I saw an advert on the television the other day, informing me that I could get a great website for just £150 in around 5 minutes. Naturally, working within the web, this seemed such an incredible offer that I just couldn’t ignore it.
The advert was for 1&1 My Website, a new branch of 1&1 Web Hosting which aims to target small businesses and offer them a cheap, easy way to get up and running on the web. However, by offering this at such a ridiculously low price, I think they’re just targeting people who either seriously undervalue or don’t care about their business.
Businesses are happy to spend a lot of money on certain things, but something that gets constantly overlooked is the necessity of a strong website for many people. With the declining popularity of the Yellow Pages, it’s important that small businesses invest in their websites so that they can be found and start to flourish.
These things take time, and money to get right. Now 1&1 MyWebsite says you can be up and running for just £9.99 per month, and in return you get a fully hosted, “professionally designed, individual website”. Now, as a designer, that sentence sounds wonderfully contradictive. A professionally designed, truly individual website should not cost £9.99 per month.
It’s time for an analogy. Let’s say you’re buying a new car, and you walk into the dealership and they only have two cars left. One’s a shiny new Mercedes sports car, and the other is a banged-up old Lada. You would obviously want the new Mercedes because heads will turn when you’re driving it. Now I know that not everybody could afford the Mercedes, but when you consider just how embarrassing and detrimental it would be to have the old Lada, the Mercedes starts to make a real sense.
It’s not just 1&1 that are doing something like this; Yell.com also have their Yellsites product which is extremely similar. And whilst the Yellsites templates do look a little bit better than the 1&1 MyWebsites, it’s a bit like saying I’d rather eat sand than eat mud; both don’t whet my appetite whatsoever.
I know that it’s currently not the best of times economically, however I would argue that means that it’s more essential than ever to invest in a proper, tailor-made website by experts in the field. It takes a lot of effort to make a website successful, and I think 1&1 and Yellsites are offering customers a solution that doesn’t address their problem at all. Sure, the small business gets a website, but if it’s an ugly, awkward design that’s similar to thousands of other business websites who’ve gone through 1&1, and with very little in the way of SEO, is there any point in that business signing up with them at all?
There is a time and a place for a person to be able to create a 5-minute website, but that person was a goth kid, that place was MySpace and that time was 2005. With all the fantastic things happening to the web in the present day, I find this idea of templated, soulless, brand-less web design is a huge step in the wrong direction.
On 30 Nov 2011, Michael Wilson wrote:
I’d also like to add to that metaphor of the cars and show why some people consider these services.
If the car salesman turned to you and said “Ok you can have the Mercedes for £150″ there is very little chance you would just say “Great, I’ll take it!” Instead you’d start to question what is wrong with the car that he is willing to sell it at a fraction of what it should cost.
And that is where the problem lies. A huge percentage of people looking to start a website for their small business have no context with which to compare price/quality against.
If someone buying this service knew it was ludicrously cheap, then they would probably start to question what they are missing out on. Very few people know what a website should cost.
On 01 Dec 2011, Matt Berridge wrote:
Of course, you’re right with what you’re suggesting.
Certain clients fail to see the value in proper INVESTMENT in their website. They see it as an expense. And that’s CONTINUED investment, not “re-build the site this year, repeat in 3 years”.
I’m not quite sure on your analogy though, because it surely depends on the requirements. Your requirement might be a cheap car that gets you from A to B, in which case the Lada fits the bill. Yes it’s not flashy or that high quality, but it fits.
I believe that all websites should generate a return on investment and the fact is Mrs Muggles wants a website for her local Dance School, she isn’t going to be able to afford agency prices for a bespoke site. Even if she could, it would have to make a HELL of an impact for her to ever make her money back. In that case you’ve got to ask what is better, having “a” web presence or none at all?
I do agree that things such as 1 & 1 and Yell aren’t of high quality, but I don’t believe you should force people down the “you must pay X thousand pounds to make it worthwhile” route. The focus should be on creating something which would allow a simple web presence to be created for little money while retaining build quality and SEO considerations.