As a startup or small business, you’ve got an excellent business plan, a dedicated team ready to give its all, and a brand that has enormous potential. However, all these aspects would be useless if your business doesn’t have an online presence. Unfortunately, all business owners don’t have the skill, experience, or budget to build a website from scratch.
That’s where website builders come into play. It allows you to build beautiful, functional, and highly-creative websites without technical knowledge. There are a lot of good website builder tools available in the market, and therefore, choosing a good one out of that would be quite a challenge. This blog will provide you with a checklist and tips for selecting the best website builder tool in 2022.
Checklist for selecting the best Website builder tools for you
Whether the tool is easy to use and understand?
One of the first things you would look at in the website builder is how easy to use and understand. We also mean that the website builder should be appropriate for beginners or non-technical users. The website builder should also come with lots of ready-to-use components. In these criteria, Wix and WordPress.com fit the best.
Is the tool offering plenty of ready-to-use templates?
When you’re picking any website builder tool, you want to make sure that the tool is offering you plenty of ready-to-use components. A good amount of professional templates and features like Google Analytics, CRM, third-party marketing tools, etc., would make the tool the best possible candidate. WooCommerce and Shopify are the tools that fit the best in this criteria.
Is the tool providing customer support?
Customer support is another significant criterion that you should consider while selecting the website builder tool for your organization. While you will find plenty of website builder tools that provide a user-friendly interface, there will be very few who offer dedicated and 24/7 customer support. BigCommerce and Squarespace are two tools that fit into this criteria with ease.
Is the tool providing value for money?
When you’re picking the best website builder tool, it won’t come free of cost. You need to pay a certain amount of money to avail good quality features. However, you should measure the value for money while selecting the website builder tool. If the tool provides you with many additional features, it is worth spending. HubSpot and WordPress.org fit these criteria.
These were some essential things you would consider while picking a website builder tool. So, considering these factors, let’s analyze the best website builder tool for 2022.
Tools to check on to start your website without hiring a developer
1. HubSpot website builder
HubSpot is a rich and powerful content management system designed for small and medium scale businesses. In addition, the tool delivers a personalized experience for all customers.
Pros
- Responsive web design by default
- Built-in facility for CDN and SSL
Cons
- Steep learning curve
- No guarantee of backup and recovery
Pricing
Starter: Starting from $45/month
Professional: Starting from $800/month
Enterprise: Starting from $3200/month
2. WooCommerce
WooCommerce is one of the most popular ecommerce website builder tools that help you create an online storefront. The open-source tool can seamlessly work with WordPress.
Pros
- Reliable and dependable customer support
- Provides access to powerful blogging and SEO tools
Cons
- Specific to WordPress only
- Limited option for customization
Pricing
WooCommerce is available free of cost, but you will have to buy a domain name and hosting. For example, Siteground will charge $3.99/month for hosting, Bluehost premium WoCommerce plan costs $32.95/month, and WP engine charges $30/month.
3. WordPress.com
WordPress.com is one of the most popular blogging platforms that provide hosting services. The customized hosting solution primarily focuses on building a blogging website or web application.
Pros
- Backup and recovery are taken care of
- Enables high-level customization
Cons
- Can’t use custom plugin unless using the business plan or above
- No options to make changes to the core or on infrastructure-level
Pricing
Personal: $4/month
Premium: $8/month
Business: $24/month
Ecommerce: $45/month
4. WordPress.org
WordPress.org is one of the first names that would come to mind when you think about the best website builder tool. The open-source tool provides you with maximum control over the website.
Pros
- Thousands of ready-to-use plugins and themes
- Allows you to integrate popular business tools
Cons
- The slightly steep learning curve as you need to know everything
- You need to take care of hosting yourself
Pricing
A WordPress website builder is available free of cost, but you need to buy hosting and domain name. After that, it will cost you around $14.99/year on average, depending on the best hosting offer you can get that fulfills your compliance and technical requirements.
