Creating a business website is an important step in developing a company’s reputability and expanding its sales channels.
Even for small local businesses without much geographical reach, having an attractive and easy-to-use website is still a must because so many people start their business searches online. If you don’t have a website, potential customers might not even know your business exists!
Thankfully, you don’t have to be a web design expert to design a great business website these days. That’s because there are now many different online tools that can help you put together a business website without any technical knowledge! From drag-and-drop editing tools to AI-powered design software, these companies significantly simplify the web design process.
However, this raises a new question: which business website builder is the right choice for you? These tools vary widely in their effectiveness, user-friendliness, design aesthetic, and more. Based on the unique needs of your business, your preferences could vary. That’s why Incorporation Guru did all of the legwork for you, trying out every popular website builder to find the best options for our readers.
In this guide, you’ll learn all about our five favorite business website builders. Along the way, we’ll identify which type of business each option works best for, along with sharing some pros and cons and other relevant details about each one. Read on to discover the best option for your business!
A business website can enhance the credibility of any company, which is one of the top reasons every business should have one. If you have a good-looking website, potential customers will have more confidence in your brand and be more likely to make a purchase.
In addition, it may be difficult for customers to ever find out your business exists if it doesn’t have a website. Unless your business heavily relies on word of mouth or foot traffic, it’s likely that a Google search will be a potential customer’s first stop when searching for businesses. After all, it’s not like anyone keeps a phone book handy these days!
Your website is your best bet for generating leads and organic traffic these days, and it can save you a ton of time with customer support as well. Instead of calling your business and asking you questions, your customers can instead visit your website to read your operating hours, learn about your latest sales, find updates and announcements, and more.
Before we get into the details of our favorite business website builders, we will quickly note that the pricing featured on this page is on an annual basis. Most of these companies offer your choice of monthly or yearly subscriptions — if you prefer a monthly subscription cycle, you can add a few dollars to each of the price points you see here. With that, let’s get started!
Along with Weebly and Squarespace (which you’ll learn more about shortly), Wix rounds out the “Big Three” of business website builders. Wix has several major advantages that make it our top pick overall, starting with its 500+ website templates and roughly 300 app integrations, giving you a ton of flexibility regarding how you want your site to look and function.
If you only need a basic business website, Wix has plans starting at just $14 per month. If you need eCommerce solutions, you can upgrade to its $23/month plan which includes an online payment system. Wix gives you the choice to use its AI-driven Wix ADI to build a site for you, or you can use the fully featured Wix Editor to create your own website with far more customization options.
While Wix does have plenty of advantages, there are some disadvantages to its service as well. First off, the user interface can take some getting used to, especially if you’re using the Wix Editor instead of Wix ADI. In addition, Wix has more than 12,000 reviews available, but the company maintains a mediocre 3.4 average rating score out of 5.
That said, we still think Wix’s many positives far outweigh its few negatives. Its combination of affordable pricing with way more templates and apps than you’ll find anywhere else is awfully tough to beat, and we always appreciate 24/7 support! However, there are a few companies that come quite close…
If eCommerce is your number-one priority, you might want to take a good long look at what Weebly has to offer. Not only does Weebly have lower price points than Wix does, but it also offers packages with online stores for just a little more than half as much as Wix’s baseline eCommerce package.
We also love how Weebly integrates with Square software. As one of the most popular payment platforms available today, Square is already part of many businesses’ daily lives, so it’s great to find a web design service that integrates so seamlessly with it.
However, there are some downsides to Weebly. There aren’t nearly as many customization options as Wix offers, so you’re more or less stuck with the rigid confines of your chosen template. In addition, there are only a couple dozen templates to choose from, further limiting your creativity.
Finally, while Weebly does include Square and Stripe payment functionality with all plans, you would need to upgrade to Weebly’s $26/month plan to access PayPal integrations. Overall though, Weebly is a fantastic option for eCommerce businesses on a budget.
Squarespace doesn’t have all that many themes but the ones they do have look and feel outstanding, so we’ve never felt like we needed more to choose from. Squarespace also has a strong eCommerce offering, with loads of built-in features for its online stores (starting with the $18/month package), even outside of the top-tier packages.
We also appreciate how Squarespace has beneficial marketing tools — like the eCommerce tools, these are also available with the $18/month package and up. Squarespace also provides its customers with more storage space and bandwidth than most competitors, another beneficial aspect of its service. In addition, we always appreciate a company with strong customer reviews, and Squarespace maintains solid scores with thousands of reviews available.
Of course, Squarespace would rank higher than third in our guide if it didn’t have any negatives. We’re not huge fans of Squarespace’s editing tool, as it can be decidedly user-unfriendly. It just feels clunky and unwieldy.
Furthermore, Squarespace does not offer phone support at all. That’s right, if something goes wrong — there’s no one to call. Sure, their web support is pretty robust in an attempt to make up for it, but it’s still a major strike against them.
GoDaddy is much more well-known for its web hosting services, but it also has a website builder with some interesting attributes. Namely, GoDaddy’s website builder tool can create a basic business website faster than any other tool we’ve ever used. If your priority is to get a functional website up and running as quickly as possible, GoDaddy is certainly worth consideration.
Another aspect of GoDaddy we appreciate is how versatile the platform is, allowing you to manage your web hosting and site-building needs under one roof. GoDaddy also offers 24/7 support, setting it apart from some competitors that only offer limited support availability.
However, GoDaddy’s reasonable prices and efficient website builder are accompanied by some less-than-desirable traits as well. First off, GoDaddy’s editor is quite basic and doesn’t include many customization opportunities. Making this a bigger deal is the fact that the themes and templates themselves are also rather simplistic.
Finally, GoDaddy’s eCommerce options leave a lot to be desired. If you’re interested in an online store, we would probably recommend one of the other companies we’ve already discussed.
If all you need is a simple one-page website or landing page, take a look at Strikingly. Strikingly only offers one-page websites made with relatively rigid templates without much customization, but if that’s all you need, they offer reasonable prices and easy-to-use tools.
Strikingly’s other positive attributes include 24/7 support and a collection of eCommerce and blogging tools. While the exclusive offering of one-page websites is awfully limiting, they’re a solid option if you only need a super-basic site.
Business website builders do a great job of filling in the blanks between hiring a web designer and going the DIY route. These services are far less expensive than hiring a professional, yet save you tons of time over the arduous process of learning how to do it on your own.
Whether you’re seeking the best overall service, the best-looking themes, a great online store, a super-fast setup, or just a simple landing page, this article pointed out some of the very best options available. Overall, we prefer Wix, but depending on your needs, it wouldn’t surprise us if you prefer Weebly, Squarespace, GoDaddy, or Strikingly.
All told, creating a business website is more important than which company you choose to help you. No matter which company you prefer from this guide, all of them are entirely capable of building a professional-looking business website efficiently and effectively.
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