Our little business, The Lills Design, offers web and graphic design, photography and video. When companies or people are in need of websites, we work with them to build their very own brand online. We often run into situations where people are using third party websites or just social media to operate their business online. In these cases, we get them on their own platform, so they own and control their own domain and content and so they come up in search results online.

Third party platforms build credit online mostly because of user generated content. Social media platforms are a perfect example. Rather than individuals posting to their own websites, they post on convenient social platforms who collect data. Not to say people and businesses don’t get something out of being part of an online community, we just don’t recommend solely using social media as a marketing tool. Third party websites that offer “websites” are what everyone should watch out for. They can be convenient, but not good for the long run when it comes to building a brand or business online.

There are “spiders” that run around the internet and when they land on website like TheLills.com, they read the website pages and build entries for search engine indexes. If we built our website through a third party company, the spiders would be up against a private community and have a harder time accessing our content or indexing it in search results.

In our opinion, it better serves individuals and companies to first build their brands and post their content on their own platforms, easily found by spiders. Then, if they like, they can use social media to point people to their website, where all of the content should be easily found and enjoyed. Learn more here.