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Thanks to the developers, it’s less difficult than ever to create your own without coding knowledge. There are even site developers designed for express uses, such as blogs and e-commerce outlets. The most productive developers are easy to use, affordable, and allow for growth.
The most popular options include templates or themes, so you have a design starting point. This makes it much easier for you to add your own images or content and then publish quickly. Most of the website builders that made our list are all-in-one solutions that include web hosting, domain registration and a built-in editor for one monthly fee.
The Forbes Advisor Small Business team is committed to bringing you unbiased rankings and information with full editorial independence. We use product data, strategic methodologies and expert insights to inform all of our content to guide you in making the best decisions for your business journey.
For the most productive online page developers, we analyzed 25+ features based on cost, ease of use, features, space and bandwidth allocations, user reviews, and much more. We then compiled a list of the 10 most sensible online page builders so that you can make the best selection based on your unique desires and budget.
Learn more: How We Test Website Builders
Weebly ranks highly among the most productive online page developers due to its low cost, flexibility, and ease of use. In 2018, Square acquired Weebly, which combined the strength of Weebly’s drag-and-drop site-building editor with that of Square. E-commerce prowess. You now have the option to create a small business online page with Weebly’s popular editor or decide on an online store and build it with Square’s easy-to-use ecommerce site builder.
Even if you decide to create an online page with Weebly, you’ll still be able to load cart capacity later. In addition, Weebly offers you a plethora of stylish (mobile-friendly) theme designs to get you started. You can choose an industry-based website design or just decide on the one you like. Adding elements, such as text boxes and buttons, is pretty straightforward, but you’re limited to designing in a grid, so you’re limited in how much you can customize your site.
Weebly is generous with its storage and bandwidth, and it includes features to help you build an audience through email and social media marketing tools.
Great feature: If you don’t like your Weebly theme, even after adding your own content, you can replace the themes and your content will remain. This is a rare feature for maximum online page builders.
Who uses it: Weebly is one of the most productive online page developers for small businesses, entrepreneurs, bloggers, creatives, and e-commerce sellers. Bottom line: it’s a wonderful selection for everyone, especially beginners. Its intuitive site editor requires little time to learn, and the themes it includes ensure that your site looks like the professional who designed it.
To learn more: Read our full Weebly review.
Weebly’s free plan provides users with a smart way to test their site builder without the time constraints of a free trial. However, its free plan doesn’t consistently allow you to connect to a traditional domain. Instead, sites on the free plan use a Weebly subdomain, such as votrenomdesite. weebly. com. While the $10 per month private plan (billed annually) doesn’t allow users to log in to a traditional domain, it displays Weebly classifieds and isn’t suitable for commercial use.
Those looking for an online professional page choose at least the Professional plan at $12 per month (billed annually). This allows you to attach a traditional Weebly ad-free domain. Although it’s more expensive than their Personal plan, it’s competitively priced and offers smart pricing with a flexible domain call and several eCommerce features that aren’t widely found at such a low price per month.
Designing a site with GoDaddy’s website builder requires zero technical skill—all you have to do is answer a few questions about the purpose of your site and you’ll get a prebuilt site that’s ready for customization. Or you can choose a template you like and start adding your content through the drag-and-drop editor. GoDaddy doesn’t offer as many design options as some of its competitors, but the templates are clean and professional.
The all-in-one domain registrar, internet hosting, and site builder includes marketing and SEO features. Upgrading to an eCommerce site is also easy and starts at $20. 99 per month with a long-term contract.
Standout Feature: GoDuploady Builder stands out for its appointment booking tool. This makes it easier for service companies to settle for online bookings. In addition, GoDuploady uses your generation to design a site based on your needs. It will even upload inventory photographs similar to those on your business site or theme.
Who uses it: GoDaddy has features aimed especially at small businesses and online stores. Many SEO marketing and optimization tools are built into the editor or dashboard, but not all of them come with their monthly plan.
For more information: Read our full GoDaddy review.
