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Building Websites

Build a Business Website in 2024: Domains, Templates & More

So you want to build a website for your business? Before you start imagining scenarios of late nights grueling over coding or advanced web design, let me divert your attention to website builders. With this tool, you can set up a professional business website without any technical expertise.

If you’re not sure where to begin, I recommend a website builder like Wix or Shopify. Two of the top-rated builders for small businesses, these platforms come with an array of features that could be useful for your business website, from ecommerce to marketing.

Keen to begin? Keep reading and learn how to make a small business website today.

Before You Start Your Business Website…

Before you dive into creating a website for your business, you need to map out a few things first. Here are three questions to ask yourself:

  1. Why do you need to make a website for your business?First of all, you need to identify why you want to build a business website. Would you like to grow your presence online? Promote your services? Showcase your creative works to potential clients? Figuring out the key motivations behind your website will help you later on, since you’ll be able to identify key website features that’ll help you achieve your goals.
  1. Who is the target audience?After establishing why you’re building a business website, start thinking about who you want to visit your website. Identify your audience’s age range, gender, location, interests, and lifestylefirst. From there, you can work out what their unique needs might be and how your business website can bring value to them.
  1. What will your branding look like?Your website’s looks are essential to its success. To stand out from the crowd, make sure your brand identity is eye-catching, memorable, and represents your business well. Logos, fonts, color schemes, and tone of voice are important aspects to cover. Altogether, they should accurately represent your brand’s personality and give website visitors a clear idea of what you stand for.

Need some ideas? Be inspired by these 7 brand identity examples.

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1. Choose Your Domain Name

Your domain name is how people will find your business website online, so make it count. Since it’s one of the first things people see, ensure that it’s clear, catchy, and memorable (just like our own domain, “websitebuilderexpert.com”).

But how do you get a domain? Well, some website builders let you access a free domain for your first year. For instance, Wix’s paid plans include a free domain for 1 year, letting you choose from suffixes like “.com” or “.net”.

However, at renewal, you’ll need to pay an annual fee ranging from $20-$70to keep your domain running. This gives you two options: you could either stick with your website builder and pay the annual fee, or switch to a domain name registrar for more choice.

Domain name registrars are great if you’re looking for flexible pricing options. I recommend Domain.com, since it has a large number of domain suffixes to choose from.

Domain.com had some unique domain suffixes I hadn’t seen anywhere else, like “.ai”. If you need a specific domain ending for your business, you’ll find it there. Source: Website Builder Expert

As a general rule of thumb, I suggest opting for a “.com” suffix if it’s available. This is because it’s the most recognisable and professional domain ending. If you think of one of the biggest brands in the world, it’s likely that their website ends with “.com”. If you’re using Domain.com, this suffix costs $11.99 for the first year and rises to $21.99 per year at renewal.

How Do I Come Up With a Good Domain Name?

Struggling to choose a domain name? Here are three key tips to help you out:

  1. Is it short?Effective domain names are between 6-14 characters long. Names that are too long are trickier for users to type down, making it difficult to access your website.
  2. Does it make sense?Your domain should have a logical connection to your website. For instance, “booking.com” tells you exactly what the website is for (holiday bookings).
  3. Are there unnecessary characters?Avoid using numbers or hyphens since this can make your domain look messy.

If you already have a business name, it’s best practice to make it your domain name too (if it’s available). This is so pre-existing customers who are already familiar with your brand can easily access your website. For instance, if your business name is “best domains”, you could easily convert that into “bestdomains.com” or “bestdomains.org.”

2. Create a Business Email Address

Though you don’t need a business email address to set up your website, it will help you establish a professional presence online and leave website visitors with an easy way to contact you. Conveniently, business emails are easy to create, with a number of free and paid options available.

For best results, I recommend Google Workspace. Though it’s no longer free to use, you can create your own professional email from as little as $6 per month (billed annually),while its 14-day free trialwill help you try before you buy.

If you get an email with Google Workspace, you’ll also receive additional features depending on your plan. When looking at the plans available, I thought that the video meetings feature was great for businesses who hold regular meetings, online conferences, or webinars. Source: Website Builder Expert

Want a professional email without spending a penny? Read our guide to getting afree business email.

What Does a Good Business Email Look Like?

The best business email addresses end with the name of your business. In fact, you can have multiple email addresses for different areas of your business, so long as they end the same way:

Each of these emails clearly indicate what they’re used for, also ending with the name of the business. I know that I could contact “[email protected]”to receive information on a specific query and that it’ll be sent to the correct company.

Make sure any business email addresses are easily discoverable from your website, newsletters, and social media pages. This is so customers know how to contact you!

3. Identify the Right Website Builder for You

Now for the serious part: choosing the right website builder for your business. Since there’s so much choice, I’ve decided to highlight only two website builders that we found were excellent solutions for small businesses during our research and testing. Both Wix and Shopify are powerful platforms that make it easy to set up without any technical experience.

The Best Small Business Website Builders

  1. Shopify – For setting up an ecommerce store
  2. Wix – For brilliant features for your business

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Shopify Summary

Our top-rated website builder for small businesses, Shopify is best for ecommerce stores that are scaling up or have a large inventory already. It comes with a host of powerful sales features, ranging from over 100 payment gateways to substantial discounts on merchant shipping costs.

I was impressed by the huge amount of sales features on Shopify. I could access them all from my dashboard, including Shopify Payments, the platform’s all-in-one payments solution. Source: Website Builder Expert

Whether you’re selling gym wear or pet accessories, Shopify’s huge list of sales features are adaptable to your needs. You can use Shopify Magic to generate product descriptions, or set up international shipping across different markets if you’re selling overseas.

Wix Summary

Just behind Shopify comes Wix, a popular website builder that we scored highly for its impressive website features that span bookings, ecommerce, and marketing.If you want a website builder that will provide you with the tools necessary to get set up and start growing your business online, this is the builder to go for.

Notable features include Wix’s AI tools, in particular, Wix ADI. This AI website builder generates a unique design based on your responses to specific prompts, such as “what are you building a website for?” Since it addresses your key needs, you’ll end up with a professional website that’s a suitable fit for your business.

Based on my unique needs, Wix ADI created an ideal website for my business. It came with a professional theme, a section to book meetings from, and a section to showcase client testimonials. Source: Website Builder Expert

Which Pricing Plan Is Best for Me?

Once you’ve found a website builder you’re interested in, you need to look at the pricing plans available and see which one is best for you. To give you an idea of the kinds of plans on the market, we’ve broken down the costs for Shopify and Wix.

Shopify’s three main plans range between $29-$299 per month (billed annually). They all come with powerful sales features, such as point of sale to integrate in-person sales with your store, analytics to track your store’s progress with, and the ability to sell unlimited products.

Though Shopify’s plans seem expensive at first, the powerful sales features – such as substantial shipping discounts on your postage costs – do make up for it. If you have a store you’d love to scale online, this is the way to do it. Source: Website Builder Expert

To test out Shopify’s features, you only have a 3-day free trial. However, you can also access your first month for $1 – an inexpensive way to give the platform a spin!

For smaller businesses, I recommend the Basic plan priced at $29 per month (billed annually).You’ll still receive powerful sales features, while it’s also a brilliant starting point for new businesses who anticipate growth further down the road. For instance, you’ll have access to 3 international markets, helping you dip your toes into selling overseas.

As your business expands, you could switch to the Shopify plan at $79 per month (billed annually). On this plan, you’ll receive upgraded features such as increased discounts on your shipping costs, alongside the ability to add additional accounts for your staff members.

In contrast, Wix’s premium plans, which range from $17-$159 per month (billed annually), are all suitable options for creating your business website. However, I would recommend the Core plan for a great balance between affordability and the quality of features. 

Costing $29 per month (billed annually), on this plan you’ll unlock website analytics, 50GB storage space, the ability for website visitors to create accounts, and a site chat that prospects can use to message you.

I was drawn to the Core plan because of the upgraded marketing features. For instance, you can send out ten lead capture forms instead of four. This means you have more chances to impress customers with interactive quizzes or surveys. Source: Website Builder Expert

4. Choose a Business Website Template

It takesonly 50 milliseconds for visitors to form an opinion on your website. If your design is messy or littered with pop-ups, people are more likely to leave. Fortunately, most website builders come with numerous templates to choose from that are both practical and stylish.

As soon as a visitor enters your website, your business branding should be as clear as day. Make sure that your unique tone of voice, font style, color schemes, and imagery are consistent across your website.

To show you just what you could achieve, below are some examples of eye-catching business website designs from Wix and Shopify users, and why they work so well:

  • Brand: Floof Cotton Candy
  • Website Builder: Shopify
  • What I loved: I was immediately hit by Floof’s playful color scheme after opening their landing page, giving me a clear impression of what they sell. The varying shades of pink not only pack a punch, but also allude to the brand’s pastel-colored cotton candy cake.

  • Brand: Generation She
  • Website Builder: Wix
  • What I loved: Generation She, a business connecting Gen Z women with tech roles, is an inspiring website to navigate. I was immediately drawn to the empowering tagline and bold imagery that made me want to find out more about what the business stands for and how it works. As you scroll down the homepage, you’ll also come across photos of women business owners and a link to their podcast – all very clickable!

  • Brand: Adored Vintage
  • Website Builder: Shopify
  • What I loved: This vintage clothing website pairs a muted color scheme with minimalist fonts and rich imagery to achieve an old-timey feel. I liked that I could dive straight into their clothing catalog from the homepage, while the professional photos grabbed my attention and inspired me to keep looking for the perfect dress.

  • Brand: Dopple Press
  • Website Builder: Wix
  • What I loved: This photographic printing studio has a clear brand identity. I was immediately drawn to the quirky illustrations and playful fonts, which gave me a positive first impression of the business. Though the website’s design is unconventional, it didn’t affect the page’s functionality since I could still navigate the landing page without any issues.

Need more design ideas? Head to ourhow to design a website page!

Business Template Features To Look For

It’s not all about looks. Your template should also be equipped with key features that will enhance the user experience:

  • Contact forms – These make it easy for prospects to get in touch with you. You could add a form to your landing page, “Contact Us” page, or both.
  • Testimonials– Customer reviews add social proof to your website. You could feature testimonials from previous customers, or let website visitors add their own reviews. This is especially useful if you’re selling a product or service, since a positive review can be the difference between someone buying an item or leaving it in their cart.
  • Call to action buttons – When a visitor browses your website, what’s the main thing you want them to do? Is it to sign up to your newsletter? Or purchase a product? Whatever it is, you can use eye-catching CTA buttons to inspire visitors to take the actions you want them to.
  • Search bar– Visitors may come onto your business page to look for something specific, so you can give them a helping hand by adding a search bar to your website.
  • Navigation bar – If you have multiple pages on your business website, you need to help visitors get from point A to point B. That’s where a navigation bar comes in handy. Whether you opt for a horizontal or dropdown navigation bar, it should enhance the user experience by keeping website navigation simple.

With Wix, I could add a contact form to my business website in one click. The form came in a variety of styles that were adapted to my site’s look, making it easy to keep my branding consistent across all pages. Source: Website Builder Expert

5. Fill Your Website With Relevant Content

Once you’ve set the foundation of your website – your template – you can start filling it with useful business content. This includes going through your website and replacing the placeholder content that the website builder has added with your own. But what needs to be included?

