If you search the Internet, you will find many opinions on this topic. Can a company create a corporate website with a web building kit? The answer is clear: yes, but ...

... because the website created with a good web building kit like page4 has technically no disadvantages compared to a website created by an agency. Because: Many agencies use WordPress and other free systems to create customer websites and these are ultimately also web building kits, but on a different level. Open source software is created and enhanced by thousands of programmers. On the one hand, this ensures that there are an infinite number of extensions and templates for WordPress; on the other hand, the source code is open and thus offers an easier attack surface for hackers. Therefore, there are also regular updates, which should plug security holes. Closed systems like Page4 are much more secure because our code is not public.

High quality web building kits like page4 allow the user to store all relevant information for a good search engine ranking. As well globally as for single pages. The technology behind page4 is optimized in such a way that the system achieves top ratings in speed tests and it is up to the user to maintain this high rating through optimized images and good content. In addition, page4 provides everything needed to easily comply with the regulations of the DSGVO. Thanks to the ingenious design editor, you can create completely individual designs. If you're looking for ideas, feel free to check out WordPress' many templates. Many of them can be easily implemented and recreated with page4.

... Of course, with regard to the appropriate basis for a web presence, it must be said that it always depends on the size of a company and what special requirements a company has for its own website. If a company employs several employees who have to maintain different areas of their website in the same time, you need a system that can manage several administrators with different rights. Most construction kits are not able to do that. If the company sells online and the store not only has to manage thousands of articles (our page4 store can do that!), but also needs a complete connection to the company's accounting and merchandise management, no web construction kit is currently suitable for this.

But: As soon as all planned functions for the page4 store are implemented, this will no longer be an obstacle. We will launch the first store for a web construction kit that is easy to use and scalable.

If the company needs a lot of email addresses, it can still use a web construction kit, but should outsource the management of the email inboxes to a company that specializes in this.

If you are going to start your own business and need a website, you will certainly pay attention to the costs. Especially at the start there are many fixed costs that you unfortunately can not change: Technology, office, insurance - all this costs money and is needed. The good thing is, these costs can usually be planned in advance.

With a website it is not so easy. If you let create a website, then the prices range from a few hundred to many thousands of euros. Mostly without webhosting or ongoing maintenance. That one gets a logo for its new enterprise inclusive worked out, is not to be expected. Design is still something that is difficult to put a price on. Simple ideas, when born, are certainly easy to copy and then think to yourself, "Why should I pay money for this?" But you forget, the way to develop this idea can be quite hard.

Do you necessarily have to spend a lot of money to get a good website? Yes and no. If you have a clear idea of how you want to present yourself on the Internet, you can easily do it with Page4. If you have absolutely no idea, you are still well advised to call in a designer or an agency to help you come up with ideas. If you wish, we can provide you with a list of agencies that work with page4 and you can then easily check who suits your needs. The good thing is that once your website is ready, you can maintain it yourself if you wish, because that can cost a lot of money, too.

See page4 prices in the following section.

With modern technology and a good web construction kit, you can already start your own company website at very reasonable prices. You should not be fooled by low prices that are marked with an asterisk. Many competitors have secretly increased their prices and outsourced the costs of a domain, so that you suddenly have to pay significantly more from the second year. Or providers try to win you over with contracts that are very favorable in the first year, but become really expensive in the second year and also usually have longer periods.

We at page4 take a different way. There are no hidden costs and our prices do not increase in the following year. We started years ago with 36 USD a year, then increased to 48 USD, then to 60 USD - and all customers still pay the price that was current at the time they started their contract. It will stay that way. Of course, we sometimes have to adjust our prices. But if you already have a website with us, everything stays the same. Despite the various adjustments, our prices are very reasonable.

The smallest version costs now only 48 USD per year, the medium version 96 USD and the largest version 240 USD per year. In addition, there are the costs for your domains. A  com-domain from 18 USD, a biz-domain from 24 USD per year. Compare this with other providers and note that we do not require a limit of pages or other restrictions with any version. And that there is no other provider apart from Page4, which has a design management, with which you are able to create as many design templates as you want and apply them to individual pages. To our knowledge, that doesn't even exist with WordPress.

For businesses, our prices are more than affordable and with the smallest version you can already implement almost anything imaginable. Since we assume that people want to earn real money with a store, we have focused our attention on developing professional features and making the system open for the future and not on offering it as cheap as possible. Most companies that get a store as cheap as possible will sooner or later have to spend a lot of money to switch to a professional system. You should make the right decision right away; it's more economical.

I think you should also be honest here: Let's say you're a worker and you repair windows and doors. Or you work in the electrical sector. Do you think the homeowner doesn't need you and can do everything himself? Surely not. DIY has limits everywhere. You live from the fact that you convey to your customers: a professional is the guarantee of good work.

If you want to succeed, first it's important that your customers trust you so they'll use your services. A free website is actually a no-go: if you can't afford to pay 48 or even 96 USD a year for a website, it will be hard for you to be perceived as serious and trustworthy.

