When it comes to choosing the right website builder for small business, it depends on what type of business you are into!
For example, when I started my dropshipping business an online clothing store for pregnant women “Fashionable Pregnancy”, I chose to create it with Shopify because it is the best software out there if you want to receive payments online, promote your products catalogs, create shipping and tax rates, basically everything an online store needs in order to run the right way.
But, on the other hand, when I was looking for a website builder for VG Online Solutions, I knew that my best choice was WordPress because it is the best platform for blogs and it gives my business more space to grow as time goes by.
Now, Shopify and WordPress are the website builder I recommend to most people, but I also will give you two alternatives which I consider are the best options after those already mentioned above.
How to Choose the Best Website Builder for Your Needs?
The best tool for one business won’t necessarily be the best for everyone. It all depends on your needs when building a website.
So, how do you know which is the best website builder for you?
When I was looking for my website builder, I focused on three important factors.
Price: One of the most important factors for small business owners is the price. You need a website builder that’s affordable now, and will still be affordable when your business grows.
Think about how your site will evolve as your business grows. Ideally, you should be able to scale up easily when you need to!
Ease Of Use: You’ll also need your website builder to be easy to use and learn, with a wide range of templates for all situations. You should have a hassle-free way to add:
- The basic website pages you need, such as the home page, about page, services page, and contact page
- More complex features like image galleries and video content
- Other website elements that some businesses need or want, like a blog, a booking or reservation system, membership features, or an online store
SEO: This is probably the most important factor because when you have a website builder that’s SEO friendly, your site content will appear in google search results for your target keywords, this means you will attract your target customers and get more visibility as time goes by.
With these features in mind, I’ve narrowed down our choices to the top 4 website builder for small business.
1. WordPress — The world’s most popular site-builder
WordPress.org is the most popular website builder on Earth. It’s the engine behind popular sites like the New York Times, TechCrunch, BBC America which gets millions of visitors every month, to tiny personal blogs, which barely get any traffic.
There’s a reason why a third of the web runs on WordPress and it’s the world’s most popular content management system (CMS). That’s because it’s flexible, scalable and easy to use.
Just so you know, there are actually two versions of WordPress (learn more about the difference between WordPress.org vs WordPress.com here).
I recommend the self-hosted version (WordPress.org) as your small business website builder because it’s the one I use and it’s even more flexible than the other version.
Easy of use
When you are starting with WordPress there is a learning curve you have to go through in order to completely understand how to customize your website the way you want it. I recommend using a drag and drop builder like Elementor, It really makes your life easier!
On the other hand, once you manage to understand how WordPress works, you can create any type of website, an online store, podcast site, booking and membership site and more.
This is possible because it’s one of the oldest website builders in the market and it has thousands of addons, plugins, third-party software that are compatible with it and allow you to create everything you want!
SEO
When it comes to growing your website traffic, WordPress makes it easy because it’s search engine-friendly by design. You can also use plugins like Yoast SEO that ensure your content is optimized and help you get your website to the top of the search rankings.
With it, you can check everything from your keyword density and placement to your readability score, all of which affect your overall ranking. You can even connect your site to Google’s analytics tools.
Pricing
It’s hard to believe that one of the best website builders for small businesses is FREE, but that’s exactly what WordPress.org is.
While WordPress software itself is free, you’ll need somewhere to install it. That means getting your own domain name (www.yourname.com) that costs around $14.99 per year and a hosting service that costs around $7.99 per month.
But with my recommended hosting service Bluehost, you can get started for just $3.95/month and even get a free domain.
2. Shopify — The ultimate online store builder
Anyone can use Shopify, whether you’re a first-time seller, or a multi-million dollar businesses like Tesla, GymShark, RedBull, Kylie Cosmetics (yep, all this big brands are just one of Shopify’s satisfied customers).
Shopify can be used by any sized store, and is extremely scalable!
Easy of use
Shopify is the most easy to use platform I’ve tried. It has a clean, clear, and simple interface that makes setting up your store a breeze, even for total beginners.
You get to choose from pre-design templates, so you don’t have to possess any design skill either and everything is optimized to be viewed on desktop, mobile and tablets.
SEO
When it comes to eCommerce you need to think about SEO differently, trying to rank a page is different to getting a product to rank well.This is why Shopify built his SEO structure around this fact and it makes it perfect for that purpose.
Shopify comes with several SEO-friendly features for your online store to perform well in search engines.
The interface of Shopify has all the tools an online shop owner needs to rank highly in an image, shopping-specific, and regular searches. It has a great site structure, arranging sites in categories. Online users and search engines, like Google, love it.
Something I always recommend is to create a blog page in the store in order to create related content to the services or products you sell. This not only will provide value to your clients, but also will help you to rank your store even faster!
Pricing
Shopify has several number of plans that will suits your needs, but the main ones you have to look at are the following:
As a small business I highly recommend going with the basic plan. I ve built multiple online store for small businesses and this plan will allow you to:
- List an unlimited number of products
- Sell across multiple channels such as Facebook and Amazon
- Create discounts for your customers
- Make use of abandoned cart recovery.
Basically, everything you need to get started and even more!