First of all, you may want to add different pages to your website. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

  • “About Us” page – To build trust with potential customers, you need an “About Us” page. Use it to let visitors know more about your business, its goals, and most importantly, the person or team behind the brand. This is your chance to reach out to potential customers, so make sure your words count.
  • “Contact Us” page – If a website visitor is inspired to reach out, they’ll no doubt head to your “Contact Us” page. On this page, you should include key ways for prospects to get in touch with you, such as your email address, physical address, phone number, external social media accounts, and even a contact form for specific enquiries.
  • FAQ page– This page should be filled with valuable information for your audience, providing them with quick answers to commonly asked questions. When filling in this page, put yourself in the shoes of your target audience. What will they need guidance on?
  • Products page– Opening an ecommerce site? If that’s a yes, then you need a dedicated products page. On this page, you could list featured products, or your entire inventory that users can filter via variants like “colors” or “sizes” or specific categories like “shoes” or “bags.”
  • Services page– If you’re offering services, you’ll need a page listing exactly what you offer. For instance, a beauty salon owner may want to list the services they provide (french manicures, blow outs, etc) alongside a detailed description and prices. You could also install your bookings functionality on this page, letting visitors book their next appointment once they’ve scanned through each service.
  • Bookings page– Whether you’re a beauty professional offering treatments or a financial expert offering consultations, a bookings page will be the hub for all things appointments. On this page, you can integrate your website builder’s booking tool to get started. Wix has a built-in booking tool that’s accessible on the Core plan and above, while Shopify’s app store has free and paid booking integrations to install on your website.

Since Shopify is a dedicated ecommerce platform, all of its templates come with a professional products page. I could immediately hop onto the editor and start tweaking its design. Source: Website Builder Expert

6. Integrate The Key Website Features You Need

When creating a business website, you also need to add additional functionality to your page. Some platforms, such as Shopify, come with an app market where you can install apps onto your website. They cover a variety of functionalities, ranging from social media integrations and testimonials to live chat bots or Google maps.

For instance, there are thousands of Shopify apps to choose from. When setting up my test store, I could use filters to browse through Shopify’s selection and find appropriate apps for my store. Though many apps required payments to use, some came with free trials and free plans. Because of these varying prices, you can find apps that fulfill your business’ needs and are still suitable for your budget.

Shopify apps took a few clicks to install. When adding Trust Badges Bear to my test store, all I had to do was click install, and then I was redirected to this new section on my dashboard. From there, I could adjust the settings as I pleased. Source: Website Builder Expert

On the other hand, website builders can also come with a large number of built-in features. Wix is a brilliant example of this. Though Wix has its own app store, it also offers numerous in-built tools your business can take advantage of. Here are three that could be useful for your business:

  1. Wix Hotels – Announced in Wix’s April Review, this hospitality solution lets hotel businesses easily manage their services in one place. You can accept reservations and payments, manage rooms, and connect your business with websites like Booking.com.
  2. Wix Restaurants– In the restaurant industry? If so, you can use Wix Restaurants to create an appropriate website for your business. This feature comes with professional menus to showcase your dishes and beverages, and the ability to take and manage orders online.
  3. Wix Bookings – Be it group sessions, classes, or intro calls, you can use Wix Bookings to set up appointments through your business website. You can also accept payments from clients, send out email or SMS reminders to attendees, and update your schedule via your booking calendar.

With Wix Bookings, I could set up my own calendar so clients can see when my services are held and when I’m out of office. With this tool keeping everything organized, it would be easier for business owners to spend time on other areas of the business. Source: Website Builder Expert

What About Marketing Features?

When looking at website features, I encourage you to check out marketing tools too. From email marketing to social media integration, these tools will help you grow your online presence and introduce your business to new audiences online. These are the key marketing features to look out for:

1. Social media marketing – Since platforms like TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram are home to over one billion monthly active users, you need to grow your business on social media too and tap into this huge user base.

Both Wix and Shopify make it easy to connect your business website with social media. For instance, Wix lets you create and share content on other social platforms like Facebook, and add links to your social media platforms on your website through social bars. These social bars feature social media icons that link out to your other pages.

Meanwhile, Shopify is well known for its multichannel selling opportunities. You can connect your store with TikTok and sell your products there, or access its Starter plan – priced at $5 per month (billed annually) –  and sell on social media accounts without the need for a storefront.

2. Email marketing– According to our email marketing stats, 99% of users check their inboxes every day! Make sure your business appears in your customers’ inboxes by investing in email marketing. Both Shopify and Wix come with powerful email marketing tools.To get you started, you’ll find a variety of templates and customization options that help you create emails designed to impress.

Depending on your business, you could send out company updates, product updates, news on special events or webinars, special discounts codes, or intel on industry-related news stories.

3. Search engine optimization –an effective SEO strategy will ensure that your business website is visible on search engines.

When a user searches up a keyword or query that’s related to your business, you’ll want your website to appear in the search results. For example, if you’re a pet grooming business, you could target the keywords “pet groomer” or “mobile pet grooming” and see if you appear in Google.

If you’re new to SEO, there are free online tools that can help. For instance, I recommend downloading Keyword Surfer, a free Chrome extension that will assist you in finding the right keywords to target. It not only shows you relevant keywords for a search, but it also shows you how many times each keyword is searched for every month.

Need an intro to SEO? Consult ourSEO basics article. 

7. Optimize, Test, and Publish Your Website

You may be dying to publish your business website, but there are still two crucial things to do before going live: optimizing and testing out your website. The former step will ensure your business page is set up for search engines, while the latter will guarantee that your website works and provides visitors with a positive user experience.

Thankfully, these key steps aren’t as intimidating as you might think. When it comes to optimization, I recommend spending some time adding your chosen keywords into your website copy, making sure yourwebsite load times are speedy, and seeing if your page is mobile-friendly.All of these factors influence your website’s ranking on search engines, so make sure it’s all running smoothly.

Once you’ve optimized your site, you can then conduct your final tests. You need to test your website thoroughly and ensure that there are no glaring errors. As a starting point, look out for these common issues:

  • Broken links – Ensure that your website links work, especially if you have important call to action buttons placed throughout your page. For instance, you wouldn’t want to miss out on a sale because a customer clicked on a “Buy Now” button that led to a “404 Error” page.
  • Missing images – No one wants to see blank spaces where a vibrant image should have been. Go through each page of your website and make sure that all of your photos load fully. If they don’t, you may need to double check the media’s origin or optimize your photos to a lower file size.

Completed all of these checks? If that’s the case, go ahead and publish your website – congratulations!

How We Tested Business Website Builders

The findings in this article are supported by our in-house website builder research, which compiles over 200 hours of data collection. These findings were categorized into six key criteria, reflecting what users need most in a website builder. They are weighted as follows:

  1. Website Features (30%)
  2. Design Functionality (25%)
  3. User Experience (17%)
  4. Help & Support (10%)
  5. Value for Money (10%)
  6. Customer Score (8%)

We took these key criteria into account when choosing which website builders to feature in this article. For instance, website features are most important for readers, so we made sure to include a website builder with the best features on the market: Wix.

How To Build a Business Website: Summary

Well done for making it this far! You now know how to approach the process of creating a business website in seven easy steps.

Remember, the work doesn’t stop once you’ve published your website. You need to keep monitoring all aspects of your page, from site visitors to SEO performance, and make sure your website is succeeding online. To do so, I recommend connecting your website with Google Analytics, because it comes with advanced tracking tools that can tell you more about your website visitors and their behavior.

Keen to discover other website builders on the market?Get stuck into our guide to the best website builders and find the right fit for your business website today.

,Building Websites

Categories
Website Builders

Cheapest Website Builders: Get Online for Under $15

Hunting for a bargain? Don’t want to break the bank to get online? You’ll want to choose a cheap website builder to save money, but this doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice quality for price.Hostinger is the cheapest website builder, with its plans starting from just $2.99 per month.

The Cheapest Website Builders of 2024

  1. Hostinger ($2.99) – Best for AI fans
  2. Shopify ($5 Shopify Starter) – Best for online stores
  3. Pixpa ($8) – Best for portfolios
  4. GoDaddy ($9.99) – Best for beginners
  5. Squarespace ($14.40 with code WBE10) – Best for creatives

A lot of these lower prices are introductory deals, so make a note of renewal fees before subscribing to a plan to make sure you’re not caught off guard by the bill.

In this guide, I’ll walk you through each of our top-rated cheap website builders and share my recommendations. But, before I dive in, you can review the builders side-by-side in the comparison table below:

Swipe right to see more
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Hostinger

Shopify

Pixpa

GoDaddy

Squarespace
Overall Rating
4.3
Overall Rating
4.4
Overall Rating
3.5
Overall Rating
4.3
Overall Rating
4.6
Cheapest plan

$11.99

79% off in early Black Friday sale: $2.49 + 3 months free (for 48-months)
Cheapest plan

$5 Shopify Starter plan
Cheapest plan

$8 per month
Cheapest plan

$9.99
Cheapest plan

$16

$14.40 with code “WBE10”
Free plan or free trial

30-day free trial
Free plan or free trial

3-day free trial
Free plan or free trial

15-day free trial
Free plan or free trial

Free plan
Free plan or free trial

14-day free trial
Number of templates

150+
Number of templates

150+
Number of templates

150+
Number of templates

200+
Number of templates

150+
View Hostinger View Shopify Visit Pixpa View GoDaddy View Squarespace

Why you can trust us

At Website Builder Expert, our unbiased reviews, guides, and comparisons are backed up by solid research, data, and hands-on testing. Our team conducted
 over 200 hours of research to bring you our independent recommendations of the top website builders for creating your own site.

You can read more about our unique research methodology here.

1. Hostinger: $2.99 per month

Best for AI fans

Hostinger pricing: $2.99 to $3.99 per month, billed annually

Read our Hostinger website builder review to find out more

Hostinger’s website builder plans range from $2.99 to $3.99 per month (billed annually). To unlock Hostinger’s full suite of AI tools and ecommerce features, you’ll need the $3.99 Business Website Builder plan.

However, the majority of core website features, such as a free domain name and marketing integrations, come with the cheaper plan.

I used Hostinger’s AI tools, such as its AI Section Creator, to help me build my site. Source: Website Builder Expert

Is Hostinger Good Value for Money?

Hostinger performed well in our value for money research. Still, it’snot as cost-effective as GoDaddy or Squarespace which offer a better quantity and quality of features for their price points. Hostinger is let down by its tunnel vision on AI tools, such as its AI Heatmap to help you track user engagement and AI Blog Generator to support content creation. These are incredibly useful, especially for beginners, but it means other fundamental features, such as email marketing, have been neglected.

Additionally,Hostinger’s cheap introductory deals don’t last forever. The initial $2.99 per month on the Premium plan jumps up to $9.99 per month when it’s time to renew. Still, that introductory price is worth it, since Hostinger is considerably cheaper than other builders, costing just $2.99 per month (billed annually).GoDaddy’s cheapest plan is more than double the price of Hostinger!

Hostinger doesn’t offer a free plan, but there is a 30-day money-back guarantee and you can get up to threemonths for freeif you choose the 48 month subscription.

Plus, you can test the AI website builder for yourself with Hostinger’s30-day free trial.

Hostinger is a fantastic option if you’re looking to build a website on a budget! Its plans are so affordable compared to other builders, but don’t compromise on great features and Hostinger will give you the freedom to create a great-looking website.

Ollie Simpson
Research Executive

Who Do I Recommend Hostinger For?

️ Website building beginners– Not only is Hostinger the cheapest website builder, but its drag-and-drop editor and AI tools make it easy to set up a website.

Who Should Avoid Hostinger?

Businesses needing advanced websites – Hostinger’s AI tools might be advanced, but its other features do fall behind. For one, there’s no app store or email marketing tools. I recommended Squarespace or Shopify instead to access better features.

2. Shopify: $5 Shopify Starter plan

Best for online stores

Shopify pricing: $5 (with Shopify Starter) to $299 per month, billed annually

Read our Shopify review to find out more

Shopify’s pricing ranges from $29 to $299 per month (billed annually). Now, these might seem expensive, especially when compared to cheaper options like Hostinger, but you don’t have to spend this immediately. Luckily, the $5 per month Shopify Starter plan exists!

If you’re simply interested in selling via social media platforms – and don’t need to build an entire online store – then the$5 per month Shopify Starter plan is an affordable entry point to our top-rated ecommerce website builder. The Shopify Starter plan offers:

  • Social selling on platforms like Instagram and WhatsApp through product links
  • A Linkpop page to drive customers to products
  • Basic inventory management tools
  • Analytics to monitor selling
  • Customer support from Shopify

When you’re ready, you can upgrade to one of Shopify’s fully-fledged commerce plans – you’ll need this if you want advanced selling features like abandoned cart recovery and greater customization options to showcase your brand. While the full website builder plans start from $29 per month, you can get your first month for just $1.

