The best website builders of 2018

youtube.com/watch?v=nLJvniZrSp4

Launched in 2004, Wix delivers a simple, yet powerful site builder with thousands of templates to pick from that’s great for any budding web designer or developer. Faced with the overwhelming choice of hundreds of templates for a site, many web designers and programmers become overwhelmed with the choice and end up giving up on their website development altogether. With the help of this easy to use site builder, you can still come up with quality website layouts and add that professional touch you will need to make your company stand out in the competition.

Wix website builder has been recognized by top website builders like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. The reason behind this is that it is extremely easy to navigate and includes all of the add-ons and plug-ins which you need to begin with your online business. Founded on ease, Wix readily integrates with popular online shopping carts such as Amazon, eBay, and PayDotCom, thus giving you more options and more ways to monetize your site while increasing its conversion speed.

Wix is very similar to other free, open source Content Management Systems (CMS) such as WordPress and Joomla. Unlike many CMS that restrict one to a few pre-defined themes and formats, Wix gives you total freedom to design your site how you want it. You can add-ons like audio files, video, slide shows, and polls to simplify consumer transactions. If you are thinking about expanding your product line, you can do that with Wix easily since you have the freedom to do so.

One reason why Wix differs from its rivals like Joomla and WordPress is that it lets you utilize a user friendly interface and drag and drop features which make it simple for novices to use. If you’re not a programmer or a web designer, you can employ a team of developers who will customize the layout and the content according to your requirements. Another feature that makes Wix stand out from its competitors is its drag and drop functionality. It offers a platform where you can create a website easily by dragging and dropping different items. You’ll be able to save a lot of time and money using this website builder.

Among the biggest benefits of Wix is that it’s an active community of users that are constantly adding new features and plug-ins to make it more user friendly. They also have made sure that their website builder can be used with all sorts of browsers such as Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and lots of others. There are also plug-ins available to help you customize your website further in the event that you feel the need. If you’re planning to use Wix to launch a profitable e-commerce site, you should try adding the most recent plug-ins like Google checkout, Google analytics, and PayPal checkout. This will definitely help you boost your profits.

Another website builder that Wix homes is Weebly. Like the name implies, Weebly has a totally different platform which their competitors like, which is WordPress. Even though the platform of Weebly is much more robust than that of WordPress, it still lacks a few of the features that its competitors like WordPress have. The good thing about Weebly is that it has a free themes and templates, which you can use in creating your website. Additionally, it has a custom design engine which allows you to design your site exactly how you want.

The best thing about Wix and Weebly is they are both very easy to use and personalize. If you are interested in a larger space to develop your internet business, you should think about either weebly or wix. These two website builders are very easy to learn. Moreover, they provide a large assortment of plug-ins and templates that you can use to create the remarkable website that you desire. However, if you need a plug-in that will let you manage multiple stores, domain names and email accounts, then you would definitely want to go for wix.

The previous website creation tool that we are going to discuss today is squareSpace. SquareSpace is another e-commerce store builder that allows users to build, customize and host their own site. However, unlike other website creation tools offered by squareSpace, they only allow users to host a shop at no cost. After paying for their hosting services, you will be able to purchase your own domain name and setup a password for your site. Although, in spite of this restriction, squareSpace is still thought of as one of the greatest e-commerce website builders around, and a great way to build a massive site for less than $40 dollars.

The best website builders of 2018

 youtube.com/watch?v=bOX1Gwm73Oo

17 Best Site Builders: Wix, Squarespace, and More (2021)

Picking the best website builder can be difficult, because there are 74 popular choices to select from.

In this guide, I rated and reviewed the best website builders to make a website based on price, reliability, web hosting solutions , technical support, site speed, SEO, features, ease of use, template design, and much more.

We’ll also compare:

The best website contractors for small businesses.

The best free and cheap choices.

The ones with the best SEO.

The best platforms with online store capabilities.

The top builders for agencies.

And the best choices for photographers and artists.

What’s the Best Website Builder?

Using a website builder is a quick and easy way to construct a presence for your brand or internet business. These tools simplify your website management by combining domain registrationhosting, and website design into one stage.

If you’re not too savvy with web design and development, you will want to go with a simple drag and drop editor.

The choice is up to you.

Here are my top picks for the best site builder to use this season.

Wix.

Best Website Builder for Small Business ($13/month)

Wix is the most popular website builder on the current market, with over 100 million users.

