There's no such thing as a free lunch - someone always pays, ya know? I've seen this ad on TV a few times and, finally, I got intrigued enough to look (as I figure many people have). And it's true! They give you a free website design and hosting and some SEO, though it's unclear how much they do in your first month. Oh yeah, did you pick up on "the first month"?
Free website...not so free...
Yes, it's true that they do build and upload your new or redesigned website for free. Then, after "your first month" if you don't like it or them, you can "cancel and pay $0". Wow!!! Soooooo, what if I don't cancel, what happens? The ad goes on, "You just pay one low monthly fee..blah, blah, blah".
Deceptive advertising
Well, it's no surprise that they want to get paid sometime - after all, we're all in business to earn a living, right? What I really object to is the deceptive way they promote themselves. The website ISN'T free for starters. Yes they build it and host it for a month (well, I'm guessing a lot less than that), but a month won't tell you much about your new site. And what happens after a month? Your FREE website starts costing you "one low monthly fee". So it never was really free. If you cancel you lose it, if you stay, you pay!
One low monthly fee
But, all may not be lost. Let's check out their "one low monthly fee". Can't fault them for that - it's the business model we've been using, successfully, for over 2 years. However, their view of low, and ours, are poles apart. As you can see from their comparison, they consider themselves cheap - after all, their competitor (whoever that is) is over 5 times more expensive according to their own analysis.
Click the thumnail to see the bigger picture - literally and metaphorically!
How does CitrusKiwi compare to web.com?
Very favorably I believe. They claim 30 years experience - we can't top that in web design (but have they REALLY been in web design for 30 years?) - but we have a cumulative experience of running small businesses for about 30 years.
They claim SEO, but, from their chart, it seems that's only on-page and no mention is made of off-page, on-going SEO, and that's an area that is crucial. They do telephone call tracking and we don't (but you do ask every new customer where they found you, right? That's basic monitoring every company should be doing), but we do keep you informed of your rankings every month.
- And our "free website" period is 6 weeks....
- And we don't call it free because it isn't...
- And we do on-going SEO as part of our packages...
- And we're about a third the cost of web.com... (check out our prices)