GoDaddy’s feature-rich Basic plan is suitable for most businesses to create a professional website. The biggest difference between the plans is the number of emails you can send per month. All plans come with built-in email marketing that allows you to capture leads on your site and send email campaigns automatically. However, the Basic plan allows a maximum of one hundred email sends per month, while the Standard plan allows a maximum of 500 and the Premium plan allows 25,000.
IONOS is best known as a web hosting provider, but its MyWebsite website builder competes with some of the most popular independent builders. The interface is intuitive, and the drag-and-drop ability makes it simple to use for everyone. New users get a significant reduction during the first year with IONOS.
What doesn’t immediately become apparent is that the cheapest plan still includes IONOS classifieds (which is often included in free website building plans). So, you’ll have to upgrade to the Plus plan to get rid of it. The budget plan is quite limited in terms of features: you don’t get the multilingual translation, parallax scrolling, or photo galleries feature. There are also no professional apps for additional features, so you want to upgrade if you want to load apps for reviews or bookings, for example.
Exceptional functionality: With the IONOS Pro plan, you can create personalized content for express visitors. This way, new visitors will see everything else from returning visitors. You can also set it up to showcase content based on sales, holidays, or other express events. .
Who uses it: If you’re willing to pay a little more for the mid-level or higher IONOS package, this online page builder could work well for a small business’s online page.
Read more: Read our full IONOS review.
What isn’t immediately apparent is that the lowest-priced plan still includes ads that are usually found only on free website builder plans. So, you’ll have to upgrade to the Plus plan to get rid of them. The low-priced plan is fairly limiting with features—you don’t get the multilingual translation feature, parallax scrolling or photo galleries. There are no business apps for added functionality either, so you’ll have to upgrade if you want to add apps for reviews or booking, for example.
Squarespace is one of the most popular and productive developers because it’s packed with useful features. You can create an online store, a blog, a portfolio site, a small business, or a club site. The editor is easy to use, but it may take some time to find out about the location of menus and features. It’s kind of a cross between a drag-and-drop editor and a point-and-click editor.
Squarespace is known for its templates—the website builder has literally won awards for design. Most of the templates are minimalistic, bold and modern, and they’re all created by professional designers. They’re also mobile-responsive, so you don’t have to design a whole other site just for mobile users.
Standout feature: Squarespace lets you enable accelerated mobile pages (AMP), which lightens the load of blog pages. Reducing the size of images, using a specific font and removing custom code speeds up loading time on mobile phones.
Who should use it: Squarespace is one of the best website builders for creatives—photographers, designers and other artists would do well with a Squarespace design. It’s also a good choice for an online store, especially with specialty features like the limited availability labels.
Learn more: Read our full Squarespace review.
Although Squarespace is rarely the cheapest online page builder on the market, all plans are suitable for professional use. That said, many businesses will find that even their basic plan comes at a smart cost, as it’s packed with features ranging from an extensive template library to a free domain and SSL certificate. Businesses that sell online will find that their Basic Commerce plan costs the cost because it has no transaction fees, which can save a lot of money.
HostGator is one of the most affordable options of all the best website builders. The editor itself is simple to use. The true drag-and-drop editor is intuitive and allows you to drag an element anywhere on the page you’d like.
There is no need to have separate marketing teams for yourArray as HostGator includes email marketing campaign features and lead capture forms. You can even load an online store with the cheapest plan, but you are limited to 3 products.
There’s something about HostGator’s templates that seem decades older than its competitors. Many of them are too minimal (large image with a button in the center) with very little actual design. Another take on this is that it gives you a blank slate to make it uniquely yours.
Great feature: HostGator includes a helpful tutorial to help you get started with their editor. Although many other online website builders have the same functionality, HostGator’s is specifically detailed, so you probably won’t want to touch visitor support.
Who uses it: We recommend HostGator for private projects, blogs, or an undeniable small business website. It’s affordable and offers an easy-to-use editor, but it lacks template options.
Read more: Read our full HostGator review.
Wix is one of the most popular online page builders because it offers everything for everyone. You can use the free plan to create an online page, but be on a subdomain and have Wix show ads. The cheapest plan is a bit limiting, but you get access to many free apps to expand the functionality of your site.
On the higher-tier plans, you’ll get SEO and analytics tools, an events calendar and a logo maker. E-commerce plans offer even more, but they’re also a bit pricey.
