All businesses need a website—it is the new generation’s way to verify if a business is legitimate and to find more about the business and its services before initiating contact. In fact, 92 percent of consumers visit a company or brand’s website solely to check out the company (with no buying intent).
Regardless of your industry, service, or products, a website is a major source for converting prospects into leads and leads into conversions. So, how do you build a website? What should go on it? What should it look like?
The questions can be endless when you’ve decided to have a website built for your business or to have it remodeled to stay relevant and attractive to the changing times. It doesn’t help that there are just as many web providers as you have questions about the process. So, to make transitioning into the digital world a little easier (and hopefully answer some of those questions along the way), we have taken the current top do-it-your-self website builders and website platforms and compared their services to ours.
WIX
Squarespace
MerchantSide
Wix is a popular DIY website builder platform; however, you don’t get custom designs—you’ll have to choose between pre-made templates shared by Wix users around the globe. That means many people, or rather businesses, will have a website that looks just like yours. This is not ideal if you are looking to make your brand stand out.
Granted, Wix does make DIY website building fairly easy. Select this, type in that, and ta-da! You have a website. However, with this simple user-friendly platform comes unnecessary CSS and JS files—essentially "bulky" and “clunky” coding; often some of the coding in unnecessary and this type of coding slows down your website.
And, yes, it is cheap—for many, even free. But, the saying “you get what you pay for” wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t so true. Cheap is not anything you want your website to portray about you, your business, your services, work ethic, or products. You also get stuck with a domain name that represents Wix first and you second, plus advertisements for Wix on your homepage! With the paid, premium packages, you can skip the ads, but you are still limited by the number of pages, bandwidth, functionality, and overall storage (websites—their content and coding—take up “space”).
Pros:
Cheap
Consumer-rated as easy to use
Cons:
You don’t own the website—any paid package is charged annually
You have to upgrade to remove ads from your site
You have to create all of your content
You have to supply your own images
Limited customization options
Same selection of themes and templates available to all users
You cannot change your template after it has been selected
You are responsible for hosting, site maintenance, and changes
Wix holds the right to cancel your web service
Another popular DIY website builder platform that is more often used for eCommerce websites. This DIY platform is similar to Wix. Users select from a handful of premade template designs—although fewer than Wix offers and not customize to match your brand like a marketing agency can provide—and they “build” their website with the click-and-drag method in order to create their desired content layout.
As with any DIY website service, your website will be generically coded to fit the needs of all users, which means unnecessary coding, heavy files, and slow web loading—and poor SEO ranking.
Unlike Wix, Squarespace does not have a free option (just a short 2-week trial). Each of the paid plans are restricted by bandwith, storage, and page numbers. You just get a bit more for the more you pay.
Pros:
May be an affordable flat rate with better web coding than DIY platforms
May generate a great looking site
Cons:
You don’t own the website—any paid package is charged annually
You have to upgrade to remove ads from your site
You have to create all of your content
You have to supply your own images
Limited customization options
Same selection of themes and templates available to all users
MerchantSide Marketing Group provides web design and development services that bring out the best of both worlds—DIY website builder platforms and custom web developers—providing custom web designs and so much more for a low monthly fee—or an affordable buyout option.
With us, your site is built by a professional, award winning agency—all you have to do is sign up and answer a few questions on what type of web features you like or need and what services you offer. We handle the rest.
Main Features
100% custom web designs, NO TEMPLATES EVER
Social Medial Integration
Built-in website analytics and metrics
Mobile friendly web version
Dedicated account manager
Unlimited pages and content creation
Licensed stock images provided (or we can use yours, if you prefer)
SEO optimized pages and content
Hosting, custom domain, and maintenance included
Minor content and design changes handled by account manager
Complete redesign every 3 years included so long as you maintain a monthly service with us
Main Features
100% custom web designs, NO TEMPLATES EVER
Social Medial Integration
Built-in website analytics and metrics
Mobile friendly web version
Dedicated account manager
Unlimited pages and content creation
Licensed stock images provided (or we can use yours, if you prefer)
SEO optimized pages and content
Hosting, custom domain, and maintenance included
Minor content and design changes handled by account manager
Complete redesign every 3 years included so long as you maintain a monthly service with us
Plans & Pricing
Our website design and development service is available for as low as $199 down and $99 per month. It includes everything and anything your site needs to go live for no added charge. eCommerce? CRM? Appointment or Event Management? All included if you need it. We also allow our websites to be completely bought out, so you own it and all content outright. You can also opt for a leased (monthly payment) option first, then buyout at a pro-rated amount, so you have affordable website choices at any stage in your business.
Pros:
All aspects of a fully built website available for a low monthly cost; No hidden fees or charges.
Site are ready to go live in as soon as 40 business days.
We do all the work for you! Including writing original content, providing background images, coding, web layout, and design.
Unlimited revisions to design, layout, and content before going live.
