Marketplace — an e-commerce platform through which products can be added and sold online. Currently, a vast number of websites are hosted on marketplaces. On one hand, these online store builders allow for quick and inexpensive product listings; on the other hand, they have several disadvantages.
Categories of websites on marketplaces:
- Small business. The vast majority of small business representatives start their online presence by listing their products and services on websites created through a marketplace builder. This is understandable, as at the initial stage of business, maintaining a team of IT specialists for developing and supporting a proprietary website can be quite costly.
- Medium business. There is also a share of medium businesses; this category has its own primary website while additionally listing products on marketplaces to expand their online presence.
- Large business. This category rarely lists their websites on marketplaces, preferring to focus entirely on the development of their own sites.
Features of Promotion
When SEO-promoting a website created through a builder and hosted on a marketplace, there are specific features compared to promoting and maintaining a standalone website.
Advantages:
- SEO module. Marketplaces almost always provide a built-in SEO module for websites created using their builder.
- Technical support. Marketplaces offer technical support that can advise on setting up the site according to search engine requirements. However, it’s important to understand that technical support typically focuses on the technical aspects; staff usually do not delve into your specific business nuances, competition for search queries, semantic core, etc.
Disadvantages:
- The site on the marketplace is not owned by you. The website on the marketplace is not yours—you rent space on it, listing products and using services under the chosen tariff plan. You cannot transfer the site to another hosting, obtain a complete archive of files and databases, or implement modifications, etc.
- Limited site functionality. The capabilities of the site are always limited by the functionality of the marketplace. You can only use what the developers of the site builder have implemented; third-party programmers cannot customize the site’s functionality to meet your business needs.
- Free subdomain. Some platforms offer hosting a site on their subdomain—this option should be rejected immediately, and your own domain should be linked to the site.
- Template design. Website builders provide a selection of design color schemes from a set of templates. This is done to simplify the independent creation of a site, but the downside is that you cannot customize the design to make it more user-friendly.
- Behavioral factors. Websites on marketplaces are easily accessible, and their number is constantly growing. Users become accustomed to the uniform design of such sites, and upon visiting yours, they may leave quickly, which reduces the important behavioral factor for promotion.
The above does not mean that websites hosted on marketplaces cannot be promoted, but all the factors mentioned should be considered when promoting your company’s or online store’s site created through a website builder.
To learn about the possibility of promoting your website and to calculate the exact cost, visit this page: COST OF SERVICES
