A Detailed Guide For Entrepreneurs To Setting Up A Website

As an entrepreneur, you realize that your success depends in part on your ability to create a well-designed website that attracts clients. You also realize that your budget is somewhat limited. You may not have the option of going out and hiring a professional to build a website for you. This is where website builders for small businesses come into play.

Not all website builders are made the same. There are a variety of builders that function on similar principles of WSGI editors yet have branded themselves as website builders. A number of popular review websites have demonstrated that what you get with a paid website builder you could just get for free via a WSGI editor.

With that in mind, you may be asked: What are the best website builders for businesses?

Top Five Website Builders for Businesses

1. WIXis the overall best website builder for businesses because it has fair pricing, it offers phenomenal features, and it has great templates that are designed to get you going right out of the box.

2.  According to the people at The West Wing Weekly and a number of other small to medium businesses,SquareSpaceis a phenomenal option for businesses looking for a creative, unique, and functional website. It offers unique template designs that allow you to put together a website that looks like it was made by a professional.

3.  WordPress has come a long way since it was used primarily by bloggers. Now, WordPress is the most powerful content management system on the market. It has an easy learning curve but is customizable enough that those with knowledge of website coding can get the results they are looking for.

4. Site 123allows you to build a stable website quickly. When compared with some of the other options that we’ve mentioned, it has limited features. But we still feel that it is among the best of builders around.

5. Weebly offers a lot of the features you would get with WIX. However, it does lack some of the flexibility of WIX, and it is definitely a bit more expensive. Still, it is a powerful website builder that can help you to build an attractive and functional website quickly.

Why You Should Be Concerned about Building a Good Website

Websites have replaced storefronts. In the past, an attractive storefront was what brought customers into your business. However, it is now estimated that less than 10 percent of the customers who walk into your store are going to do so simply because they saw your storefront.

Modern customers are savvy. They have learned to search and compare different stores and products online. Even if the bulk of your sales are done in a physical store, more than 33 percent of your customers are going to check your website before they even consider visiting your store.

If you do not have an online presence, you are going to lose customers. If your online presence is not functional, user-friendly, and attractive, you’re going to turn away customers.

Why Use a Website Builder

Website builder platforms allow small business owners on a limited budget to create a website that will meet or exceed their customer's expectation. You will be able to create a website fast, taking advantage of pre-made templates that have been designed to follow graphic design guidelines that are used by the professionals. You can take the money you would have spent on web development and invest that money into growing your business.

Final Words of Caution

There are a number of website builders on the market. We gave you a list of those that we consider to be in the top five. In your research you are going to find a number of free website builders. However, as with many things in life, when you use something that’s free, you usually get what you pay for.

Just because a website builder is a well-known does not mean that it’s the best. It simply means that they have a good marketing team. Consider that WIX spends 100 million a year just on marketing.

It’s important to understand that even though a website builder offers a simple and effective way to build a site it definitely won’t help you learn the basics of website design and creation. If you’re looking for a more holistic approach, it’s important to read about a host of topics including design, cPanel configuration, how to setup Wordpress and secure it. Here are two good lists with a bunch of good guides - best web hosts by Hosting Canada’s and also WPBeginner’s blogging basics page.

Finally, even though you’re using the website builder, you own the website. Just because you’re building on their platform does not mean that you’re giving up the intellectual property you create to the site builder.

Premium plans offered by the above-mentioned site builders guarantee that your domain, your content, and your site are yours. It’s the same as if you had paid thousands of dollars to have someone create a website for you.

Have you used a website builder? If so, which one? What did you like about it? Or what would you change? Let us know in the comments section below.