We hear this all the time at WebSubstance – people wonder why they shouldn’t just sign up with one of those generic rental site operators, and get a landing page to give themselves some visibility, without wading into the uncharted waters of owning and administrating their own websites. However, as the Internet matures, even more and more small businesses are realizing that owning your own site and curating your own content makes sense. On the flip side, some of those who wanted to do it the easy way realize too late that it really isn’t the easy way at all! In our view, the easy way is to team up with a shop that makes your web optimization fun and effective, instead of just doing the same old thing over and over again. Here are some of the pitfalls of going with a generic rented site approach:
When You Don’t Own It – You Give Up Control
Think about a house that you rent and don’t own. There are lots of restrictions on what you can do, whether it’s adding a closet, changing the way the yard is set up, or cutting down trees to get a better view. It’s the same with rented websites. The companies have umpteen rules and regulations in their service agreement, and none of them can be broken. Sometimes you don’t learn about all of them until after you’ve signed the contract. Then, again, it’s too late: you’ve “voided” some part of the contract, or you don’t get the support you were counting on. It’s disappointing and disheartening.
Changing Services
We’ve seen customers get squeezed when their rental site operator changed payment providers or other vendors. All of a sudden, things didn’t work quite right on the site, and when the small business owner called to complain, they were told that there was end of life for that particular feature, and the operator “just didn’t use (x) service anymore.” That’s convenient for the site operator – but for the business, it can be a disaster, because that business is counting on having an understanding with end customers about services. Suddenly, nobody knows what’s going on! When you’re in the driver seat, you know what’s going on with these third-party services but when you’re renting either site hosting or a whole site design, these things can come as unpleasant surprises.
Generic Web Sites
Anyone can cook – but when you cook for other people, you bring a higher standard. That’s what we’re about at WebSubstance. We excel at working with clients to really get their online footprint right, so that they actually profit from their web assets. Don’t rent – own!
