A website is one of the most important tools for doing business today, and you need to choose a website builder that you can work with.
While choosing a website development agency seems like a more straightforward choice, building the website on your own will add to your competencies.
Besides, you do not want to rely on somebody else to fix your website-related problems every time something goes wrong. Finding the best website builder in Singapore is not a problem faced by beginners only, but experienced developers usually go through a lot of trouble to find the best one for their needs.
For this reason, we will look at the factors you should consider when selecting a website builder in Singapore.
Website Builder Options In Singapore
Before we look at the factors to consider when selecting a website builder in Singapore, we will look at the options available today. For starters, some website builders require that you pay, while others are free.
Both free and paid website builders have their merits and demerits, which makes it necessary that you research and find the right website builder in Singapore for your brand. These are your website builder options available in Singapore today
Selecting the Best Website Builder in Singapore
The first step in selecting a website builder is in knowing what you want to achieve with your website. This includes establishing goals, such as selling your products and services, having a blog to share content in your field, and so much more.
Check out what your competitors are doing with their websites if you are unsure of what to do with the website. With that said, consider these factors when selecting a website builder in Singapore
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Ease of Use
If website development in Singapore was easy, everyone could be doing it. However, since it is not, many website builders offer drag-and-drop user interfaces to help novices and amateurs build their websites.
The website builder should allow you to move around elements to create a unique website design. On top of this, you should consider a website builder that offers you growth options.
This is in line with the fact that as your brand grows; you will need to add pages, blog sections, make regular updates, and more. You also need to choose a website builder that has easy to understand tutorials on how to build a website.
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Web Design
Coupled with the builder’s usability you need to consider the quality and quantity of the design templates. This will help you in creating a visually appealing website design in your niche. With that said, there are several aspects to consider in web design.
For one, you should consider the responsiveness of the template. By this, we mean that users can access your website from any device without having to pinch the screen or zoom.
This is especially important since Singapore is one of the leading countries with the highest smartphone penetration rate in the world.
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SEO
A majority of your website traffic will be from search engines, and for this reason, you need a website builder in Singapore that will help you build an optimized website from search engines.
While there are some SEO activities that you can undertake on your own, the website builder ought to ensure that search engine crawlers can easily index your website.
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Free Trial
The truth is that you will end up spending a lot on web development, and you do not want to go with an expensive website builder that does not meet your standards.
The good news is that most website builders will offer you a free trial period.
During these trials, you need to ensure that you try out the different features of the website to ensure that you get your money’s worth.
With that said, the free trial period should be long enough to accommodate your tests, say 30 days at least.
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Security
Cybersecurity is a huge concern today in Singapore since over 90% of the population access at least one website ion a day.
However, reports indicate that there are at least 30,000 websites hacked every day, and for this reason, you need a website builder that offers a high level of security.
You should be on the lookout for SSL certificates, firewalls, and more to keep hackers at bay.
The worst that could happen is that your website could be used to spread malware. Google and other websites will add you to a blacklist, which is very difficult to leave once you have your affairs in order.
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Storage Space
While you might have tens of reasons for building a website in Singapore, whether it is for it to act as an e-commerce platform, or blog, the last thing you want is a platform that limits your online activities.
Ideally, the website builder in Singapore ought to offer you the necessary inventory space and bandwidth, which allows you to operate without limitations.
Many website builders in Singapore allow you to increase the amount of storage, but you need to be sure that it is available. This comes in handy when you want to expand your e-commerce section or photo gallery section without any hindrances to the amount of content you can upload.
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Website Hosting
This is a crucial aspect of owning a website since you need to ensure that users can access your website 24/7, especially with the advent of cloud hosting.
Web hosting can also be a nightmare and you need to ask or consider some very crucial pain points such as the type of web hosting facilitates that are provided to you as well as how you will contact them in case the website is down.
On top of this, you need to know how easy it will be for you to change web hosts. The process should be seamless and your visitors should not know that you changed hoists at any one time.
You could always hardcode your website, or hire a web development agency in Singapore, but why go through the trouble when you have a multitude of options?
We hope that the options above and the points on how to choose a website builder in Singapore will set you on the right path.
However, creating a website is not easy and sometimes, a professional-looking website created in record time is what you need. Contact us today for web design services in Singapore today.
Our team will walk with you along the web development journey and incorporate your suggestions.
11 Reasons Why You Should Avoid Online Website Builders
Online website builders will help you get on the map during your business infancy stages. However, there are glaring reasons why you should invest in a custom website as opposed to using open-source templates.