They have 500+ ready-to-use templates to design your website in any business. These templates are mobile-optimized and have 100 fonts to choose from (or you can upload your own).

Their designs also appear beautiful, with scroll effects, and advanced design features like video and animation backgrounds.

If you already have a domain name on GoDaddy or need to register one at Wix.com, they make it super easy. Also, if you’d like to add e-commerce to your site so that you can sell online, plans start a $20/month.

If you are a small company, I recommend Wix as the best online store builder. You don’t necessarily require a platform with more advanced options like BigCommerce and Shopify. Wix website owners that want to add an e-commerce store can get these great new features.

Wix is the most user-friendly website tool on the market. You can almost endlessly customize the look and feel of your site with no coding knowledge.

They also have a tool called Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) — the first artificial intelligence site builder. Wix ADI learns about your site and uses that information to design a site tailored to your specific needs.

This tool leverages AI choosing from billions of combinations of images, text, designs, and contact forms.

Ultimately, if you’re seeking the best site builder for small businesses, Wix is your very best choice.

Read my full Wix review for more in-depth analysis.

Get started with Wix.

Best Modern Website Builder with Free Plans (free — $3.49/mo)

Zyro is a site builder with a mission to assist local companies to tell their unique stories on the web.

Overall, they’re best known for speed and simplicity.

With Zyro, you may make a business site quickly and easily with no coding required. Your site also loads fast because of its light framework and looks great on all apparatus.

With a strong set of tools, Zyro helps grow your online business with pre-made design templates, AI-driven text, an intuitive drag-and-drop grid tool, mobile-readiness, and more than one million stock images to choose from.

One of their standout features is their AI Content Generator, which offers SEO-friendly content ideas based on your industry and specific business type.

To begin with this tool, you pick your type of business, then write 2-3 sentences describing your brand and circumstance. Then you correct your AI settings and customize them based on length, experience, and creativity degree. Lastly, you click on the Generate button and see your uniquely generated content.

Since content creation is a challenge for many website owners, this tool generates new paragraphs for you that can rank better in search and increase conversion rates.

Some other excellent features include:

Built-in search engine optimization tools to increase your search rankings.

A free SSL certificate and custom domain names.

An AI-driven logo and slogan maker.

24/7 customer support via email and live chat.

AI heatmaps to improve website conversions and predict visitor behaviour.

Mobile-optimized, fast-loading website layouts.

Free website design templates for various industries like creative agencies, startups, fashion brands, health businesses, bakeries, and more.

Zyro offers three primary pricing plans — a free plan, a mid-tier”Basic” plan at $1.99/month, and their high-tier”Unleashed” plan at $3.49/month.

Their free plan does not include a custom domain name but does provide 99.9% uptime, an SSL certificate, 500MB of bandwidth and 500MB of storage.

Next, their “Basic” plan allows you to connect your own domain name, increases bandwidth and storage, and includes extra features like ad removal and integrations with tools like Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, and Facebook pixels. This is a very popular plan that’s most acceptable for small and medium-sized businesses.

Finally, their “Unleashed” plan provides every Zyro feature and gives unlimited bandwidth and storage. At this affordable price of $3.49/month, it is sensible to go for this program and enjoy the unlimited features if you’re planning to get a great deal of content on your website.

Overall, Zyro is ideal for small businesses looking to create and develop a website fast, save money on composing and logo-making with their AI tools, rank high on search engines, and increase conversion rates with high quality, mobile-friendly design templates.

You can begin with Zyro free of charge to test out their platform, then upgrade to a paid plan when you are ready to grow your internet business.

Get started with Zyro and start building your site today.

Best Website Design for Personal Sites ($12/month)

When I think of Squarespace, my mind goes directly for their beautifully designed home page. They truly know how to make beautiful, high-quality websites that look great for both small businesses and personal websites alike.

With over 100 design templates to select from, they lead the pack in regards to design. Squarespace templates look excellent down to every detail. The fonts, color schemes, and vision all mesh perfectly for any site.

Besides design, their stage is wonderful for bloggers. I tested out their WYSIWYG blog editor, and it is very intuitive.

You drag elements like images, headings, and text onto the page and place it where you want. They also offer multiple user permissions, Google AMP functionality, and you can schedule your articles:

A few small search engine optimization limits hold Squarespace back from being #1 on this list. To begin with, my XML sitemap pulled in two versions of every page with and without a trailing slash”/.” This dual indexing could potentially lead to SEO and duplicate content issues later on. They didn’t have a simple fix the last time I checked.

