Having an online presence remains a core requirement for building a business. While social media is powerful as a networking and content marketing tool, the traditional website is foundational for establishing credibility and capturing traffic in your marketing funnel.
The options for building a website are plentiful with a variety of tools and methods available. While still that standard, full scale web development can feel like a major undertaking for a small business or entrepreneur who are not technically savvy. That’s where some of the quick, cheap, mini-site tools have become a popular direction for many businesses. But there are important considerations before taking that path.
What Are Some of These Mini-Website Tools?
Its hard to keep track of all the options, but to give you an example of this trend, many people are using tools like: LinkTree, Cardd, Gumroad, LinkPop and other similar services. They are often templated single landing pages with simple, easy to build content, and/or purely a list of links to your social media platforms.
Reasons why people love these services is because they:
- are often free to set up (with upgrade options)
- offer templated features for simple, easy page building
- provide visitors a quick overview of services, social media platforms and contact information of your business
- can incorporate e-commerce elements for selling products
- are a “link-in-bio” option for Instagrammers (which restricts your ability to link to your other preferred online and social channels)
- sometimes have integrated mailing list / newsletter services
It’s easy to see why these services are popular; you don’t need to invest much to have a web presence. In a very short time, you can be up and running, and proudly sharing your easily-created content with the world.
The Downside
Despite the appeal, it’s important to know the reason why this might not be the best direction for your business or marketing efforts. Consider these:
Directing to a Third Party
It may feel like you are attracting an audience to you; and in a sense, you are! But when you push them to a third-party platform site, you are directing them away from an opportunity to a service that you don’t really own or control.
Less Control Over Your Content /Features
You will be limited to the list of features and tools they offer. That service may change its policies, remove features, suddenly remove features from ‘free’ accounts – and require you to upgrade a subscription. You are locked into a platform that you don’t control.
Less Control Over Domain, Hosting & Security
You may not be able to create a custom domain, which you have ownership and control over. Likewise, you are subject to the hosting and security setup by that services, offering little flexibility if you want to move or customize.
Less SEO Value
With less content and less control, you may not experience any (or very little) SEO value from using these services – and you may not be able to track user data to measure performance and analytics.
The Benefits of Having a Full Website
Establishing a strong website presence has many advantages. Perhaps the biggest one is the fact you are in control of your space, the tools you use,
- More control over your domain and hosting decisions
- More control over your template, design, and tools
- With a more robust site map of pages and marketing content, plus control over tools, you will be more SEO friendly to Google and be able to measure and track performance.
- You can develop stronger security features to protect your data
- You’ll have the ability to control and move your data to new hosting services, if and when you want
The Downside
Cost and Time of Development
Of course, the biggest downside to a full website development is that it’s more costly. It will take longer to develop, and more decisions will be required for your preferred tools and setup.
Needing Professional Web Developers to Help
With setting up a bigger website, you may need professional services to help you get set up. This is part of the increased cost that you’ll expect to pay.
A Solution for Quality Website Design
The more control and ownership you have over your online presence, the more marketable and credible you will be. Mtek Digital is an MSP (Managed Services Provider) business with many years of experience and expertise in web development. We specialize in WordPress websites and can help give you an impactful online presence. We also offer monthly marketing packages for businesses looking for partnerships, providing access to all of the marketing tools we offer – from strategy to project execution.