The Best Website Builders (In-Depth Review)
I’ve been building websites for years. And it’s way easier now than it used to be.
You can go simple and build something lightning fast or take your tired, old site to the next level. Nowadays, you can accomplish either with no programming or design experience necessary.
There are a handful of popular options that will get you to where you want to go. However, the best options for website builders have distinctly different strengths and limitations:
1. Wix — Best for general use
2. Zyro — Best for multipurpose business websites
3. Shopify — Best for starting an online store
4. Weebly — Best for beginners
5. Web.com — Best for building landing pages
6. WordPress — Best for content management
I use WordPress because I can do exactly what I want and deliver a quality experience to the millions of visitors to my blog each month. It might work for you, but some of my other top picks could work better, depending on what you are trying to do.
Below are my reviews of the six best website builders you can start using today. In each, I go in-depth about why each product is so good for particular needs and use cases.
Take control and manage every detail of your site. Or, use my number one pick to have the website build itself (seriously). It’s your call.
#1 – Wix Review — The Best for General Use
Wix is a user-friendly website builder that allows you to quickly and easily create the website you want with no web design experience. One of its greatest features that make it so simple is the wide range of template options. They provide you with the perfect place to start from and then customize.
Whether you’re looking to build a blog, a company page, or an online store, Wix is the answer. It’s the Swiss Army knife of website design for anyone who’s looking for a clean website with options. And you can get those options without putting in a whole lot of time and effort.
Ease of use is Wix’s claim to fame.
In fact, it’s so easy that you can sit back and let Wix build your site for you. If you don’t feel like dragging and dropping site elements into place, simply answer a few questions and Wix’s Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) will whip up what you need in just a couple clicks.
Wix really goes the extra mile to enable anyone to build an effective website and offers a lot of extras to help them gain traffic.
Most of the Wix paid plans give you $300 in free digital ad vouchers so you can market your new blog or ecommerce store with no extra spending on your part.
Plus, there’s a lot more marketing you can do for free to reach the first page of Google through employing my SEO strategies for Wix sites.
On top of all of that, Wix’s paid plans are quite competitively priced:
Pros of Wix
Here are the best things about Wix:
- Powerful app market – Wix has an enormous amount of add on features that you can access through their app market. Want to book meetings directly on your site? They have got you covered. Want a live chat pop up box? Simply click and install it on your site.
- Covers every need – Wix covers most of the needs of people looking to set up a website. This includes setting up an ecommerce store, blog, or even just a simple information website.
- Lots of templates – Wix has a wide variety of templates that you can choose from to get your website up and running quickly. Their templates are well designed and take the user experience into consideration.
Cons of Wix
Here are the weaker parts about Wix:
- No migration – A huge downside with Wix is that you’re locked in, so you cannot take the code of your website somewhere else later on. This can cause problems if you quickly need to scale your business.
- Jack of all trades, master of none – Wix’s main strength is also its weakness. Although it has many features, it cannot compete with the quality of niche website builders.
Who should use Wix?
- Small businesses – If you are offering a service such as legal advice or marketing, Wix is a solid website builder that will handle all of your needs. If your focus is selling products online, avoid Wix.
- Freelancers and professionals – In a similar manner, Wix is great for professionals who want to showcase their personal brand. It will allow you to cover all the potential bases of highlighting your portfolio, such as taking meetings and even blogging.
#2 – Web.com Review — The Best for Building Landing Pages
Web.com is a lot like Weebly—it’s fantastically easy to use, with an intuitive drag-and-drop editor that lets you mold any available template to your needs. And it comes at a great price and with great support.
But I think Web.com’s website builder shines brightest for a particular need: setting up landing pages and single-page sites in a snap.
Seriously, it’s so easy with Web.com—start from one of their 126 templates, then just tweak the colors, swap out some imagery, replace the copy, and add a custom form. Voila, you have a gorgeous landing page, done in about 15 to 20 minutes.
You can build a ton of unique landing pages in one sitting or make simple or temporary websites with ease. And at a competitive price, too.
Pros of Web.com
- Email accounts – You get five email accounts to match your domain. Not only can you set multiple sites in a flash, but each one will have separate email addresses. This can be useful for split testing or collecting contest entries without overwhelming someone else’s inbox.
- Free domain for one year – Web.com will throw in one year of an available domain for free when you buy one of their website builder plans.
