A.I. Web Designers, Are They Good and Are They Really Free?

I have been designing websites for almost 10 years now. Artificial Intelligence has been around longer than that but now it is intruding on my business.

So I did some research to find out if I should close up shop or continue with what I love to do, design websites.

Wix, Weebly, Squarespace, and B12 are a few popular companies that use Artificial Intelligence. They promise that within a day you will have a website created and for free.

Is this a true statement, and is it really for free and how will it look?

To have a website of your own you need a Domain name, such as Websitesdonebyu.com is my domain. These companies will give you a free website but it won't be just your site name, unless you pay them a monthly or yearly fee. Let me give you an example: B12 has an AI website builder and when AI has completed your site, your domain will be: yourwebsite.b12sites.io - their name is on your site. Wix does the same thing and also will place their logo on your site unless you pay for a higher plan.

Do you want to advertise another company's business on your company website? That is up to you, but being a small business owner myself, it is hard enough for me to get my name out there to future clients and then helping a big business with their advertising.

To have a live website, you also need a company to host your site. So think of your domain as your engine, and the hosting service as your car. A website cannot be live on the internet without a host or a domain, so there is usually a small monthly fee for hosting and full access to features for your website.

Now regarding how the website will look if AI (Artificial Intelligence) designs it for you, read the paragraph below from WebsiteBuilders.net, posted January 28, 2018.

Final Design and Build Quality?

Well, the sites have a few problems:

Some of the content is so randomly placed that you can’t make sense of it at all. Most of the websites have far too many media queries. Much of the code ends up being illogical and clunky.

I must confess I am a customer of Wix, IPage and Weebly, in fact that is what I am using to write this blog. These companies use a drag and drop software that takes the guessing out of coding for me. They do a great job with apps, photos, and many other tools that can make a website look fantastic.

I never want to recreate the wheel, but I do want to work off of it. Which allows me more time to focus on my creative side and leave the technology to the big tech companies. I always inform my clients that I use these web design services, and the reason I do is for their benefit. If in the future they want to maintain their website without my help, it is user-friendly enough for them to do this on their own.

Human to Human Interaction

After discussing my services to a client I will send them a questionnaire to complete, to get more insight of what they want and need for their website. Once that is completed, I meet with them in person to go over the questionnaire and usually one question leads to a conversation that is always much more than what was written down.

Client communication is an important factor to my business. This is their website I am building for, for their business, and I want them to be proud of what is presented to their future customers.

Rome was not built in a day and neither are my websites. If a client needs a website that quick, it can be done by me or Artificial Intelligence, but I never want to rush a success story.

I have always been a big fan of technology, without it my business would not exist. However, I am also a big fan of people and being able to help them achieve an online presence is very rewarding.

I will end my blog with this quote:

“People forget how fast you did a job – but they remember how well you did it” ― Howard Newton