With everything costing so much in this day in age, free is attractive to anyone, including online business owners. There are a wide variety of free services available on the internet today. These free services might include free web hosting, free graphics, free banners, free domain names, and even other free elements such as guest books, counters, calendars, forums, and shopping carts.
You might be asking yourself as you read this, what is so bad about free? You are thinking that free helps your business save money, it gives you or visitors the services needed, and it is readily available on the internet for your use. These are all true in a sense, but when you really break it down, you will see why using free services is a bad idea for your business.
What kind of negative impact can free services have on your business? Let's have a look:
1. They could actually help an online business lose money
2. They could lower a customer's trust in the business
3. They could turn a customer away from the start
4. Decrease the reputation of your business
As you can see, even though there are only four negative elements, they are powerful elements none-the-less. Why would anyone want that kind of negative impact on their business, just to save a few bucks? Let's have a closer look at each element.
They Could Actually Help A Business Lose Money
When you use free services, instead of investing into something more solid and appropriate for your business, instead of saving you could actually lose money. This loss of money comes from the fact that you can lose sales and end up making the investment anyways. Why not make the investment from the start and avoid losing sales to figure out that free services will not benefit your online business.
They Could Lower A Customer's Trust In The Business
People want to trust the businesses they deal with, this is a solid fact. However, if you are using free services, you are essentially saying that you do not believe enough in your business to invest in it. People want a professional business, free services are not always professional and it is very easy to spot something that is free. Therefore, stay away from free hosting or free domains, your customers and bank account will thank you for it.
They Could Turn Away Your Customers From The Start
Free services are extremely noticeable. They all come with fine print, which includes the right to display advertisements when the services are used. These advertisements could be in the form of banners on a page, pop-ups, pop-unders, or landing pages. When customers see these, you can almost bet that they will leave. No one likes to see these types of advertisements.
At the same time, if you use free hosting, instead of www.yourbusiness.com it will be something less attractive such as www.freehosting.yourbusines.com this is harder to remember, less attractive, and is a dead give away that you didn't take your business serious enough to invest in quality hosting. Plus, this type of hosting does not have good uptime or dependability either.
If you do not want to decrease the reputation of your online business and drive your customers away, it is a good idea to start out the right way and avoid free services all together.