Exceptional functionality: Wix offers one of the largest template libraries for an all-in-one online page builder. There are over 900 templates created by designers. Not all are winners (some seem very dated), but most are fashionable and suitable for industries.
Who uses it: Wix is a wonderful option for new small business owners, especially those who need to try their hand at running an online store. While the eCommerce plans seem expensive, Wix’s plans are comparable to their competitors.
Learn more: Read our full Wix review.
Shopify is primarily an e-commerce website builder. All of the paid plans come with built-in shopping carts and marketing features to help you sell online. There are only nine free e-commerce templates from which you can choose. If you don’t mind paying, there are dozens of premium templates available, but they cost about $100 on average.
The editor isn’t a true drag-and-drop editor, which can increase the learning curve a bit. It’s more of a point-and-click navigation, but it’s pretty simple to perceive and use after spending a bit of time with the tools.
Great feature: Shopify Starter costs $29 per month and allows you to sell products through messaging apps, social media, and events.
Who should use it: Only serious e-commerce small businesses should consider Shopify. It’s meant for building online stores, not just websites. It’s an ideal solution for brick-and-mortar businesses that want to sell inventory online too.
Learn more: Read our full Shopify review.
Read our full guide to learn more about Shopify pricing and plans.
Zyro is a website builder with one of the lowest introductory prices we’ve seen. To take advantage of the low cost, you have to agree to a four-year contract. You’ll get your choice of more than 100 free templates to get you started on your website. The designs are clean and rely on hero images to anchor the designs.
The drag and drop editor is undeniable to use and includes the fundamental elements you need to create an online page for private or commercial use. Please note that the low level plan is limited. You only get 3 GB of bandwidth for data transfer and 1 GB of storage for your site files. There is no shopping cart feature for the economy plan, but Zyro also offers e-commerce plans.
Note: Zyro is no longer available on Hostinger. Au, instead offering plans through their company site.
Standout feature: Zyro offers a new tool that allows you to import an existing website to its platform. It’ll pull in the content from the site to its site builder, so you can essentially plug the content into a new design quickly and easily.
Who uses it: Zyro is a smart solution for new online developers who don’t plan to add a lot of content. Their editor is very simple to use and the value is attractive. You’ll want to log in to your domain. yourself, and it’s a long commitment to get the low value.
Learn more: Read our full Zyro review.
First of all, we need to make it clear that the WordPress we present here is WordPress. org’s flexible open-source content control formula (CMS), not the site builder of the same name in WordPress. com. The popular CMS is also one of the most productive developers because of the flexibility and freedom you get with the platform.
It’s important to know that if you decide to use WordPress to create a website, you need to protect the hosting separately. There are several (over 8,000) free WordPress themes available and many paid themes you can find.
On its own, the WordPress builder is easy to use, but sticks to the bare minimum of elements. There are literally tens of thousands of plugins that you can upload to expand your capabilities and many of them are free.
Standout feature: You probably won’t find an online page builder that’s more customizable than WordPress. The only problem is that you may want to hire a freelancer to help you code your online page to do what you want or to let you know how to do it. Use the right combination of plugins to get what you want.
Who should use it: WordPress isn’t difficult to use by any means, but it isn’t as easy as the all-in-one website builders. If you have some tech know-how and you want a customized website with web hosting of your choosing, then WordPress is good for you—whether you want an info-only site or an online store.
Learn more: Read our WordPress review.
WordPress is a free and open source content control system (CMS), but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t charge anything to create and maintain a professional website with WordPress. Not only do you want to protect your web hosting from a third party, but you also want to purchase a domain name and an SSL certificate. On top of that, companies end up paying for premium themes and plugins. Get more top points in our WordPress pricing guide.
Although Duda is an exception on this list of the most productive online page builders, it earns its position thanks to its simplicity, flexibility, and exclusive features. The cheapest plan costs $19 per month (billed annually) with no initial discount. Upload an eCommerce store and pay an extra $7. 25 per month (paid annually), making it one of the most expensive features of the most productive online page builders.