Shopify’s onboarding asked me basic questions about my business to understand my website needs. Source: Website Builder Expert

Is Shopify Good Value for Money?

Shopify doesn’t perform well in our value for money testing – it’s the weakest option out of the five builders mentioned in this list due to its expensive prices and the fact that not everyone needs its suite of ecommerce features. If your business requires ecommerce functionality, Shopify is a top website builder and worth the cost, but there’s no need to splurge on a Shopify plan if you’re not looking to build an online store.

Given the high costs, Shopify does give you access to powerful ecommerce features from its cheapest plan. The same can’t be said for other website builders, like GoDaddy or Squarespace.

Who Do I Recommend Shopify For?

️ Ecommerce businesses and entrepreneurs – Shopify’s focus on selling products, a functionality available across all Shopify plans, makes it the ideal website builder for setting up an online store.

Who Should Avoid Shopify?

Businesses not selling online– Because Shopify is a dedicated ecommerce platform, businesses that aren’t looking to sell online won’t need this builder, especially with its high price points in the later plans!

Keep reading to see our Q&A with a real Shopify business:

Peter Martinzez
Co-Founder & Fashion Stylist

Leather Skin Shop is a thriving online leather fashion brand with a vast variety of apparel and accessories for men and women made from the highest quality real leather. Besides their ready-to-wear collections, they offer impeccable customization services for leatherwear.

Choosing the right Shopify plan was crucial […] we carefully evaluated features and pricing to find a plan that perfectly fit our needs and growth projections.

Q&A

1. What did you initially think about Shopify’s pricing, and how did you decide that it was a good fit for your business?

Initially, Shopify’s pricing structure felt very reasonable, especially considering the features offered. We started with the Basic Shopify plan, which was perfect for launching
our online leatherwear store
. We could showcase as many products as we wanted, track our inventory across multiple locations, and still have good checkout capacity on big sales events. 

As our sales grew, upgrading to the Advanced plan provided the additional features we needed to manage inventory and discounts more effectively. The feature of localized selling with custom markets with the advanced plan was a huge plus, allowing us to scale our business growth.

2. Which Shopify features do you think are great value for money?

Several Shopify features have been immensely helpful for us. The built-in abandoned cart recovery has been fantastic for capturing missed sales, and the discount code functionality allows us to run targeted promotions that resonate with our customer base. We also find the ease of adding high-quality product photos and descriptions to be invaluable. It allows us to showcase the rich textures and craftsmanship of our leather goods beautifully.

Customizing our selected Shopify theme, Turbo!, to align with our store’s unique style and objectives proved to be an invaluable investment. The ability to tailor every aspect to our brand’s vision not only justified the cost but also enhanced the overall shopping journey for our customers, ensuring a seamless and delightful experience from start to finish.

3. Do you have any budgeting tips when using Shopify?

Here are a couple of budgeting tips we’ve learned along the way:

We embraced a “start small, grow big” mentality. We began with a modest budget, focusing on core functionalities rather than fancy extras. This allowed us to test the waters and refine our approach before scaling up our spending alongside our business growth.

Choosing the right Shopify plan was crucial. We didn’t get swept up in the most expensive option.  Instead, we carefully evaluated features and pricing to find a plan that perfectly fit our needs and growth projections. This ensured we maximized the value we received from Shopify’s platform.

Shopify offers a treasure trove of free apps and tools. We took full advantage of them to enhance our store’s functionality without breaking the bank. We only invested in premium apps when they addressed a specific need that couldn’t be met with a free alternative.

Keeping a watchful eye on inventory costs has been essential. We’ve implemented strategies to avoid both overstocking and understocking. This helps us minimize carrying costs and ensure we always have the right products in stock to meet customer demand.

Visit Leather Skin Shop here

3. Pixpa: $8 per month

Best for portfolios

Pixpa pricing: $8 to $25 per month, billed annually

Pixpa’s plans range from $8 to $25 per month. But, if you’re happy to commit to a two-year subscription, you can get Pixpa’s cheapest plan for just $3 per month!

The cheapest website builder plan, Basic, offers the following features:

  • 10 website pages
  • Up to 200 images
  • Password-protected pages
  • A free SSL certificate
  • SEO tools
  • Social media integration
  • Ecommerce functionality

I was impressed that you can sell online with Pixpa’s cheapest plan, especially since this costs less than $10. For example, with GoDaddy, ecommerce tools will set you back $20.99 per month.

I could access basic SEO settings on Pixpa’s cheapest plan, but I needed to upgrade if I wanted advanced tools, such as 301 redirects. Source: Website Builder Expert

Is Pixpa Good Value for Money?

Pixpa’s Basic plan does offer a lot of the standard features you’d expect from a website builder, such as SEO, which is good considering the low price point. But you’ll need to upgrade to at least the Creator plan ($15/mo) for unlimited website pages and images, blogging functionality, a free domain name, advanced SEO like 301 redirects, and additional selling tools, such as coupons. For advanced features like abandoned cart recovery, you’ll have to sign up for the Advanced plan, which costs $25 per month (billed annually).

To get the most out of your money,I recommend choosing the Professional plansince this unlocks almost every feature – this will cost you just $10 per month (billed annually) since you can get 50% off with a yearly subscription.

Who Do I Recommend Pixpa For?

️ Creative websites – Pixpa offers a lot of visual and design-focused elements when building a website, making it a decent option for portfolios and artist websites.

Who Should Avoid Pixpa?

Scaling online stores– Pixpa does have ecommerce functionality on the Basic plan and above, but its sales features pale in comparison to other platforms on the market, like Shopify. Its analytics and accounting tools are limited, and there are few ways to integrate your store with social media accounts.

4. GoDaddy: $9.99 per month

Best for beginners

GoDaddy pricing: $9.99 to $20.99 per month, billed annually

Read our GoDaddy review to find out more

GoDaddy offers three plans, ranging from $9.99 to $20.99 per month (billed annually). Not only is GoDaddy incredibly cheap for a website builder, but it’s also one of the best options if you’re looking to get online quickly – I got my test website up and running in less than 30 seconds.

GoDaddy’s cheapest plan, Basic, includes:

  • Free SSL certificates
  • Website analytics to track performance
  • GoDaddy Payments integration
  • Marketing tools, such as business listing management and email automation

You’ll need to upgrade to the $14.99 per month Premium plan to offer appointments online orchoose the $20.99 per month Commerce plan to start selling online. But, if you’d like to test things out before spending a cent, you can try out GoDaddy’s editor and features with its free plan.

However, GoDaddy’s free plan is a little limited. It includes basic features, such as email marketing and website security, but your website will have a GoDaddy banner ad at the top of the page.

GoDaddy made the onboarding process quick and easy, asking me questions about what I wanted on my site. Source: Website Builder Expert

Is GoDaddy Good Value for Money?

GoDaddy’s plans are very affordable, and it recently dropped the price of its Basic plan from $10.99 to $9.99 per month (billed annually). This cements its position as the best value for money builderon this list! You get a decent amount of features for the price point, and its ecommerce plan is a cheaper alternative to builders like Wix or Squarespace.

Plus, GoDaddy offers afree plan which you can stay on for as long as you’d like. However, I’d recommend upgrading to remove ads and unlock additional features, such as ecommerce.

Who Do I Recommend GoDaddy For?

️ Individuals looking to get online quickly – GoDaddy’s fast onboarding process and beginner-friendly editor mean you can get a website up and running within a day.

️ Informational websites – GoDaddy doesn’t have much flair or pizzazz, but its straightforward templates and simple designs make it a good option for content-heavy sites.

Who Should Avoid GoDaddy?

Creative businesses – Though GoDaddy’s editor is great for setting up quickly, its creative capabilities are lacking. For sophisticated designs, I recommend a builder like Squarespace instead because its editor gives you better creative control over your website’s design.

5. Squarespace: $14.40 per month with our code “WBE10”

Best for creatives

Squarespace pricing: $16 to $52 per month, billed annually

Read our Squarespace review to find out more

Squarespace is one of the more expensive website builders on this list, but you get a lot of bang for your buck. Squarespace’s four plans range from $16 per month to $52 per month (billed annually) – you can get the cheapest plan for just $14.40 if you use our code “WBE10” at checkout.

Squarespace’s cheapest plan, Personal, includes:

  • Free custom domain
  • Unlimited bandwidth
  • SEO features
  • Free SSL security
  • Email marketing tools

This is a good starting point, butyou’ll need to upgrade to the Business, Commerce Basic, or Commerce Advanced plans to sell products or services online.

I used Squarespace’s newly improved Blueprint AI to build my website. Source: Website Builder Expert

Is Squarespace Good Value for Money?

If you’re looking for a cheap website builder,Squarespace is great value for money, sitting just behind GoDaddy in our research. On paper, this might seem surprising considering its cheapest plan is more expensive than Hostinger or Pixpa. But, you get a lot for your money with Squarespace – the majority of features, besides ecommerce, are available on the cheapest Personal plan.

Plus, Squarespace’s pricing doesn’t leap up when upgrading. Despite pricing increases in April, Squarespace’s most expensive plan only costs $52, whereas Shopify’s top plan costs $299 per month (billed annually).

Who Do I Recommend Squarespace For?

️ Beginner builders – Squarespace is the easiest website builder to use, offering stylish templates and an intuitive editor to help you create a beautiful website.

️ Design-focused websites – Squarespace is well known for its stunning templates, so I highly recommend the builder for creatives who need affordable website design, especially for artist websites and musician websites.

️ Businesses offering services – If you need to offer appointments or take bookings, Squarespace’s Acuity Scheduling tool makes this a smooth experience for both customers and business owners.

Who Should Avoid Squarespace?

Multilingual websites –Squarespace websites are difficult to optimize for overseas use, since you need to manually translate the text on each page. Additionally, you can only sell products in one currency at a time. This is a considerable limitation if you want to expand your store and sell abroad.

Read the Q&A below to discover an insightful first-hand experience with Squarespace:

Lauren Galvez
SEO Consultant

Lauren Galvez is an SEO marketing consultant for small businesses and she runs her business from her website built on Squarespace. She’s been a Squarespace fan for the last 5 years having tried many popular CMSs (Wix, Weebly, Duda, WordPress, and Shopify).

Take advantage of Squarespace’s 14-day free trial and see how you like using their platform.

Q&A

1. What appealed to you the most about Squarespace’s pricing?

I found Squarespace’s pricing to be competitive with other popular hosted CMSs and it was easy to get started with the 14-day free trial. It’s also not hard to find Certified Squarespace users who advertise their 20% discount offer for your first year.

2. Which Squarespace features do you think are great value for money?

My favorite things about Squarespace are its ease of use and aesthetic design elements. Squarespace offers just enough customizability without overcomplicating the web design process. As someone who has analysis paralysis, this was just what I needed to get up a beautiful and professional website quickly. I enjoy being on the Squarespace platform because of its user-friendliness and this is one less potential headache for all that comes with managing a business.

3. Do you have any budgeting tips for other businesses who are considering using Squarespace?

Take advantage of Squarespace’s 14-day free trial and see how you like using their platform. Experience what it will be like designing or making edits to your website by trying the different design blocks. Explore Squarespace’s settings and business integrations to ensure it’ll have everything you need to manage your unique business. Compare your experience to the free trials with other website builders. If you commit to using Squarespace, find a discount for your first year and consider paying annually for more savings.

Check out Lauren’s website here

How To Choose a Cheap Website Builder

Thinking about building a website? A cheap website builder is a great place to start since you won’t break the bank as you figure things out.

You’ll want to take alook at the website builder’s pricing and plans. Is there an affordable option that suits your needs? Is there a free trial or plan to test things out first? You should also check out the website builder’s scalability – is there a steep price increase between plans or can you upgrade steadily?

