Website Rental… Just Say No!
Website Rental…Just Say “No” #badbusinessidea
#whatwasithinking
Joe Merkley – Your Marketing Maven
When you have your website developed by a company offering Website Rental that uses their own coding and their hosting is exclusive to them, your website CANNOT be moved if you decide to sever ties. Basically, you are renting your website. Considering that Google and other search engines rank for how long a site has been online you will lose all of that online history and have to start over. Even if you are able to take your content, you will have to pay someone to basically start from scratch and build you a new site. With website development a lot of the labor is upfront in site layout and design, so even having your own content the bulk of work for your new site is before content is even added.
Real estate, medical, dental and law seem to be more prevalent industries for “website rental.”
Before you decide to rent from a company that does website rental, check out companies like ours, that offer to finance. At the end of the payments, you own your website and you can do what you want with it. You can take your online history with you… and Google will follow!
PROS
TIME
Minimal work on your end. Generally, after an interview and discovery, the company you hire executes the setup, design, coding, content, and go live
ECONOMICAL
Most sites are built on existing templates so build time is shorter than custom websites.
ACCOUNTING
One bill each month can streamline your accounts payable process.
REP
If you are fortunate, you will have one Point of Contact – that can handle all of your questions & issues
KNOWLEDGE
If they’re serving a niche, they’re familiar with how the dental, medical, etc industry works and they have baked in necessary processes, such as HIPPA compliance
CONS
THAT’S ALL!
You own the text (probably not the images unless you paid for and provided), but not the design and structure of the site, so if you want to leave – you basically have a text document, and framework or design to put it in.
DO YOU SEE ME GOOGLE?
If the company you choose is not extremely SEO educated, your site will likely end up not being ranked with Google and other search engines or ranked very low. Most of the factors that determine the ranking are factors that most people would not know are missing.
I AM PAYING FOR WHAT?
So, you get a bill once a month that says “Website Hosting & Maintenance” what does that include?
Maintenance is a very ambiguous term and maybe you on the companies low tier shared hosting plan.
SO YOU DON’T KNOW!
Chances are your Account Manager is not skilled in the tech area so questions you may have will have to be answered once your Rep contacts Tech Dept and gets an answer for you.
JACK OF ALL TRADES?
Hiring one company that tries to offer many services such as hosting, SEO, content management, and development is generally going to result in mediocre service and results.
We have a team where individuals specialize in their field of expertise. A Team for Development, SEO, Social Media, Marketing…
BOTTOM LINE: Website rental is more of a marketing liability than an asset!
See right-hand column at the top.
Informative and fun marketing information!
