Online Website Builder for Small Business Starter
15 March 2018
By limenotlemon
Online Website Business
The online business market share has significant growth in recent years. And most people who want to start a business, think that an online business has a prospective customer that will give them huge income as long as they do it genuinely and strategically. And one of the categories in online business is using a website as the media. Therefore, you need an online website builder to build the website, obviously.
Categories of Website Builder
FYI, just in case you don’t know about website builders, there are two main categories for a website builder, the online website builder and the offline one. For the online website builder, you need to visit the web hosting service or simply the platform you choose to make your website and sign up first. After that, you can access the website builder and start making your website. No coding skill is needed to use this online website builder. WYSIWYG principle has applied to most online platforms. Especially for the famous ones.
On the other hand, the offline one provides you a software that you can use to build your own website. There are several operations like installing your software, coding process, and managing to build your website from scratch. There are also templates and extensions that you can implement to your website. So it’s way more independent and needs specific skills to use. But it’s far more genuine and professional because you have been provided with unlimited creativity, moreover, if the software is an open-source platform.
Platforms Website
After we know about the categories of website builders, we should dive deeper into the main topic. There are many online website builders, like Wix, WordPress, Squarespace, Shopify, and Weebly. Actually, there are more of it, but I think those five are quite famous. Let’s discuss it one by one.
Wix
Founded and headquartered in Tel Aviv, you can start to make a personal website and business website from this online website builder. Wix has spread its wing to another business using Wix websites like Wix Hotel, Wix Music, and Wix Restaurant. It seems like they are using the Wix Website Builder as the core value and expand their business in different approaches.
The feature is pretty much the same as other platforms. The easiest thing is the drag-and-drop feature. You can see the example from their YouTube channel. You can insert big pictures simply by using your pointer to drag and drop wherever you want. Stretch and shrink features are provided as well. But of course, it’s still limited to the source code of the website.
However, there is an app that you can use on the mobile phone. But it’s not quite good because the rating is below 4.0. so it still needs more update to maintenance the app and brings more value to it. Just download it from Play Store or Apple Store. Just in case you need to visit your website on a mobile phone.
Shopify
The Green Bag is one of the platforms that also support retailers in the cyber world. They provide a website that could help you bring great experience when selling your retail products. Just like Magento, it specializes in online shopping for people who eager to do e-commerce business. So if you want another kind of business, you can’t use Shopify as your partner in crime.
In my opinion, the competitive advantage of Shopify is in Oberlo. The company that supports entrepreneurs across the world to join the competition of e-commerce as the drop-shipper. Oberlo will provide anyone with tons of products, and you can re-sell it to anyone as well. No need to pack and ship the products to your customer. Oberlo at your service. Basically, Shopify supports your website as the online website builder and helps you start selling retail products as you want.
Squarespace
Source: workshops.squarespace.com
There two main categories to choose from, and all of them are for business purposes. The first category is building a website oriented for personal and general business. The second category is specifically for building an online store. And those two categories have a specific amount of cash to be paid off. So you can exactly calculate how much cash you can afford to get your premium website.
Make an app for android to get in touch with your own website. But the rating is not good enough. It’s below 4.0 and still needs some improvement in the future. But if you want to know more, you can try it yourself.
Weebly
Just like the Drag and drop feature for making a general website and online store. Its specialization is the super simple design generator. The drag-and-drop feature is super friendly for an amateur. Perhaps you can learn for only 10-15 minutes. Weebly also has an app for you, just if you need to access your website from a mobile phone. And the rating is 4.3 and has been downloaded by more than 1 million people. So it’s quite good. But there is no more special competitive advantage for this platform.
WordPress
WordPress is good for general online business, but not for e-commerce purposes (particularly for online retail). If you want to roll into the e-commerce industry, I think it’s better to try the other platforms. Since WordPress is mostly used for non-e-commerce business or personal branding. It is also used for people who love blogging. So if your business needs a blog site to increase traffic, you should jump on this platform at once.
For business purposes, I think it’s better to use a specific URL that looks professional and easy to remember. WordPress gives you a free account since your first sign-up, but you can upgrade it into a premium account that gives you several special features. Well, just like a freemium app on Android that gives you basic features at first, when you need an upgrade, you need to put some cash on it and get what you want. It’s pretty obvious.
You can use your own web hosting service or just use the three main plans that WordPress offered. Each of them serves several features with a specific number to be paid off. Yet obviously, the most expensive one will give you no limitation, and you can expand your online business whatever and whenever you want. The only limit is your imagination and creativity.
There is also an app for Android and iOS, which is well-developed and easy to use. Since I’m a blogger, I use WordPress as my platform to write down my blog post. And in my personal opinion, so far, WordPress is quite awesome for people who love to blog.
Another Option
If you want to make a pure genuine business website, you can try Magento to make your own. This web builder is not online, And it’s capable of bringing you 100% flexibility. Besides, it’s complicated to understand; that’s why it’s better to hire a web developer to help you build one. You can try to contact one of the Magento Experts here. About the charge, you need to pay what you need. So basically, it’s way more efficient yet effective to make your business website just in time. It’s all up to you anyway. Just visit us if you have made up your mind. Ciao!