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Choose a website builder

Launching a website is much easier and cheaper than it used to be thanks to the wide range of easy-to-use website builders that consumers can choose from now. Above, we've put together a list of DIY website builders, highlighting the features of each one.

When choosing a website builder, you should first consider the type of website you want to build and what kind of features and capabilities you need. Here is a list of the main factors you should consider when deciding to choose a website builder to help create the perfect personal or business website for you.

Consider software features

There are plenty of great website builders out there to compare and choose from, but which one is best for you will depend on the features that are most important to you. Wix and Squarespace, for example, are excellent options for users who want absolute simplicity. Wix and Web.com both offer excellent photo stock and photo editing tools. Squarespace and Shopify are also equipped with world-class shopping cart solutions.

If you're just looking for a quality hosting system that works with WordPress or another favorite content management system, you might prefer iPage or FatCow.

A great website deserves a great template

The template is the backbone of your website. It consists of the complete site layout, including menus, colors, background elements, image alignment, and text. A worthwhile website builder will offer hundreds of templates to choose from, but the quality of these templates is also important. For example, Wix and Network Solutions offer fewer free templates than some competitors, but the ones they offer are among the nicer ones you'll find. Squarespace is another great choice for high-quality templates.

What are the paid and free options?

Should you use a free platform like WordPress or a paid platform like Squarespace? It depends on how much control you want over your website and your project prospects:

Free website builders are great on a budget, but they usually don't allow you to link to your own domain. Also, you will have to keep company ads on every webpage.

The paid build tools are no doubt an investment in themselves, but you will get more storage, bandwidth, and other tools. Also, you can use your domain and get rid of those annoying ads.

Here are some additional factors to consider when choosing between free and paid website builders.

• Brand matters too

We know that trust is an important component when choosing a website builder. The website builders we praise and compare are all industry leaders, some of which have been around for more than two decades. Register.com has been around since 1994, Web.com since 1995, and GoDaddy since 1997. Network Solutions has also been in business since 1979.

These companies have also received many recognition awards in this field. For example, BigCommerce has received two Stevie Awards for Best Business Overall. GoDaddy has also received three Stevie Awards for its sales and customer service and has been recognized and praised as one of the most admired companies in Arizona for two consecutive years.

Industry awards are another great indicator of brand value. Look at Squarespace, for example, which has received many Webby Awards over the years on every level from features and design to online services and apps and best practices.

• Are you looking for design services?

It's true that website builders offer a lot of excellent designs as is, but sometimes you need something a little more customized. If you're looking for a professional, great website design for you, your best potential options are Wix, Web.com, and Network Solutions. All of these platforms offer DIFM (Done by Me) web design services at competitive rates. Once your site is created, you can still use our easy content management system to maintain your site.

If your site includes a storefront, BigCommerce is another excellent option. They can even connect you with one of BigCommerce's handpicked design partners. Best of all, there are hundreds of partners to choose from, so you can compare prices and portfolios and find the best option for you.

• Don't forget to Google

If you want potential visitors, readers, customers or groups to be able to find you, you need a site that is optimized for search engines. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) refers to all the techniques and best practices that allow a website to achieve high rankings on search engines.

If you want to make sure your website designer is SEO friendly, look for features like:

1.  Ability to edit title tags, meta descriptions, and alt image attributes.
2. Automated XML and HTML sitemaps.
3. Relevant URLs for searches (good choice: mysite.com/latest-news; bad choice: mysite.com/349596)
4. Keyword Density & Conversion Tools.

Wix and Web.com are two of the best SEO website builders. They both offer all the features mentioned above, and Web.com employs SEO experts who can optimize your site for you (for an additional fee).

We still have hosting packages and domains

Your hosting is like your real estate. But instead of paying for five acres and a duplex apartment, you're paying for a few gigabytes of storage and enough bandwidth to make your site run smoothly. All the website builders on this page offer website hosting services, and most of them let you connect your domain for a small fee. Squarespace is one of the few hosting providers that offer you a free domain when you sign up for an annual contract.

