TV commercials have begun to appear recently for various DIY web design tools. A couple of good friends asked us whether we see such tools as a threat. They asked how similar these services are to PagePlay? Our answer: not at all.

The market for web design is very competitive. There are thousands of web designers and hosting companies out there.

Why do we believe PagePlay still offers the best value for small business and charity websites? Here’s five reasons:

1. It’s always good to have a helping hand.

PagePlay’s entire approach is about looking after you so that you can look after your content. You can email or call us and we’ll help you with your website. Behind the scenes we’ll take care of anything boring or complicated so you can stay focused on what’s what’s import: the pages, words, images and videos which make up your site. PagePlay is a subscription service, and because customers aren’t locked into a contract, we have to make sure our service is really up to scratch. If our customers were not happy with our service, then we would soon go out of business, so it’s something we take very seriously indeed.

2. Web technology constantly evolves.

Digital technologies and the standards for how they are used constantly evolve. Rather than building everything from scratch each time we create a site, then moving on to the next, all PagePlay sites share our common core architecture.  You can’t tell as a visitor – the sites look just like individually created ones. The difference is under the hood. We constantly update the system not only to improve site performance for speed and search, but also to add new features for you to add and edit your content. Because the web constantly evolves, you need a system that constantly evolves too – and to know that someone will be there to help you through the changes when they come.

3. We make it easy to connect all the dots.

Domain names, name servers, email accounts, hosting, FTP, forwarding and re-directs. Who really wants to get involved with all of this when setting up their new website? Everyone’s setup is a little bit different so the one-size-fits-all approach from most DIY website providers is usually inadequate. The PagePlay team takes the strain by dealing with anything boring or complicated about your site setup and ongoing hosting needs. Whether you’re a one man band or a large corporate company with an IT department, we have a personal setup approach which means everything will be taken care of, without you having to read any manuals or submit any support tickets.

4. You don’t need to learn anything.

PagePlay sites are pretty impressive and their owners have full control over all of their content. But that’s not what we’re most proud of. We have never met a customer who takes any longer than 3 minutes to learn everything they need in order to manage their own website. The whole system has passed the Mum-test and ongoing improvements only serve to make things even easier. Why spend time learning how to be a web designer unless it is your job?

Put that time to better use by creating some great content and building your business or charity to achieve its aims.

5. PagePlay is extremely good value.

It isn’t ‘cheap’ because there are more affordable ways to simply throw a website online – DIY website tools for instance. But PagePlay is amazingly good value for what it really is.

A fully content-content managed website; with no limits to the amount of pages, text and images you can add; which requires no training for people to update; which performs very well in search engines; which plays so well with your social media channels; whose technology is constantly being improved; with email accounts included and personal service as standard.

These kind of web projects and systems are usually quoted in the tens of thousands of pounds whereas PagePlay subscriptions start from a very affordable £24 per month.