Like most online page builders for small businesses, Duda doesn’t restrict bandwidth or storage. The editor is easy to use thanks to the drag-and-drop functionality. Most of the elements are fundamental with some complex features. Duda offers over a hundred pre-designed templates that you can customize however you want. All designs are mobile-friendly, and most of them are modern, clean, and professional.
Standout features: You can create rules for visitors to your site and it gets fairly granular. For example, you can have specific content show for site visitors who are geographically near your business. There’s also a content library that makes it easy for you to import content from a client’s existing website into a new design you’re creating.
Learn more: Read our full Duda review.
Who should use it: We only suggest Duda for freelance web designers or agencies. It’s a bit too expensive for personal projects, and it’s made for specific use cases. So, if you have multiple businesses that require multiple sites, or you run a design or development agency, Duda could be a good fit for you.
An online page builder is a platform that offers a drag-and-drop interface that simplifies creating an online page for users with little to no coding experience. These platforms typically offer built-in storage for images and videos, features for uploading a traditional domain, hosting capabilities, pre-built themes, and much more. Third-party integrations are also available, allowing you to upload things like shopping carts and lead capture equipment. Advanced plans may even come with custom email uploaders and search engine optimization research teams for next-level marketing campaigns.
Note: There are two other types of developers: online and offline. An offline builder is software that you download to create on your private computer. Online developers are web-based and allow you to create and edit directly on the company’s server. This article focuses on online developers like Squarespace, Wix, and Weebly.
A website builder converts drag-and-drop controls into code. Your website can be hosted through the company or connected to your internet server. Most internet site developers offer a variety of themes or templates suitable for other types of internet sites. For example, a portfolio would use a different template than an e-commerce store. Once you have a template, you’ll be able to customize many features. Depending on the website creator, this includes things like the font, layout, and length of text and images. You may also be able to upload touch bureaucracy and embed videos.
Although many of the most popular online page builders don’t require coding, most platforms allow users to customize HTML and CSS to suit their needs.
There is no single magic technique to choose the most productive builder. You want to find the right balance of charging and features to meet your needs.
Ask yourself some questions to help narrow things down:
Keep those things in mind when comparing products and soon find a service that meets your expectations.
A builder makes many of the complex facets of execution undeniable and intuitive. Here is a list of some of the most common features:
When building a website, choosing a platform is only one piece of the puzzle. You also need to consider hosting costs, domain names, SEO analytics, custom email options, graphic design and more. You may even want to hire a content manager to make sure your site is updated regularly, keeping it fresh for new visitors. You should research prices of all web design costs to get the full picture of how much your site will cost.
Here’s a quick breakdown of the cost to build a website:
If you’re a web designer, staying on top of design trends can ensure you deliver your most demanding clients’ dreams on the first try instead of the fifth. Here are some major 2024 web design trends we anticipate will surf their way into the new year.
The number one trend detected is a shift towards designs that incorporate movement in some form. Incorporating active design elements is a wonderful way to grab visitors’ attention and pique their interest, and with a multitude of tactics to upload them to your site, you’ll be sure to find something meaningful and even fun to use.
A Google study found that more than a fraction of mobile users will abandon a phone if it takes more than 3 seconds to charge. Ensuring super fast download speeds will provide a better user experience, inspire the customer to stay on your site, and increase your sales potential.
A website can either load in its entirety upon arrival, or only load the content the client is accessing—also called smart or lazy loading. By using smart loading, it is possible for a company website to run faster and more efficiently than non-smart loading competitors.
Using trends in user awareness and location can help web developers create a more personalized online experience for a customer base, broadening the company’s conversion prospects.
The demand for the creation of virtual content that is available and usable by everyone is increasing. For example, when designing a website, it is vital for hotels for neurodivergent people, consumers with disabilities, and consumers with visual or hearing impairments. .
Here are some vital tips for creating a successful site:
A mobile-responsive site automatically adjusts images, text and design elements to show up quickly and appropriately for a mobile phone. According to Google Analytics stats, more than 60% of traffic is mobile in the U.S., so it’s important that your site is mobile-responsive.
