I spent part of this week looking at small business websites, and a pattern kept showing up. A lot of them sat on an address like businessname.wixsite.com, businessname.weebly.com or a sites.google.com page. Starting on a free address is a normal way to begin. It becomes a problem when it stays that way, and here is why.
The address belongs to the builder
In businessname.wixsite.com, the part you chose is only the front. The wixsite.com part belongs to Wix, and the same goes for the other builders. You can use the address, but you do not own it. If you move your site somewhere else, or the builder changes how things work, the address does not come with you.
Old copies stay online
While searching I found builder pages for businesses whose real website had since moved somewhere else. The old page was still online, and it still came up in search results. A customer who lands on a forgotten copy could see old details instead of your current ones, and you may not even know it is there.
If your site lives on an address you own, you decide what happens to old pages. You can redirect them or take them down.
The builder's banner
On several of the pages I looked at there was a banner across the top advertising the builder, with a line telling visitors they could create their own site. It sits above your business name on your own page. It is part of what the free plan costs.
What an address of your own changes
- It never has to change. Put it on the van, the cards and the signs once. You can change where the site is hosted, or rebuild it entirely, and the address stays the same.
- Your email can match it. An address like name@yourbusiness is easier to trust than a free webmail address.
- You hold the keys. The domain is registered in your name, with a login you control. It is the same ownership rule as in who owns your Google Business Profile.
What to check this week
- Read your address bar. If the name of a website builder is in it, you are on a builder address.
- Search for your business name. See whether any old pages or old copies come up that you had forgotten about.
- Check you hold the login. Whoever built your first site may still be the owner of the builder account.
- If you buy a domain, register it in your own name. Not in a designer's name, and not in a friend's.
The short version
A free builder address is fine for a start. Sooner or later you want an address that is yours, because everything printed with it has to keep working for as long as the business does.
Moving a site to its own domain is one of the steps in my website launch checklist, and one thing to know before you do it is covered in what to check when a new site does not show after a DNS change. If you are not sure where your own address stands, book a free call and I will look at it with you.