Irecommend thinking about your website’s “must-haves”. For example, if you want to create an online store, you’ll need a plan that lets you accept payments. Thinking about writing content? Then your plan should include blogging tools. Shop around to find the right fit for your needs, or consider upgrading to a higher plan if you need access to certain features.

You’ll also want toassess which website builder suits your style of learning and skill level. Is the website builder easy to use? Are there templates that you like? Can you design the website you want to create with the builder’s editor? Is there support available if you need a helping hand?

These are all important areas to consider when choosing a website builder, cheap or not.

In the table below, you can see how these five cheap website builders compare to one another when it comes to value for money and the website features they offer:

Our in-house research team examined the value for money of each website builder and the quality and quantity of website features available. Source: Website Builder Expert

Should You Choose a Free Plan?

Of the five builders in this list, GoDaddy offers a free plan. A free plan will save you more money than a cheap plan, but you’ll miss out on a lot of features. Depending on the website builder, this could mean no ecommerce tools or SEO features. Usually, free plans come with ads that take attention away from the content on your site, and you won’t be able to connect a custom domain name until you upgrade.

For a more professional look and better backend management, I recommend opting for a paid plan as soon as possible. But you can take a look at our list of the best free website builders to see what’s out there.

How We Test Cheap Website Builders

We put every website builder through our rigorous testing process to create our data-backed recommendations. We want you, our readers, to have all of the information you need to make an informed decision when it comes to deciding what website builder to pick.

Our research is broken down into seven categories: website features, sales features, design functionality, help and support, user experience, customer score, and value for money.

To determine our list of the cheapest website builders, we’ve assessed the average pricing plans for each builder and reviewed thecheapest introductory deals on the market.

Cheapest Website Builders: Summary

Are you looking for an affordable way to get online? Or, maybe you think you’re paying too much with your current website builder and want to find a cheaper alternative? I’ve shared the cheapest introductory deals across five top website builders to help preserve your budget.

Hostinger is the cheapest website builder out there, starting from $2.99 per month with its Premium Website Builder plan. And, its very affordable $3.99 Business plan includes a suite of AI features and ecommerce functionality – because of its easy-to-use platform, I highly recommend Hostinger for beginners.

Just remember to keep an eye out for renewal prices and upgrade costs. The cheapest plan might only offer some of your website or business needs, but it can be a great place to start!

,Website Builders

Categories
News

Will WP Engine WordPress Users Need To Switch?

In case you missed it, the battle between WordPress and WP Engine continues to rage over the use of the open-source WordPress software.

As a result of the drama, it’s a tumultuous time for WP Engine users – but, should you go elsewhere or ride it out?

What’s Happened So Far Between WordPress and WP Engine?

Go to the top

If you use WP Engine, you’re likely already aware of the various moves by WordPress against WP Engine, but with so much back-and-forth it’s become hard to keep track.

The WP Engine vs WordPress feud truly began in September after Matt Mullenweg, the co-founder of WordPress and CEO of Automattic, criticized WP Engine at this year’s WordCamp US. Why, you ask? Mullenweg accused WP Engine of trademark infringement and not giving anything back to the free, open-source platform (despite this not being a legal requirement.)

Of course, this sparked outrage in the wider community and unrest between the two companies, including the banning of WP Engine users from WordPress resources and WP Engine filing a federal lawsuit against WordPress.

WP Engine has spoken out against Mullenweg’s “scorched earth campaign”. Source: Website Builder Expert

Automattic employees have even been paid to leavetheir jobs if they disagree with the direction of the company and Mullenweg’s decisions. At the same time, WP Engine employees have moved to jobs at Automattic – making the conflict blurry and messy.

The drama between WordPress and WP Engine has continued to escalate over the first few weeks of October. Should you be worried about your site?

The Future of WP Engine

Go to the top

If you use WP Engine for your WordPress site, will you need to switch or jump ship? Should you move away from WordPress altogether? Use a website builder?

At the start of the feud, when WordPress blocked WP Engine users, WordPress advised customers to reach out to WP Engine if they needed help – cutting them off entirely from WordPress’ resources (including themes, plug-ins, and updates) and support.

If you host your WordPress site through WP Engine, WP Engine continues to share information and regular updatesto ensure customers can operate their sites effectively.

While there’s no need to switch right now, it’s best to check out your options if you do decide to migrate from WP Engine to another hosting provider. However, I must warn you that this can be a frustrating and expensive process, depending on the size of your site.

I wouldn’t recommend migrating from WordPress to a website builder, due to the complexities of WordPress sites. Instead, review various migration options and WordPress-recommended hosting providers to find the right fit for your site.

In fact, WordPress recently made a blog post about deals and promotions for WP Engine customers looking to migrate. This includes an entire year for free if you choose to migrate to one of WordPress.com’s plans.

The legal case building between the two makes the future of WP Engine and WordPress uncertain. And, with the recent takeover of the ACF plugin, it’s likely sudden changes (directed by Mullenweg) will continue to happen, plunging the open-source community into further disarray.

For now, there’s no need to abandon WP Engine altogether – even if WordPress suggests using alternative hosting providers for your site. That said, I recommend keeping up-to-date on what’s happening between WordPress and WP Engine so you’re not caught off guard by any new developments.

,News

Categories
Building Online Stores

How To Sell Online in 2024: A Beginner’s Guide

So you want to know how to sell online? A lot of time and behind-the-scenes work goes into the process, and I’m here to walk you through it step-by-step, from choosing the right ecommerce website builder to promoting your products.

Whether you’ve already got products ready to sell and don’t know where to start, or you’re not even sure what to sell or where to sell online, this guide is for you.

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#1. Set Your Business Goals

Before you can start selling online, you need to set your business goals. Having a plan in place will prevent you from making impulse or rash decisions that could end up impacting your business.

Think about your long-term vision and aims when it comes to selling:

  • What are you trying to achieve with your business? It’s important to determine your site’s purpose and goals, whether you’re looking to sell a certain number of products each month, focus on building an engaged customer base, or generate brand awareness
  • Do you have a niche? If you’re looking to sell to a particular crowd (e.g. pet supplies to pet owners) then you should recognize where your business sits within your niche to help your website stand out
  • Who are you selling to? Figure out your target audience and understand the buying habits of your customers to help shape your business, products, and marketing strategy
  • What are your competitors doing in the market? Identify product or service gaps through market research and learn from your competitors – look at what works and what’s missing (this applies to their inventory, website, and marketing)

I recommend having all of these questions answered before you get started, but it’s important to be open to adapting as your business grows and evolves. You know your business and products better than anyone else, and you’ll come to understand your customers more once you get a few sales under your belt.

Developing clear business goals at the beginning will allow you to embed your mission throughout your website, like Nike. Source: Website Builder Expert

#2. Build Your Inventory

Of course, you need something to sell, so the next step is to build your inventory. What you sell can come in many shapes and forms, such as physical products, digital items, online courses, or services. Whether or not you’ve got products in mind, you must understand the demand and what already exists in the market.

You want your product to provide a solution or benefit a customer’s life in some way – and it’s a bonus if you can offer a superior or more affordable product than your competitors too!

If you’re struggling for ideas, you can find trending products to sell by using platforms like Google Trends or user-powered forums like Reddit.

I used Google Trends to check product interest over the last year. Source: Website Builder Expert

Product Pricing

Once you’ve sorted out your products, you can set your business margin. Take note of your production costs if you’re creating the products yourself or purchasing them elsewhere – outsourcing work and delivery fees all add up! You’ll subtract this production cost from the price you’re charging customers, and that’s your margin.

Whensetting your product prices, consider your margin and check competitor pricing for similar products. A high-profit margin means the production costs are much lower than what you’re selling your products for. However, you don’t want to scare away customers with extreme prices! Find a middle ground that works for both your business and customer base.

Product Descriptions

Another important element to consider is product descriptions. These are critical for search engines to help scan product pages and show relevant results to shoppers. They also help customers understand how the product can benefit them and why they should buy it.

What to include:

️ The benefits and features of each product so customers get all of the information while hearing how it could impact their lives in a positive way

️ Customer-led copy, meaning you write for themand speak to their needs and pain points

️ Social proof from other customers to build brand trust – you can easily add testimonials and reviews through your website builder

️ Your brand’s tone of voice should be present in your product descriptions for consistency

What to avoid:

Repetition and copied text, especially if you’re selling products from a manufacturer or wholesaler

Clichés or sales language – this can come across as fake or robotic, and customers value genuine interactions

Changing your tone or writing style between product descriptions – customers will be confused if one product description is serious while another is casual or silly

Incorrect information – don’t mislead your customers by selling a product that doesn’t match its product description

I used Shopify Magic to generate product descriptions for my store. Source: Website Builder Expert

#3. Create an Online Store

While you can sell across marketplaces or through social media platforms, I recommend using a website builder to sell online. Your website can be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week – building an online store gives you greater flexibility and more opportunities to sell products to customers.

Squarespace gave me the option to add a lot of different product types. Source: Website Builder Expert

The perk of selling online with a website builder is that the platform will come with important sales features and support, such as abandoned cart recovery, mobile optimization, marketing tools, and security. You can also personalize your site to suit your brand, rather than having a generic storefront created for you when using marketplaces like Etsy or Amazon.

From our recent round of testing, our top-rated ecommerce website builders for 2024 are:

Best Ecommerce Website Builders

  1. Shopify – Best for selling physical products
  2. Wix – Best for selling digital products
  3. Squarespace – Best for selling services
  4. GoDaddy – Best for selling locally

Shopify is the best ecommerce website builder overall, offering unparalleled sales features, such as customizable checkouts, and the ability to scale with your business. When testing Shopify myself, I found it a little difficult to design my website with its section-style editor, but it was straightforward to add products and manage the inventory backend.

I found Shopify’s section-style editor less intuitive to use than the drag-and-drop editors of Wix or Squarespace. Source: Website Builder Expert

If you’re looking for something more user-friendly, Squarespace is the easiest builder I’ve used. Its drag-and-drop editor and intuitive interface are great for building an online store. Plus, Squarespace is ideal if you’re looking to sell services and take bookings thanks to its Acuity Scheduling tool.

You can compare these titans of ecommerce in our table below, and click through to their review pages if you want a closer look at each builder:

Swipe right to see more
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Shopify

Wix

Squarespace

GoDaddy
Overall rating
4.8
Overall rating
4.8
Overall rating
4.7
Overall rating
4.2
Starting Price

$29
Starting Price

$29

$26.10 with code “TAKE10”
Starting Price

$23

$20.70 with code “WBE10”
Starting Price

$20.99
Free plan or free trial

3-day free trial, then 1 month for $1
Free plan or free trial

Free plan
Free plan or free trial

14-day free trial
Free plan or free trial

Free plan
Number of templates

200+
Number of templates

900+
Number of templates

150+
Number of templates

100+

See our Shopify review

See our Wix review

See our Squarespace review

See our GoDaddy Review

If you’re still not sure which website builder is right for you, take our quick quiz to get a personalized recommendation based on your business needs:

What type of website do you want to create?

Business (Including Online Store)
Portfolio
Informational
Blog

Find Your Builder

Setting Up Your Store: A Quick Guide

No matter which website builder you choose, you can start creating your online store by adding your products and building your website pages, such as a contact page. Make sure the customer journey is smooth from start to finish – this means optimizing your content and personalizing the experience to suit your customers’ needs.

While the exact way you set up your online store will vary depending on the website builder you use, the basic steps below will remain the same:

#1. Choose a domain name

  • We’ve thoroughly covered choosing a domain name, but some key things to remember are that it should be short, niche, and keep your target audience in mind.

#2. Pick a suitable template

  • There are certain criteria that should be prioritized for all ecommerce stores, such as maintaining user friendly navigation and an efficient checkout to encourage sales. But beyond that, you should look for templates that include additional website pages that would compliment your brand. For example, you may want a template with a strong blog layout if your customers would appreciate a personal touch or product updates. Or, if you’re selling something visual like artwork, you’ll need to find a template that has creative visual elements.

