The Savvy Seller with Kristen Doyle

171. Why You Should Own Your Business Website, Not Rent It

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Feeling overwhelmed by website platform options? You’re not alone. Many entrepreneurs choose “easy” all-in-one builders like Squarespace or Wix, but in this episode, I’m breaking down why those platforms can limit your long-term growth and leave you building on borrowed land. We’ll explore the hidden drawbacks, and why WordPress, despite feeling intimidating at first, gives you true ownership and endless flexibility. I’ll also share how the right support can make WordPress setup simple and empower you to manage your site with confidence, so you can stop renting and start owning your online home!

02:25 - The hidden limitations of all-in-one website builders

04:46 - Why WordPress works for businesses at any stage

06:07 - Unlimited flexibility and customization with WordPress

08:36 - DIY pitfalls and when to hire a professional for your website

09:53 - One important question to ask yourself about your current website

Links & Resources:

Show Notes: https://kristendoyle.co/episode171 

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Check out my Everything Page at https://kristendoyle.co/everything

Kristen Doyle:

Have you ever felt completely overwhelmed by all the website platform options out there? Or maybe you've wondered if the platform you're using is actually holding your business back. See, a lot of my clients come to me worried about WordPress seeming too complicated, so they stick with platforms like Squarespace or Wix. Now, what they're looking for is simplicity, which I completely understand. But here's the thing, what those all in one builders don't tell you is that you're essentially building your entire business on borrowed land. It's kind of like the difference between renting a dorm room where someone else controls everything, versus owning your own home where you make the decisions, and the long term consequences for your business are bigger than you might think. So today I'm going to show you why owning your digital real estate matters, and how you can do it without all the technical overwhelm that you might be a little afraid of. Are you a digital product or course creator, selling on platforms like Teachers Pay Teachers, Etsy, or your own website? Ready to grow your business, but not into the kind of constant hustle that leads straight to burnout? Then you're in the right place. Welcome to The Savvy Seller. I'm Kristen Doyle, and I'm here to give you no-fluff tools and strategies that move the needle for your business without burning you out in the process—things like SEO, no stress marketing, email list building, automations, and so much more. Let's get started, y'all. See, a lot of my clients come to me wondering which platform is right, and they've heard of WordPress, but they worry it's too overwhelming, and maybe they should stick with one of those all in one website builders like Squarespace or Wix instead. See, they see WordPress like it's this huge, complicated platform that you need a whole entire tech team to manage, and I get that. So there's this common misconception that WordPress is something you only use if you need a huge website with tons of content, maybe you have a whole tech team to run your site for you, and that's really just not true. Those all in ones, they promise simplicity, but what they're really doing is locking you into their platform and making you totally reliant on them. So the real problem isn't that WordPress is too complex, it's that those easy website builders are actually building your business on land that you don't own, building on rented land, so to speak. See with those platforms, you have no control over so many factors. What if Squarespace or Wix closed down one day, or Weebly triples their prices, or, you know, their service suddenly sucks, and your website's barely loading anymore, and you're stuck with them. All of your content gets stuck in those sites and moving it to a different platform, yes, it's possible, but it's usually a very manual process, and that makes it super time consuming. Ultimately, if you can start out in the place you're going to end up, you usually do better with just about any tech platform decision, whether it's your website, your email marketing, whatever it is, if you can start at the place that you know you're going to end up using for the long run, you're usually better off that way. These all in one platforms, no matter which one you are looking at using, they all have hidden limitations that people don't recognize at first. See, sometimes they limit what you can sell and how you can sell it. You get stuck with only the features they've decided to offer and how often they update to keep up with changing technology. You can't always customize them as much as you need to, or implement certain marketing strategies. See, that easy appeal a lot of times, just means fewer options, and those fewer options can almost turn into handcuffs as you're trying to grow and you're not able to do what you need to. It's kind of like the difference between living in the dorms on campus, where they choose everything—they choose the electricity, they choose the internet provider, they choose if you have cable or not—versus owning your own house where you're in control of all those decisions. In your own house, if you know maybe your Wi Fi provider, suddenly the internet speed slows way down, or they triple their price. You just pick a new one. With those all in one platforms, you are stuck having to move your entire house instead of just switching cable companies. Now this really is kind of where WordPress shines. I know a lot of people think of it as this big, complicated thing that's for bloggers with tons of content or huge companies, but what I have learned is that WordPress really is one of the best platforms for any business owner. From someone just starting out all the way up to those million dollar operations, WordPress can work for anyone because it is so incredibly flexible because of all those options that can sometimes overwhelm people in the beginning. See, WordPress can grow with you from just starting out to as big as you can possibly grow your business over the years. And I know it can feel overwhelming at first, but WordPress really is worth pushing through that initial overwhelm. And the right guidance can make it just as easy as those other online all in one kind of builders, except you own your website, you own your content, and that is so important for your business long term. I have heard of other services, I