Why 1and1 MySites is rarely the best option
Last updated :
You will have probably have seen the 1 and 1 Internet campaign that has overloaded our screens, that's our traditional screens as in TV, over the last few months. They offer an incredible economical way to get your business online.
What they are advertising isn't anything new, it's been around for years. Its very much alike a blog what they offer with a few additional tools on top. Here are 5 ways that a custom built site far exceeds what they are offering.
- 1.) Marketing, just about all our current clients mention marketing when we speak to them. Theres little point in having a website if no one or few people are going to visit it. Search Engine Optimisation can become a very complicated game and custom build solutions allow web teams to affect the areas that matter and reap rewards when it comes to showing high in Google and other searches.
- 2.) Cookie cutter sites are designed to be straight forward brochure sites with no more than 8 pages and little hierarchical structure . Thinking back on our last 10 client sites, not one has been in the exact same content format and layout. How they offer their products and services have been different in every sense. The pages, content, videos, images need to be flexible to suit the client and audience.
- 3.) Javascript and CSS3 over the last few years has become almost a commodity on custom sites. This allows for a no better non technical phrase, “fancy stuff” to happen, navigation, image galleries, forms processing, content show hide options, animations, have all become hugely important parts of sites. These interactive elements aren’t fluff they give a better user experience for your customers to find and use the information on your site.
- 4.) Most of the sites we build are utilising ExpressionEngine which allows our clients to update their site themselves. They can login and update it much the 1 and 1 site option. The big different with ExpressionEngine is its flexibility, much like what the web site looks like on the public side, being vastly different from project to project, the admin interface needs to be intuitive to use. With unique websites our clients can update all aspects of their site with ease.
- 5.) Support, our clients know we are always at the end of the phone or email. In many instances you may be waiting quite some time to reach their support or receive an email reply. There's are many more advantages which include font options, how much downtime the 1and1 sites have, mobile and tablet issues, brand identity, social media integration in fact so many more it warrants a second blog post.
About Media Surgery: we are website designers in Aberdeen. Scotland. We build sites of all sizes and shapes.
This article isn't saying that anything dramatic like 1and1 sites ruin the Internet. If you have a budget of a few hundred pounds per year then having some kind of web presence is better than nothing at all. We aren't competing ourselves in the budget web site market. You may even get a custom built site produced for a few hundred pounds, but a custom built option will give almost every business a better return on investment over a prolonged peroid of time.