#3. Add your products

  • You’ll need to add your inventory to your store so that you can start selling. For each item, upload clear product photos, an accurate product description, pricing, and any other information that would be helpful to your buyer, like weight, materials, and care. It’s also important to think about how your customers will locate the items on your site, so create logical categories to organize your products.

#4. Customize your design

  • The stylistic tweaks you make should keep in mind your brand’s identity, tone of voice, and customers. For example, if you’re selling pet toys, you might choose a bright color palette that accentuates the playful nature of your products, whereas a more traditional ecommerce business, like an electrical goods store, would use white space and clear fonts.

Check out our guide to building an online store for an in-depth guide of what’s involved.

Can You Sell Online for Free?

Are you looking to limit your expenses? Selling online can result in many outgoing costs – creating or buying products, website and software fees, domain names, it all adds up. The good news is that you cansell online for free. Free ecommerce platforms like Square Online include ecommerce functionality with its free plan. However, the free plan imposes some limitations, such as ads on your website, and you can’t add a custom domain name, which isn’t ideal for a business.

Other builders, like Shopify or Squarespace, offer a free trial to try things out but you’ll need to pay for a premium plan to start selling.

#4. Establish Sales Channels

It’s good to get your products seen by as many people as possible. That means selling across multiple channels in addition to your website, such as online marketplaces like Etsy or eBay, and social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram.

Certain sales platforms favor different types of content, so you’ll need to research the platforms you’re selling on and adapt your content to fit. For instance, when growing your business on social media, visual platforms like Instagram and TikTok are suitable for both pictures and short, attention grabbing videos, whereas Etsy and Pinterest are designed for high quality images.

Similarly, algorithms change between marketplaces. Optimizing your listings for Amazon will involve Amazon SEO, which differs from the set of practices for selling on Facebook Marketplace. Familiarize yourself with the algorithms of the platforms you want to sell on to give your products the best chance of ranking well.

If you’ve already subscribed to a website builder, you won’t need to lose much time setting up additional accounts and listing products across platforms. Most builders, including Shopify, integrate seamlessly with other sales channels, allowing you to sync your inventory no matter where you’re selling.

Here are some tips to sell successfully on multiple platforms:

  • Stay consistent with your brand voice: while you should adapt your content style to fit each platform, your brand identity should always maintain consistency. This will make your brand memorable, recognisable, and trustworthy to potential customers who come across your online content.
  • Choose sales channels that are relevant for your audience: it’s no use putting your time and effort into nurturing a sales platform that your target audience won’t be using. Think of the age and personality of the customers you’re trying to attract; an embroidery business popular with elderly customers would be better suited to Etsy than TikTok Shop because of the age demographics for that app.
  • Research your competitors: keeping tabs on sites with a similar target audience to you will help you to understand which platforms and styles of content your audience will be most receptive to.
  • Focus on quality over quantity: to build a strong social presence, your posts need to be frequent and high quality. You won’t have the time to achieve this if you spread yourself too thin. If you’re just starting out or you have a small and busy team, it’s a good idea to focus your time on one or two sales platforms, and increase them as things become more manageable.
  • Utilize influencer marketing: influencers can help promote your products on social media channels by introducing them to their audience. Influencers can drive your sales dramatically when picked carefully, which is why it’s important to create a focused influencer marketing strategy.

While having a website or online store is essential in today’s world, I don’t recommend relying solely on one single channel. It’s always a good idea to meet your audience where they are – whether that’s Amazon or TikTok, you want to make it as easy as possible for a large number of people to engage with your business. Building a good presence across multiple channels is a great way to strengthen your brand, build recognition, and even boost sales, without relying purely on SEO for traffic. Integrating socials and marketplaces with your website can really help your marketing efforts, as long as you pick channels that your target audience are using.

Lucy Carney
Deputy Editor

#5. Accept Payments

To sell online, your website must be set up to accept payments so customers can shop with your business easily. Most website builders accept all major debit and credit cards and providers like Apple Pay or PayPal. Alternatively, you can use a built-in payment processor, such as Shopify Payments or Wix Payments, to authorize transactions.

If you activate your website builder’s payment gateway (if available), you’ll usually benefit from reduced or non-existent transaction fees. This is another useful way to save on costs when selling online.

I appreciated Wix’s guidance for selling online, offering support when setting up new payment methods. Source: Website Builder Expert

#6. Determine Shipping Methods

Sure, you have products to sell online, but how will customers receive their orders? Part of selling is thinking about the whole journey, from product creation to the customer’s experience of opening the product for the first time.

You’ll need to consider couriers, labeling, packaging, and regulations. For domestic packages, shipping products is a little easier and cheaper. Some website builders, like Wix, let you tweak your shipping options in each region – for example, you could offer customers free shipping or a rate by weight. Shopify also provides these features while committing to sustainability by offering carbon-neutral shipping through its Planet app.

If you’re selling internationally, there are a few additional steps and costs to cover when going through customs.

Offering a free shipping option, like House Plant Shop does, will encourage sales and provide choice. Source: Website Builder Expert

#7. Promote Your Products

It’s time to attract customers and promote your products – you can’t make sales if people don’t know your products exist! As we’ve already discussed, you should have a clear idea of what your target audience looks like and how they behave when shopping, so keep this in mind when marketing your business.

Wix gave me a personalized SEO checklist to help improve my online store. Source: Website Builder Expert

I recommend the following methods to help spread the word:

  • Social media– customers are already browsing, shopping, and engaging with content on social media, so it’s a good idea to create posts, share product links, and set up ads on these channels
  • Search engine optimization (SEO) – you should fully optimize your site for SEO purposes, but remember to keep your content aligned with what you’re selling to attract the right customers (e.g. don’t use random keywords!)
  • Email marketing – a good ecommerce email marketing strategy will help you deliver key messages to customers about sales, products, and store updates, or remind them about your brand with retargeting campaigns
  • Blogging – showcasing expertise in your niche and sharing product tutorials or updates can easily transform readers into customers, especially if you guide them to your store or product pages
  • Set up deals & promotions – sharing special discounts or offers is a great way to revive interest in your store, improve customer relationships, and encourage sales
  • Prep for the holidays – prepare your store and inventory for big holidays and shopping periods (such as Black Friday or Christmas) to catch eager-to-shop customers, through holiday marketing and seasonal deals

Converse promotes its newsletter by offering free shipping and birthday perks to those who sign up. Source: Website Builder Expert

#8. Online Store Maintenance

The work isn’t over when a customer completes their purchase. Not only should you regularly audit your online store to make meaningful improvements (such as updating the navigation to be more user-friendly), but you should also check in with your customers to hear about their buying experience.

If you’re selling online, customer feedback is important – good and bad. Gathering positive reviews and comments will inspire other customers to shop with your business. This can easily be achieved by asking customers for reviews with a survey or a nudge through email after a purchase has been made.

On the flip side, receiving constructive or negative reviews can also be extremely beneficial for your business – even if they’re not always the most fun to read. Knowing what customers dislikeabout your products can help shape futurewebsite updates, resulting in happier customers long-term.

I added a testimonial element to my Squarespace website which made it easy to show off great product reviews. Source: Website Builder Expert

How To Sell Online: Our Expert Tips

Our step-by-step guide has walked you through how to sell online, from determining your target audience and what products you want to sell, to setting up shipping methods and promoting your products to customers.

You can sell on a marketplace, like Amazon, or social media channels, but building an online store will give you full control over your storefront and products. Plus, ecommerce website builders make the process easy nowadays thanks to their beginner-friendly editors, powerful sales features, AI tools, and built-in marketing support.

,Building Online Stores

Categories
Interviews

Eliana Bergman Interview: How To Build a Brand From Nothing

Eliana is a woman who does it all. When she’s not looking after her three children, she’s focusing on the business she self-started during the pandemic.De Novo® is a revolution to the lint-rolling world. The main thing that sets them apart is that their lint brushes are self-cleaning, meaning gone are the days of having to hide them in a drawer and go to the hardware store for a replacement. This also makes them a great sustainable alternative.

Others have taken note too. De Novo® lint brushes have been featured on Univision, are part of FabFitFun’s marketplace, and can be found in small boutique stores all around the United States. A great success for a company that started in the midst of a pandemic.

But how did it get here? We sat down with Eliana, founder and CEO, to talk about her products and how, through ecommerce platform Shopify, she was able tobuild a brandfrom the ground up, and how you can too.

“I take my customers on a journey – tell them a story. I let them know they’re buying a product from this business, but behind this business is a person… and that person is me”

Quick Insights

  • Industry: Ecommerce
  • Company Founded: 2021
  • Business To Date Profits: $140,000
  • Website Built With: Shopify
  • Education: International Media and Communication BA, Social Science MSS
  • Article Highlight: You need to love your product or you’ll never get anywhere

Eliana’s Background

“My name is Eliana Bergman,  I sell self-cleaning lint brushes through an ecommerce platform and my company is calledDe Novo®.

I initiallystarted my business in February 2021, right in the middle of the pandemic. I started it from home and built the website and the brand mostly in the waiting room of the Child Development Center where my son would go for various therapies

I mostly do B2B, meaning most of my sales come directly from other retailers, but I do generate organic sales on the website as well. Over time, we have brought in around $140,000.

Initially, it was very little sales, but lately, it’s around 2,000 [products sold] on a monthly basis. This year has been very good but it still fluctuates depending on the month.”

What Is The De Novo® Lint Brush?

“De Novo®’s mission is to provide consumers with the option to generate less waste in the world by selling reusable, self-cleaning and fashionable lint brushes. Instead of the discardable sticky sheets andconstantly producing more trash, it’s just one product that will last you many years and you don’t have to constantly be producing trash or purchase refills.

In my household I mostly use it for pet hair. Our medium-sized schnauzer, Maya, sheds a lot twice a year, so these brushes certainly get put to the test. But you don’t have to have a pet to find these brushes useful. My mom, who has no pets, uses them after the dryer to remove the lint off her clothing. We also have a fair share of clients in northern states and Canada, who find our products helpful in the colder months when they wear sweaters and scarves which leave lint on finer textiles. 

I personally use myDe Novo® Back-To-Basics two-to-three times a day on my sofa and then the littleDe Novo® On-The-Go I keep in my purse so I have it when I’m out and about.”

Where Did The Idea Come From?

“Since delivering my second child, I had been experiencing a whole lot of hair loss. Aside from our dog Maya, we also had a cat who sheds a whole lot. So we had all this hair from everyone everywhere. As a stay-at-home mom, I spent all day at home and needed to find a solution to this problem. It was also appealing to have a job that I could do remotely so that I wouldn’t need to be pulled away from my family. You might think that having three kids and pets is enough, but I’m just one of those people that can’t really sit still and do nothing, so I decided to go for it and give entrepreneurship a try.

I also felt like there was plenty of opportunity with these products. The reusable lint brushes you find in stores today are all black or white with red bristles, which is just ugly. And the traditional lint rollers with sticky sheets produce so much trash. 

I wanted something nicer but also effective. I wanted a product I could have on my coffee table or hanging with my winter coats and feel comfortable leaving it there because it is stylish. De Novo® lint brushes are always on my coffee table. I can easily pick it up and clean the couch and I just put it back and it looks nice. The traditional sticky sheet lint roller is not something you keep out, because it just doesn’t look nice. 

This brand came to fruition as a combination of everything. It was my own hair loss. My pets were shedding like crazy. The amount of trash produced by sticky sheets, how ugly your typical lint roller is, and ultimately, my own desire to make a difference.”

“This brand came into fruition as a combination of everything. It was my own hair loss. My pets were shedding like crazy. The amount of trashed produced by sticky sheets, how ugly your typical lint roller is, and ultimately, my own desire to make a difference.”

How Did You Launch The Business?

“The product designs are created by a Chinese manufacturer and De Novo® is the brand. I contacted a broker in China who helped me get in touch with the manufacturer. 