- Very affordable – Everything I mentioned above is in the Essentials plan that starts at $4.95 per month. If you want to score the best deal, get the full-year plan.
Cons of Web.com
- No building from scratch – You are somewhat penned in by the templates available to start from. It’s easy enough to customize them far away from the original look, but some elements are permanent or at least inflexible, which can make it harder to quickly build the exact site you had in your mind.
- Limited eCommerece features – Web.com also has Marketing and eCommerce plans for their website building service. They’re a little more expensive and more appropriate for standalone business sites, especially for local and small businesses. But more advanced selling features are missing overall.
Who should use Web.com?
- Salespeople and marketers working on multiple campaigns – If you want to knock out landing pages in no time flat and get the useful benefits of email and domain included, go with Web.com and enjoy every bit of value you get from their Starter package.
#3 – WordPress Review — The Best for Content Management
One of the oldest and most reliable website builders is WordPress. The platform has come a long way since it launched in 2003 and is the most popular content management system on the web today.
In fact, WordPress powers a whopping 37.6% of all websites.
As WordPress was around during the earlier days of the web, its focus revolved around content, which was the most prominent form of website at the time.
It maintains that focus to this day, with WordPress having arguably the best content management system out of all the different website builders.
An important caveat is that WordPress is divided into platforms:
- WordPress.org – This is the open-source (free version) of WordPress that comes with greater flexibility, but is harder for non-technical users.
- WordPress.com – This is the paid version. You can get help with the installation of themes and management but is generally less customizable.
Pros
Here are the best things about WordPress:
- You have full control – Unlike other website builders, WordPress is fully customizable as the site is developed directly with code, as opposed to drag and drop interfaces. This means that you have much more flexibility in terms of design and function.
- Robust blogging and CMS – WordPress is built front the ground up with content in mind. It has some of the best tools for publishing and managing content including team management, advanced scheduling, and categorizations.
- Lots of plugins – There are over 52,000 plugins available for WordPress. You can measure and boost your SEO with plugins such as YoastSEO, or you could even add a new function such as a shopping cart.
Cons
Here are the weaker aspects of WordPress:
- You may need help – As your WordPress site is developed with code, you will likely need help to install and update your WordPress theme. This can come with a hefty cost, particularly if you want ongoing changes.
- Learning curve – If you want to manage and update your site yourself, it can take some time to learn how to do so. Managing and scheduling posts are relatively easy, but updating how your site looks or installing a plugin is much more difficult.
- Security issues – As your WordPress site is self-hosted, you are more vulnerable to cybersecurity issues. Some of the plugins for WordPress also can act as a risk as well.
Who should use it
- Bloggers – If writing is your main focus, then WordPress is a great choice. The platform is designed for bloggers, optimizing content management, and SEO. WordPress will allow you to scale and get the most out of your content.
- Content centric businesses – Likewise, if you are building a business that is content-heavy, such as a new website, WordPress will help you to manage the operational side of content production much easier.
What I Looked at to Find the Best Website Builder
Now it is time to take a closer look at some of the specific features to consider when evaluating a website builder.
Remember that although some website builders may fall into the same category, each may suit your needs differently.
For instance, you may be setting up an online shop and your primary consideration may be a low learning curve, whereas somebody else may be thinking about a platform that can allow them to scale easily.
Here are some features you should consider.
1. Ease of use
If you are new to setting up online or are time-constrained, how easy it is to get started will likely be your primary concern.
2. Scalability
You should think strongly about scalability if you are already an established business looking to create an online presence. This is particularly true if you are already selling products at scale in the real world.
Startups in the fundraising process and are looking to scale fast or even change core features of their product should also take caution here.
3. Support
If you plan on running a site with a lot of visitors and it happens to go down, the last thing you want is an unresponsive support team. This is especially true if you plan on driving a lot of traffic at a given time.
A website builder with a strong support team is also useful if you are just getting started online, considering you may still get stuck, even with simple interfaces.
Conclusion
There are a ton of different website builders–we’ve only looked at the best of the best. I’d be very surprised if you can’t find something that works for you.
Do your best to pick the right one, but theorizing about it can only get you so far. At the end of the day, you just have to learn by doing. Make use of the free trials so that you can really get a feel for what you like.
After you publish your website, go back and make a few changes. See how easy it is to update. Test the integrations and push your content through to social media. Make sure everything works as advertised before you sign up for a long contract.
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