Why templating websites like Squarespace are making us money
Top 4 (by usage),
website builder services
1. Wix
2. Squarespace
3. Weebly
4. Jimdo
Runners up:
1. LightCMS
2. SmugMug
3. Blogger
4. Shopify
5. Sitey
6. Webs
7. DudaOne
8. Sitelio
9. GoDaddy
10. Yola
...and a lot more
1
Wix
-
73 million users in 190 countries
-
45,000 daily signups on average
-
100s of templates
-
100s apps (Free & Paid)
-
1,000+ employees
-
£2.55 – £15.56pm
Squarespace
-
'Millions' of users
-
503 employees
-
100s templates
-
~ £3.50 – £53pm
Weebly
-
30 million users/sites
-
100s apps (Free & Paid)
-
£0 – £17pm
Jimdo
-
15 million users/sites
-
100s tools/widgets (Free & Paid)
-
200 employees
-
£0 – £15pm
What's the draw
of a website
builder service?
Cheaper (usually) than web designers
Fast to launch a site
Tons of ready-made templates for multiple
sectors (blogging, photograhy, e-commerce,
events, music, food, portfolio etc)
Minimal learning curve
Good content editing and publishing tools
Easy upgrade plans for more features
Many services have an add-on/extensions
library for even more tools and functionality
Hosting included
How on earth
could these
services be making us any money?!
1. We can use them
Finding a place
Two examples:
1. e-commerce
Shopify 'Unlimited' plan = £120pm / £1,440py
2. Fast turnaround/lower budgets
Wix 'Unlimited' plan = £14.31pm / £171.72py
In both, there is significant opportunity to add markup on-top even for clients whose upper limit budgets are ~£3–10K
2. Where is
the personal relationship?
Relationship
Finding appropriate solutions to a client’s needs comes through investment in people.
Website builders don’t work that way. Rarely if ever do you speak to someone in person or over the phone.
There will be a large element of compromise.
3. Crafting together
Crafting
A digital presence is often more important than a physical one. Brands are judged by their
digital presence.
The ambitious clients we want to work with require something bespoke, a 'shopfront' unlike anyone else.
Boxhead craft all of the above, something a website builder template just can’t do.
4. Support
Support
When something goes wrong—and it will, this is the internet—there’s often no ‘human’ face to contact on website builder services:
Boxhead is different, clients can contact anyone of the team directly by phone, email and Basecamp.
Ticketing + online chat + email !== phone call / face-to-face
5. Content Management
CMS
Most Website Builder services are very rigid and uncompromising.
They provide little customisation.
Templates are built in advance of content.
Craft and ExpressionEngine however are highly customisable and extensible making no assumptions about how you want to arrange and organise content.
6. SEO
SEO
In most cases without additional expense, a website builder service won't achieve the following:
- Speed
- Clean URLs
- Meta tags (custom titles/descriptions)
- ‘Mobile Friendliness’
Boxhead delivers these as standard for all our sites.
Conclusion
Conclusion
The ambitious clients that we aspire to work with and those with the budgets to match could go and create a very cheap website themselves.
With a little guidance and instruction it should be easy to educate a potential client round to using a bespoke solution that meets all their expected outcomes, that meets the usability requirements of users and that ranks well in search engine results.
Why templating websites like Squarespace are making us money
By Matt Jones
Why templating websites like Squarespace are making us money
#4 in the Boxhead 'Show & Tell' presentation archive
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