I had to ensure that I was not hiring just anyone to produce these products. It was also really important for me to do a social compliance audit and make sure they actually take care of their own team because that’s important to me. We also did a manufacturer audit and a raw material test before we started production. I recommend that you test your products.If you want to be a brand, you need to buy them, test them, see if you like them, test the market out, and then evaluate to make sure you feel there is enough potential for growth with the brand you create.

You don’t want to be just producing just another piece of trash. You’re producing something that hasquality and you need to know what is in your products and where it’s coming from and that this factory is treating their employees correctly.

Once you’ve tested everything and you’ve done all of your compliance, then I do think it’s important to trademark.There are so many products out there right now and so many people trying to make a quick buck.You don’t want your hard work to be capitalized on by someone else

It took about a year from start to finish to trademark De Novo® and it wasn’t so bad. I opted to hire a lawyer to help me do it, which was helpful as there was a bit of back and forth following the initial application.Now I have this trademark for 10 years and it’s my brand and it feels really nice to know that I have that protection. 

If it does expand and it does grow, I’ll do the same thing for the European market, but I’m not really there yet, so we’ll see.”

Marketing the Business

“I have worked since I was about 15 in various retail shops. Following my Masters, I started my career at the National Hispanic Leadership Institute (NHLI), a small nonprofit in Washington DC that promotes Latina leadership. From there, I went on to work in communications and marketing in a range of different sectors – from transportation to the wine industry. 

My background has helped tremendously in building the company. Because even though I don’t have a business background, my understanding of and experience in marketing and communications has helped me position De Novo® and its products. Being able to market the brand has been crucial.The way it will grow is through sales and marketing. 

Currently, I do Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest, as well as email marketing, which is huge. I take my customers on a journey, telling a story and letting them know that they’re buying these products from this business – but behind the business is a real person. And that person is me.

I think that human connection is really important. You miss it so much these days. You just buy a product and you don’t even think about the fact that people are behind this product. And that human connection is really important because it creates customer loyalty. You’re going to come back and sayoh you know what, you gotta buy the brushes from Eliana, you gotta go there because she’s a real person. She sells these great brushes,and you’ll feel like you know me and that’s really important to me. 

I started the business during the pandemic and everything felt so quiet everywhere. I got opportunities very easily. So we were onUnivision, which is a national TV network in the USA for the Hispanic market. All it took was two weeks and the products were listed. I don’t think that would have happened in a normal time period, but I think it was quite difficult to get people to move. Everyone and everything was paralyzed during the pandemic.”

“I wanted something nicer that was also effective. I wanted a product I could have on my coffee table or hanging with my winter coats and feel comfortable leaving it there because it is stylish. De Novo® lint brushes are always on my coffee table.”

Mom and CEO

“Yeah, it’s hard. I have three kids, and my youngest just turned six months old. I feel like I’m a juggler but I enjoy it so much. It’s something that I love. I really love the flexibility that being a business owner gives me. I’m able to work from home and I’m able to be with my kids. I’ll take care of my baby and breastfeed while I send emails.

On a usual day, I’ll wake up at four to five, and during that time period is when I’m emailing or speaking with the manufacturers in China. I want to catch them before their day closes. 

Then my kids will be awake and I send them off to school right around 9:00. 

I do more work until they come home from school, and then I’m with my kids. Then in the evening, I do more work. So it’s a full cycle and around 9:00 pm I’ll go to sleep.

I did everything myself for a while. I recently hired a young woman from Canada to help me out with social media. She also does my photography and my posts on Facebook and Instagram.”

Dealing With Disappointment

“It’s great to have a goal in mind. My goal from the beginning was to work withFabFitFun. When that partnership became a reality it was surreal. I sell on their marketplace and it goes very well on a monthly basis, so it’s nice. Their partnership has been very important to me.

With FabFitFun, you get a mystery box of products quarterly, and it is such a cool idea to introduce consumers to products.  I am such a big fan of what FabFitFun does and how it allows consumers to test out products without having to pay full price. Last fall, I was given the opportunity to showcase one of our brushes to potentially be added to one of their future boxes, and I was over the moon by the opportunity. I worked for about six months trying to ensure we were ready to submit the products to FabFitFun. I did this while pregnant and I actually worked while in labor. I’m crazy. 

However,  after everything was said and done, they did not select De Novo® to be in one of their upcoming boxes. This was a giant fall for me but it was also a big learning experience at the same time. Though the door is closed for me this time, going through the requirements has been a great experience and it has made us better for any future opportunity that might come along.”

“If you’re gonna do ecommerce, you need to have aShopify website.”

Sustainability and the Future

“If you take out your sticky sheet roller, you’re gonna use at least three or four sheets. And if you’re like me, you don’t actually go and buy the replacement for the sticky sheet. You just go out and you buy a new roller.Also, everything is in a box or it’s wrapped in plastic. It’s like plastic upon plastic upon plastic. And this is a requirement for many retailers. It’s all trash.

To me, product display is important, but we need to get to a new way of displaying products to reduce excess waste. Even though De Novo® is a very small business, this is still a core value of the company. All our products come in a linen bag, and that bag is recyclable and reusable, and while the product itself is not built on sustainable resources (yet), it does provide a moresustainable solution.

In a perfect world, I would love for these products to be produced sustainably from recycled plastics because I don’t want to waste any additional material. I’m trying to figure out what would be the best way to use recycled plastic to create a brush because that would be more of a niche item. It would be something that would make my product one hundred percent sustainable, and that would be great. 

I want to be able to get to the point where we are selling brushes made from recycled plastics that you can recycle again, which can in turn be made into another brush. So it would be a perfect cycle. That’s where I would like to take it. That is my goal and dream for the future.”

Extra Tips

  • If you want more tips on how to make your online business more sustainable, why not try our3 Ways to Make Your Site More Eco-Friendly article?
  • Or, for sustainable packaging-specific advice, check out our 10 Sustainable Packaging Tips for Your Online Store

Thoughts on Shopify

“If you’re gonna do ecommerce, you need to have aShopify website. It’s easy because everybody integrates with it. I havemy warehouse with my products and orders to fulfill them to customers and each step is done by Shopify. So it’s like a process where I don’t even have to do anything.

The appAfterShip on Shopify has been such a huge help because it allows customers to easily track their own packages. I used to get so many emails from people who didn’t know how to track their packages, but those emails basically do not come anymore. With AftersShip, all you do is go to the website and you can track your order and you know exactly when it will be delivered. 

The AfterShip return app is also great because customers can start their own return process and then I just click approve and Shopify sends them a shipping label and that’s all it is.

That’s why Shopify has been an important partner for me. My biggest goal is to continue with business development. Since I mostly sell directly to retailers, my day-to-day is less busy and I don’t have too many direct-to-consumer interactions. My website is a platform for people and companies to be able to see the products and get to know the company a little bit more. If you want to dive in deep to get to know me better, you should sign up for our newsletter. 

If I were to start the process from the beginning again, I think I would initially just start with a Shopify free template. I would also download the apps that I already know work.Because I had to go through and download so many different kinds of apps with Shopify, I had to weed out the ones that made my website very slow. I even hired a consultant to go in and delete some of this additional code because they couldn’t find all of it. So there were some lessons learned.

I did buy one of their templates because I wanted the website to look a little bit different than their free options. The building was a learning experience – a bit of a plug-and-play. I don’t have a background in web design but I found it relatively easy. Plus, they have very good customer support. 

From a user perspective, I would have preferred a platform that I can easily turn on and off [the] features when I want it, instead of relying on third-party apps. I think that Shopify should try to consider doing things more in-house.”

Conclusion

“The most important lesson I’ve learned in my career and through De Novo is to not be held back by fear. That’s the biggest lesson. Fear cripples and makes you feel small in this environment. Being an entrepreneur, having a small business – it’s so easy to be afraid of sending that email and to lose a little bit of money. 

But you just have to not give up. And it’s a lot easier now. There are so many opportunities within ecommerce that you don’t even need to have products. You can easily just create a website and a whole ecommerce business and someone else will ship it out [your products] for you. Even Amazon is allowing you to publish your own books. For an additional cash flow or even just a hobby, it’s worth it to just see what happens.

Feelings of fear and giving up will stop eventually, they aren’t permanent. So just move forward and don’t be afraid.”

,Interviews

Categories
Grow Online

9 Essential Social Media Marketing Tactics for Hotels in 2024

When it comes to finding a place to stay, more users than ever are turning to the internet for inspiration. That’s why, as a hotel owner, choosing a website builder and establishing your digital footprint is so important.

But it’s not just your website you should focus on – it’s your social media, too. In fact, having a strong social media presence can help to raise brand awareness, increase visibility, and most importantly, boost bookings.

If this sounds overwhelming, don’t worry. Our team of experts has put together these 9 social media tactics so that your hotel’s social media marketing can be a stress-free enhancement of your online brand.

1: Immersive Virtual Tours and Experiences

People will only book a hotel after first seeing what it looks like. While photos are great, they can only show so much, which is where virtual tours come in.

An immersive virtual tour offers potential customers the chance to explore your hotel from their own home, getting a feel for the vibe, size, and decor of your establishment.

Not only can you showcase your rooms and restaurants, but you can also show off any special experiences that you offer such as a spa or golf course.

Both Instagram (Instagram 360) and Facebook (Facebook VR) have immersive tools that you can use to show off your hotel to customers.

2: Influencer Stays and Collaborations

Influencer marketing can be a great way to showcase your hotel to a wider audience.

Partnering with the right influencers can boost your brand awareness and increase bookings, as well as generate new social media content and buzz around your hotel.

The key to working with influencers is to choose the right ones for your brand. Travel influencers are the obvious choice but there are also plenty of others whose audience will align with yours. For example, if you have an on-site spa, health and wellness influencers would also work well.

Some of the different ways you can work with influencers include:

  • Offer a free stay in return for social media content and reviews.
  • Offer your hotel as the venue for an influencer event.
  • Offer a stay in return for content to share on your own social media channels.
  • Set up an affiliate or loyalty scheme for influencers where they can offer a bespoke discount to their audience for a stay at your hotel.

Travel influencers Black Travel Passport shared photos of their stay at Giraffe Manor, showcasing the hotel to their audience.

3: Customized Packages and Exclusive Offers

If you want your business to grow on social media, you need more followers. Therefore, you need to give users a reason to follow you. Offering exclusive packages and deals is a great incentive.

One of the best ways to offer social media deals is to run a campaign on your chosen platform that includes a special discount code for your followers e.g. SOCIAL10 for 10% off their next booking.

Because each platform attracts a different demographic, you can tailor your packages and promotions to the relevant audience. For example, if you have an older audience on Facebook, midweek spa breaks may be more popular, while a younger Instagram audience may be enticed by a bar and room offer.

Top Tip! Why not package up your offers together, combining your various facilities and experiences? This will make your deals stand out from the competition. You can then share these packages across your social media accounts.

4: Seamless Social Media Booking Integration

In today’s digital world, people want to be able to do everything on one platform which means you need to offer your followers the chance to book a stay directly on your social media.

Instagram for example has an Appointments feature that allows you to manage your bookings directly in the app. This means users don’t have to take the extra step of heading to your website to make a booking, removing a potential hurdle in the process.

You can also use third-party booking platforms and integrate them with your social media channels and existing booking systems. The important thing is to ensure everything is aligned so that no booking errors can be made.

5: Guest Testimonials and User-Generated Content (UGC)

One thing we recommend including within your hotel’s social media marketing strategy is testimonials and UGC.

If a guest leaves you a positive review, whether it’s on social media, TripAdvisor, or in your guest book, share it!

Reviews are a powerful tool and act as valuable social proof, prompting others to make a booking with your hotel based on the experiences of previous guests. However, it’s important not to presume that users are going to go looking for your reviews. We recommend displaying them as clearly as possible so that potential customers can see them from the off.

You can also integrate User Generated Content (UGC) into your social media campaigns to help boost integrity and authenticity.

Why not set up a hashtag for your hotel, encouraging guests to use it when sharing their photos online? You can then re-share some of the best on your own accounts!

Hotel chain Hilton posts a combination of UGC and exclusive offers on its Instagram page.

