5 Issues With the Weebly Website Builder Is Weebly the best solution for small businesses?
Not everyone can be gifted with the skills of a website developer, nor can they always afford the cost of hiring one. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't have the ability to create your own website for personal or professional reasons.
To meet this demand, a number of do-it-yourself website builders on the market allow people to build and customize websites. Sounds like a dream solution, but it's not without some gaps, or flaws, particularly where small business websites are concerned.
As one of the industry's original, do-it-yourself website building tools, Weebly, has grown into a popular solution for folks with little knowledge of HTML. While it does have the power to provide its users with an attractive solution, it might not be the right choice for small business websites. Below we've outlined five common issues small business owners may encounter when using the Weebly website builder.
Storefront Development Problems
Weebly definitely delivers a large array of templates for your homepage, and also features a well-integrated storefront for product sales. This makes it a good solution for creating homepages with products which serve as a good complement for selling products on larger sites like Ebay.
Though have a large number of templates to choose from might seem like a big plus, it can actually serve as a hindrance for people without a background in web design. Users run the risk of choosing a template that customers find isn't very user friendly, or that isn't optimized across browsers, search engines, and mobile devices.
Features you might like to see on your homepage, like newsletters, maps, and public calendars are only available through third-party vendors, which means you'd have to deal with multiple vendors and update and maintain the tools yourself.
Reliance on Third Party Apps for Customer Engagement
Small business owners have a great need for e-commerce solutions on their websites, and Weebly's offerings are only through third parties, including PayPal, Authorize.net, and Stripe. Features like appointment scheduling and built-in messaging are also available but only through third-parties, and would have to be installed an updated by the business owner.
Weebly's paid plan allows for a built-in discount manager to be used, but complex transactions, like paying partial deposits, are not available.
Business Operations Weakness
Sales tracking is available through Weebly, but only for products. Otherwise, the website builder doesn't offer many valuable business operations features. Must-haves like client management functionality and flexible security for certain pages of the site are not available.
Lack of Direct Support
Chances are, as novice website creators, small business owners will require some level of tech support. Having a reliable support network is a must. Unfortunately, because Weebly is sold directly and through distributors such as Endurance International, getting that level of support can be difficult for many clients.
Hidden Cost
Yes, Weebly offers a free version of its service, which may initially seem like a boon to small business owners. But the reality is that most business websites will require additional features that are only available with Weebly's paid plans, which start at $25 per month.
The Alternative
What many small business owners have yet to realize is that a website building solution exists that eliminates the stress of managing a website building tool on your own, and which does not require you to spend money on a professional website developer's help.
Ocoos is a website building platform that provides an integrated solution: a platform with software and technology that is updated and maintained in the cloud, combined with a concierge service that will devise and build the initial website for you.
The platform offers a robust suite of tools that are pertinent to a small business website, and users are not responsible for updating or maintaining them, because that work is being done behind the scenes.
With Ocoos, hosting and e-commerce tools like interactive calendars and appointment schedulers are included, and critical business tools like CRM tracking abilities are also available through the platform. You'll never need to rely on third-party apps or vendors.
The struggles of building and maintaining a website using a DIY website builders are also removed, since Ocoos's concierge service sets up the entire business website based on an initial consultation. Owners are then given access to the site, so they can update the content as they wish. In addition, 24-hour, US-based support is always available.
