Every business needs its own place online. It could be a simple website explaining your service, or an all singing all dancing online store. Whatever you want to make, building a website doesn’t have to mean hiring a developer. Their expertise can be reserved for the more complex stuff.
When it comes to creating your online presence or e-commerce store, there are now a lot of simple website building tools to choose from. They’re all affordable, easy to use, and can make your website look stunning without too much effort. Here are 4 of the best for small businesses.
1. Squarespace
Cost: £15 a month billed annually, or £21 a month billed monthly. It’s even cheaper if you’re only after a personal account - perfect for freelancers and the self-employed.
Who’s going to love it: Business owners who are short on time but don’t want to sacrifice aesthetics.
The handy extras: A free domain when you pay annually, and fully-integrated e-commerce tools.
If you’ve listened to pretty much any podcast, you’ve probably heard an ad for Squarespace. It’s a super simple, and very stylish, website builder which gives you a choice of functional, aesthetic themes.
Whether you’re building an online shop or a place to house your best work, there’ll be a template on Squarespace to showcase your small business. When people start asking which ultra cool design agency created your website, you may have to come clean...
2. Wix
Cost: Business packages range from £8 - £22 a month, billed annually.
Who’s going to love it: Anyone who wants to be able to add and change pages quickly.
The handy extras: Email marketing is built in (up to 20 campaigns a month!).
Heavily customisable, Wix has hundreds of website templates for every kind of business or professional. Once you’re signed up, you can change text, add apps and tools, import image and video, and do pretty much anything with your website.
If you’re a natural designer (lucky you!) you can start with a completely blank template, or just a basic structure. The rest is up to you, which gives new businesses space to establish their branding.
3. Sitebuilder
Cost: Your first year is half price - packages range from $3.84 per month to $9.22 per month for e-commerce sites.
Who’s going to love it: Anyone who loves choice. There are over 1000 templates to choose from!
The handy extras: Your domain name is free for the first year.
Sitebuilder gives you pretty much everything you could ever need to build your online business, from domain names to mailboxes. Unlike some of the newer platforms, Sitebuilder has over 1000 website templates to choose from, so there’s something for literally every business.
One reviewer claims Sitebuilder is one of the most reliable drag-and-drop website builders - he had 99.9% uptime over 6 months, which is apparently “as good as it gets”.
4. Site123
Cost: The free package doesn’t include very much, but the premium package gives you all the essentials for $10.80 per month.
Who’s going to love it: Business owners who want a one-stop shop they can rely on.
The handy extras: Site123 is US-based, but British customers can still get fast customer service. Even on a Sunday, according to one reviewer.
This website building tool is very intuitive, with quick drag and drop options and no coding necessary. Its business packages are slightly more expensive than some other tools, but they include absolutely everything and suit both beginners and experts. Plus, your domain is free for the first year.
Their technical support gets full marks from current customers. They say they’re speedy, thorough, and responsive.
The cleverest feature a simple website builder can have is customisation. A business website is a constantly evolving thing, so the ability to move things around and add pages is essential for growth and can improve Google rankings too. If you change your branding, no problem. Your template can change with you!
Now you’ve got your online presence sorted, Solna can help you get paid on time. Solna uses automation and clever insights to help you chase late payers and do credit checks on new customers. Best of all, it’s completely free.
Do more of what you love and less of what you don’t. Get started now.
About Solna
in LND