6: AI-Powered Chatbots for Concierge Services

AI is here to stay but did you know that you can embrace it as part of your hotel social media marketing?

Implementing AI chatbots is a great way to enhance guest relations and offer personalized concierge services 24/7.

An AI chatbot can be used for a tonne of different reasons from a potential guest asking questions about how to make a booking and the facilities on offer to an upcoming guest confirming what time check-in is.

It’s not realistic to have someone manning your social media inbox 24 hours a day, but you don’t want to miss out on potential customers, so a chatbot is a perfect way to keep on top of customer communications while maintaining personalized, quality service.

More information

Interested in other ways that AI can impact your service? Check out our article on the key ways AI is benefiting customer service.

7: Localized Events and Community Engagement

It’s not just guests from further afield you should look to target with your hotel social media marketing. Targeting people from the local community is important, too.

Connecting with your local community via social media offers a great chance to network with locals and fellow businesses, offering a whole new audience. If you’re on the radar of a local person, when they have visitors, where will they suggest they stay? At your hotel!

Speaking of location, where you’re based is one of your biggest selling points so be sure to shout about this on social media and think of content ideas that link to your local area. For example, if you’re based in the country, you could promote local walking routes that hotel guests can experience.

8: Social Listening for Enhanced Guest Experience

Social media can offer you valuable insights to improve your guest experience too.

Monitor social media for guest feedback and reviews and be sure to respond to all reviews promptly to boost satisfaction. Even if a review is negative, responding professionally will help with your wider online brand.

Be sure to undertake social listening to monitor your hotel’s mentions on social media and if you notice any complaints, you can use these as an opportunity for improvement.

9: Sustainable Practices and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

With so many hotel options out there, you need to think about what makes you stand out and shout about it on social media.

Travelers are increasingly looking for places that are committed to sustainability, so if you’re undertaking eco-efforts, make sure potential guests know about them.

Similarly, potential guests want to know that your ethos aligns with theirs, from staff benefits to giving back to the local community. There are plenty of things that help form a booking decision – not just the room rate!

Use your social media platforms to showcase who you are as a brand and what you stand for.

Hotel Social Media Marketing Tactics: Summary

Running a hotel is hard work, from managing staff to ensuring you offer the best guest experience, there’s a lot to think about. Hopefully, these 9 tactics will mean your social media marketing is one less thing on your mind!

Social media marketing for hotels can be incredibly fruitful and by implementing these 9 tactics, you’ll be well on your way to boosting brand awareness and increasing bookings.

Want some tips on building a hotel booking website? Why not check out our expert guide next?

,Grow Online

Categories
Website Builders

The 7 Best Portfolio Websites Builders in 2024

A portfolio is a vital tool in anyone’s career. Whether you’re a graphic designer, photographer, illustrator, or marketer, you can let your portfolio do all of the talking and showcase your skills to potential clients or employers.

The best way to create a portfolio is to use a website builder. Not only is it easily accessible by anyone, but you can also design it from the ground up, taking your visitors on a journey of who you are and what you can do.

Overall, the best portfolio-building platform is Wix, but the website builder you choose will differ depending on which industry you work in. We’ve researched and collected the seven best portfolio website builders and organized them according to whether you need a portfolio for showcasing your creative, business, or technical skills.

Our Top 7 Portfolio Website Builders:

  1. Wix – The best all-around portfolio builder
  2. Squarespace – For art and design portfolios
  3. GoDaddy – For marketing portfolios showcasing work projects
  4. Hostinger – For student portfolios on a budget
  5. Web.com – For copywriting portfolios
  6. Pixpa – For professional photography portfolios
  7. Webflow – For advanced web developer portfolios

This page was last updated on 10/25/2024. Here’s what’s been changed:

I’ve reassessed and updated this list to cover a wider range of portfolio purposes. This involves adding Web.com at #5 due to its strong social media integrations and blogging features, subsequently lowering Pixpa and Webflow by one position.

Short on time? Find the best platform for your art with our 3-minute quiz.

What type of portfolio do you need?

Creative
Professional
Technical
Writing

Find Your Builder

1. Wix: Best All-Around Portfolio Builder

  • Best value portfolio plan: Light plan, $17 per month (billed annually)
  • Read our full Wix review
Editor’s Choice

Wix

Our top choice for portfolios

Outstanding

4.8

out of 5

  • 800+ templates on offer
  • Very intuitive to use
  • Generous free plan

Free plan available

Paid Plans: $17 – $159 / month

Pros

  • High level of customization
  • Templates for a wide range of industries
  • Drag-and-drop editor

Cons

  • Expensive premium plans
  • Storage caps on all plans
  • Can’t switch templates once site is live

Wix Review


Use code TAKE10 for 10% off!

Visit Site

Based on our in-house testing, Wix is the best overall portfolio website builder. It’s the number one choice if you need a portfolio when applying for jobs, while it’s also the most versatile builder thanks to its numerous website and design features.

With over 800 professionally designed templates across multiple industries, Wix websites can be built to suit different kinds of portfolios. Also, if you want more choice over your portfolio’s design, Wix’s ADI feature uses artificial intelligence to design a personalized website for you – simply answer Wix’s short questionnaire first.

I found a variety of templates on Wix, which are adaptable for different creative fields like graphic design, photography, performing arts, and more. Source: Website Builder Expert

After choosing our Wix template while building a test portfolio, we went to Wix Marketplace and installed the free Wix Portfolio app. The tool enables you to display your projects on a professional portfolio page that’s tailored to your needs.

From the editor, we could set up our portfolio using one of Wix’s AI tools. It asked us to describe what kind of work we wanted to showcase and upload our project photos. Then, it tailor-made us a page based on the information we had given it.

I uploaded two projects to Wix Portfolio, which then appeared on the portfolio page the AI had generated for me. Source: Website Builder Expert

From Wix’s Portfolio app, we could also:

  • Edit a portfolio’s SEO (search engine optimization) settings to improve its visibility on search engines.
  • Change a portfolio page’s text, which includes project names and descriptions.
  • Add more information about each portfolio project. We could mention the project’s date, location, key contributors, and more.
  • Upload and manage photos from Wix’s Media Library and change what imagery is displayed on the portfolio page. Additionally, Wix optimizes any photos that are uploaded to your website, so you can best display your work through high-quality imagery.

If you’re interested in a hybrid portfolio that also offers ecommerce, Wix will let you transition your portfolio website into an online store. This is useful if you ever decide to start your own business – think of it like an investment, rather than a single-use site.

Getting your portfolio noticed on the web won’t be an issue either. You can add live social media feeds to your website and connect platforms like Instagram or Facebook, create and share social media graphics from your dashboard, and track how well your portfolio is performing with Wix’s analytics.

Because of these unrivalled features, Wix’s website builder gives you the strongest chance of increasing your portfolio’s visibility – regardless of your industry.

I could drag social media feeds onto my test website’s portfolio page. However, I’d need to spend some time arranging them to make them look nice! Source: Website Builder Expert

Though Wix excels with its website features, the sheer number of them can be overwhelming for first time users, especially if you only need a simple portfolio. For a more straightforward experience, we recommend Squarespace instead. Though it doesn’t have as many features as Wix, our research demonstrates that it’s the easiest website builder of them all.

What’s the Best Value Wix Plan?

Wix’s pricing consists of four premium plans:

  • Light – $17 per month (best value for a portfolio)
  • Core – $29 per month
  • Business – $36 per month
  • Business Elite – $159 per month

Wix’s plans can be expensive for just a portfolio. These prices are the average monthly price for a year-long subscription paid in full. The longer the subscription you pay, the cheaper the monthly price. For an affordable alternative, try GoDaddy with its first plan starting from $9.99 per month, or Hostinger with its even cheaper plans starting from $2.99 per month (both billed annually).

Wix does have a free plan, but you’ll have to contend with Wix banner ads and a Wix domain name, which can make you look unprofessional to potential employers or clients.

Our recommendation is the Light plan. You can’t sell products on this plan, but for a professional portfolio, you probably won’t need to. Plus, we have a unique 10% off at checkout offer if you use “TAKE10” at checkout.

Latest Wix News
In June 2024, Wix’s Open Studio released a series of updates, one of them being a new Figma integration. If you have work on Figma, you can download a plugin and import your designs directly onto your portfolio page.

2. Squarespace: For Art and Design Portfolios

  • Best value portfolio plan:Personal plan, $16 per month (billed annually)
  • Read our full Squarespace Review

Squarespace

For art and design portfolios

Excellent

4.6

out of 5

  • Award-winning designs
  • Ideal for creatives
  • High-quality features

Free trial available

Paid Plans: $16 – $52 / month

Pros

  • Beautiful templates
  • Unlimited storage on all plans
  • Enhanced third-party apps

Cons

  • No free plan
  • Customization slightly limited
  • No 24/7 live chat

Squarespace Review


Use code WBE10 for 10% off

Visit Site

If you’re in an art or design field, be it illustration or graphic design, your artistic talents should extend to your website, which should follow a clear design philosophy that mirrors your work. Clients want to be impressed by your creativity, and no website builder has more impressive creative functionality than Squarespace, having the most design-centric portfolio templates we’ve seen.

I chose Squarespace’s Novo template. It’s brilliant for highly visual portfolios, with a clear and scrollable gallery layout and headings that appear when you move your cursor over each image. Source: Website Builder Expert

As well as having exquisitely designed templates, Squarespace is so easy to use that you won’t need to spend hours perfecting your portfolio’s look. Its drag-and-drop editor lets you place elements wherever you want, and from our own experience, it’s actually difficult to make a bad-looking website since the builder’s grid overlay keeps everything in alignment.

While the builder doesn’t have a true ADI feature like Wix and GoDaddy do, Squarespace Blueprint is a feature that can build you a personal template for your portfolio based on your answers to a few questions.

I could drag and drop social links and a contact form. Thanks to the grid overlay, I could make it look neat on the page. Source: Website Builder Expert

For an art or design portfolio, you’ll need plenty of image and video space to showcase your work on. Luckily, Squarespace gives its subscribers unlimited storage across all of its plans. You also get an allowance of 30 minutes when it comes to video storage – and this is available from Squarespace’s cheapest plan at $16 per month (billed annually). You can get more video allowance by upgrading to pricier plans.

Wix – our highest-rated provider for portfolios – starts you out with a storage limit of only 2GB on its $17 per month plan, so Squarespace is more ideal for content-heavy websites.

I could edit my test portfolio’s imagery in galleries. This photography was well optimized, while I could also add image hyperlinks and descriptions. Source: Website Builder Expert

However, all this storage space for lots of content is a double-edged sword. Though Squarespace websites are aesthetically pleasing, they can be prone to slower page load times, which we found during testing. Be aware of this as you add content to your portfolio, and remember to test website speeds as you go. If this is a deal-breaker for you, we recommend portfolio website builders Wix or GoDaddy, which both boast speedier page load times.

What’s the Best Value Squarespace Plan?

Squarespace’s pricing comes in four premium plans:

  • Personal – $16 per month (best value for a portfolio)
  • Business – $23 per month
  • Commerce Basic – $28 per month
  • Commerce Advanced – $52 per month

We recommend the Personal plan for creative portfolios. You’ll get unlimited storage to share as many images as you need, plus a 30-minute allowance for video. There’s a 14-day free trial you can use so you can test its features, and once you do decide, at Website Builder Expert we’re currently running a 10% discount for our readers if you use the code “WBE10” at checkout.

3. GoDaddy: For Marketing Portfolios

  • Best value portfolio plan:Premium plan, $14.99 per month (billed annually)
  • Read our full GoDaddy Review

GoDaddy

For marketing portfolios

Very Good

4.2

out of 5

  • Get online quickly
  • Best value for money
  • Ideal for basic portfolio

Free plan available

Paid Plans: $9.99 – $20.99 / month

Pros

  • Very beginner-friendly
  • Plenty of must-have features
  • ADI website builder

Cons

  • Templates can be slightly restrictive
  • Designs can look quite similar
  • No mobile editor

GoDaddy Review

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If you need a marketing portfolio to display recent projects and get potential clients to reach out to you, GoDaddy provides a solid solution from only $9.99 per month. On the platform, you’ll receive a responsive page to showcase your services on, and will have access to GoDaddy’s marketing suite, including social media and email.

