The Entrepreneur Forum | Financial Freedom | Starting a Business | Motivation | Money | Success

Welcome to the only entrepreneur forum dedicated to building life-changing wealth.

Build a Fastlane business. Earn real financial freedom. Join free.

Join over 80,000 entrepreneurs who have rejected the paradigm of mediocrity and said "NO!" to underpaid jobs, ascetic frugality, and suffocating savings rituals— learn how to build a Fastlane business that pays both freedom and lifestyle affluence.

Free registration at the forum removes this block.

I cant even give them away!...

Would you take a free website if you were a localised small business?

  • Yes I would

    Votes: 19 61.3%
  • Hell no!

    Votes: 12 38.7%

  • Total voters
    31

Barry_M

Contributor
Read Unscripted!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
116%
Jul 26, 2019
49
57
UK
I DO NOT MAKE WORDPRESS! THIS IS NOT A WORDPRESS POST.

I have been making websites for many a long year and making a decent living doing it (made over 400 websites all with my own CMS - I do every thing from the hosting to the graphic design and everything in between). Thing is, for about 8 or so years I have wanting to starting giving away free websites and letting people add unlimited content, unlimited pages and get office hours support for the site. I want to charge a small fee for the sites monthly hire and localised SEO. I already do this with my current clients and they are all happy. But I charged them for their original site design so they expected the monthly fee as I explained it to them during our consultations.



So the free sites. About 8 years ago, (around then not exactly sure when it was) I built load of templates and started offering companies free website through my own site. I got no takers.. never have had any through the site! I still offer paid sites through my site and I get people phoning me and emailing me looking for websites.

The free and paid offers were in the same menu. Why do people not take the free site?

I have a small portfolio of free sites that I persuaded people to take. They wanted paid sites but I told them they didnt need to pay for the design as I could provide a good enough site for free for their business type (dog walker, painter and decorator etc etc).

I have been trying to get in to the "free site" business for years and yes I know that their are wix, square space and all these big dudes doing this but I provide sites to my local market and pretty much always have. So what is so good for the local market from my services ? Well I am shit hot at local SEO and for a local companies this is probably mostly more important to them than having an all singing all dancing website as they get calls and emails from them. No point having the best looking wordpress site on the block if you on page 3! Local market is a page 1 only competition and I get all of my clients up there! (my city has around 100k people in it so not huge)

I have put out leaflets, had one of my old staff cold calling hundreds of businesses, had a dedicated page on my website (btw i am at the top of the Google for "Web designers" in my local area so I am getting regular hits naturally).

Why wont people take free sites from me? Do they think that Free is too good to be true? Do they not want to be embarrassed by a free website?

A little info about my system. I make bespoke CMS and have done for a very long time (almost 18 years). My current CMS runs all of my clients websites and they love it! Very simple to use, intuitive, mobile friendly, SEO friendly, Google loves it (normal Google normal Lighthouse scores are around 98). The free version of the system is the standard install that ALL sites start with. The person who is using it can then select a design from inside the admin section and start to add their own content with my help as part of the FREE set up! If they have any issues, they can call me during office hours to help. BTW my current clients rarely call me as the system they have in place is dead simple to use and so they very rarely break anything and even if they do, as I made the system from scratch, I can fix pretty much any bug in around 10 minutes.

Why do people not like FREE!

If anyone has any pointers, I would be grateful.

--

Edited spelling mistakes out :)
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Primeperiwinkle

Legendary Contributor
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Rat-Race Escape!
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
320%
Nov 30, 2018
1,645
5,261
This is twice now I’ve felt like you are prospecting for business here on the forum...

I’m now suspicious.
 

Barry_M

Contributor
Read Unscripted!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
116%
Jul 26, 2019
49
57
UK
This is twice now I’ve felt like you are prospecting for business here on the forum...

I’m now suspicious.

I am not prospecting. I have not given any details of my business. I have not asked anyone to contact me for offers and I wont be doing so. Also I only deal locally in my city. I am looking for advice. Do you have any?
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Barry_M

Contributor
Read Unscripted!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
116%
Jul 26, 2019
49
57
UK
People don't value free. Maybe they are suspicious. And it's not good positioning for you as an expert even though you are.

Why do people take Wix? Its also a free site.
 

Barry_M

Contributor
Read Unscripted!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
116%
Jul 26, 2019
49
57
UK
They spent millions on branding and positioning.

thats not what I asked. If I cant give away free sites as people do not see a value in them, why do Wix make so much money from giving away free sites if they have perceived value?
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

MattR82

Gold Contributor
Read Rat-Race Escape!
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
178%
Oct 4, 2015
1,394
2,480
41
Brisbane
thats not what I asked. If I cant give away free sites as people do not see a value in them, why do Wix make so much money from giving away free sites if they have perceived value?
Someone probably has a better answer than me but that's what I would think. Wix and squarespace can get around it by paying guys like Idris Elba to tell the uninformed they are valuable, and spend millions displaying that everywhere. Just my opinion.

