How to Pick a Website Builder

If your plans include launching a direct competitor to YouTube, including interactive online video editing, or building a feature-rich social network to compete with those kids at Facebook, a website builder isn’t for you. But for most people and most small businesses, personal sites are far more modest in scope and might simply be a half-dozen pages, a map, a few pictures of products and a contact form. In the latter case you might just find a Website builder a great solution.

Which isn’t to say that online, interactive website builders are feature poor. Many of them include eCommerce tools, SEO (search engine optimization) smarts and utilities, domain registration capabilities and even design services (though typically only within a narrow range of capabilities).

One big issue to consider is traffic: If you think your site — or hope your site! — is going to get a lot of visitors, then be careful to chose a hosting option that is compatible with the traffic surge.

I had an issue with hosting versus site traffic with AskDaveTaylor a year or two ago, having moved the site to a business hosting service and then having them bill me an additional $800 for a single month of “excess traffic levels”. Not so good. We’re not hosted with that company any more!

Just like Microsoft Word has all sorts of document templates, modern website builders include templates to let you quickly choose the best match with your own needs and design sensibilities. Some hosting companies have a crazy large number of templates too. Heck, Web.com has over 10,000 templates available, surely more than enough for even the most eager neophyte Web site developer!

Another factor is support for widgets — typically WordPress widgets to extend your weblog-based site functionality — or the ability for you to add your own code snippets, either raw HTML or JavaScript, Java objects, etc. For many users that’s something they’ll never utilize, but for others it’s a great option for future growth. And don’t forget if you want to run advertising on your site, you’ll need that raw code access capability too.

Another excellent resource is your professional network. Do you have colleagues with nice Web sites? Ask them where it’s hosted and how they developed it. You might just be surprised how many are created with website builders, rather than them having spent thousands on designers and developers.

The latest wrinkle with site design is mobile. A critical question to ask when you’re comparing options is whether your site will lay out well on tablets and smartphones. In fact Google is so concerned about mobile friendly site design that it recently changed the search results so penalize sites it ascertains aren’t going to look good on smaller screens.

Finally, look for sites like Top Ten Website Builders where you can get a quick overview of the biggest players in this space and see customer ratings on each to assess which will be the best match for your own needs.

Good luck with your site and remember that while good content is always important, having it presented in a visually attractive manner that’s also search engine friendly is just smart.