The Dangers of Buying Cheap Websites Online

October 5. 2021

Everyone in business is trying to get the best deals. Especially since there are dozens of costs included only to keep your business running. After all, the right monetary calculations are the essence of each successful entrepreneurship. But, there are numerous situations when cheaper doesn’t necessarily mean better. When it comes to websites, you actually get what you pay for. While it may seem tempting, there are many dangers of buying cheap websites online. At first look, they may look attractive and easy to set up. However, after a while, they will only cause more harm than benefit. Ruining your online business reputation just to save a few bucks more is definitely not worth it.

Why you should avoid buying cheap websites online

To start with, just ask yourself a question about why there are cheap websites in the first place. You can see many websites with relatively high, and others with suspiciously low prices. The reason is clear, they are simply not that good. The person behind design and development knows it. Otherwise, it will be asking for more money. At least in web development things are straightforward. That’s why your goal to having a quality professional business website is to always look for premium services. You can either buy a template if you want a website build on one of the popular platforms like WordPress. Or, you can hire experienced professional developers to create one specifically for your business.

Besides wasting your time and resources, here are some of the most important reasons why you should never pay for a cheap website for your business:

• Cheap websites are often slow
• They often don’t even look good
• Buying cheap websites means a security risk
• They are websites with poor SEO potential
• Cheap websites are hard to maintain
• You will eventually end up with additional costs

Cheap websites are often slow

A quality business website allows you to leave a good first impression on your visitors. This is why functionality and beautiful design come as priorities. This is not something you will usually find on cheap websites. In general, many of them are made from free, simple, and not so useful templates. Then, the absence of advanced features is often compensated with dozens of plugins, libraries, and even with some unconventional solutions. Everything is packed up, bloated, with minimal or without any optimization at all. As a result, these types of websites are slow, not user-friendly, with poor potential for SEO optimization. And it doesn’t improve over time. On the contrary. With so much code running in the background, the performance will only degrade even more.

They often don’t even look good

The majority of cheap websites are based on deficient templates. Just think about it, if the template is of quality, the creator wouldn’t have trouble selling it. And you “can’t bake good bread with bad flour”. If you want your website to send the right image about your brand, you will need a professionally designed website. Something that will synchronize the functionality, brand message, and visual appeal. Cheap websites are usually generic and quite often similar to each other. When you pay $300 for a website, and you are getting a $300 website. For business, something like that, without a pinch of personalization and originality will fall short among visitors. The poor design will send the wrong message about your business and make you look unprofessional.

Buying cheap websites means a security risk

One of the greatest risks with cheap websites is online security. Poorly designed websites and templates don’t usually deal much with security optimization. They are just something made in a hurry to be sold fast at a low cost. Cybercriminals, crackers, and other unethical hackers enjoy hunting for these websites. They too have the access to cheap templates and already know their vulnerabilities. On the other side, a highly secured website requires time and considerable effort to create. This means the price will definitely reflect it. Furthermore, with a quality website, you are getting full support and security patches in the future.

They are websites with poor SEO potential

If you want your website to reach the right audience you need a higher ranking in search engines. This is something SEO can help you with. However, cheap websites are not made with SEO in mind. They will lack basic requirements set by Google and other search engines. Such a website will not live up to its full potential and often proves to be not user-friendly. In general, this is exceptionally bad because it will hurt your efforts to find your customers. And, no matter how hard you try to fix the current problems, it will only lead you to unnecessary costs. You might, as well, invest that money from the start.

Cheap websites are hard to maintain

While at the start, a cheap website might look like a smart investment, it will soon change. Over time, more and more issues will start to come out to the surface. Not only you won’t have some of the essential features, but the website will underperform on every step. All of this will make it hard to maintain. Instead of a carefully planned business website, from start to finish, you will end up with a broken mess. Adding some new elements, features, and even pieces of content can become quite a nightmare. Even if you have a seasoned in-house team to maintain a website, it may soon get out of control. If you are in doubt, just ask your developer if a cheap website is a good long-term solution for business.

You will eventually end up with additional costs

Whether you want it or not, buying a cheap website usually results in additional investments. Eventually, you will have to pay again for a new website. This time, a more expensive version. This basically means you have thrown your money at the start for nothing. And that is in the best case. A lot of harm can be done to your business in the meantime. With a low-quality website from the start, you will ruin your online ranking. Bounce rates will be incredibly high, and, almost inevitably, your reputation will be much worse than that of your competitors. These are just some of the reasons why it’s essential to approach the website choosing carefully. From the design to content management systems, you have to think about everything.

If you are serious about your business, you shouldn’t fall into a trap of buying cheap websites online. You will pick only those created professionally. Remember, you want to send your customers a message that you are professionals. And since a website is the first thing they will see online about you, it has to be perfect. Not some cheap imitation of a website that will only cause confusion and additional problems.