What Is The Best Website Builder For A Small Business?

You may have heard of website builders like WordPress, Shopify, Wix, and Squarespace before. They make it easy for anyone to create a website.

No special knowledge. No coding. You buy a plan, you create an account, and you can get started right away at putting together the website of your dreams based on predesigned templates and the interface provided.

Though we mention four of the most popular website builders, there are dozens – if not hundreds. Each comes with its own templates and themes, and features, and plugins. For a small business, how you know what website builder is the best to choose relies on factors such as price, features, limitations, and what type of site you’re building.

What you might select for an eCommerce website builder is different than what you’d choose for a newspaper.

Here is a glimpse into the best all-in-one website builders worth a look if you’re a small business or company looking to establish an online presence.

Wix

Wix is perhaps the best website builder if you’re looking to do custom websites with as little coding as possible.

Wix has a starting cost of around $16/month. It uses a drag-and-drop editor and offers support for everything from a small business website to a scaling eCommerce brand. Wix even offers a free plan that allows you to create a website and get it up immediately, though it’s under the Wix.com subdomain and contains ads.

The basic Wix website builder plan is fairly limited but at higher price points, you get plenty of support in SEO, analytics, calendar, and even have access to a logo maker. Search through more than 900 templates for websites of all types. If you’re a small business owner looking for a website builder that’s easy to use, this may be our pick.

The main disadvantages of Wix are that lower-tier plans have far, far fewer features, storage is limited, and eCommerce sites can get expensive to make with this website builder.

Shopify

Shopify is the ultimate eCommerce website builder. It is tailor-made for online shopping brands and storefronts.

Shopify offers built-in shopping carts, digital marketing features, free and paid eCommerce website templates. A starting price for a Shopify website is slightly higher than what other names on this list have, at $26/month. If you are serious about selling online, no matter the size of your business, Shopify is a consideration.

Despite being the leader in eCommerce web design, Shopify does have its limitations. Transaction fees can be extremely costly at lower tiers. There are far fewer free templates on Shopify than other website builders. Most of their ongoing monthly website plans are expensive as well.

In a sense, if you partner with Shopify, you can expect a lot of advantages in building your website, however, they are going to cost you.

Squarespace

Squarespace comes at a starting price of around $16/month. Like Wix, it also uses a drag-and-drop editor.

With Squarespace, this is really a website builder for creative types, such as photographers, graphic designers, and similar types.

While some of these website builders are strictly drag-and-drop, Squarespace combines that type of editor with a point-and-click. Its templates are award-winning, minimalistic, bold, and modern.

Squarespace’s biggest drawbacks are its lack of customization features and designs, and it is priced slightly more expensive than other website builders once you start exploring more than the basic plan.

Weebly

Weebly, overall, offers some of the best website builder features there is.

Their drag-and-drop editor is extremely popular. It’s low-cost, flexible, and easy to use. There are also hundreds of Weebly theme designs to browse and consider based on your industry. The only downside is that these themes are hard to customize and can be very limiting in that sense.

Selecting Weebly, you will find generous amounts of storage and bandwidth, all the digital marketing tools you could ask for, and it’s a very dynamic choice for any entrepreneur, blogger, creative type, eCommerce seller, or small business owner.

Weebly has a starting price of $10/month, making it very affordable for the average business owner who wants to set up their first website.

WordPress

Of all these website builders, WordPress offers the most. It is the most versatile website builder there is, comes free, and provides a standard drag-and-drop editor that allows you to build on any of their thousands of templates.

Unlike other website builders on this list, WordPress does not offer hosting and so, if you decide to utilize WordPress, web hosting will have to be secured separately. No free domains. No security included. All of this will need to be figured out on the side.

In addition to the many templates and WordPress themes available, they also offer tens of thousands of plugins and add-ons that can customize your website to the exact specifications, function, and form that you need.

There is not a more customizable website builder for a small business than WordPress, though hiring a web designer to help code certain changes can make things a lot faster and efficient.

Web Designer v. Website Builder: Why Hiring A Web Designer Makes Sense

If building your own website sounds intimidating, uninteresting, or you simply don’t have the time as a small business owner to learn and routinely update a website, you may opt to put that on the shoulders of a web designer.

The primary advantage of a web designer is that they do the website build for you. They can code. They can customize. They can ensure your website is updated and secure, both of which are key for a site offering online shopping.

There are also no limitations with a web designer. There are no limited templates, limited customizations, or limited customer support.

Though website builders are more popular than ever, to this day, more small business owners go to web designers who come with experience and expertise on how to make a website stand out, how to create a website that converts users, and how to appeal to very specific industries.

Contact Magenta Design To Start Creating Your Custom, Conversion-Friendly Website

Do you want to create your own website but have no coding knowledge and don’t want the limits of a website builder?

Contact Magenta Design.

Having designed websites for dozens of different clients, we can help you bring your vision to life. Custom, personalized websites perfect not only for you but your target audience and user base as well.

Forego the limits of templates and themes. We offer all-in-one solutions, arranging for you everything from web hosting to domain registration, updates, and website editing. Reach out to Magenta Design today.