I would like to thank Intuit for their hard work in bringing me new clients. It came as quite a surprise that you support my web site usability and SEO services.
Imagine my surprise when I flipped on the boob tube for several minutes while making tea from the comfort of my (very busy!) home office and there you were, all professional sounding like, with your (dare I say it?) sly and devious commercial to small biz web site owner hopefuls.
For the mere fee of $4.99 (or some such pittance), new web site owners can buy a web site designed and marketed by Intuit. In just under 3 minutes, you had me going there, by golly. Especially the part about being findable in search engines? You naughty dog, you!
Services such as this help to explain why I get so many people from my community asking me to build a web site for them for $100. You should see the disbelief on their faces when I bring up web site requirements, user behavior, mobile use, special needs users and little mundane things like “web standards” and marketing.
As more and more people come to me wondering why their sites don’t function or people aren’t buying anything, I should write you a thank you note. They truly believed that if you build it for them, they’ll get rich.
Now, I’m as lazy as the next person, and a template and domain (“homesite”? Wow!) sounds awesome. I love how you never mention the part about how the competition may also choose the same design (that comes with your pre-fab content). And you made it sound so easy to “Get Found by Customers” but you don’t say how or what happens once those customers get to the web site. Isn’t is clever that your customers never need any search engine optimization and no social media marketing to be found? Not to mention your templates would pass usability and accessibility audits. Right? How cool is THAT!
I was so thrilled at your offer, I went to your web site and checked out your “learn more” and I must admit, if I had no clue about web site development, marketing and ownership, I’d be sold on the pay, click to customize and watch the world come to your site stuff you’re saying. No doubt, your software and the thousands of others just like it, is a practical option for somebody. I was certainly impressed with how one form makes their site show up in “important search sites” like Google Maps and Yahoo! Local.
Personally, I don’t envy you the guilt of knowing how many of those poor folks will eventually throw in the towel and come to companies such as mine looking for help on things like what their customers want, who their customers are, how to get them to do something and why, after all the money they pay you, their site is on page 55 of search results.
Best wishes on what will undoubtedly be a very lucrative holiday season for you as you rake in the big bucks from hopeful new ecommerce site owners. I’m looking forward to a very busy second quarter.
Gratefully yours,
I Fix Web Site Wrecks
Great rant, Kim. I haven’t seen the ad but you’ve made it pretty clear here what it’s all about. It’s such a shame when the ‘big guys’ trade on setting false expectations. The clients do end up coming to us after they’ve experienced big disappointment elsewhere with their free/cheap website builder offer, and it can be a bit of shock for them to realize they are going to have to pay for a professional quality presence on the web. But, after the shock is over, all smart business people take a firm grasp on the knowledge that making a good investment in professional web services is the smartest thing they can do if they are serious about success.
Enjoyed this post!
Thanks Miriam. As soon as I saw the commercial, I HAD to write about it. I’m sure they are a good company but they know better. So many companies and even small time webmasters offer services like this. And people have no idea they’re being taken for a ride
I also saw the ad and I was doing a search on intuit and site build it. I am grateful of your warning. I am in the process of building a new site for a church ministry. I was going to suggest intuit to them I guess I won’t now. I was wondering what your thoughts are on site build it. They also speak
To finish my comment I was wondering what your thoughts were on site build it. I believe I can do what they say they can do on my own. And save myself $300 a year. Thank you E.R.Gile
I have seen these ad recently and marveled and the amazing marketing that can make a “sow’s ear” look like a silk purse, as the old saying goes. I did not have to see this Web Site Builder software working as it sounds like every other Web site building software out on the Net – full of empty promises. This is even worse than the monthly Web site submission services marketed as SEO – for a few dollars each month, a web site is submitted to hundreds of tiny and insignificant search engines that have little traffic. People believe this will actually help their Web site rankings. I wonder where they got that misleading idea?!
I was taken!! They said it would cost $4.99 per month, but charges have been over $6.00 two consecutive months now. By the way, the free 30 trial was not free! I have tried cancelling the service, but of course you can not do it online. You must call in to a 15 minute wait on their customer service line. If I choose, I can leave my phone number and they would call within the next 12 minutes. I left a call back number. That was 4 days ago and I have not heard from anyone!!! I went live online to ask how I could cancel; guess what—they never responded. I really thought with Intuit’s reputation, I could trust the name. WRONG!!!
My son is now developing my web-site; BUT, I am still paying the monthly fee on a Website which has not even been published.
I wouldn’t recommend using their invoicing system either…I have lost all respect for them.
Since there will undoubtedly be hundreds, if not thousands, of aspiring small business owners that fall victim to Intuit’s cheap (read “useless”) service, I have only one piece of advice: do NOT give them checking account information, debit or credit card information.
If you feel you absolutely MUST learn the “if it sounds too good to be true, it is…” lesson for yourself, at least have the sense to have the monthly charges billed to a PREPAID debit card in order to avoid the same horror of trying to stop the recurring charges that Darlene mentioned above. It may, in fact, be the only way to avoid continued charges month after month after month.
Phew! I almost went for it, but my intuition took over and I found this blog. This is the last thing anyone needs. The old saying “If it sounds to good to be true, it probally is’
They should offer a look at existing clients websites. You can barely peek at the website, without a credit card. Something stinks here!
Intuit advertizes easy web site builds for beginners, at least this is what their TV ads lead one to believe. If a person has little or no digital photo, graphics, or web design skills, this product should be avoided. Intuit’s site is very hard to navigate because of the numerous, poorly explained, and thus confusing options for web site design and creation. Finding wizards for various tasks are not obvious, the tutorials page sometimes loads up Empty!?!, and almost any task is too complex for a beginner. I have always avoided software that claims to be intuitive. If I have to be intuitive to use a program, this tells me I will be spending time I don’t have trying to figure out things that could have been but were not easily shown, explained, etc. Intuitively navigating Intuit’s site building tools is like trying to find an obscurely placed light switch in a dark room. The light switch can eventually be located since it is intuitively thought to be on a wall somewhere in the room, but after tripping over furniture to find it, most people would conclude that there must be an easier way to turn on the lights. There should be and someday will be an easy way to design web sites. The first Windows program allowed people to use DOS without having to know DOS code. The early travel web sites allowed people to book flights and hotels without having to know SABRE codes. Someday, some smart people will invent a competent overlay program that will allow the man on the street the ability to create a detailed web site. Until then, it’s back to Dreamweaver, CSS, HTML, etc. My advice to the novice, myslf included, is to let go of the cash and hire a professional.
I use them, and I’ve never had any of the issues you all are talking about. Sorry to burst your bubble, but they always answer the phone when I call, and the site builder is relatively easy to use and customize.I would like a greater selection of more professional looking templates, but other than that, I’ve been satisfied.