Most popular website developers are mobile-friendly, but even the ones that are probably not 100 percent perfect. Be sure to preview your creations on desktop and mobile screens of other lengths. If you notice any errors, you can adjust your layouts by converting the length of the elements or even cutting some elements into express screen lengths.
The terms theme and template are sometimes interchangeable. These are pre-designed page layouts that commonly come with navigation menu with maximum common pages (home, about, contact, blog), header, and footer. Most themes come with photographs and pattern text, which you can update with your own content. You can also customize the overall template to suit your needs as much as possible.
Most site builders will have a variety of free and premium themes to choose from. Using these can help you get a well-designed site up and running much faster than if you were to build the site from scratch yourself. That said, not all themes are created equal. Be sure to preview all your pages to make sure there are no inconsistencies or errors as you add your content.
A Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate is a record that encrypts knowledge transfers to and from an online page. So, when someone visits your secure online page or enters data into one of your site’s fields (forms, username, password, credits, card details), the SSL certificate helps keep that information private. It’s important to have this security on your site for the end user, and having an SSL certificate can also help your search engine rankings.
There are several reasons why you would need to create a website: for informational purposes, to drive local traffic to your brick-and-mortar business, to build a brand, or to sell products or services. If you want to make money from your website, there are so many tactics to do so.
One of the most obvious tactics for making money online is to sell products on your online page. If you go this route, you’ll want to choose one of the more productive eCommerce platforms or opt for an online page builder that offers eCommerce templates and in-app shopping. grocery carts. Third-party plugins can provide you with what you need to create an eCommerce site and market your products online. You also want to locate a wholesale supplier or manufacturer of the products you plan to sell and tactics for marketing your products and your brand. You may also want to consider advertising on marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, or Walmart. com.
If you are an influencer in a specific industry and your online page is aligned, you may need to take a look at partner marketing. You can search for products or facilities and feature your favorites on your site with an associate link. Companies that offer partner systems pay you for clicks or sales of their products or installations.
Another common way to monetize is to sell online courses or virtual products. Often, marketers offer cheap courses, e-books and guides to hook customers and then sell them a bigger package, such as a price for a company. in-person conference or a multi-course course. This works well if you are an expert in your field and can exercise or train others in the same industry.
Alternatively, you can offer clubs on your site for consultancies or supplementary courses. If you pass with the club option, make sure you have an online page builder that allows you to create password-enabled pages and make online payments.
Selling the area in your banner classifieds is something that will become more viable as it matures. You want to increase your audience and your page’s prospects before advertisers are willing to pay more for real estate on your website. There are automated platforms that you can offer an advertising area for advertisers to bid on, or you can sell your area directly to businesses.
Whether your existing online page builder has outgrown or you’ve discovered a better deal elsewhere, you may want to move your domain call and online page to another provider. The simplest site migration solution is to use a commonly supported content control formula. Many online page developers offer site migration to move your entire site to their servers.
Manually moving a page online from a DIY site builder will likely be your responsibility and you may want to rebuild your site from scratch with a new template. For example, if you create a Squarespace online page, you may not be able to migrate your existing site and design to Wix, for example.
Follow these steps to transfer your site to a new website builder:
It’s important to keep in mind that domain transfers can take days or even weeks. During this time, your website will be offline. Make sure you give your website visitors plenty of notice of this downtime and stay in touch with them via your social media channels. You can then turn the transfer into a bit of a grand reopening, if you’d like to boost traffic to your rehomed website.
If you need to create a page online and have no coding experience, an online page builder is the simplest way to do it. The other option is to create your online page yourself, but this requires coding skills or hiring a professional. The merit of hiring someone is that you have control over how the page looks online.
When running an online page builder, you will most likely encounter layout issues that the online page builder doesn’t support. For example, let’s say you need a drop-down menu, but the theme you’re using doesn’t offer this functionality. You might also prefer a specific template, but you find that you can’t replace the color theme.
Each website builder and each theme within it has different limitations, and you often only learn what they are as you go. If you don’t need complete creative control, you’ll find that the best website builders offer more than enough features to build a professional website.
