The real cost of a cheap website

What usually gets left out

Speed, almost always. Cheap builds lean on page builders and unoptimised images, and the result is a site that takes six seconds on a phone. Nobody tells you, because the people who leave never contact you.

Also: any thought about what the page should say, coverage areas, conversion, and whether the form actually delivers to your inbox.

How to tell if yours is costing you

Open it on your phone, on mobile data rather than wi-fi, and count. If you are past three seconds before you see anything, that is a real cost.

Then read the first line as though you had never heard of the business. If it does not say what you do and where, visitors are having to work it out, and some will not.

• —Load it on 4G and count the seconds
• —Read the first line as a stranger
• —Submit your own form and see if it arrives
• —Tap the phone number and see if it dials
• —Look for a real photograph of your own work
• —Check whether it names the areas you cover

The arithmetic

If your average job is worth €2,000 and a better site converts two more visitors a month, that is €48,000 a year. Against a €1,500 build cost, the question answers itself.

If your average job is worth €60 and you get most work by referral, the same spend makes very little sense. The answer genuinely depends on your numbers, not on a principle.

When cheap is right

A brand new business testing whether there is demand. A business whose work comes entirely through word of mouth and needs a site only so people can check it exists. A side venture.

In those cases a simple, fast, honest one-page site is the correct answer and anything more is premature.

The version that is never right

Slow, on somebody else's domain, with a form that does not deliver, that you cannot edit and cannot move. That is not cheap, it is a liability with a low sticker price.

Fast and simple is fine. Cheap and trapped is not.