design of your website.
• You will have more functional flexibility that you can add to your website. Your website will be able to have additional interactive features that help grow your online business and keep drawing new customers in.
• Your website will be able to get listed with the search engines so that you can be found easier.

All things considered, when starting a website, I hope you make the smart decision ... free and cheap websites are not the best choice for any business. Your business will come out much further ahead, if you go ahead and bite the bullet with the small initial investment.

I do not know one single person who is successfully making money off of a free or cheap website ... and, I know A LOT of people with free and cheap websites.

However, I will say, if you've read this far and are just looking to get a personal website up for very little money, you might want to straight to our web hosting and use the auto install website software program to set up your own website and fiddle around with it.

The only thing I can say if you're still thinking that you don't want to make the initial investment for a proper business website that will help you, is ... If you don't want to invest in your business, how serious are you about actually making money and starting your new online venture ?