Second, your site headlines always become your meta titles, so be careful when adding your headlines for SEO. You can read more in my full Wix vs Squarespace review.

Other great features compensate for these drawbacks. Their ease of use is top-notch — websites are elementary to build with their editing tools. In-built analytics tools provide continuous data onsite traffic if you’re not using Google Analytics. Plus, it’s hard to go wrong with a beautifully-designed site for only $12/month.

Monthly costs range from $12/month for their private plan up to $40/month for their Online Store (Advanced) plan. Monthly costs are based on a one-year contract, and Squarespace includes a free domainname. The Personal plan provides a free domain name, unlimited bandwidth and storage, free SSL, and 24/7 customer support.

In general, if you are a small company that needs first-rate web design or a blogger that wants your content to appear great, Squarespace is a reliable choice.

Best Free Website Builder (Free — $25/month)

Weebly powers over 530,000 domain names and is known as the easy website builder of choice for people without much technical expertise. They offer a lot of great features. If you’re a blogger, you can use Weebly.com to pick a domain name and use their editor to add your text, images, and articles.

They also have a mobile program to keep track of your site’s performance on the go. And email marketing tools let you send newsletters to your subscribers from inside their tool.

They have a free program which includes 500 MB of storage, a free SSL certificate, and a domain with Weebly branding. You can use a custom domain with this plan but are made to have Weebly branding throughout your site. Additionally, the free program only includes chat and email support, but no phone service.

Weebly’s paid plans range from $5 to $25 per month. On the high end, their Business Strategy gets you advanced e-commerce functionality, a free domain, and $200 of Google ad credits.

Their e-commerce features include product options/variants, coupon codes, inventory management, a shipping calculator, shipping labels, and the ability to accept payments through Square and other suppliers.

The level of customer support you get is based on your subscription level. You’ll find assistance yourself in several areas, including their site, service centre, community forum, social media, and programmer documentation. They also have live chat, email, and telephone support.

If you’re looking for a simple site creator to get up and running, I suggest that you get started using Weebly.

Best Site Builder for Ecommerce ($29/month)

Shopify is a popular ecommerce platform used by over 800,000 online businesses so sell products online. They were founded in Canada in 2004 and quickly became a powerhouse due to their simple dashboard and integrations with thousands of program partners.

While not every site owner needs product-selling functionality, I added Shopify to the list because almost any small business could use them to set up their website.

Take a salon for example.

With Shopify, not only could you set up a quick site including a blog, a map of your location, contact information, and appointment scheduling (with an app), but you could also sell hair care products online. This creates not only a website but another online source of revenue for your company.

Shopify has a great deal of features you’d come to expect from other tools on this list, including hosting, your own domain name, 70+ professional topics, a free SSL certificate, and marketing and SEO features.

They also supply mobile commerce, 100+ payment gateways, automated carrier shipping rates, automatic tax rates, and the complete checkout experience. Besides, you can enjoy omnichannel selling across Facebook, eBay, Amazon, Instagram, and much more.

If you’re establishing a new website and think that you may choose to sell products online in the future, it’s better to get started with Shopify rather than another instrument that does not take online shopping as seriously.

They offer three plans ranging from $29/month to $299/month. The $29/month Fundamental Shopify Plan should give website owners everything they want, including a full website, an internet store with unlimited products, blog features, 24/7 support, and more.

If you’d like to give Shopify a try, they give a 14-day free trial with no credit card required.

Best For Professional painters ($16 per month).

Some of its other Important features include:

You can add and edit content to your live site.

Invite other team members to collaborate on a single dashboard.

Add up to 100 pages to your site.

99.9% uptime guaranteed and SSL certificate.

Automated backup.

Custom fonts available.

Create custom 404 pages.

Customer support through email, Webflow community forum, and help center.

Integration with Zapier enables you to connect with tools such as Slack, MailChimp, and Asana.

You can add up to 3000 products on your site with eCommerce support.

Best WordPress Themes for Photography and Creative Websites ($279 one-time).

Flothemes is a business that provides customizable WordPress themes. These templates enable you to build websites inside of WordPress without the need for custom coding. It’s powered by Flex block, a powerful free stream page builder, providing limitless customization choices.