I'm not really sure why or how they pull it off. But I definitely feel it's true that generally people don't value free.
 

Primeperiwinkle

Legendary Contributor
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Rat-Race Escape!
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
320%
Nov 30, 2018
1,645
5,261
I am not prospecting. I have not given any details of my business. I have not asked anyone to contact me for offers and I wont be doing so. Also I only deal locally in my city. I am looking for advice. Do you have any?

Are you genuinely confused about this? Wix is absolute shit for SEO but they make pretty things come to life. Regular ppl have no knowledge of SEO.

EVERYBODY wants a pretty website and they want to do it themselves. Now.

Ppl trust franchises because they have (what is perceived to be) authority.

It really comes down to.. Wix did a better job meeting the needs of the public, explaining those needs, scaling, and marketing. I don’t know why you’re confused.
 

Fid

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
297%
May 26, 2017
92
273
Wroclaw, Poland
Well, it's hard to say just by reading your post. My gut is telling me it's probably related to how you sell those free sites.

Wix does not sell free websites. Their headlines in my country say 'create a dream website', 'you are capable of everything', 'feel the designer's freedom'. They're not selling websites. They're selling experiences.

The satisfaction of creating something as complex as a website on your own.
Freedom to choose whatever you want.
Confidence in what you build.

Nobody really wants just 'a free website'.
 

Mike S

Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
218%
Jun 25, 2019
34
74
Crestview Hills KY
We started our business 11 years ago with the same basic concept (free site and a monthly subscription payment for hosting and unlimited support) As we gained traction and played around with different pricing models (all while trying how to figure out scaling this concept) we hit on a price point that the market accepted. The key is perceived value, if it's free it must be worthless in the consumers mind. That being said, once we figured out how to scale we abandoned our original model of building small business websites and became a white label developer for ad agencies. We had a value proposition that was appealing and offered what we called "offshore pricing with US accountability" as we had learned that the pain of using offshore developers wasn't worth the low price they were charging. We literally took the company to a national presence over the course of 3 years. We've since moved on to other development work as we've taken what we've learned in scaling and white label work and have developed platforms that process close to $100M in annual revenues (we get paid in basis points for everything that flows through our platforms) Again, the key is offering value but if you're going to go down the web-dev and SEO roads you had better learn how to scale or you'll never have a true business, just a job that you'll be married to.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Barry_M

Contributor
Read Unscripted!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
116%
Jul 26, 2019
49
57
UK
We started our business 11 years ago with the same basic concept (free site and a monthly subscription payment for hosting and unlimited support) As we gained traction and played around with different pricing models (all while trying how to figure out scaling this concept) we hit on a price point that the market accepted. The key is perceived value, if it's free it must be worthless in the consumers mind. That being said, once we figured out how to scale we abandoned our original model of building small business websites and became a white label developer for ad agencies. We had a value proposition that was appealing and offered what we called "offshore pricing with US accountability" as we had learned that the pain of using offshore developers wasn't worth the low price they were charging. We literally took the company to a national presence over the course of 3 years. We've since moved on to other development work as we've taken what we've learned in scaling and white label work and have developed platforms that process close to $100M in annual revenues (we get paid in basis points for everything that flows through our platforms) Again, the key is offering value but if you're going to go down the web-dev and SEO roads you had better learn how to scale or you'll never have a true business, just a job that you'll be married to.

when I first started web design back in the very early 2000s I went through this as well. I was giving sites away too cheap but I soon found the Goldilocks price. This price has went up over the years but I really do still want to give local businesses the chance to get a free website. Small businesses are not cash rich so they are trying to get things done on a shoe string. Maybe I will change the marking message @Fid and see if it works.
 

Mike S

Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
218%
Jun 25, 2019
34
74
Crestview Hills KY
when I first started web design back in the very early 2000s I went through this as well. I was giving sites away too cheap but I soon found the Goldilocks price. This price has went up over the years but I really do still want to give local businesses the chance to get a free website. Small businesses are not cash rich so they are trying to get things done on a shoe string. Maybe I will change the marking message @Fid and see if it works.
Yea, once we hit the right price point, part of my sales presentation was that "we want you to have enough money left to market your business, we understand that a website is just a component of your marketing mix" We looked at expanding into additional marketing services ourselves (SEO, Adwords, Facebook advertising...) but realized it was not within our skill set and we didn't want to hire or offshore that type of work so we went to the white label world instead. The key is to be empathetic with your customer as we all know that they have a limited amount of marketing dollars to spend and you are keenly aware of that.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

AFMKelvin

Some Profound Quote Goes Here
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
199%
Jan 26, 2016
733
1,456
31
Rice, Texas
People like things that are tailored to them. When I hear free website I think of cookie cutter templates that you used for other people's website.

Also you get what you pay for rings true. In my mind a free website is not a quality website. Since you're not getting pay for it you won't give it your best effort to make it extra nice. I can't make any demands either. Because after all it's free. That means I have no authority over you. If I want a simple edit I can't just call you and make you change it. Since I should be grateful that you gave me a free website.

