Businesses nowadays need an online presence, and websites are by far the preferred marketing channel to serve as the backbone of a digital strategy. This digital evolution is possible thanks to advancements in web technology that allows the quick deployment of sites.
Platforms like WordPress, Wix, Shopify, makes it easy for a new business to build a stunning online presence with modest budgets. These types of platforms created a robust ecosystem that provides access to people and agencies around the world to support these business opportunities.
Different platforms require different budgets.
Small and local business websites are often a stand-alone forgotten channel that reinvents every time a significant change happens. In contrast, more prominent, more established organizations tend to have a more organized structure where permanent modifications and optimizations are part of regular business management.
Some organizations keep their platforms but invest in their infrastructure, development, and design. Often, with access to a different set of skills, companies change their digital platforms to gain more control, security, and reliability.
Is oversimplification hurting businesses?
The quick answer: YES! Launching a website is simple, you decide on a platform, find someone who knows how to use the platform, buy a template, and a service package for the hosting, and you’re pretty much done.
The problem with this approach is that it relies heavily on investment of time and budget for social and paid channels. All platforms have a version of an SEO solution that covers the basics, such as page title, description, and maybe some structured data.
The concept of these platforms is to launch websites that look good but aren’t as easy to optimize. For example, if a WordPress theme includes SEO controls, it won’t be approved because it will affect the portability of the SEO configurations to another theme. In short, you must configure plugins to your theme to optimize your website.
3 common problems with ready-to-use website builders
- Lack of freedom and control
The difference between some of these site builders with professional content platforms is access and full control of the source code of the website. Consider that every time you activate a plugin to your WordPress site, you’re adding lines of code and comments that bloat your code-to-content ratio.
Back in June 2018, an update to the Yoast plugin hurt the rankings of many sites. And In July 2020, the wpDiscuz plugin opened the door for hackers to take control of the hosting. It’s understandable that if organic search engine traffic is not highly relevant for an organization that they select a prebuild solution as Yoast, but if a website is crucial for an organization, it should spend the resources on reducing the risk of problems caused for third parties. Full control of the source code is difficult or impossible with ready-to-use site builders. - Structure and design architecture
The success of ready-to-use site builders depend highly on understanding and selecting the proper settings. Some settings include server configurations, rendering options, JavaScript management, and conflicts between applications.
Having access to a developer, a technical SEO, and a UX expert is crucial when designing a website. Keep in mind that these are three profoundly different roles that should have excellent communication and not working in silos. - Knowledge team stagnation
The best website teams are the ones that keep improving by learning and experimenting.
The understanding of web technologies, search engine updates, technology, and framework evolution is the difference between the best websites in the world and the rest. Being tied to a platform that constrains experimentation reduces the team’s strength, productivity, and added value of the site over time.
Conclusion
Technology is facilitating the deployment of websites, make sure to understand the strategic value of the website for the organization and budget for the expansion of the web team and future technical requirements of a successful website.
Note: This post was updated on August 7, 2020, to include the wpDiscuz security problem.