All the templates and themes come with premade layouts and content blocks. You can also customize colors, fonts, the arrangement of the page, and more.

Flothemes help you build your website in a few measures, including:

Register a domain name and hosting service provider for your site. You can even check Flothemes cloud hosting services, starting at $26 per month.

Install WordPress.org and join it to your website hosting. Luckily, most hosting services offer a one-click WordPress installation.

Finally, pick a theme for your website or portfolio.

You’ll be able to watch several how-to tutorials by Flothemes or contact the customer support team.

If you need assistance setting up the whole website, you can drop a message, and their team will do everything for you.

Flothemes can allow you to set up your website for only $499-$1999. Besides setting up your website from the start, they also offer services like page load speed optimization, SEO, styling, etc.. Plus, you get two screen sharing sessions of 45 minutes each with specialists and one SEO consultation call of 45 minutes. In general, you get six rounds of implementations.

Furthermore, Flothemes provides features like SSL implementation, WordPress setup, Typography, color scheme stylization, and more. You also find complete design freedom, SEO options, and a dashboard.

Pricing:

While their themes cost a one-time $279, Flothemes offers three pricing strategies for their website setup services, including:

Simple Setup Package: $499

Advanced setup packages: $999

Pro Installation packs: $1,999

The Simple Setup Package helps you skip the technical components and jump directly to adding content and personalizing your motif. It provides features like WordPress installation, site layout setup, theme setup, WordPress transfer, website launching, etc..

The Advanced Setup Package incorporates full assistance with site setup, styling & launch, site speed optimization & an search engine optimization consultation. Additional features include typography & color scheme stylization, SSL implementation, speed optimization, etc..

Pro Installation Package includes all of the features from the Advanced Setup Package along with the tailored mockup & execution for your homepage.

Best Website Tool with Integrated CRM Tools

HubSpot is a top-notch CRM tool that also has a full-featured CMS and website builder. Using their platform, you can create website pages, blog posts, landing pages either from scratch or using their pre-built templates.

Their drag-and-drop editor uses responsive design to help you create webpages that look great on any device. Where HubSpot stands out is its personalization and integrations.

Unlike other tools on this list, HubSpot comes integrated with a broad range of marketing software, including tools to manage email marketing, get found online, and capture, engage with and understand leads.

For example, when you make a webpage, you can add calls-to-action and forms that convert visitors into prospects. Then, when you know your visitors, you can dynamically create content unique to website visitors based on their location, device, speech, traffic origin, or any other detail you choose to catch in your HubSpot CRM.

This integrated marketing suite covers all parts of the customer lifecycle:

Types, live chat, and conversational chatbots capture leads.

Email advertising, retargeting, and messenger integrations send customized messages to your prospects.

Their contact report builder, analytics tools, and record segmentation help you understand your own prospects.

Personalized experiences, calls-to-action, and smart content turns leads into customers.

Overall, if you are seeking a site builder that also comes with a full-featured set of CRM and marketing tools, HubSpot is your ideal alternative.

The World’s Most Popular CMS

Easiest Free Website Builder for Small Websites

Best Digital Advertising Website Builder for Local Businesses

A Personalized Website with the Power of AI

Best for Enormous Online Stores

Great for Photographers and Artists

Best for startups that want to make bootstrapped sites

Best Site Builder for Agencies and Multilingual Websites

What is a Website Builder?

A website builder is a tool that allows anyone to manage a site and domain name without manual coding. In other words, a site builder is a tool or software program that will assist you build a web site.

In the old days of the web, programmers needed to understand HTML and CSS to create a site. Today, if you want to code a site, there is a steep learning curve — you want to have extensive knowledge of JavaScript and PHP. Not so with site builders.

These tools assist everyone from small businesses and bloggers to information sites and ecommerce businesses easily create sites in minutes.

How much does it cost to build a website?

Is Wix better than WordPress?

How much does a website cost monthly?

Does Google have a website builder?

Can I get a free site for my company?

There you have it — my list of the greatest website builders. Because there are 74 choices out there, I’ve condensed the list down to the top so you may choose the option that is right for your small business or online brand.

If you are looking for the very best site builder complete, I recommend you get started using Wix.

For the best designs and templates, check out Squarespace.

If you will need an e-commerce site to sell products online, Shopify is a good choice.

What website builder do you use?