Worldspan Creative

Five reasons for avoiding cheap websites

May 10th, 2010 - 3 Comments »

As a reader of the Worldspan blog, it’s safe to assume that you already know a great deal about the internet. In fact, you’re probably pretty darn expert on it. And if you’re like us, that’s something you say to yourself frequently, whilst doing slow motion karate in front of a mirror and humming ‘Eye of the Tiger’. (If you never have, give it a go.)

But whilst sophisticates like us understand the value of good web design, some people don’t. They try to get great results from cheap web builders, often with painful consequences. Let’s look at the more common ways people slip up with cheap web builds.

1) Quality or ‘Look, it may be broken, but at £100, it’s bargain broken’

Your purchasing manager knows a good buy when he sees one – you can tell from his polyester tie and Sunday magazine aviator’s shirt. “Feel the quality” he implores, as the static charge arcs from the dralon. “It’s supposed to do that” he explains, radiating energy like Emperor Palpatine. That’s why he’s been entrusted to find a reliable web provider for your business – he breathes quality. And there’s nothing more reliable than the build-your-own website service he found online – £100 pounds, and a choice of two emails! “It’s hosted in Tuvalu” he notes optimistically. “ They make my aviator shirts.”

2) Ability or ‘What do you mean those students can’t build it?’

Oh yes, there’s a reason Gavin and Darren were so cheap. Mainly, it’s because they’ve always been paid in lager up to now. But there’s a bright side: as your brand new website is quarantined by Google, and you can’t stop the word ‘bosoms’ from flashing on your homepage in ten inch letters, take comfort from knowing you’re helping future I.T. giants in their formative days. Specifically, the period where they move from Gavin’s bedroom to his mum’s garage.

3) Reliability or ‘Hey, since we paid, they don’t pick up the phone!’

The best web designers work from the pub, and that’s a fact. And you know this guy Dave must be good, because he made his own Vladimir Putin sound-alike answerphone message for his iPhone. He doesn’t do the internet – he is the internet, in crisp-eating form. That’s why you trust him to build the e-commerce site you need to pull ahead of the competition. That’s why you’re surprised when your website turns out to be a direct copy of PepsiCo’s, and you keep getting some very rude letters from their lawyers.

Over the next three months, you ring Dave’s mobile once a day. He never picks up, but the Vladimir Putin answerphone always makes you laugh. And you’ve had a lot of orders for cola.

4) Compatibility or ‘Argh! It didn’t look like that when they demonstrated it!’

It takes a professional to build a site that works with five major web browsers, on PC, Mac and Linux. You, however, bought a site from ‘AAAAAA11111 Web Design’ because it was at the front of the phone book. Currently, your website can only be viewed properly by a 1996 version of Netscape. 99% of browsers can’t connect to your site, and redirect users to a web page about weasels.

Your site is so bad, The Gadget Show devote their Christmas special to you. Ironic slacker types wear t-shirts with your company logo on. It didn’t help David Hasselhoff. It won’t help you.

5) Individuality or ‘Why do we look the same as a hundred other sites?’

Admit it – you should have gone for that proper web firm, the one with the nice office and a girl offering you tea or coffee during your meeting. She had a really pretty smile. And bourbon creams. “Overheads!” your Director bellowed at you. “We’re not paying for their expensive overheads! And we don’t need something unique!” Now your horticulture business has a template-built website with a picture of a Ferrari on it, and some American-looking people high-fiving one another. “Snap!” your butcher emails. “It’s awesome! I’ve got one just like it!”.

In time, you find a dozen nearby businesses with the same design. Slowly, you start to communicate regularly with one another, to socialise, and even date. You marry a wonderful girl who used your template to promote her hairdressing salon. A college band that uses your template provides the wedding music, and the cake comes from a template bakers. Life waltzes its slow dance, and you have children, and for ten years you seem happy. And then one day your wife says she’s gradually learned you’re not the man she thought, that you were never really interested in clip art Ferraris and high-fiving Americans. Your website lied to her, and now she’s running off with the template butcher.

Sometimes, as you drive home from work in the lonely winter evenings, you see the design agency girl who brought you a cup of coffee, walking along the pavement. She looks ageless, and untroubled as a summer’s day. And my friend, you think of the website you could have bought, and you weep.

So, that pretty much encapsulates things. But what have we learned? Well, for one thing, you tend to get what you pay for. And if your business wants a tool that works, it’s worth getting the right tool – from photocopiers to websites. Also – and there is a lot of anecdotal evidence for this – if you build a cheap website, the opposite sex won’t find you attractive, and people will claim you do all your shopping at the pound store.

Just so you know.