7 best free website builders for small businesses & creators |
There is no need to know how to use technology or a bottomless budget to build a beautiful website. Learn how the seven best free website builder's stack up.
When you're setting up a personal brand or starting a small business You need a web site. Your website is your home on the internet. Building a website from scratch for the first time may be a challenge and costly.
Luckily, you don't need to learn how to code or possess a keen eye for web layout, or invest the money for a professional website. Free website builders make assembling your website easy, speedy and inexpensive.
In this article, we're sharing seven of the best web builders available to small and creative businesses seeking to design a website that looks good without a lot of effort or an expensive price.
1.
With 's intuitive website builder, you don't need to know a single line of code to make your site appear stunning. Make your website unique by adding colors, branding styles, fonts, logos, images from stock, and a variety of content blocks to choose from.
In each block of content you are able to personalize the design and content to create a website that's exactly as you want it to be and is your business. It's possible to embed podcasts, videos, and widgets of more than 1900 other applications directly onto your site.
Every site has an SSL certificate, and they are optimised for mobile. Plus, makes it easy to include Google Analytics to your site for tracking visitors as well as sales.
That's right, you are able to build a strong and profitable online presence for yourself without investing a penny that helps you score a 90.91 score on the Creator Friendliness Index .
The Creator Friendliness Index uses 20 rankings factors to assess how friendly a company's policies are to creators. It is highly rated across all aspects of friendliness including a cost-free plan, ways to remove transaction fees, and multiple currency options and integrations.
2. Wix
Wix is a website builder that allows users to create easy websites for free. With Wix it is possible to build a storefront or blog, or business website using a drag-and-drop editor with many modern designs.
The site builders at Wix are intuitive, even if you do not have the design skills. You can also get help with Wix's exclusive Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) tool, which uses artificial intelligence in order to build a custom site to promote your business. Your Wix website also has built-in SEO and search engine optimization (SEO) tools.
The main drawback of Wix's plan for free is the Wix advertisement on every page. It's hard to make your website look professional when it's the first thing people see. To remove the Wix banner ad the website must be in the Combo plan ($16/month) or better.
Wix is rated 79.22 in the Creator Friendliness Index . The site earns points because of its no-cost plan as well as the affordable cost of its paid plans. It is penalized for restricting the amount of goods the creator is able to sell per plan tier and limited help documentation.
3. WordPress
WordPress is free, open-source content management system (CMS) software that's popular as a blogging platform as well as a website building tool.
There are two ways that you can make use of WordPress to build your website self-hosted or managed hosting.
The use of WordPress to host your own website is completely free. But you must consider domain registration, web hosting, paid themes, and expensive plugins and the costs rapidly add up.
Your second option is to build your own website using WordPress.com managed hosting. WordPress.com has a free plan and several paid plans.
If you use the trial version of WordPress.com it is possible to set up a simple site that has 1GB of storage space, pre-installed themes, and the SEO tools built into WordPress however that's not the only thing you can receive.
WordPress scores 68.33 according to the Creator Friendliness Index . The site earns points because of its free plans, integrationsand support for languages but loses points for its inability to provide customer service.
4. Weebly
Weebly is an ecommerce platform and website builder owned by Square.
The Weebly website builder is beginner-friendly and has templates you can customize. It allows you to add custom CSS and HTML, and the App Center lets you connect extensions and integrates to provide additional functionality.
Additionally, hosting for websites is included on all plans, and it is possible to purchase your domain name direct through Weebly. If you aren't ready to buy a domain name, you can use a free subdomain, like yournamehere.weebly.com.
Weebly offers blog tools to help you share your information, as well as an App Center for adding extra functionality, and analytics so you can track how well your website is doing.
Since Square is the owner of Weebly It's been built with eCommerce sites with ecommerce in mind. The plans that are available, even the free plan, come with the ability to create an online store and sell physical goods.
It's not without disadvantages. There are storage limitations as well as the ability to sell digital items. Weebly will also display Square ads for both Free or Personal plans, so you'll need change to the premium plan in order to get rid of them.
Overall, Weebly is a solid option for those who are just starting out and aren't seasoned with website design particularly if you intend to market physical goods online.
5. SITE123
SITE123 is a straightforward web-based site builder free to anyone looking to establish an online identity. As the name implies, SITE123 makes building a site as simple as one three things:
Select the website you wish to create. Choose from templates for a website for a blog, event page, service provider, and much more.
Include your company's name, information, and images.
Create your own website.
The templates available that are available on SITE123 are responsive and come with free web hosting, 500MB storage, as well as 1GB bandwidth.
There's a catch: the free plan limits your ability to change the colors and fonts of your choice, as well as other elements of design. Upgrade to a premium plan in order to gain access to plugins, applications, and full template customization options. Additionally, there is none of the free tools for e-commerce.
Also, it's impossible to alter the templates of your site after you've begun building your site. If you do this, you'll have to delete all of your website's material. It's a big hassle.
It's true that SITE123 won't provide you with much creativity over the free website. If you're looking for just a basic, simple website for your company The free version of the plan will provide just enough to get by.
6. GoDaddy
GoDaddy is widely known as a web hosting provider and domain name registrar, but it also offers a free website builder with limited ecommerce tools. Select a template, then insert your business and content info, and you'll get your website up and running to launch in just a few steps.
The free website includes email marketing tools, one-time appointment setting Analytics, ad-hoc tools, and SSL certificates. Another feature that helps GoDaddy stand out among free platforms is 24/7 customer support and community forums, so you have plenty of resources should you need help.
The plan for free has some limitations. You'll have to choose the godaddysites.com subdomain, and GoDaddy will display an ad on the top of every page on your website. The SEO tools, such as regular appointments, full online store options, and custom domains are only available through paid plans.
If you're looking for a solution All things considered, GoDaddy's free service is a solid option for personal websites. However, the large branding on the top of every page could make a company site appear unprofessional.
7. Jimdo
Jimdo is a basic web-based builder for free which lets you build your business's website in only two steps:
Answer a few questions about your website.
Get business details via your social media profiles.
Choose a design.
Publish your site!
The Jimdo photo library offers you access to a wide array of professional stock photos. It is also possible to add contact forms for customers to get in touch.
Jimdo's website creation wizard lets you easily build websites. However, the trade-off is a lack of personalization. You can pick from several pre-designed layouts as well as diverse color schemes.
For the plan that is free, you'll need to set up the jimdo.com subdomain. There's an Jimdo advert on each page. You get 2GB bandwidth and 500MB of space and you can be able to host up to five pages of your site. Finally, you don't have access to any client assistance, so you're completely on your own if you need help with setting up your website.
If you're in need of a straightforward web page and you are sure you won't need customer support, Jimdo could be an acceptable option, however, the free version is one of the least flexible options on this list.
Select a web builder that was designed with your growth in mind
Not all free website builders do the same. As you evaluate different options take note at the sneaky ways in which platforms add costs to a "free" tool: concealed upsells, additional fees, limits on the number of website pages you can build, customization options or unremovable ads. Don't risk finding yourself in the middle of unexpected charges when you're launching your website.
You can build an attractive website for your company in only a few steps. It's the ideal web design tool for those who wish to design an online home base to their business with no technical hassle or the high cost.