Some domain hosting companies also offer site design services, making it easy for business owners to establish an online presence quickly, somewhat stylishly and on-the-cheap. By serving up various
templates and automating the meta-tagging and content uploading processes, these companies are able to keep costs low (and charge much less than a design firm or consultant).
But
according to Miriam Ellis, sometimes these package deals come with hidden strings attached. And in the case of Homestead.com, one of the "best known" site design template and hosting companies, that
string prevents site owners from actually owning their newly launched domain.
Through work with her clients, Ellis discovered that if Homestead.com's template design tools don't
meet the business owner's needs, they are barred from using third-party design software like Adobe's Dreamweaver. While they can upgrade to using Homestead's team of site designers, if the results are
still unsatisfactory, the potential site can't even call in a professional design firm.
To avoid losing money in situations like this, Ellis urges potential site owners to get the
answers to 12 questions before choosing a combination site hosting/template design provider. The qualifiers include SEO-specific questions like whether site owners can fix individual meta description
and title tags themselves -- and most importantly, whether the deal includes outright domain ownership.
Read the whole story at Search Engine Guide »