You get a chance to provide your input and approval on designs before we start building the site.
More chances for input and change requests throughout the building and coding process.
Access to award winning web developers and a dedicated account manager.
All afterlive maintenance is handled by your account manager.
More affordable than the average digital marketing company.
Cons:
All businesses need a website—it is the new generation’s way to verify if a business is legitimate and to find more about the business and its services before initiating contact. In fact, 92 percent of consumers visit a company or brand’s website solely to check out the company (with no buying intent).
Regardless of your industry, service, or products, a website is a major source for converting prospects into leads and leads into conversions. So, how do you build a website? What should go on it? What should it look like?
The questions can be endless when you’ve decided to have a website built for your business or to have it remodeled to stay relevant and attractive to the changing times. It doesn’t help that there are just as many web providers as you have questions about the process. So, to make transitioning into the digital world a little easier (and hopefully answer some of those questions along the way), we have taken the current top do-it-your-self website builders and website platforms and compared their services to ours.
Wix is a popular DIY website builder platform; however, you don’t get custom designs—you’ll have to choose between pre-made templates shared by Wix users around the globe. That means many people, or rather businesses, will have a website that looks just like yours. This is not ideal if you are looking to make your brand stand out.
Granted, Wix does make DIY website building fairly easy. Select this, type in that, and ta-da! You have a website. However, with this simple user-friendly platform comes unnecessary CSS and JS files—essentially "bulky" and “clunky” coding; often some of the coding in unnecessary and this type of coding slows down your website.
And, yes, it is cheap—for many, even free. But, the saying “you get what you pay for” wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t so true. Cheap is not anything you want your website to portray about you, your business, your services, work ethic, or products. You also get stuck with a domain name that represents Wix first and you second, plus advertisements for Wix on your homepage! With the paid, premium packages, you can skip the ads, but you are still limited by the number of pages, bandwidth, functionality, and overall storage (websites—their content and coding—take up “space”).
Pros:
Cheap
Consumer-rated as easy to use
Cons:
You don’t own the website—any paid package is charged annually
You have to upgrade to remove ads from your site
You have to create all of your content
You have to supply your own images
Limited customization options
Same selection of themes and templates available to all users
You cannot change your template after it has been selected
You are responsible for hosting, site maintenance, and changes
Wix holds the right to cancel your web service
Another popular DIY website builder platform that is more often used for eCommerce websites. This DIY platform is similar to Wix. Users select from a handful of premade template designs—although fewer than Wix offers and not customize to match your brand like a marketing agency can provide—and they “build” their website with the click-and-drag method in order to create their desired content layout.
As with any DIY website service, your website will be generically coded to fit the needs of all users, which means unnecessary coding, heavy files, and slow web loading—and poor SEO ranking.
Unlike Wix, Squarespace does not have a free option (just a short 2-week trial). Each of the paid plans are restricted by bandwith, storage, and page numbers. You just get a bit more for the more you pay.
Pros:
May be an affordable flat rate with better web coding than DIY platforms
May generate a great looking site
Cons:
You don’t own the website—any paid package is charged annually
You have to upgrade to remove ads from your site
You have to create all of your content
You have to supply your own images
Limited customization options
Same selection of themes and templates available to all users
MerchantSide Marketing Group provides web design and development services that bring out the best of both worlds—DIY website builder platforms and custom web developers—providing custom web designs and so much more for a low monthly fee—or an affordable buyout option.
With us, your site is built by a professional, award winning agency—all you have to do is sign up and answer a few questions on what type of web features you like or need and what services you offer. We handle the rest.
Main Features
100% custom web designs, NO TEMPLATES EVER
Social Medial Integration
Built-in website analytics and metrics
Mobile friendly web version
Dedicated account manager
Unlimited pages and content creation
Licensed stock images provided (or we can use yours, if you prefer)
SEO optimized pages and content
Hosting, custom domain, and maintenance included
Minor content and design changes handled by account manager
Complete redesign every 3 years included so long as you maintain a monthly service with us
Plans & Pricing
Our website design and development service is available for as low as $199 down and $99 per month. It includes everything and anything your site needs to go live for no added charge. eCommerce? CRM? Appointment or Event Management? All included if you need it. We also allow our websites to be completely bought out, so you own it and all content outright. You can also opt for a leased (monthly payment) option first, then buyout at a pro-rated amount, so you have affordable website choices at any stage in your business.
Pros:
All aspects of a fully built website available for a low monthly cost; No hidden fees or charges.
Site are ready to go live in as soon as 40 business days.
We do all the work for you! Including writing original content, providing background images, coding, web layout, and design.
Unlimited revisions to design, layout, and content before going live.
You get a chance to provide your input and approval on designs before we start building the site.
More chances for input and change requests throughout the building and coding process.
Access to award winning web developers and a dedicated account manager.
All afterlive maintenance is handled by your account manager.
More affordable than the average digital marketing company.
