Over the past few weeks, Intuit, the same company that makes Quickbooks, has been advertising the heck out of their ‘website builder’ software. And because I’ve had several past, current, and prospective clients ask and heckle about the prices associated with setting up a website, I’d like to offer a little insight to this Intuit product.
The “For as little as $5 / month” tag they advertise on the radio might as well be “As little for $5 a month.” That Starter Package will only provide you with 5 pages, and barely enough storage space to showcase a few high quality photos and PDF downloads. That also doesn’t include a domain name or any email addresses.
The Platinum Package for $50 per month won’t be enough. Yes, they do give you 10 gigabytes of storage and unlimited pages, but they don’t give any functionality outside of words on a page. Remember, the purpose of advertising is to impress people, not to just slap words on a page and hope they care or are interested enough to read it.
Intuit’s “professionally designed templates” are garbage. A website should be built around a brand’s image and appeal to it’s viewers. If the site looks like a cheap template, your business will look like a cheap template.
Their claims to ‘get you to show up in search engines’ are bogus. I’ve looked at several sites created with Intuit’s site builder, and not one of them utilizes the latest SEO strategies. If you think your new Intuit website will show up in Google, you’re in for a surprise.
And I almost forgot to mention – how trustworthy is a company that sells you a piece of software through Amazon.com that arrives with no software in it? (click here to see -> http://bit.ly/2DMWS5) There is no disc, no program, just a website address printed on a sheet of paper directing you to Intuit’s website.
So, if you sell trinkets, don’t pretend to build websites. We’ve spent years devoting our attention to the web and everything surrounding it. You should spend years learning everything there is to know about trinkets, and hire a web expert when you need a website. You’ll be much happier with the end result.
Ummm, Intuit owns Homestead.
Comment by Morgan — November 27, 2009 @ 3:36 pm
I was not aware of that. Thanks for the info. Unfortunately that fact doesn’t change my opinion of their product.
Comment by Brian Brua — November 27, 2009 @ 3:41 pm
I also wrote an article about their woefully inadequate website offerings. And they do have a “blog” per the Intuit person who contacted me, but only with the Gold or higher package, but the problem is you’re limited to 100 pages with the Gold package. I have one blog that has over 1,400 posts in it so I’d have to pay $49.99 each month…if they could host WordPress which I highly doubt. Actually any site that’s mine would be paying $49.99 a month. That would be a huge waste of money.
Comment by Christina — February 18, 2010 @ 10:44 pm
So If someone is a good content writer but not looking for an easy web publisher, would this work for them. My mom used to be in advertising and is very particular about what her website looks like and hasn’t found a good person to use that isn’t going to cost her an arm and a leg. I’m looking for reviews of self publishers, but I am taking suggestions of web-designers. She wants to be able to add things in herself so she doesn’t have to call someone every time she wants to post up a new class or special.
My brain is not working, so please excuse my terminology. I need to find her something that is keyword friendly and easily googled. I don’t want something for her that is going to have a lot of garbage HTML.
Any suggestions would help.
Comment by Irene — May 27, 2010 @ 12:53 pm
Irene,
The best route for your mom would be to spend a little bit more money to have someone develop a website that has its own Content Management System (CMS). This way, once the initial website setup is complete, she will have total control to maintain the content (text, photos, videos, etc) herself. You’ll get a custom designed site that fits her needs visually, but she’ll maintain control of page creation, content population, etc. This is what my company specializes in, so feel free to contact us via the Connect page on our site if you’d like more information.
Thanks,
Brian
Comment by Brian — May 27, 2010 @ 1:09 pm