For those who are interested in putting up a website themselves, there are a lot of different options out there. For example, Wix and Weebly are two of the most commonly known free or no-cost solutions. The concept of an interface where anyone with non-technical skills can build their own website with a few clicks has been around since the 1990s. Applied Tactics has even built a few of these platforms for folks in the past.
The main issue with these sites is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). They do not place well or at all with major search engines like Google or Bing. Below are a few reasons why.
- Content that is displayed by JavaScript. A lot of the content that is displayed is pulled from JavaScript coding. The search engines do not run these scripts when they index your website for content and keywords.
- Overloaded IPs. You will find that these free sites put thousands of folks on the same IP address. Search engines know if an IP is swamped by other sites. It is recommended to use a dedicated IP address for your site.
- The need for SSL’s. SSL’s (Secure Socket Layer) are becoming more important when it comes to SEO placement. These free sites do not offer SSL’s and this could be a problem in the future since Google uses SSL’s as a ranking parameter.
- The ownership of the content and images also comes into question if you go with one of these free sites. Make sure you check the Terms of Service.
If your goal is to make money from your website, a free site will not do this. We recommend deploying a WordPress or Drupal website. Both offer a number of SEO plugins that you can tweak in order to bring business to you and optimize your SEO placement.