Here are 10 reasons why you should avoid online website builders.
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Inadequate Website Design Tools/Features
Inadequate website design tools/features is by far one of the main reasons why you should steer away from online website builders.
While you can create a website in less than 24 hours and launch it since most builders only require you to drag and drop elements on the different pages, the tools or features are not enough.
The features are basic and this results in a website that is generic and not capable of catapulting your business to the next level. In addition, the interfaces are not always user-friendly and intuitive.
You may end up sending multiple emails to the support team for help on how to install certain plugins or add elements such as photos and CTA buttons.
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Poor in SEO
Over the years, Google and other search engines have improved their algorithms to offer accurate search results to users. As a result, SEO strategies that worked well last year or before are not void and could result in your website getting penalised by Google.
Unfortunately, online website builders are not developed with SEO in mind. The websites were created using their struggle to get ranked highly in SERPs. Getting organic traffic and converting regular visitors into buying customers is also a tall order for businesses that use builders.
Another downside that you should be aware of is that your ability to modify any of the essential SEO components such as including the focus keyword in the page URLs is limited. Most website builders also don’t reveal the actual structure and code used to develop the website template.
Concisely, without a search engine optimised website you will end up spending thousands of dollars on digital marketing strategies without getting any results. Hiring an SEO agency is a good idea.
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Ownership of the Website is Questionable
Do you really own the website?
To run a successful online business, you need to have 100% ownership and control of your website. Unfortunately, that’s not the case when you use one of the many free website builders available online.
The templates are owned by the owners of the website builders. Thus, the hard truth is that you are not the true owner of the website. You have to pay the monthly fee to access the website or have the builder’s watermark if the template is free.
Another challenge of not owning the website is that you have no control over the data. The servers used to store the data are owned by the website builder.
You could lose everything if the servers crash or the company decides to close shop.
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Most Templates Are Not Responsive
Core Web Vitals and Mobile First are two Google algorithm updates that redefined how we design websites. Core Web Vitals focuses on ensuring websites offer the best user experience to visitors. On the other hand, the Mobile-First algorithm favours websites that are responsive and accessible on multiple mobile devices.
With more than 84% of online customers here in the U.S using their mobile devices to shop online, you cannot afford to have a website that’s not mobile-friendly. It’s also important to note that 60% of people who visit your website do so via smartphone and other mobile devices.
Based on these facts, it’s imperative to have a website that is 100% responsive and mobile-friendly. During our research, we noticed that most of the templates offered by the free web builders are not mobile-friendly.
Therefore, the resulting website won’t be accessible on mobile. Search engines will also not rank it and your ability to compete with other brands whose websites are mobile-friendly will be hampered.
In fact, Google bots may decide to not index your website for failing to comply with the recommended web design best practices. The bottom line is that your website may look perfect on desktop but confusing and distorted on mobile devices.
Potential customers will have a difficult time browsing through the pages due to poor site architecture. They won’t hesitate to close the window and move on to your competitors’ websites that are user-friendly and properly optimised.
Note that Google will notice the high bounce rate and slap you with a penalty for not complying with Core Web Vitals and Mobile-First algorithm requirements.
You can avoid these challenges by hiring a professional website design agency to create a custom website for your brand. The team will conduct A/B tests to ensure that the entire website is mobile-friendly and compatible with different mobile devices.
Check out a recent article we did on website design and development to better understand this concept.
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Annoying Ads
Your target customers are bombarded with a tone of ads every day. The last thing they want is to come across an ad that is not relevant to them. Also, with the increase in cybercrime incidents, online customers are more cautious than ever before about the links and ads they click on websites.
Ever wondered how free website builders make money?
Ads. Once you launch the website, they will start displaying ads on the different pages without your consent. You cannot delete or stop these ads from being displayed because you’re not the sole owner of the website. In addition, you don’t have control over the template code and so you cannot do anything about these ads.
The result is an annoying user experience that will hurt your business. The companies that offer the builders rely on web visitor recording and session replay tools to monitor how visitors browse your website.
The information is presented in heatmaps that help them determine the best places to display ads.
While some of the ads may be from legit companies, they will distract the visitors from the desired action. A significant number of them will click on the ads thereby leaving your website before converting.
Woe onto you if the ad is from a brand that offers the same products or services as you, as you will lose thousands of dollars in sales.
Unfortunately, you cannot stop ads from competitors from being displayed on your website for the same reason we pointed out earlier – you don’t own the website or have control over the website code.
