If your small business needs a website, but you don’t have the budget to hire a web designer, a website builder is a godsend. Website builders have lots of templates for you to choose from, so you can customize them to create the website of your dreams. But, of course, not all website builders are created equal. In fact, some of them are so hard to use that they defeat the whole purpose of using a website builder in the first place – speed. A good website builder will make it possible to create a gorgeous website in under an hour.
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How to choose the best website builder
Every website builder on the market claims to be the best. So, to cut through all the marketing lingo and find a website builder that’s actually worth it, look for these ten features:
- Easy to use
- Large variety of templates
- Customizable templates
- Comes with reliable web hosting
- Compatible with SSL certificates
- Affordable packages
- Free website plugins and extras
- Free email accounts
- Simple, clean website designs
- Customer support
Let’s get to the details!
1. Easy to use
It goes without saying that the best website builders are easy to use. Don’t bother with fiddly website builders that are so complicated that they require you to set aside hours watching tutorials to figure out how to use them. The entire selling point of website builders is that they make it possible to create a stunning website without needing to learn how to code. There’s no point in sinking those saved hours into learning to use the website builder.
So only choose a website builder if it’s intuitive to use. Our website builder features a drag-and-drop system that makes it possible to create websites in just a couple of clicks.
2. Large variety of templates
A website builder is only as good as its templates. There’s no point in choosing a website builder that’s easy to use, only to get stuck with only two or three templates that you sort of like. The best sitebuilders will have a huge variety of templates for you to choose from. (Ours has hundreds of gorgeous templates!)
3. Customizable templates
Just because you use a website builder doesn’t mean you want everyone to know it. You want your website to look like your business is successful enough that you can afford to drop buckets of cash on a really good web designer. When you choose a website builder that doesn’t have customizable templates, you end up with a website that looks like thirty others. So, make sure your website builder makes it easy to tweak the template you’ve chosen, so you can make it unique to your brand.
4. Comes with reliable web hosting
Every website is stored on a server. Web hosting is a service that lets you store your website on a server in exchange for a small monthly fee. Great website builders will come with web hosting, which will make your life much easier.
And they won’t come with fickle, unreliable web hosting, either. The best website builders come with reliable web hosting. Don’t settle for a website builder that comes with web hosting if that web host offers less than 99% uptime. You don’t want to create a gorgeous website that’s constantly down. You want your website to be up and running every time your visitors want to access it.
It’s important to us that your website runs smoothly. That’s why we guarantee that if you choose our website builder, your website will enjoy 99.9% uptime.
5. Compatible with SSL certificates
An SSL certificate encrypts data that passes between servers and browsers. This means it keeps your visitors’ information safe by making it incomprehensible to any third party that intercepts it.
SSL certificates are crucial to a good search engine ranking, and they also let your visitors know that it’s safe to visit your website. If you want to operate an eCommerce site that will collect credit card information, you won’t even be allowed to do this unless you have an SSL certificate.
So, choose a website builder that helps you create websites that are compatible with SSL certificates. Some website builders have “free” plans that are incompatible with SSL certificates, which makes them completely useless.
(Also, speaking of SSL certificates, SSL certificates keep your website safe. Try to stay away from free ones that cut corners. Look for affordable SSL certificates, instead.)
6. Affordable packages
If even the cheapest package offered by your website builder costs anything close to the price of hiring a web designer, then you’re better off just hiring the web designer.
The best website builders will have affordable packages. (Our packages start at just $3 per month!)
7. Free website plugins and extras
Having a great website is more than just the site itself. You’re also going to want to add extra plugins and widgets that will help it function optimally. For instance, you might want to add social media buttons, location maps, payment gateways and contact forms.
Our website builder offers these plugins for free, and we also make them super easy to install! (You can literally install them with one click.)
8. Free email accounts
Every sitebuilder plan we offer comes with free email accounts from cPanel. These email accounts can be customized to your domain name to help you create a cohesive brand, send bigger files than free webmail, and so much more.
Take advantage of the free email account you get when you choose our sitebuilder. Don’t just let it sit there, gathering dust. You’ll wonder how you lasted this long without a customized email domain. And don’t worry about a learning curve, either. cPanel is a graphical interface that’s specifically designed for beginners, so email accounts on cPanel are ridiculously easy to use, too!
9. Simple, clean website designs
Simple website designs convert better than cluttered ones. Clean websites are easier to read, and websites that are easier to read are more persuasive, so customers are more likely to buy from them. Sometimes, things can get lost in cluttered websites, too, and customers could come to your site looking for a product and just not see it, because it’s hidden in all the excess frills and ruffles.
Our templates are all crisp, clear, and easy to read, which makes them better at turning visitors into paying customers!
10. Customer support
Your website builder should come with customer support, even for the most affordable packages. (Not all website builder features include this.) Even though our website builder was designed for beginners and features a simple drag-and-drop customization system, we offer 24/7 support, just in case you still need help.
Conclusion
Now that you know how to choose the best website builder, you can start ignoring fancy sales-speak from website builders that claim to be the best on the market. Just check their features to make sure they have all ten of the features on our list, and you’ll know for sure!