won't name them, but I have heard of services shutting websites down with no warning, and just deleting all of your content that you've worked so long for and raising prices exponentially and all kinds of things like that. With WordPress, if your hosting gets too expensive or their service drops, you just switch to a different host. You still have all of your content. So like I said, it's like changing your internet provider versus having to move your whole entire house. You also get this flexibility that is going to grow with you as far as you can take your business. Where other platforms limit you to certain types of content, certain features, to what they offer, you can literally do anything you want on a WordPress website. You want a blog, go for it. You want a membership, you can do that too. You need a store, absolutely. Anything that you want to do on a WordPress site, it can be done. Whatever you need, from just starting out with a brand new small business all the way up to that huge business that maybe you're hoping to grow one day. You have practically unlimited customization wherever you need it. There's no restrictions on, you know, what you can sell or how you can present it. There is a plugin for everything on WordPress, and if there's not, there's a way to custom code those things too. So with WordPress, you do have this kind of one time learning investment, and there are some options and some choices to make up front, but you have those versus more permanent platform limitations that you're stuck with. I think a lot of people get overwhelmed by WordPress because of how many options there are, but that really is what its strength is. And maybe the overwhelm comes from seeing all the options at one time, but once you've set your site up, those choices are all made and you don't have to worry about it anymore. So this is really where you just need somebody to guide you through which of those options work the best for your business, and that's where hiring a pro can come in handy. So when you are looking for a web designer, find someone who values your independence, not creating dependency on them. Look for that web designer or developer who values making it easy for you to manage your own site down the road, instead of one who hides features in ways that make you reliant on always coming back to them for every little change. I always leave my clients with some trainings and tutorial videos on how to use their website because I want you to be able to make small changes yourself. When you need to change a link or a headline or a picture, you should be able to do that without having to come back to me. So look for a web designer who is going to work that way. My clients are able to create new pages, add their own blog posts, whatever they need to on their site. And then there are those kind of pro level tasks when it comes to bigger projects, where there's going to be strategy involved, that's where I advise my clients to come back to me, and let me help you with the strategy and making sure you implement things the right way. Bottom line, it's your website, and you should be empowered to do what you need to do on it. Now, can you DIY your site? Yeah, absolutely. But what I typically see with clients who try to DIY their website to begin with, is they get overwhelmed, and they end up spending so much time trying to learn something brand new that they probably would have been better off from a time standpoint, from a stress standpoint, and even from a money standpoint, in some ways, to have hired a web designer to begin with who could help walk them through this, take off all of that stress and frustration off their plates. Every client that I have worked with who tried to DIY and then came to me says it is so much easier and just such a relief, such a weight off their shoulders, to have someone who understands this stuff take care of it for them. See, for most business owners, you're not going to build more than one website in your business's lifetime. Maybe you build it and then redo it once, and spending tons of time, and let's be real, stress and frustration sometimes, learning a skill you'll never need again when you could have spent that time on things that will actually grow your business, those things that only you can do, it's a waste of your time and energy and effort to pour so much into learning a skill you'll never use again. Alright, let's talk about what you need to do. Your main action step today is to think about your website platform. Think about whether you truly own your online business presence or you're just renting space. Ask yourself, what would happen if my current platform or the tools I'm using radically changed their terms tomorrow. They double their prices, they shut down, they remove features that I am dependent on, or move them into a higher tiered pricing option, because we all see that happen all the time. What would happen if your current platform changed, and are you comfortable with that? And if you're thinking about WordPress, definitely look for someone to help you, who is going to prioritize your long term independence and you having ownership of your site, not someone who's going to create dependency on you. So specifically, ask questions about what kind of training or tutorials you get after and how much of your site you can manage on your own. If you are feeling overwhelmed and you're just starting out, remember, you just need somebody to guide you through making the right choices. Once it's set up the right way, managing WordPress is no harder than any of those other builders, as long as it's set up for you to be able to do that. Look, I know WordPress can feel super overwhelming at first, but that overwhelm is temporary. The limitations of those other website builders, those are permanent. So when you pick WordPress, you aren't just choosing a website platform, you really are choosing to own your business's online home. You're choosing that freedom to grow however you need to without limitations, and to change providers when you find that you need to, to build something that's really yours. And with the right guidance, even that initial setup really does not have to be overwhelming. If you're ready to stop renting and start owning your website, but you need that guidance, or maybe you've started down the DIY WordPress path, and you need some help finishing up, I would love to help you with that. Head over to kristendoyle.co to learn more about how we can build your WordPress site the right way, one that you own, that's powerful for your business but still easy for you to manage. I'll talk to you soon.