The Best Website Builders for 2021
|Website builders have become effective and time-saving ways to design professional-looking websites. The advantage is that anyone can have a go at building a website without prior technical experience or skill in coding or web development.
Website builders are software tools that offer pre-built and installed features like templates, design elements, SEO optimization, mobile responsiveness, and more, which users can customize to their website’s pages. This article will discuss the best website builders suited to any personal or business needs.
Best Website Builders
GoDaddy
Website Goals: Small Business, Ease of Use
The GoDaddy web builder offers a free plan for beginners, as well as four pricing options. The Basic Plan starts at $9.99 per month, it’s ideal for a small business that needs the essential website start-up features like a custom domain, social media marketing, and email marketing, with up to 100 emails per month. Other features include booking appointments, 24/7 support, Custom Insights that offer guidance for the website performance and analytics.
For users who need more, the eCommerce Plan is priced at $24.00 per month. It offers all the features from the other plans, but is tailored to online stores. Some of these features include Marketplace selling, various shipping options, different payment options like Stripe or PayPal, listing products directly from the website, and the option to create sales promotions and discounts.
Weebly
Website Goals: eCommerce, Ease of Use
Weebly is a drag-and-drop web builder, easily customizable according to the business needs. There are over 40 themes, also responsive on mobile devices. It starts with a free plan, which includes the essentials for building a website. If users want to have a custom domain the Connect plan starts at $4,00 per month. Features included are SSL Security, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), 500 MB of storage, lead capture, and email and chat support.
The Business option, priced at $25,00 per month, is ideal for businesses that are already selling and need to upgrade. The features included are membership registration with an unlimited number of members and products, inventory management tools, shipping discounts, tax calculators, and more.
Squarespace
Website Goals: Design and Blogging, Time-saving
Squarespace is for creative businesses, their templates and themes are largely photo-based. Users can start with a free 2-week trial, after which they can choose from four web building options. The Personal option, priced at $12,00 per month is ideal for a simple website where the Business plan, priced at $18,00 per month, is suited to businesses of all sizes.
The other two plans offer more features to move a business forward as it grows, these include the Basic ($26,00 per month) and Advanced ($40,00 per month) and come with unlimited pages, galleries and bandwidth, website metrics, fully integrated eCommerce features, CSS and JavaScript customization, and more.
Wix
Website Goals: Design Flexibility
Wix is a drag-and-drop builder with built in ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence) support. It offers 500 templates suitable for any industry. With its design flexibility users can spend as much time as they need customizing their website, along with various integrations like SEO and eCommerce features for online stores.
Users can start for free, however for a connected domain it will cost $5,00 per month. Other plans include the Unlimited plan, priced at $14,00 per month, ideal for entrepreneurs and freelancers. The eCommerce plan, priced at $17,00 per month is suited to small businesses that need more features.
Shopify
Website Goals: eCommerce
Shopify is suitable for businesses with more than 100 products. The features include cart options, including abandoned cart recovery, inventory management, discount code integrations, security tools, as well as apps to automate various procedures.
The Basic option, priced at $29,00 per month, and the Shopify option, priced at $79,00 per month, includes all the necessary features a new business owner needs to get started. The Advanced Shopify, priced at $299,00 per month, is suited to larger teams in a business.
Key Takeaways
Choosing the best website builder will depend on your business needs, skills set, time availability, and budget. Each choice above offers different pricing plans to accommodate various business needs.