Why a free online website builder may not be enough? In all your fervor to launch that new website, have you stopped for a moment to really think about your website? Do you know what is the purpose of your website? Have you evaluated who will be visiting your website? What kinds of browsers and operating systems will they be using?

Having the answers to these questions will arm you with the knowledge you need to pick the right application to build your website. Not all website builders are equally capable, and a free online website builder is definitely no exception. Let's just say, you get what you pay for.

Limitations of a free online website builder

Your typical free online website builder can only create brochure style websites. That is, no scripting, no shopping cart, no Flash, no Java, and nothing else particularly fancy. If you know how to manually code these things then you're usually in luck – but then why use a website builder to begin with?

Although, you just might end up with a free online website builder than won't allow you to manually edit the code. Some companies severely limit the capabilities of free applications on purpose, so that you are forced to purchase a more robust version.

Additionally, your website may not be fully compatible with all browsers, causing strange erratic design flaws. Sometimes this could just mean something isn't aligned properly, or your website could be missing an entire section. Either way it just screams, “I'm an amateur, and I made this with a free online website builder – you shouldn't trust anything on this website.”

Last but most certainly not least, if you are on a slow connection, editing can become very tedious, very quickly. Also, companies offering a free online website builder may not have invested as much as they should in their servers. If their servers go down, and you need to make changes to your website, well then you're just going to have to wait until it's fixed. “Sorry for the inconvenience.”