Weebly and Web.com both have hosting plans with unlimited bandwidth and storage. This is a huge advantage for any website owner. BigCommerce offers these perks as well, but if you have an online store with thousands of products and customers, you may be required to upgrade to a more expensive Enterprise plan.

When comparing hosting options, be aware of the difference between "unlimited" and "unmetered" bandwidth. The unmeasured plan isn't really unlimited. The hosting provider will not prevent you from receiving large flows of site visitors, but it may slow down your site after you reach a certain limit.

Advantages of using a web designer

• The average cost of a designer-built website can range between $1,000 and $8,000, but every time you change your mind, your bill can go up. You also have to wait for the designer to be available to make the changes you requested. In the end, there is a risk that you will end up agreeing to a website that you are not happy with, just because you don't feel like you can ask them to try something else.
• It is much less expensive to use a website builder. The best website builders offer a lot of options and complete independence in your project. With Wix, for example, you can choose from more than 500 templates across 70 categories, and experiment with fonts, color schemes, slideshows, galleries, and video backgrounds. The popular Wix App Market is a huge boon for Wix users, who will find more than 300 apps at their fingertips that they can easily integrate into the website.
• With a website builder, you can control everything from the position of the call-to-action button to the font used on your home page.

What to consider when choosing a website builder platform

The best website builder is the one that fits your needs. Ask yourself some of these questions about the new website:

1. What type of site?
2. What key features do you need?
3. Do you run an online store? If so, what is its size? Some website builders have e-commerce plans that limit the number of items you can sell per month.
4. What is the nature of your work?

Ease of use

The most important feature of a website builder is its usability. Try the user interface on the top 5 website builders listed above using their demo website builder. This will give you an idea of which tool will be the most intuitive and easy to use. If you have some knowledge about coding, check that the website builder gives you access to CSS code as well.

E-Commerce

We hope your business expands. In this case, you should ask yourself if you need a website builder that can handle more online bookings, reservations, sales or sales inquiries. Likewise, if you decide to move your site to a different hosting option in the future, can you easily download the entire site?

Templates

You should also check out the available templates. Take the time to verify that they are not all just slight variations on the same template. You'll need templates specifically for your business, so a website builder with hundreds of blog templates, but no restaurant template won't help you much if you're promoting your corner coffee shop.

Advantages

The best website builders offer a number of additional features to make creating a website easier and better. Here are some features to look for:

1. Setup wizards that guide you through the building process,
2. An easy-to-use interface for designing your website with a drag and drop system.
3. SEO tools like editing meta tags,
4. Marketing tools including email marketing,
5. Built-in analytics to track visitor demographics, location, interests, and more,
6. E-commerce tools such as multiple payment processor options, inventory tracking tools, product descriptions, etc.,
7. Built-in social media buttons to connect social networks to your new site,
8. Mobile responsive websites that update in real time with your main site,
9. Mobile editing tools that allow you to continue tweaking the new website from your mobile phone.

Website speed and technical support

Website loading speed is also important. You don't want to lose visitors just because your site is taking too long to load. And 24-hour technical support is vital if you're building a website yourself and need help when you're having trouble, even if it's in the middle of the night. Finally, although price shouldn't be the main criterion you use to rate a good website builder, you don't want to pay too much for an average website builder, so compare prices as well.

Is this free website builder worth trying?

If you just want to create a basic site without an online store, our free website builder is a powerful way to get started. Keep in mind that free plans come with less storage, slower load times, and fewer SEO and marketing tools. If you know that you need e-commerce facilities, lots of storage space (for HD images, videos, etc., extra customer service, and/or lots of web pages, then free website builders are unlikely to do the trick).

However, free website builders are ideal for testing the situation before making a decision and having a platform ready to share with your contacts and social media followers. If you decide you're ready to implement more features, many companies offer easy and cost-effective upgrades. With Wix, for example, you can choose from 4 distinct upgrades that provide increased choices of bandwidth, storage, and access to analytics and marketing tools, allowing you to scale at a rate and cost that meets your website's needs.