In this tutorial, I am going to show you how to choose the best website builder in 2021. Plus, I will also share the best website builders for every web design project.
Without wasting more time, let us get started.
Before diving in, if you are using WordPress and are facing performance-related issues, you should make use of CloudInnovare.
It is a cloud-based WordPress speed-up service that integrates CDN, minifies your files, and compresses your images to save you some page load time.
The easiest trick to choose the best website builder.
With so many website builders today, it has become increasingly difficult to select the right one for you need.
Did you know that professional bloggers use specific techniques to select the best page builder and website builder for their web design projects?
I am going to walk you through some of my favorite strategies to filter through a lot of website builders.
Let us start.
Compare the features.
Most of the page builders that you can get today are completely free of cost, there are some website builders that will charge you a lot of money depending on the features.
So, it becomes increasingly essential to see if your selected website builders offer all the features that you need in your next trip design project.
I look for all the features that I need and then select two or three top website builders and see which one is supplying the best value for money offering.
For example, if there is a website builder that offers drag and drop choice but it does not let you change the URL of the pages, I would stay away from such a website builder.
When you are looking for a website builder you need to make sure that your website builder has at least these features:
- Common web design elements such as cards, navigation manes, hero sections and more.
- It should let you use your custom domain name otherwise your website will look very unprofessional.
- The final product should be fast and loads under 3 seconds to follow googles page loading time guidelines.
The price of the website builder.
Most website builders that are premium today are priced at around $29 to $50. You must pay this fee monthly.
I personally use WordPress.org to build my websites and it is completely free. So, I do not have to pay any subscription fees to just use WordPress on my servers.
That said, most WordPress hosting companies today charge around 20 to $30 to host your WordPress website.
So, in the grand scheme of things the price tag of premium website builders is completely justifiable.
Documentation.
A very well documented product is the best product to go with. Otherwise, you will be Googling for everything related to that website builder.
Even if you are a professional web designer with two decades of web design knowledge, you will end up needing a lot of help learning new things on a completely new platform.
So, make sure that, you check out if your preferred website builder offers documentation and video tutorials.
Customer Support.
All the free offerings in this list today offer greater customer support services.
You may not get official customer support from wordpress.org but there are millions of users online today who publish actionable tutorials around WordPress.
So, you will not have a tough time figuring out how WordPress works.
If you are using a premium website builder, a good customer support is your right.
To test how much a website builder company cares about their customers, start a customer support chat, and start asking stupid questions related to the platform.
If the customer support executive is patient enough to answer all your queries, it means you can rely on them when you get stuck while running your website.
Feature and security updates.
Most website builders on this list are cloud-based website builders, so you do not really need to worry about the updates and security patches.
But there are some website builders such as WordPress that needs regular security and features update to keep up with the modern times.
Fortunately, WordPress has a strong record of accomplishment of delivering updates on time.
Learning curve and tutorials.
As mentioned earlier, proper documentations and tutorials are essential to running any website builder. Make sure that your chosen website builder offers a lot of tutorials and even some advanced tutorials on how to build custom elements.
If your website builder does not provide you with any sort of lesson or documentation support, you need to get yourself a better page builder.
Templates and other customization-related features.
Even if it is a drag and drop process, paying for just the platform does not make any sense.
Website builder platforms should always offer some free templates that you can readily use without customization.
Not to mention that most of the users were going to use the platform R first time users.
So, if they can get a few free templates with their account, they can easily customize them and start their website within a few minutes.
Website Builder #1: WordPress.org
If you have been around on this blog, you know that I am one of the biggest fans of WordPress.org.
This is the self-hosted free and open-source version of WordPress that you can download for free and
Install on any server online. You do not need to pay or hire anybody to make this thing work.
Most of the web hosting companies today offer one click solution to run WordPress on their platform.
Even some cloud server platforms such as digital ocean offer WordPress installation programs.
This makes WordPress one of the most powerful website builders out there. When people hear about WordPress, they think that they need to create everything using codes.
What they do not realize is that WordPress now comes with a page builder that can be used to build complex web layouts for free.
If you do not want to deal with the WordPress page builder, you can easily buy a team from an online marketplace and install it on your WordPress website.
Unlike other page builders on this list, you do not have to pay a monthly subscription fee to just run WordPress. This makes WordPress the best website builder out there as of now.
Website Builder #2: WordPress.com
WordPress.com is the premium version of WordPress.
