Page builders aren't all bad. I don't "hate" page builders, I was just being dramatic for clicks. I know, I'm an attention whore.

Page builders can serve a very important need. They allow small business owners and non technical designers a way to create a serviceable website. For a small business owners with a tight budget it's a way to get a decent (in some cases very good) looking website up for the cost of the plugin, domain, and hosting.

A page builder can be an awesome thing for Sally's Cupcakes in Truth and Consequences, NM. Sally can get up and running and sell a couple hundred cupcakes a month and someday move to the "nice" part of town. Page builders serve this niche very well. The problem comes when Sally decides to take her buttercream and goes global. Page builders are a big "no thanks" for enterprise customers. Here are a few reasons why.

Reasons Why I Am So Cranky

Even though the decision to use a page builder can be the right decision at the time. As your company matures a custom built theme will far better serve your needs and hopefully save you from a few headaches. These are the reasons:

The Content is Locked into the Builder

When you do finally decide you have outgrown your page builder you will find that your content is not easily extracted from the database. This is good for page builders, bad for users. This creates a vendor lock in with that page builder. This is especially true for page builders that use short-codes. All through out your database there are little snippets like "[sale-banner]." Your page builder renders that out into a cute little:

Take 10% off use the coupon code LATERONYOURSCREWED

but when you move away from the page builder all your user sees in your content is "[sale-banner]".

The Design is not Consistent

Wait, don't page builders help with design. Yes, a little too much. Every page can be different. There is no design structure. Changes made on one page aren't propagated to other pages. This can lead to a "ransom note" looking website that has no flow. This can happen to any site but the reason you chose a page builder in the first place was to save money on a designer.

There is a reason the profession of "designer" exists. Some one with a little bit of knowledge can be really dangerous when it comes to site design. Remember MySpace?

The Code is Usually Ugly

You drag and drop elements and look fine visually on the site but the page builder in the background is "auto-developing" that code. Code that looks like a rat's nest is hard to maintain when you have problems on the page. The big exception to this is Elementor page builder.

Page Load Speed

This is the big one. Page builders are crammed full of different elements that can really affect how quickly your page loads. Most of these elements you will never, ever use. To be fair, a person with experience can reduce the amount of time it takes to load a page with a page builder. The problem is that page builders exist to make site development/design more accessible to novices.

Sub 2 second load times are possible with a page builder but very unlikely. It is more likely that your site will end up loading in 6+ seconds if you're lucky.

Why does page speed matter?

I'm glad you asked...

Conversion Rate

The first reason is faster sites are proven to convert better. Page speed is the easiest way to improve your conversion rate in a very significant way. Ideally your site should load in under 2 seconds. What happens if it doesn't?

• Studies have shown that if a page load time goes from 1 second to 3 seconds the probability of bounce (the user seeing your page, vomiting, and leaving) increases by 32%
• As the page load speed goes from 1 sec to 5 sec the probability of bounce increases 90%
• As it goes from 1 sec to 6 sec the probability goes to 106%
• If you are unfortunate enough to go from 1 sec to 10 sec then the probability of bounce increases to 123% (I would have thought it was higher but this is obviously this person is a special type of strange)
• On mobile it's worse, 53% of mobile visitors will leave if pages take over 3 seconds to load
• Slow load times are the main reason for users to abandon a checkout process
• A 2 second delay in load time during a transaction resulted in abandonment rates of up to 87%

On the other hand as you decrease the time it takes to load your page, magic happens. For every 100ms decrease in homepage load speed, one company saw an increase in session based conversion rate of 1.11%.

Bottom line: a faster site improves customer satisfaction and conversion rates.

Search Engine Ranking

There are over 200 ranking factors in Google's algorithm. It is one of the closest guarded secrets on planet earth. Followed closely by what American cheese slices are made out of. Google has said that page load speed is a ranking factor. Google doesn't generally announce rank factors so when they do announce one, it's time to pay attention.

The reason for this is simple. Read the earlier stats about bounce rate. Google makes money by serving users the best content for their keyword. That is how they get you coming back. If you rank number one but people keep leaving your site because it loads slow and clicking on the #2 rank then Google is going to think your site sucks for that keyword.

The Pros do not Outweigh the Cons for Enterprise

Page builders are fine for low traffic, low transaction, and small cart size websites. A small business that has 40 transactions of $3.75 cupcakes a month won't gain a ton of revenue by increasing the conversion rate by 6%. Even with a small site, someday you hope your business will outgrow it.

For enterprise customers that have higher traffic, more transaction, and higher cart values it's a different story. They cannot afford to have a site that loads slower than 2 seconds. I would shoot for a site that loads faster than 1 second. Like grandpa used to say, "it's far better to aim for the stars and miss than to aim for a pile of sh@# and hit it head on."