An off-the-shelf website? Many companies offer ready-made templates for entire industries. This seems cool in the first month, you seem to save work & money. But many who order such a website don't do much with it anymore and so you find similar websites that not only use the same images but often also the same texts.

Why should customers use your services? Because you are unique and offer exactly the service your customers want! So it doesn't go down well if your site is almost identical to your colleague's in another city or even locally. During a test, for example, we found that there are more than 1,600 websites of smokestack sweeps in Germany that had almost identical texts and images and even identical design. The reason is simple: an IT company has focused on this industry and sells ready-made pages for 99 USD for creation and 20 USD for support per month - and ultimately copies a ready-made sample for each customer. Do the customers know that their colleagues have identical pages? If you use a system where the provider advertises that you get ready-made texts for your industry, you should be careful: Google penalizes copied texts, and if multiple sites show the same texts, Google assumes they're all cribbed and you'll have trouble being found by Google: Your site's ranking suffers when content is repeated across the web! As tempting as it is to save time by getting cheap ready-made texts and designs - we advise against it. Urgently!

With page4 you can create great websites: individual and professional. But, if you really don't have a flair for design and good texts, you should rather spend money and hire experts to help you. It will cost you, but it's money well and truly spent. We can take a look at your website and optimize it for you for a (comparatively small) fee of 120 Euros. But we can't replace a designer or an agency.

The more you know what you want, the cheaper such an agency will be in the end. A consultation on which colors to use and the creation of a unique logo are in any case something that will have a good effect on your company's image and therefore on its success. A page4 site in the appropriate colors is then the result.

Computer skills are necessary so that you can create your own website. You need to know how to access the Internet, how to use a browser and how to create content. You don't need to know anything about programming with page4. We've translated all of page4's features into easy-to-use dialogs; you can even edit texts directly on the website once they're created, as long as you're logged in as an admin. You create everything online. Many tools help you to create content without your visitors seeing it live. If you have any questions, our fast support will help you. Detailed (understandable!) tutorials and blog articles at Page4 will also help you to learn more about the subject matter in general as well as in specific areas. If you would like to have your texts checked for spelling mistakes and style by another person, then we recommend you appropriate professionals who offer such a service at a reasonable price. The costs for such a proofreading service are manageable and the benefits are great, because it is precisely gross spelling mistakes and bad formulations that often keep customers from making use of an offer.

If you are not sure which provider you want to work with, you can test page4 for free for as long as you want and even prepare your website already, as you can upgrade at any time and then take everything you have written and designed with you.

Before consumers buy a product or use a service, they now look for information primarily on the Internet and find out about the desired product or service beforehand. On the one hand, they search in general, i.e., regardless of location, if they want to purchase the product or service from an online store. Or they search according to location, i.e. primarily in relation to services, for example for a nice restaurant in New York or a nail salon near their place of residence.

Today, customers expect even small businesses to be represented online. But without a website you will not be found or hardly found at all. When your website is found, the first impression is important.

In addition to an appealing look, customers expect professional texts, good pictures and really up-to-date information, presented in such a way that they can immediately see whether your business can fulfill their cherished wishes. Therefore, it is extremely important that you put such good and appealing content on the home page that visitors are attracted and stay longer on your site.

Being active on social media is an important step in building an online presence. However, in social media you are always exposed to the changing rules of the network and can easily get lost in the speed of the platforms.

With your own website, you can do your own SEO, customize the content to your target groups and promote your company. You are not dependent on the corporations and their algorithms and their own business interests, which are ultimately behind the social platforms. When trends change, you can develop your website independently.

Of course, advertising measures are always an individual question. But a website is permanent and so much more than just a booked ad in a local newspaper, the Yellow Pages or even as online advertising. The website is the ideal contact point for customers, whom you can reach through many different channels. Not only through paid advertising, but also through free measures.

From our point of view, a homepage is essential for every company today, no matter what size, and thanks to web construction kits like page4, it is also affordable and can be maintained by yourself without any technical knowledge.

As with any tool, you certainly need a time to learn how to use it. If possible, your website should accompany you for years. Therefore, it would be a basic mistake to only pay attention to the fact that you can "go online in a few minutes", as some providers promise. Most of the time, such offers are very limited in their possibilities and ultimately expensive as soon as you realize that you have exhausted the technical limits of the product. This is especially true if you want to open an online store in addition to a website.

We hope this article helps you to make the right decisions for a website and we would be happy to be able to accompany your company with our page4 system!

If you already have a Jimdo Creator website and want to move to us, there's good news: we can probably convert your site's content and import it into page4. However, since this is a complex process, we should clarify this beforehand. This will save you a lot of time and money. If you have a store that is able to export the existing products, we offer to check if we can use this export file, preferably created as a csv file, to import your products into a page4 store. This also saves time and money.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us by mail at service@page4.com.

Manfred F. Schreyer

page4 Team