If you need a website, just use Google Sites.

Before you sign a contract for website development, you must ask yourself where this site fits in your marketing plan (or why don't you have one), how it will bring you income, and is it really worth it, or is it just someone trying to sell you a magic pill.

You are told you will get a masterpiece that will bring you a ton of leads, your sales will go to the moon. You just need to spend $1,000 for development and then $200 per month for advertising, and this will definitely launch your sales. Instead, they make you yet another website, with tons of CTAs on every corner so the user will see it for sure, using tricks from last century salesman books—using FOMO, hidden prices to start conversations, and other bullshit.

After a month of development, paying extra for some awesome fonts and outsourced specialists to create visuals and selling texts, and receiving explanations that you need to wait at least three months for the website to get properly indexed and fine-tune creatives, you might understand that you threw $3,000 to the wind. It brings you some sales, but definitely not what you were told. And then they will tell you that they actually did their job and there is nothing more they can do—your product is bad and no one wants to buy it. And the contract is written in a way that they do not bear responsibility for the outcome.

To secure some space on the internet, post some prices, and be able to give your contacts the link, you can simply use Google Sites, and it is free. It is a no-code website builder that requires only your Google account, about $10 to pay for a domain, and a few minutes to set up what is necessary.

If you don't have a marketing plan where this website plays a crucial role, and you don't know if other channels are already at their max capacity, then Google Sites is more than enough. Yes, it sounds a bit complicated, but believe me, the magic pill is not in the website and advertisement; it lies in a completely different reality, and the website is just a small part of your overall selling process.

Okay, it is not just a few minutes to create the visuals and texts on your website. You will need to spend some of your or your employees' time to create something, but it is still way cheaper and, more importantly, it will be done with much more understanding of your niche than any outsourcer can provide.

Google Sites is limited. It is not a platform for an empire. You will not build an e-commerce giant with it, as it lacks the necessary shopping cart and payment functionality if you want to create a web store.

But these limitations are the point.

If your business is not yet complex enough to demand a custom site - a site that requires advanced e-commerce or custom coding - then the money is better spent on the product, on the people, or on marketing you can measure.

Don't put five barrels on one cart. Save your money. Use the free tool. When the business organically reaches the point where the revenue flowing can justify the expense, you will know exactly why and how much more you can afford to spend. Until then, stay grounded.