Today there is simply no choice for any business but to have some form of web presence. In the past, Yellow Pages or the Yellow Book would be the go-to for many people when looking for a local business, now it is the internet.
Even a business that doesn’t need a full website will benefit from being on Google My Business or by having a Facebook page. For many businesses though, a full website is the only choice. One that is responsive, gets organic traffic and typically delivers a great user experience.
However, websites like this can sometimes be prohibitively expensive. Some web agencies charge fees that smaller businesses just cannot justify, or budget for. This is where pay monthly websites may factor in.
What are pay monthly websites?
If you have ever looked into hosting plans then you will know that they sometimes come with options to pay for 1 year or several years upfront. And sometimes, they give the option to pay monthly.
If you Google Pay Monthly Websites you will see something very different, an option to have your website maintained on a month-by-month basis, not just hosted.
A pay monthly website is one where an agency designs the site, not for a flat fee, but as an ongoing monthly one. This then comes with a number of ongoing services too. Where a web design agency’s job may end at the delivered result, a pay monthly service is there for as long as you wish them to be.
What reasons are there for using pay monthly websites?
Imagine you went to the local garage and picked out a car. That vehicle is going to set you back $xxxx. You buy the car, and you’re very happy with it, but that was the end of the transaction. Yet, there was a second option.
Imagine instead, that your local garage offered to let you take the car for a monthly fee instead and included a mechanic and support team with it? They also let you choose a custom body shape for the car, and whatever paint job you liked.
With a pay monthly website, you get all the customization you like, the support, and plenty more. Here are 5 reasons that might make you consider a pay monthly website.
1 SEO
While there are many website design tips for beginners, and you may be able to put together something on WordPress, SEO may prove more challenging.
SEO takes a lot of time to learn in-depth, and it is always changing. SEO is critical to how a website runs and how it appears on SERPs. With a pay monthly website, you will have full SEO support. This means that the website will come optimized for search engines.
2 User experience
A good pay monthly website operator will provide custom-designed websites. Some may use templates, but the best ones will work with their clients to provide a custom website that fits the business involved.
They will also make sure that everything in this design operates properly. That means a better UX which is essential for many areas.
According to one report from MIT Sloan, 97% of websites failed at user experience. This is a startling result even if it was only from one study. Knowing that you have a support team working monthly means changes can be made when necessary.
They will also make sure the website is mobile optimized which is more necessary now than it ever has been.
3 Ongoing maintenance
As part of the SEO and other front and back end concerns, there will be ongoing maintenance.
Things can go wrong with websites, such as dead links, and metrics changing for SEO. As Forbes reports, Google brought in its core web vitals last year. If you don’t have ongoing support to meet these changes, your website can start to slide down the SERPs.
4 Technical support
All this maintenance and work doesn’t mean you have to be hands-off though. A good pay monthly website should come with its own CMS, or content management system. This will allow you to make small changes to the site yourself.
And, in case of any difficulty, or if the site should go down, you will have technical support there all the time.
5 They are affordable
For an average website to be built you might expect to have to lay out around $6,000. This may be upfront too. If you want ongoing maintenance, then this may come in at around another $1,000 per year. These are only estimates and the complexity of the site will have to be factored in.
Regardless of being an estimate, shelling out for a website can be costly. A pay monthly website comes with different pricing plans that may be as low as $50 per month. This allows smaller businesses the option of a fully responsive, customized website that previously may have been beyond them.
Are there any negatives to using a pay monthly website?
Ironically, the biggest negative is where affordability comes in. Your monthly budget may constrain you to how many pages you can have on the site. There may be some services that are omitted from the lower pricing packages also.
The biggest downside to using a pay monthly website is that you don’t technically own it. If you decide to stop paying each month, your website will disappear. With a one-off web design from an agency, the website is yours forever, as long as you keep renewing the domain name and hosting.
Summary
Any company wishing to have its own website may be considering the option of building one in-house or through Wix or WordPress. However, while this may seem an affordable way of doing things, it may not lead to a website that performs well.
There are many tips for designing a better website including fine-tuning the SEO and making sure the site is tailored for mobiles and is responsive. There are many areas of web design that cannot be ignored.
If you cannot afford to get a web design agency to provide a properly functioning website, then a pay monthly option could work. They could provide all the necessary services without any large initial investment.
