Whether you are a professional photographer, an artist, a content creative, or a small business owner, it’s nearly impossible to maintain a successful business without a stellar online presence.
While social media pages like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest might give you an edge, they just won’t cut it if you want an online presence that truly epitomizes you and your brand.
However, with a responsive, fully-functional, and SEO compatible website, you can lend credibility to your business, organization, or personal brand.
The good news is that setting up a professional-looking, design-forward website doesn’t have to be a time consuming or expensive process. Thanks to website builders such as Wix, Squarespace, WordPress, and others.
With these website building tools, you require little to no coding knowledge since everything has been simplified for you. And with plenty of options available, it’s easy to find the best website builder tailored to your wants and needs.
However, if you’re looking to elevate your site beyond basic templates and truly stand out, working with a professional website designer can make a significant difference.
While website builders provide a great starting point, a skilled web designer brings expertise in custom design, functionality, and user experience that can set your site apart from the competition.
They can tailor your site to align perfectly with your brand’s identity, ensuring a unique and cohesive online presence that is both visually appealing and highly functional.
Beyond aesthetics, ensuring your website loads quickly is equally essential. Studies show that users tend to abandon sites that take too long to load, which can adversely impact your bounce rates and overall user experience. Optimizing your website’s speed is not just about user convenience; it also plays a significant role in SEO rankings.
For WordPress users, implementing WordPress speed optimisation techniques can further streamline performance, ensuring your site remains responsive and competitive in the online landscape. By prioritizing load times and responsiveness, you not only enhance user satisfaction but also strengthen your brand’s credibility and SEO standing. Whether you’re running an e-commerce store, a portfolio site, or a blog, making these optimizations can significantly impact your online presence and overall success.
In this article, we have listed and reviewed the top 5 website builders that you can work with to create a beautiful website.
But first:
How Do You Choose a Website Builder?
With plenty of options available, it’s prudent to plunge into the fray with a clear notion of what you need. This means – setting your priorities straight to avoid buyer’s remorse down the road.
To help you choose the best website builder for your needs, think about the following questions:
What will be the purpose of the site?
Think about why you need a website. Do you want to build a portfolio? Sell services to potential customers? Or Sell a product?
When you have determined the primary goal or your raison d’etre, you’ll be able to select the right website builder. For example, if you are an artist or a photographer and want to build a beautiful portfolio website, Wix and Squarespace are good places to start.
Similarly, if you want a beautiful e-commerce website, you’ll want to look at top eCommerce website builders such as BigCommerce and Shopify.
Generally, you’ll want a website builder that offers themes and templates tailored for that particular industry.
What’s your budget?
Creating a website with a website builder can be very cost-effective. Most website builders such as Wix and WordPress offer their most basic package as a free plan. Others such as Squarespace offer free trials for a limited period after which they start charging a monthly fee that scales up with the size of your website.
How do you want your site to look like?
Site builders offer a myriad of ways to customize your website. However, these customizations are limited to the available templates or layout. So, if you want something more out-of-the-box you might want to build a custom site. If you are a tech-novice you might want to hire a web developer to do it for you.
Most Beautiful Website Builders
Wix
With over 150 million users across the world, Wix is a clear front-runner in the website builder popularity race.
The fully-hosted platform boasts an excellent collection of mobile-optimized, professional-looking templates tailored for different industries and an easy-to-drag editor with a plethora of tools and features to explore such as social buttons, image editor, animations, and more.
What’s more, Wix recently added –Wix ADI – an AI-fueled automatic website creator that makes website creation a breeze and the Wix Turbo that increases website speed and performance. Alongside Wix ADI, Wix offers built-in Google Analytics for site monitoring
But with all the good things it offers, Wix has a fair share of its downfalls. For example, once your site goes live, you cannot change the template. You also have to rely on apps for scalability.
Despite that, Wix is a good choice for users looking for an easy-to-use, beginner-friendly, and an all-round website builder.
WordPress by Bluehost
Trusted by more than 2 million users across the globe, Bluehost allows you to harness the creative power of the most powerful, open-source website building platform, WordPress.
Unlike other website builders, WordPress allows you to create any type of website in a matter of minutes. You can create a full-blown eCommerce website – all the way to a portfolio website.
What makes WordPress so interesting is the numerous themes it offers to cater to different niches and industries. Along with that, it offers plenty of plugins for added functionality.
What you need to know about WordPress is that, unlike Wix, it isn’t a one-stop-shop. So you’ll be required to buy a domain name and hosting.
Fortunately, Bluehost offers you all this and more under one roof. You can read this in-depth comparison here on Mamboserver and see how Bluehost stacks against Wix.
Squarespace
Squarespace falls squarely in the Wix territory. The website builder is sophisticated and has a lot to offer to artists, photographers, designers, and businesses alike.
For one, Squarespace excels when it comes to template designs. It offers 100 plus eye-catching, mobile-optimized, and easily accessible templates. Each template is designed to accommodate a specific niche or industry.
Also, it comes with a drag-and-drop builder that most beginners will find friendly. It also offers solid SEO optimization options, AMP support, and podcast support.
Unlike WordPress, Squarespace does not support extensions or third-party apps by default. But you can use code injection when need be.
It also has a stable uptime and the customer support is up to the task. You can reach them via email and live chat. They also have a great knowledge base.
Weebly
Weebly is a simple, yet powerful website builder that packs a punch of incredible features for eCommerce and portfolio websites. It’s also a versatile platform that can be used by both tech-gurus and tech-novices alike.
The platform is quite intuitive and comes with a simple editor interface, several design templates, and integrated e-commerce capabilities. Its drag-and-drop interface is beginner-friendly and allows you to create a stunningly beatify website without having to write a single line of code.
Just like Wix, Weebly is fully-responsive. It also has a super practical App center with a variety of add-ons that you can install with just a single click. Most of the apps in the App Center are free but there are some premium ones if you need added functionality.
Weebly offers a free plan that comes with a Weebly subdomain and 500MB storage. However, if you want to remove the subdomain and connect your own domain, you can upgrade to a paid plan. Beginners will also find it easy to use thanks to the numerous support articles that answer any questions you might have.
Gator from Hostgator
Gator is a new entrant in the DIY website building space from one of the best hosting providers in the industry – Hostgator.
One important thing you need to know about the new Gator site builder is that it doesn’t require a Hostgator hosting account. In fact, for you to log into Gator, you must use different logins.
The set up process is pretty straightforward. All you have to do is:
- Pick a domain name to register to your account
- Choose a plan. There are three plans. They include the starter plan, the premium, and eCommerce plan. Each of these plans comes with free-hosting, the site builder, free advertising credits, and there no ads on your site.
- Create your new site and then
- Pick a theme
All of Gator’s themes feature a modern design and are mobile responsive. Moreover, the site builder comes with a drag-and-drop editor which makes it a breeze to set up and customize your new website.
Conclusion
While there are tons of easy-to-use website builders available in the market, only a handful of them offer the right tools to help you show off your creative skills to the world.
The good thing is that once you determine the primary goal of your website and visualize how you want it to look, choosing a website builder is a snap.
For example, if you are looking for a customizable website to sell your products, go with Wix. Similarly, if you are looking to showcase your photography skills, Squarespace would be worth a try. You can check out a detailed review of Squarespace vs Wix here.
Similarly, if you want a beautiful e-commerce website, you’ll want to look at top e-commerce website builders such as BigCommerce and Shopify.
