weebly.com

tipptopper

Apologies if this has already been done but for the experts out there I was wondering if anyone has ever used www.weebly.com before?
And if so what’s peoples views on it regarding a professional look for your company?
Because you haven’t spent loads of money designing a website would customers think any less of you for using a free site I wonder?

KonFusion

Why the big font size?

I can't answer your question without knowing more about your business and what you hope to achieve. So maybe you can answer your own question. Think about this:

Imagine money is no issue.

What kind of site would you like for your company?
What do you want the site to do?
How does the site look like in your mind?
What is the aim of the site, and what do you hope to accomplish by having the site?
How do you want your customers to feel about your site?
How high would you like your google rankings?

If it's a standard brochure style site, I don't think customers will care how much you've spent on your site, what I think they will judge you on is the quality of the site.

Give weebly a go, it's free after all. Come back, and see how the site that you've put together stands up to the answers to the questions I've asked you above.

If it holds up well, and you're happy, great! You've managed to get yourself a cheap web solution.

If not, you'll have your answer.

If you intend to sell products via the site, don't use weebly. Hire someone.

tipptopper

Thanks for your reply KF, sorry for the font size, I’ve adjusted it now. To be honest it’s only a plastering and groundworks company I have so I was just looking for an outlet to advertise my services really.

If you use weebly, they advertise their name on your site and was just wondering if say a potential customer was checking you out, looked up your website and think to themselves “cheap skate” or something when they see you’ve had a site designed free.
Don’t want to lose business hence my original query.

Fanny Cradock

Interesting in light of this: http://www.weebly.com/features.php?feature=themes

If the advertisement/ credit is subtle then I don't imagine it's too much of a problem. I'd be more concerned with whether your site meets the basic functions of any site. Does it do what you need, i.e. convey information in a way that is easily understandable by the clinet. Does it look half-decent (e.g. it has a bit of personality - the theme examples I saw on the site are very bland)? Is their any potential for growing your business from the site?

Whacking up a site wont mean that people are suddenly going to come knocking at your door. I guess the challenge is to build a site that will inform those who already know about you and also be reachable by those who don't. This is where things like seo come in. Not being an seo person I have no idea how well a weebly site would rank against a well optimised non-eebly based site.

Trojan

I don't like the sites produced by these "website in a box"-type systems for a number of reasons.

They're usually very limited in terms of how they can be branded, what type of content can be added, site functionality and usability, and make little provision for non-desktop use (which is approaching or surpassing desktop for many types of website). They've also been particularly bad for SEO reasons in the past (some now claim to have improved that side of things dramatically). They also tend to have a pricing structure that rises sigificantly if more than the absolute basics are required. Finally, there are some concerns with some of the providers locking clients in by refusing to release control of domains, so the client is forced to pay a lot of cash or use a new domain if moving elsewhere.

On the flip side, it's a very low-cost, low-effort way to get online quickly, and it often gives the site owner enough functionality for their needs. I'd recommend reading their pricing - particularly the small print, having a look through many of their example sites, and comparing with your competitors sites. After that you can make a decision on whether it's worthwhile.

If you'd like to hedge your bets a little, I'd recommend buying a domain separately elsewhere, and then using that with their system (without passing control of the domain to them). That way you are guaranteed to keep control of your domain regardless of how things work out with them.