Although the company does not own self hosted WordPress but if you start using WordPress.com you will see that it has a lot of features that is like open-source version of the word press.
It is not wrong to say that wordpress.com was the first website builders that came with a lot of plugins and theme integration within itself.
If you are familiar with self-hosted WordPress but you want to upgrade to a fully-managed solution that does not require any manual optimization from your end, you can sign up with WordPress.com for free and give it a test drive.
Website Builder #3: Squarespace
Launched back in 2004, Squarespace has been around for 17 years now. This makes Squarespace one of the longest running website builder companies out there.
Although I am a huge fan of WordPress and the independence it has on offer, I am impressed with the way Squarespace handles the whole web design process.
Many web designers previously thought that it is impossible to build complex UI elements with the help of Squarespace. There are hundreds of web design agencies today that use Squarespace to build their and their client’s websites.
Squarespace also approaches the building process in a unique way.
As soon as you land on the website, it will ask you a few vital information with the help of these information, it will highlight a lot of themes that you can choose from.
Once the team is chosen, you can customize it and replace the dummy text with your own copy.
And within one week your website will be up and running.
You do not even have to worry about any security updates or management.
If you are using Squarespace to offer consultation related services, you will need the help of an appointment scheduling cloud-based application such as Trinitio or Calendly.
Trinito offer many more features as compared to Calendly and I personally user Trinitio to schedule my appointments.
Website Builder #4: Shopify
Shopify truly revolutionized the way we create ecommerce websites online.
Be it drop shipping or any personal brand e-commerce website, Shopify is the default ecommerce website builder that most people use.
It is a one stop solution to all your ecommerce related needs.
From themes to payment gateways and everything in between, Shopify has you covered.
The only reason as to why Shopify is not listed in the top is because you cannot use it to build all types of websites.
It is only suitable for creating all sorts of ecommerce websites without having to worry about the backend codes and server management.
Prior to Shopify, we had to deal with a lot of coding and use complex platforms 2 run RE commerce websites. Shopify has completely changed that will stop
A few clicks here and a few clicks there, you have a fully fledged E commerce business that will generate revenue 24/7.
Website Builder #5: Wix
I used to ask people to stay away from Wix earlier because of the SEO issues and interlinking issues that came with this platform .
Now they have resolved all those issues and amp have appeared as a premium web design portal.
Wix offers tons of free templates that you can use to build your website of course it also comes with a premium version that you can use if you want to add custom URL and explore many more features.
They also offer 24/7 customer service and an ultramodern website builder in case if you do not want to make call use of 500 plus templates that this website builder comes with.
According to the data on their home page, they have around 180 million users which also makes them one of the largest website builders out there.
Generally large platforms such as WIX do not bother reworking there strategies to offer better services to customers. They have re engineered how interlinking works and how they can perfect web pages based on location, seed keyword and the type of business.
I would strongly recommend wix to anybody who wants to build a professional website.
Web.com
Web is more than just a website builder. It is a full-service marketing agency that offers a website builder that you can use to build basic:
- business portals
- portfolio
- e-commerce websites.
Unfortunately, it does not offer any free version. But you can use the website builder for just $1.95/mo for the first month. Once this soft trial is over, you will be charged a recurring $10/mo.
Weebly
Weebly is popular amongst small e-commerce businesses and professional website designers. You can use Weebly to build online stores, business websites, portfolios, personal websites, blogs, and event websites.
If all you want is a basic website with a Weebly domain name. You can sign up for the free account and start using it. Later you can decide to upgrade to a premium version.
Zyro
Zyro is an affordable website builder platform that offers hundreds of customization ready templates. Sign up process is simple. After sign up, you can get started with template choice and customization.
The template demos load quickly on the browser which means that you will be able to host SEO friendly websites.
There is is not much discussed about SEO in here.
Domain.com
Domain.com is a domain registrar that also happens to supply a website builder that you can use to build anything from a blog to a business website.
BigCommerce
As the name suggest, BigCommerce is an e-commerce platform that offer e-commerce website builder. It comes with all the features and options that you need to start a complete e-commerce business.
Conclusion: Choosing the best website builder.
In this article, I have walked you through all the steps that you need to choose the best website builder for any given design or website setup purpose.
Furthermore, I also added the 10 best website builders that you can use without thinking twice.
All these recommendations are tried and tested platforms. Many web design agencies are making use of these website builders to push out their projects in a record-breaking time.