The Best Website Builders for Small Business
When it comes to choosing a website builder, I often hear people ask which builder is:
- the easiest to figure out
- the most simple to manage
- the least expensive
And my answer? “You’re asking the wrong questions!” Each builder has its own features, strengths and weaknesses. So instead, you should ask yourself these questions in order to determine which is the best for your specific small business:
- What is the purpose of your website?
- blogging
- social network
- eCommerce
- informational
- training and educational videos
- gallery and portfolio
- booking and reservations
- listing and directory
- membership site
- What are the immediate goals of your website?
- Where do you want to take those goals in 3, 5, 10 years?
- What features do need at the moment?
- What features would be good to have but not necessary?
- What features do you hope to add in the future as your business grows and expands?
- Do you want to hire a professional + strategic website designer?
- Do want to tackle this on your own?
All these questions are important to think through and plan out so that you can choose the best platform option for your business. You might be wondering whey there are questions about your goals and the growth of your business. There are some features you might not be ready to integrate onto your website at the moment but only further down the road. You need to choose a website that can accommodate your growth. Otherwise, can you imagine what a pain it would be to have to transfer website platforms!
There are many different website builders available and of course, every website designer has their own preference as to which platform they favor over others. One simply just cannot master every single one of them, so that’s something to keep in mind if you do choose to hire a website designer.
Let’s take a look at some of the most common website builders and discuss their features, functionalities and pros + cons. That way, you can take the answers to the questions above and evaluate for yourself which builder is best for your present and future needs.
Nearly 40% of websites are built with WordPress. It is so popular because of its powerful features, endless possibilities, scalability and can actually be a drag-and-drop builder too!
WordPress Website Advantages
- It can easily be used to build for any purpose (in reference to the “purpose” list above”)
- It is free and open source (original source code is free) so you can modify and redistribute
- It gives you maximum control compared to other platforms
- Thousands of templates and plugins to choose from
- Drag and drop page builders so you can use it even if you don’t know how to code
- Bang for the buck for all the unlimited features you can have
- Powerful SEO tools
- Great for content-focused businesses
- You actually own your website unlike other website builders
WordPress Website Disadvantages
- No support, you’re on your own
- Have to keep up with WordPress and plugin updates
- Not for beginners
Personal preference here! This website is built with Squarespace. I love it for their easy drag and drop, easily customizable with CSS codes and I’ve had really amazing SEO results with other Squarespace websites.
Squarespace Website Advantages
- An all-in-one website builder
- Great for gallery and portfolio-based businesses
- Great for blogging
- Great customer support
- Hosting and domain can be purchased with Squarespace
- User interface is easy to navigate, great for beginners
- SEO-friendly
Squarespace Website Disadvantages
- Limited free plugins
- Limited eCommerce functions
- Customer support does not help with CSS codes for site customizations
- You do not own the website
I must admit, when I tried Showit for the first time, I was extremely impressed with the Showit website builder. This is truly a drag-and-drop builder with little limitations on this features. Although first built for photographers, it is not widely used by well known influencers and other industries.
Showit Advantages
- Truly flexible drag-and-drop giving you free design and creative freedom
- Don’t have to code to get the website layout the way you want
- A completely customizable mobile-friendly site without coding
- Amazing community and Showit team
- Similar to Photoshop and Illustrator so if you can get a handle on these, Showit won’t be a challenge
- Fast and reliable hosting
- Great for anyone who values creativity above all else
- Great for gallery and portfolio-based businesses
- Good option for DIYers but a bit of a learning curve
Showit Disadvantages
- Mobile version isn’t truly responsive when it comes to different device sizes
- Does not have its own eCommerce solution but it can integrate Shopify and WooCommerce
- Does not have its own blog option but it’s also an advantage as it can integrate a great SEO WordPress blog
- Does not have option to pull in live Instagram feed
- Will have to use 3rd party integrations for the above
- Longer build process since the mobile version has to be customized, not automatically done for you
- You do not own the website
Wix was one of the first website builders I tried using more than a decade ago. It was the worst website builder, I hated it and gave up after 3 days of try to get the website to what I wanted. However, they did improve leaps and bounds since then (including their SEO), probably because of too many complaints. So it’s something you can consider when choosing a website builder for your small business.
Wix Website Advantages
- Literally have a website up in 10 minutes
- All-in-one solution
- Excellent templates for different industries
- Text animation feature but don’t overdo it!
- Built in newsletter tool
- Built in restaurant reservation tool
- Great for musicians and bands
- Great for gallery and portfolio-based businesses
- Has a forum option
- Great for beginners
- Great for local businesses
Wix Website Disadvantages
- Has the worst speed and load times
- Templates can’t easily be changed
- Not for complex websites
- Not for online shop with lots of products (30+)
- Not great for bloggers
- Not fully mobile responsive
- No customer support chat
Hands down the number website builder for eCommerce based business. It powers more than half a million businesses with 1 million active users.
Shopify Website Advantages
- All-in-one eCommerce solutions
- Full inventory management
- Unlimited products
- Powerful Statistics
- Easy marketing tools
- No coding needed though it’s available
- Drag-and-drop interface
- Many themes to choose from
- Integrates with your in-store Payment Operation System
- Integrates into WordPress for even greater website solution
Shopify Website Disadvantages
- Higher pricing for startups
- Must choose a template before you start to design your website
- Difficult to manipulate the templates
- Need to master their extensive and feature-packed backend
- This platform lacks if you want to do anything else other than eCommerce
In conclusion! As you can see there are pros and cons for any website builder for a small business. You should choose according to what your main goals are for your website and the features you need. Are you too overwhelmed with building your own website? Reach out to me so I can help take that stress off your shoulders! Not only will you have a pretty website, but you will have a website that’s strategically built and designed to set your business up for success. Talk soon!
2 thoughts on “How to Choose the Best Website Builder”
Have you ever come across Clixli? I’m not sure if they’re new, but I’m only just hearing about them, and they sound too good to be true! I’d love to hear someone else’s objective opinion… I think what I’m most afraid of is investing in them and then they go bust – whereas all the other website builders have been around for a long time!
Hi Gemma!
I did check it out when a previous client told me about it. There weren’t many user reviews (about 2 months ago April 2021), many of them say that their customer service is not good. I did do some quick research and from what I remember, they’re hosted in a country with poor server connections so your website might be real slow and not reliable. It seems AMAZING at that low price, with all the features included, however, the more features that are already built in, the more it will make your website slow. You will have all these codes already in the backend that’s not necessary.
For me honestly, WordPress is best since you can go to the backend and optimize the performance even if you use a builder within WordPress. My take on investing is not to find the easiest way out but to pay for a good investment at the very start. An investment that will get you far in the long run.
Hope this helps, let me know if you have any other questions or thoughts.
Cheers!
Caryn