The brains behind the website builder don’t also care whether you make money or not, their main interest is to get revenue from the ads they place on your website. Do you really want that? Hire an agency to create a professional website that meets all international standards.
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No Secure Certificate (SSL)
It’s no longer a secret that Google prefers websites with an SSL certificate. This certificate signifies that the website is secure and legitimate.
Customers also know what SSL means and gravitate towards websites that have it. A disclaimer “Not Secure” message will be displayed on the pages to warn visitors to proceed with caution.
Most of the website builders available don’t offer secure connections. That is, they don’t offer an SSL certificate and those that do charge an arm and a leg.
A reputable website design agency will not only create the pages from scratch but also install the SSL for you at no extra cost. Their team also have vast hands-on experience on the industry and will use to make sure that the final version of your website is upbeat and capable of getting your brand miles ahead of the competitors.
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Limited Bandwidth and Storage
As your online business scale-ups, traffic to your website will surge. The data collected from the different pages will also increase. Consequently, you will add more pages as your business grows.
Most website builders offer limited storage and bandwidth. Thus, without enough storage space, you won’t be able to add new files. Also, the low or limited bandwidth will result in slow network performance.
How does slow network performance impact the website? Simply put, the website will take minutes to load and the visitors will feel as though they are in a traffic jam. Such poor user experience will get noticed by search engine bots and result in your website dropping in ranking.
Its visibility will also dip since it won’t be listed on the top SERP pages. If you must use a website builder, check the bandwidth and storage space they offer before you embark on creating the website.
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Optimisation and Speed Challenges
Most site builder websites state they offer the best speed and have optimisation tools that help designers create stellar websites. That’s false. We can confidently report that most of them expose users to countless optimisation and speed challenges.
Today, if a website takes more than 5 seconds to load, a majority of the visitors won’t wait. They will instead move on to other websites that offer similar products/services or information but load faster.
The same case applies to optimisation, if the website is not properly optimised, you will have a hard time convincing potential customers to convert.
One of the main reasons why website builders are unable to offer good speed and optimisation is because the available server space is shared by hundreds of other websites. Therefore, the websites compete for the available resources.
Cushion your online business from this challenge by having your website hosted on a dedicated server. Even though the cost of acquiring such a server is expensive, the long-term benefits outweigh the initial costs.
Like SEO, website design is a long-term investment in your business and so you should feel as though you are cutting yourself too thin or going overboard when you spend money on a dedicated server.
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Inability to Stand Out from the Crowd
Every business is hungry for visibility on SERPs and will do everything possible to outrank competitors from the top spots in SERPs. Unfortunately, the website templates offered by the builder are available to thousands if not millions of other entrepreneurs like you.
There is a high likelihood that your template is been used by hundreds of other websites. So, standing out from the crowd will be a major challenge that will hamper the growth of your business. Google bots may also consider all the websites as duplicates of one another since they run on the same code.
The result is de-ranking of all the websites and a host of other penalties that you can avoid by opting for professional website design services. Compare and contrast the different website packages offered by the agency to find one that best suits your preferences and the nature of your business.
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No Custom Functionalities
As your business grows, your website needs to also be improved to match your new needs and the expectations of your customers. For instance, you may need to incorporate a members-only area on your website or create new custom pricing pages.
With a free website builder, adding such functionalities is almost impossible. You cannot even add simple but essential elements such as a live chat feature or lead generation forms.
You may have to upgrade to an expensive template to enjoy such functionality freedom.
However, remember the premium templates are also available to thousands of other businesses and so standing out and getting ahead of the curve will be a major challenge.
Ideally, your website should be customised to match your current and future needs. That is, the website design should be developed with scalability or growth in mind. The custom template used should also make it easy for you to add certain features on your own.
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Portability and Growth
As your business grows, you may decide to migrate the website to a new hosting company. Unfortunately, a majority of the website builders don’t give users that privilege.
The tools and templates they offer don’t accommodate growth.
You will be forced to pay a hefty fee to migrate the website to a new server that is not owned by the company. The support team may also not be willing to help you handle the technical website migration process.
You may have to outsource the task to an independent website design agency to avoid making costly mistakes.
Final Thoughts
Clearly, you should avoid free online website builders if you want to scale up your business. MediaOne Marketing is best known for offering world-class website design and e-commerce design services to brands in different industries.
Get in touch with us today for a custom web design that will support your business growth and help you achieve all your aspirations.
