Zero One MG: August 2016

Weebly, the Good the Bad and The Weebly

We could go on and on about why you shouldn’t use a free web builder, but we’ll save that for another day.
There are so many things wrong with free web builders, that we don’t feel like re-hashing what was covered in the link above.

Sometimes when we get bored at the office, we troll around the web doing research and just poking around. Every once in a blue moon, we stumble across a site that is really well done on a really shitty platform. We try to avoid naming names, but we’re talking about the good ole Weebly boys. Wix and the host of others are not without sin, but for this example we’re talking all things Weebly.

Ok, so what’s the point of this post other than an excuse to post a really old meme?

Every once in awhile you run across someone who actually put some time and effort into making a crap platform look good. We were doing some research on cat odor and cat odor remover and we stumbled across this site for a cat odor product.

Its a rare stand out in the sea of bad Weeblys.
And…here’s another bad meme. We are up to 2 bad memes now for those of you keeping score at home.

What makes its so much different that your typical Weebly site ?
Well, thanks for sticking around people, because we’re gonna tell you.

1) Template Choice: They chose a minimal template and didn’t try and get too crazy or superfluous with the design choices. Its got a straight forward and very clean magazine style layout.

2) Website Sections: They have sections built out that “good websites” all have. Terms and Conditions and a Privacy statement. They even went so far as to have a very subtle cookie acceptance pop up on the bottom of the page.
There is an opportunity for a high five meme or a Fast Times at Ridgemont High image here, but we won’t go there.

catastic weebly

3) Social Sharing Buttons: They included social sharing buttons. This may not seem like much, but its fairly involved to integrate it into your Weebly site. Trust us, we have had to do this.

4) Testimonials. They went the full nine yards and incorporated a testimonial slider on their Weebly site. This is somewhat like putting lipstick on a pig, but in this case it definitely helps dress things up. When it comes to these free websites, the more things you can do to make them look like a “real” website the better off you’ll be. This is another instance where it took some effort and thought to include this in the website

5) Links. They have a nice internal linking approach. Although its a smaller site, its the subtle little touches like this that will really help your SEO footprint and your SEO potential in the eyes of the almighty Google. Additionally they have some outbound authority links which is another ranking factor that will help.

It looks like they have not yet upgraded to the paid version of Weebly because the site still has the “Create A Free Website” and “Powered by Weebly” in the footer of the site But we suspect because they have included a video that they may be indexed.

We know this post may seem slanted negatively against free website builders…which it is. You should always hire a professional design firm, BUT that being said, we do feel it is our responsibility as Deputy Sheriff of the Internet to highlight sites like this that are at least trying to make a crap platform look decent and offer a good user experience.

To whomever was tasked with building that Weebly, well done you sombitch.