5. Wix
Wix is an easy-to-use website builder tool that has made website creation enjoyable for users. It has grown into a giant ecommerce website builder with storefront-related tools and features.
Pros
- Fully hosted website builder
- Plenty of ready-to-use design templates
Cons
- Moving away from Wix is complicated
- Free and connect domain plan shows Wix branded Ads
Pricing
VIP: $4.37/month
Unlimited: $2.48/month
Combo: $1.68/month
Connect Domain: $1.07/month
6. BigCommerce
BigCommerce is one of the most widely used website builder tools for creating ecommerce websites. Businesses that have the requirement of scaling can opt for this website builder.
Pros
- The server and the technical side are taken care of
- Integrates with all major payment gateways
Cons
- Not an industry-standard which might be restrictive to using integrations
- Priopetoary platform, so migration becomes difficult
Pricing
Basic: $29.95/month
Plus: $79.95/month
Pro: $299.95/month
7. Squarespace
Squarespace is a website builder tool popular among the business community for its ease of use and great designs. Most artists and creative people utilize Squarespace to build their sites.
Pros
- Enterprise-level infrastructure for website hosting
- Secure and robust website builder
Cons
- Limited integrations with third-party services
- Only supports Stripe, Apple Pay, and PayPal as payment gateway
Pricing
Website: $12/month and $18/month
Online Storefront: $26/month and $40/month
8. Shopify
Shopify is one of the leading website builder tools for ecommerce website development. The web-based CMS comes with all the necessary tools that help you to build an online storefront.
Pros
- All-in-one fully hosted ecommerce website builder
- It comes with an integrated payment solution
Cons
- A lot of labor is needed to update inventory for shops with a dynamic product portfolio
- Poor content management system
Pricing
Basic: $29/month
Shopify: $79/month
Advanced Shopify: $299/month
Shopify Light: $9/month
9. Zyro
Zyro is one of the most influential and affordable website builders built by Hostinger. The website builder tool provides customers with a drag-and-drop facility and a free hosting plan.
Pros
- Affordable pricing and plenty of ready-to-use components
- Access to over 1 million images for free
Cons
- Not easy to switch templates
- Lacks third-party integration facility
Pricing
Unleashed: $2.61/month
Ecommerce: $8.01/month
Ecommerce Plus: $14.31/month
10. Shift4Shop
Shift4Shop is another website builder that helps businesses elevate their web presence. It is an excellent choice for seasonal companies as it only charges money on transactions that occur.
Pros
- Multi-language support
- Easily scalable and customizable
Cons
- Poor site uptime
- Hard to make price adjustments
Pricing
Basic: $29/month
Plus: $79/month
Pro: $299/month
11. Gator by Hostgator
Gator by Hostgator is one of the most widely used website builder tools that you will ever see. The tool leverages the power of Hostgator, so you don’t have to worry about hosting providers.
Pros
- 200+ professional website templates
- Built-in stock photo library
Cons
- No free plan or free trial
- Can’t add a new feature or modify web design
Pricing
Starter: $3.46/month
Premium: $5.39/month
Ecommerce: $8.30/month
Criteria for website builders
The definition of the best website tool varies from one business to another. However, all the companies have their set of defined criteria and expectations. So, the tool that fits into that criteria would become the best choice for that particular business.
There can’t be any clear-cut winner here, but we would advise you to have some significant criteria in mind while selecting the tool. The essential criteria would include budget, ease of use, design, security, ready-to-use components, third-party integrations, etc. Then, based on these criteria, choose the tool to assist you in web application development.
Conclusion
Building a good website or web application requires hard work and dedicated effort. It would also need you to have the technical expertise and knowledge of web development. However, website builder tools have made this task easier for business owners across the globe. They can choose the tool as needed and start creating a visually appealing website without the need to know how to code or technically host websites on the Internet.
Photo credit: The feature image has been done by Redpixel.
This guest article has been submitted by Hardik Shah. While we appreciate guest contributions, it's important to note that the views expressed by the author are not necessarily reflective of those held by TechAcute.