In this digital age, if you want a successful business, having a website isn’t an option. Since people have given up flipping through the yellow pages and can find exactly what they’re looking for by entering a few keywords, making sure your company can be found online is crucial to attracting new business.
Thankfully, creating a website isn’t overly complicated anymore. Many website builders offer affordable options with professional and easy-to-navigate formats. To save you some time, money, and frustration, we’ve put together a list of the 3 best website builders for small businesses.
What makes a website builder great for a small business? Well, think of the many questions you have about web design, ie. Will it be costly? Will it work for my business? How will I sell my products/services online?
A great website builder for your small business will be easy to use, put all the right tools at your fingertips to drive sales, and won’t cost you an arm and a leg. Without further ado, meet our top 3 picks for small businesses that work seamlessly with your company, draw in customers, and drive sales.
1. Squarespace: Best for Creatives
Who is it for? Experience level: Intermediate
Squarespace is great for those who have general knowledge about how to navigate online tools. With tons of attractive, image-heavy templates, this builder offers a lot when it comes to design and aesthetics.
While Squarespace isn’t difficult to use, it’s best for those who know their way around a computer and want accessible tools for greater customization.
What does it offer?
Squarespace has more than 100 design templates that work with a slew of different businesses. Whether you own a restaurant or make handmade beauty products, this builder comes highly rated.
With functions for e-commerce, appointment scheduling, SEO tools, and email marketing, Squarespace puts all the tools your business needs to increase sales right in front of you.
What’s it like?
With a very professional approach, it’s hard not to sign up for Squarespace as soon as you view its templates. Known for their attractive layouts, it’s easy to get a great-looking website with this builder without too much fuss.
With that said, don’t think this builder pumps out identical websites for businesses — it offers quite a few options for customization. Tweak the fonts, colours, and add your own images to each template, or switch things up and add photo grids, videos, and additional text.
You won’t be able to change your template once you make your site live, but you can make changes to the content any time you need to.
How much does it cost?
Squarespace offers a free 14-day trial plan, but after that, you’ll have your choice of 4 different pricing plans — 2 for regular sites, 2 for e-commerce. If the focus of your website isn’t heavily on sales, your best option is the $26/month plan for Business. Any sales you do make will be subject to a 3% transaction fee.
If you choose the Basic or Advanced e-commerce plans, you won’t have the fee, but your monthly price increases to $30-$46/month. Choose the annual plan instead of monthly to save $4-$6 monthly.
2. Wix: Best for Range of Small Businesses
Who is it for? Experience level: Beginner
Wix is a very straightforward website builder for those who want an attractive site but don’t want to spend too much time and tears creating it. Easy to use, it’s great for beginners and can be customized to your preferences with a few clicks.
What does it offer?
Wix has over 500 templates for blogs, business, e-commerce, design, and more. With a wide variety for e-commerce specifically, if you want a unique, custom site, then this builder is a great choice. Add additional content like quizzes, a contact form, or set up invoicing and payment tools for smoother service.
Want Wix to take over? It offers an Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) feature that can create your website for you based on a few questions.
What’s it like?
Wix allows you to customize your website via a simple drag and drop motion. Unlike other website builders that make it seemingly impossible to add additional content without throwing off the entire format, Wix is very user-friendly and loved by those with little tech experience.
Like Squarespace, with Wix, you won’t be able to switch your template once you publish your site, but you do have free range to edit, cut, and add to yours whenever you need to.
What does it cost?
You’ll have 8 different plan options with Wix: 4 for general, 4 for e-commerce. Plans range from $0-$500+/month, but for Business Basic, you’re looking at $23/month.
Though signing up for the free plan is a great way to test out your new website, it comes with Wix ads. Opt for the Pro of Business Basic plan for a professional look and options for the service’s marketing tools.
3. GoDaddy: Best for Quick Design
Who is it for? Experience Level: Beginner
GoDaddy is another one of our favourites because it’s incredibly easy to use. Operating through ADI only, you’ll answer a few questions and the builder will get to work creating your perfect site.
Ideal for businesses that need a website quickly and don’t need much customization, your site will be live in just a few minutes from the time you land on GoDaddy.com
What does it offer?
Since GoDaddy uses ADI, you won’t have full control over what your website looks like, but you can still choose from its library of over 100 templates to find the right fit and finish things off with a tweak or two.
With options perfect for 1,500 different site categories across businesses (ie. Fitness Instructor and Seamstress), finding the right look is easy. Expect to find straightforward templates here that focus on the content, not the little details.
What’s it like?
With just a few clicks, your GoDaddy website will be live. After that, you can add the finishing touches like page titles, headers, and descriptions.
The cool thing about this builder is that it allows you to switch templates at any time. Not vibing with your site after it goes live? Switch it up as much as you like. This is something that sets GoDaddy apart from the crowd.
What does it cost?
GoDaddy has a range of cost-effective plans. With prices ranging from $1-$19/month, this builder makes creating a website something you don’t have to stress over. If you want free range of the service’s entire list of features, go with the Premium plan for $19/month.
You’ll have access to 25,000 marketing emails per month, unlimited social media accounts, options to schedule appointments, take payments, and send appointment reminders.
Takeaways
Choosing the right builder can not only draw attention to your business but also help increase sales through additional content and features. We hope this list of the best website builders for small businesses has helped you narrow in on the one that’s perfect for your company. If you prefer to have us design a professional website for your business, contact us.