There's a guy in this forum who's a pest exterminator. He can finish the job in less than ten minutes. But he noticed that people got upset when he finished the job so quick. They would call and complain about it. Later he did the job in one hour. The same work but a lot slower. The people were now happy with the job because of the perceived attentiveness.
 

c4n

Full throttle
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
265%
May 30, 2017
379
1,004
I don't know much about your business, but people may feel deceived by your offer. It technically is a free website, but it isn't - it's a monthly subscription.

When you offer something for free it better be free, no gimmicks. If someone called me saying they want to give me a free website, they would lose any credibility they had after the "but".

I've made a chunk of change over the years giving away free software. It really is free and fully functional, no strings attached. Optional add-ons generate income (aka freemium). You need enough volume (users) to pull it off though, only a small fraction will purchase them.

Also, the "free" market is crowded. You need both a good product and a brand. And volume. Not sure how you would get that in a limited local market.
 

minivanman

Platinum Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
265%
Mar 16, 2017
1,722
4,562
54
DFW
On a site that you sell, how much does the average site cost?

As for monthly costs, what is the average cost?

Don't worry, I have a plan. If you don't want to post prices on here, send me a message.
 

ChrisV

Legendary Contributor
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
225%
May 10, 2015
3,141
7,055
Islands of Calleja
Do they not want to be embarrassed by a free website?
Do you show them samples of your previous work? Maybe they're already happy with their current website.

And there's got to be a catch, even if it's just other options they can add on. I recommend just being honest about that.

Also, businesses don't really care about 'free' as much as consumers do. Most businesses would rather pay more money for a quality product that costs more, especially when that product affects their bottom line.
 
Last edited:

NVaz

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
112%
Jul 24, 2013
145
162
Lisbon, Portugal
Something that's free tends to get people thinking "What's in it for you?" .....instead of "What's in it for me?"
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

ChrisV

Legendary Contributor
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
225%
May 10, 2015
3,141
7,055
Islands of Calleja
There's a guy in this forum who's a pest exterminator. He can finish the job in less than ten minutes. But he noticed that people got upset when he finished the job so quick. They would call and complain about it. Later he did the job in one hour. The same work but a lot slower. The people were now happy with the job because of the perceived attentiveness.
I would have branded it that way. "10 minute pest control.... extermination in 10 minutes or less!"
 

JB92

New Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
44%
Apr 28, 2019
27
12
Personally, I couldn't trust anyone who is offering a free B2B service.

Discounts/sales however, are a different matter.
 
D

DeletedUser0287

Guest
No, it would be a waste of my time to get a free website.

What I have learned is to never be CHEAP with business. Especially with a website, it is the core of business now.

I know that if I don't pay in money, I pay in time (headache, loss of efficiency).

I think long term and willing to pay more upfront because paying more upfront will save me so much in the longterm, hence why I am with Shopify.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.
Last edited by a moderator:

minivanman

Platinum Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
265%
Mar 16, 2017
1,722
4,562
54
DFW
Are you genuinely confused about this? Wix is absolute shit for SEO but they make pretty things come to life. Regular ppl have no knowledge of SEO.

EVERYBODY wants a pretty website and they want to do it themselves. Now.

Ppl trust franchises because they have (what is perceived to be) authority.

It really comes down to.. Wix did a better job meeting the needs of the public, explaining those needs, scaling, and marketing. I don’t know why you’re confused.

Come on now..... That's what people say about Weebly and I have a ton of Weebly sites in different cities that rank on the 1st page of Google for relevant search terms for those businesses. I haven't done a search in a while to see which ones are on the 1st page but to me, if my sites are not on the 1st page, they are useless. I just made a few new ones within the last month so it will take 6+ months to get to the 1st page.

I make a deal with people..... I make the site and maintain it for a very small percentage of the profit from the calls I bring in. I fully own the sites and the numbers associated with them so I have 100% control. So for example, I just spoke with the lady from an exterminating site I have (She text me while I am typing this). I take $3 from every call that goes through my special number. It started out at $7 and is now down to $3 as the years go by. So for the OP, would this be something you might be interested in doing?
 

minivanman

Platinum Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
265%
Mar 16, 2017
1,722
4,562
54
DFW
My exterminating lady is 100% coincidence with the other person that was talking about an exterminator. I was typing while the other person made their post. :)
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Primeperiwinkle

Legendary Contributor
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Rat-Race Escape!
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
320%
Nov 30, 2018
1,645
5,261
My exterminating lady is 100% coincidence with the other person that was talking about an exterminator. I was typing while the other person made their post. :)

Weebly is different than Wix but you and I are gonna have this discussion forever, it’s kinda nice, we keep doing it. Lol
 

Post New Topic

Please SEARCH before posting.
Please select the BEST category.

Post new topic

Guest post submissions offered HERE.

New Topics

Fastlane Insiders

View the forum AD FREE.
Private, unindexed content
Detailed process/execution threads
Ideas needing execution, more!

Join Fastlane Insiders.

Top