- Date: 3rd March 2010
- Comments: 4 Comments
On Thursday 25th February, an initiative (from Google, Enterprise UK, BT, e-skills UK and Enterprise UK) launched a web service called Getting British Business Online (GBBO). The aim of this initiative is to help get 100 000 UK organisations to get their first website online by the end of 2010. In this service, people who sign up will get the following features:
- A free .co.uk address
- Free updating and customisation
- Access to new customers
- Traffic monitoring
- Website-enhancing Gadgets
So, why am I writing about this? Surely it would be a bad move on my part to publicise such a service. I am posting this in an attempt to inform people about why they shouldn’t go with such a service – and my clever post title will become clearer.
You get what you pay for
This statement is true. It is a very rare occasion in life that you’ll get something you really want that’s really good quality for free. In my post early last month, I wrote about why you should leave it to the professionals when getting your website designed. In summary, it outlined why you shouldn’t just let anyone build your website.
Web design is a profession. We are skilled and trained (sometimes self-taught) and the best of us know what we’re talking about and why we do certain things in design.
Building your website through the GBBO service may well get you online quicker and for free – but this isn’t a good thing by any means. It rules out the careful consideration of viewers, site goals, important traffic analysis and marketing strategies – all of which are important to a successful website.
GBBO only offers the basics
Want something a little more complex? GBBO doesn’t offer it. In the help section of the GBBO website, there is a question entitled, “What if I want a more advanced website?” The answer to that is:
Our step-by-step tool will help you publish a basic website for your business, and Google Sites will let you improve and expand upon this later. If you’d like something more advanced we recommend you speak to a professional website designer who may be able to create a more sophisticated home for your business.
Unless you want a basic information page with who your company is, then GBBO is going to come up short. Want a blog on your website? Want a shopping cart? GBBO fails.
What’s this about marketing strategy? Getting number 1 on Google is easy!
In a perfect world, you would just be able to type whatever you want, and everyone will magically find your business online. Sadly this is not the case. Careful consideration must go in to every part of a website build, all the way down to the wording of simple sentences.
But it’s free
This is true. But free things may come at a cost believe it or not. Most people know nothing about marketing, or the effects of bad marketing. If you publish a bad website, giving your company a bad image, it will reflect on you as a person or a business. If you go in to a scruffy looking clothing shop, will you buy a nice pair of shoes from there? Or will you go to the nicely presented looking shop down the road that’s offering the same thing?
For basic websites such as these, especially due to the recession, you will be able to agree a feasible price with many professional web designers and developers who are looking for smaller projects. GBBO is not a good solution in my opinion. In this day an age, most businesses do have websites, and a free website isn’t going to get you seen or set you above the rest.
Getting British Business Offline
Offline? No, the intention is to get businesses online. Ok, so what about professional web designers and developers who rely upon contracts from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to live. Suddenly, all of these businesses can get their new websites for free. Ok, so you’ll put 10 plumbers online, but you’ll take out a web designer. We’re already at an all-time low for the unemployed in the UK – this service isn’t going to help that.
What are your thoughts and opinions on GBBO?
CPA Network
Wow, what a lengthy and in depth article but full of useful information
lois ( web designer in blackburn)
I think this service might be helpful as a gateway to show small businesses that getting online is not hard but i think its impact is going to be minimal.
the gbbo initiative is not offering anything new a free domain and a year`s hosting is not much as for the webbuilder most hosting companies offer this free of charge , i remember we started offering this free back in 2006 .
The problem with automated webbuilders is its difficult to be different everyone knows how ineffective templates can be and i think one pitfull of the whole plan could be small businesses trying it for one year and seeing little or no gain and abandoning the whole idea where as if they had better professional help they could have got better gains.
geoff blair
I do think this is a good idea if the woll is’nt being pulled over our eyes.
Ben
Got to agree with the points you’ve made here. I attended last night’s
event in Edinburgh and, as an online marketing professional, found the whole thing
painful & misleading.
They suggested that you shouldn’t really need to pay more than £750 for a full
e-commerce website & you should aim for keyword rich domains -
http://www.edinburgh-cartered-account.co.uk – being the example they used on the evening,
rather than the company name. They also made the process of signing up & creating
your website look very difficult, I use Google Sites all the time & was lost during
the demonstration.
Hope you don’t mind me linking to my post but I think this is just a bunch of
misinformation and is not really helping British Business to thrive in the digital
world.
http://www.attacat.co.uk/brain/getting-british-business-online-or-just-filling-google-bts-coffers/