Forbes Advisor has compiled a list of other things you might be interested in getting your online page off the ground and thriving. Check out those guides for more must-have information:
To determine the best website builders for small businesses, Forbes Advisor considered more than 25 of the most popular providers in the space and narrowed it down to 15 to analyze across five primary categories, for a total of 27 different metrics. These were then weighted to favor features that small business owners find valuable in a website builder.
Here are the key metrics we looked at.
For the most productive online page developers for small businesses, we think about pricing and affordability. This includes not only low values, but also the availability of other plans and contracts, smart value for money and money-back guarantees. It is worth 10% of the overall score.
We analyze the most productive online page builders based on a variety of available features, adding drag and drop site editors, storage and bandwidth limits, availability of well-designed themes and templates, symbol libraries, commerce features electronic, security. , look for engine. optimization teams and built-in marketing teams (e. g. lead capture bureaucracy and automated email marketing). Features represent 30% of the overall score.
In addition to key features, we also look at which providers offer money-saving extras. For example, a free domain name, free SSL certificates, free business email, or free email marketing tools. These complements represent 20% of the total score.
To ensure our own experience aligns with real customers’ experiences, we looked at third-party user reviews. Then, we determined how others find each website builder, including what users commonly like and dislike. This accounts for 10% of the total score.
We’ve included our own direct construction experience websites and hired online page developers to determine which ones are really the best. This includes the cash price and whether there are any hidden fees or unforeseen expenses related to certain online page developers, customizing themes and templates, and how simple it is to create a site with your online page builder. place. This represents 30% of the overall score.
You can create an online page for a non-public task for free, if you don’t create a subdomain and display ads. To create an online page for small businesses, you’ll expect to pay between $200 and $300 as an initial investment and maintenance. It will most likely range from $5 to $50 per month, depending on whether or not you own an online store.
The three most sensible online website builders out there today are Weebly, GoDaddy, and Squarespace. These platforms offer pre-built themes and drag-and-drop interfaces, making creating a functional, well-designed online page simple and affordable.
Website builders are highly scalable, and your plan can be modified easily to meet the needs of your growing team. If you outgrow even the top-level package of your service, many vendors offer enterprise-level functionality with customized pricing. It may be worthwhile to get in touch with your system’s customer service team to learn more.
Since most online page developers offer cutting-edge technology, they are regularly at the forefront when it comes to ensuring their sites are secure. They do this by protecting their clients’ Internet sites using cutting-edge technology. For this reason, most online page building companies will offer some of the most productive security features that can be found on the Internet.
Many online page developers offer free plans. These come with Wix, SITE123, and Ucraft. However, those free online page developers don’t allow you to create an online page that only includes your logo. Your logo names, for example, may appear as watermarks, on the free site’s domain, or in the site’s footer. They also have a limited garage and other features needed to create a fully evolved online page. Learn more about the most productive free online page developers.
The time it takes to build a website varies depending on whether you’re using a website builder, creating it from scratch or hiring a professional site designer to create your website. On average, you can expect to go from ideation to creation in 10 to 14 weeks. If you choose a website builder with an easy-to-use editor, you can theoretically build a website in less than a day (if you have content ready to add to your site).
To build an e-commerce website, you need to start by choosing a CMS that supports e-commerce sites or allows you to use shopping cart plugins and payment processing. Then build your e-commerce website with a theme, add products, test your links and finally launch your site.
Every Internet site on the Internet starts with a hosting service provider. To host your website, choose a CMS through a web host or website builder and purchase the service. Many hosting providers and website developers offer a free domain call for the first year, so you can log in to a domain through their hosting service. Then you simply attach your domain to your host and create or migrate your website.
Once you’ve selected a domain call (or several, in case the one you need is rarely widely available), head to a domain registrar to sign up for a domain call. There are many features to use, but keep in mind that you can also log in to a domain call through your Internet server. Purchase and log in to your domain, then point your domain to the appropriate calling server so your internet site appears to have the correct internet address.
If your budget allows you to hire someone to build your website and you have complex needs, then you may want to outsource the design of your website. However, building your own website is far more cost-effective and it’s easy to do with the help of a website builder. Plus, many website builders are all-in-one solutions that include domain registration, web hosting and a site editor with free themes or templates to get your design started and your site launched.