While you set up, you can use its ADI software to build a personalized portfolio template for you. During the process, you can briefly describe your business in a few sentences and assign your website to the marketing category. This will help the software create a marketing portfolio that’s  truly catered to your needs.

After answering a few questions, GoDaddy’s ADI put together this marketing portfolio page. Not all of the content was relevant to my needs, but I could easily replace it in the editor. Source: Website Builder Expert

However, these customized designs and premade templates aren’t on the level of Wix’s or Squarespace’s, because they lack the same professionally-made aesthetic quality. There are also fewer features offered, including no SEO on the Basic plan. That being said, if you are short on time, GoDaddy may be the builder for you. GoDaddy’s editor is so streamlined that you can have a functional portfolio ready in under an hour.

In the editor, you can then start adding additional elements to your website to showcase your projects and experience. This might include:

  • Social media links – This allows you to showcase your work across other platforms, especially useful if your main focus is social media marketing.
  • Files upload – You can let clients download files relating to your business, such as CVs, media packs, or service lists.
  • Logo gallery– To showcase the brands you’ve worked with.
  • Different content blocks – Depending on how you want to showcase your marketing projects, you can experiment with GoDaddy’s various blocks and see which one best represents your work.
  • Online bookings – You can add one appointments section to your website, allowing potential clients to book one of your services.

I could choose from a decent range of GoDaddy elements, which included PDFs that allow people to download important docs like media packs. Source: Website Builder Expert

If you do pay extra for SEO, you’ll be given some truly great marketing and SEO capabilities, like email automation and the ability to integrate Google’s Business messages. If you need an example of a marketing project for your portfolio, you can track your own website’s success as proof of your abilities. Talk about two birds with one stone!

After I’d customized my site’s design, I explored the settings and quickly found where I could manage my inbox and connect Google’s Business Messages. Source: Website Builder Expert

What’s the Best Value GoDaddy Plan?

GoDaddy’s pricing comes in three premium plans, plus its free plan:

  • Basic – $9.99 per month
  • Premium – $14.99 per month (best value for a portfolio)
  • Commerce – $20.99 per month

We recommend the Premium plan. For only a few dollars more than the Basic plan, you get additional marketing capabilities, such as email marketing tools. This is crucial for showing your prowess in marketing and getting your portfolio seen by as many eyes as possible.

4. Hostinger: For Student Portfolios on a Budget

  • Best value portfolio plan: Premium Website Builder plan, $2.99 per month (billed annually)
  • Read our fullHostinger Review

Hostinger

For student portfolios

Good

4.1

out of 5

  • Suitable for simple sites
  • Affordable plans
  • Easy to use

Paid Plans: $2.99 – $109.99 / month

Pros

  • Drag-and-drop editor
  • 24/7 live chat
  • Get online quickly

Cons

  • Limited room to grow
  • Very basic templates
  • Difficult to create a unique portfolio

Hostinger Review


Use code WBE for 10% off!

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If you’re a student and need a simple portfolio on a budget, Hostinger could be the builder for you. From only $2.99 per month, you can have a perfectly functional portfolio website – and if you sign up now for a 48-month plan, you can get the first three months free. Its handy suite of AI tools is also a huge time-saver if you’re balancing multiple projects at once alongside your studies.

I chose Hostinger’s Felicity template to get started because of its portfolio focus. Source: Website Builder Expert

Hostinger’s cheap starting price makes it perfect for student portfolios, since it’s a super affordable way to create an ad-free website that looks professional and can be displayed to professors, universities, or prospective employers.

It’s certainly not the most powerful builder on the market, with limited features compared to Wix and Squarespace (no email marketing tools or app market, for example), meaning we don’t recommend it for a growing business’s portfolio. But if you need something simple and affordable, Hostinger is a smart choice.

With a few keywords, I could use Hostinger’s AI text generator to create content and copy for my test portfolio. Source: Website Builder Expert

Like Wix and GoDaddy, Hostinger uses AI to build you a personal template based on your answers to a questionnaire. In testing, Hostinger created our demo site in less than 30 seconds!

Hostinger’s ADI is newer than that of Wix and GoDaddy, but if you like AI website builders, Hostinger is a major forerunner. It has an AI assistant, AI meta tags, AI writer, AI logo maker, AI SEO support, a really helpful AI chatbot, and even an AI heatmap that tells you where your visitors have clicked.

From Hostinger’s editor, I could tweak my test portfolio’s SEO settings with ease. Source: Website Builder Expert

What’s the Best Value Hostinger Plan?

Hostinger has two paid plans:

  • Premium Website Builder – $2.99 per month (best for a portfolio)
  • Business Website Builder – $3.99 per month

For a simple student portfolio, we recommend the Premium plan. It has everything you need to show off your skills, while also being easy on the wallet. You can also take advantage of 10% off using the code “WBE” at the checkout.

5. Web.com: Best for Copywriting Portfolios

  • Best value portfolio plan:Website & Marketing plan, $21.99 per month (billed annually)
  • Read our full Web.com review

Web.com

For Copywriting Portfolios

0

out of 5

  • Quick to set up
  • User friendly dashboard
  • Generous free trial

Free trial available

Paid Plans: $1.95 – $24.95 / month

Pros

  • Innovative marketing calendar
  • Impressive integrated blog
  • Variety of engaging elements

Cons

  • Slightly unintuitive at times
  • Limited control when editing
  • No social media scheduling on basic plan

Web.com Review


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As a writer, you’ll want your website to be eye-catching, but minimalistic enough that your writing is the focal point. Web.com is a website builder with 17 portfolio templates that strike this balance well, through simple designs and engaging elements.

The 17 portfolio templates vary in style, and so cater to a lot of different portfolio types. Source: Website Builder Expert

Because Web.com won’t allow you as much creative control over your website’s design as Wix and Squarespace, we wouldn’t recommend it for complex, design-heavy websites. Instead, Web.com’s strengths lie in creating simple multimedia sites and managing digital platforms.

As a copywriter, you need to post your work on your platforms regularly and consistently to remain visible among the competition and attract new clients. Web.com’s color-coded marketing calendar is an efficient tool to help you keep on top of this task.

You’ll be able to create X, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn posts from your dashboard, schedule them in for specific days, and keep track of these posts through your calendar, too. Web.com also has an inbuilt blog, which is a perfect place to show your creative writing. These posts can also be scheduled and added to your calendar.

The calendar layout gave me a clear overview of my previous, current, and future marketing endeavors. Source: Website Builder Expert

Web.com’s drag-and-drop web page editor comes with plenty of engaging elements that you can use to demonstrate the different projects you’ve worked on, like images, videos, text, and widgets that integrate your social media feeds. There are even some made for written content, like a progress bar.

What’s the Best Value Web.com Plan?

Web.com has three core plans:

  • Website – $15.99 per month
  • Website & Marketing – $21.99 per month (best value for portfolio)
  • Ecommerce – $29.99 per month

We recommend the Website & Marketing plan for a copywriting portfolio. For the slight price jump, you’ll unlock access to marketing features designed to increase your visibility. Specifically, this plan will give you access to the marketing calendar tool, which will streamline your social media and blogging processes.

6. For Professional Photography Portfolios

  • Best value portfolio plan:Creator plan, $15 per month (billed annually)

Pixpa

For photography portfolios

Good

3.5

out of 5

  • Great for photographers
  • Very affordable plans
  • Connect with socials

Free trial available

Paid Plans: $8 – $25 / month

Pros

  • Mobile-friendly templates
  • Specialist website builder
  • Galleries for sharing and proofing

Cons

  • No free plan
  • Limited photos on cheapest plan
  • Restrictive website editor

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Unlike the other platforms on this list, Pixpa is a dedicated portfolio website builder with a special focus on photography. You have access to over 25 options when it comes to gallery layouts, as well as exclusive features such as Progressive Image Loading, which reduces the slowdown that can occur on your site if you have too many high-quality images.

Pixpa immediately directed me towards choosing a template for my portfolio after signing up. I had many professional options to choose from. Source: Website Builder Expert

Pixpa also has over 150 mobile-friendly templates to choose from across industries like Wedding Photography and Fashion, and to protect your images from potential plagiarists and thieves, you can use Pixpa’s watermark feature. However, if photos aren’t the main focus of your portfolio, then you’ll find Pixpa very featureless – its starting plan lacks features like blogging, a domain name, and custom fonts.

To display photography, I could choose from a range of gallery layouts to add to my test portfolio. Source: Website Builder Expert

Additionally, for a portfolio website builder, it is disappointing that there’s even a limit on how many images you can upload (200 on the Basic plan). However, Pixpa’s prices are more affordable than Squarespace’s and Wix’s. Overall, Pixpa may be lacking some features, but for photography portfolios it’s still the best option, as no other builder is as tailored to this particular medium.

I loved how tailored Pixpa’s settings are for photographers, with detailed download settings and permissions at my fingertips. Source: Website Builder Expert

What’s the Best Value Pixpa Plan?

Pixpa has four premium plans:

  • Basic – $8 per month
  • Creator – $15 per month (best for a portfolio)
  • Professional – $20 per month
  • Advanced – $25 per month

We recommend the Creator plan for creative portfolio users – the image limit on the Basic plan holds it back from being able to show the full breadth of your creativity, while the Creator plan allows you to upload an unlimited number of images. Pixpa’s average price is also still cheaper than many on this list, and it serves as a great alternative to Squarespace.

7. Webflow: For Web Developer Portfolios

  • Best value portfolio plan: Basic plan, $14 per month (billed annually)
  • Read our fullWebflow review

Webflow

For website development portfolios

Above Average

3.3

out of 5

  • Advanced customization
  • Strong design options
  • Lots of free templates

Free plan available

Paid Plans: $14 / month

Pros

  • No ads on free plan
  • Good for experienced builders
  • Lots of free templates

Cons

  • Steep learning curve
  • No drag-and-drop editor
  • Not beginner-friendly

Webflow Review

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Webflow is a web development platform that, unlike Wix or Squarespace, doesn’t simplify the website building progress. Instead, it’s tailored to users in professional web development. As such, it can have a steep learning curve – but for those who want to show off their coding or web design skills, it’s perfect.

Webflow’s templates are simple, but I chose the basic portfolio theme to get started. Source: Website Builder Expert

What makes Webflow perfect for technical portfolios is its advanced customization, letting you integrate skills or demos onto your website as long as you can code them.

You can add code to your website in three key ways via the “Code embed” feature:

  1. HTML:To organize the structure of your website and its content
  2. CSS: To structure your website’s pages and tweak the design
  3. JavaScript: To add dynamic content to your website, like image animations or interactive pages

You can also get access to Webflow’s marketing of user-created content. From templates to animations and features, users can share their creations with each other.

I could add three different galleries to my Webflow website. Though it’s not a huge amount of choice, you can easily edit them if you know the right code. Source: Website Builder Expert

Compared to the novice-friendly Squarespace, Webflow is only really suited to users who are proficient in coding or possess advanced design skills, as you do get more control over your site’s design.

Webflow has over 2,000 templates to choose from across a spectrum of industries, with most of them being free. It also has a free plan you can use, and unlike Wix, Webflow’s free plan has no ads, so you can use it and still be professional – though you’ll be limited to 1GB of storage and 1,000 visitors per month.

I could access tutorials directly from Webflow’s editor. Even if you’re experienced in web dev, it’s helpful if you need to brush up on your skills. Source: Website Builder Expert

What’s the Best Value Plan?

Webflow has five premium plans, split between general and ecommerce plans – plus its free plan:

  • Basic – $14 per month (best value for a portfolio)
  • CMS – $23 per month
  • Standard (ecommerce) – $29 per month
  • Business – $39 per month
  • Plus (ecommerce) – $74 per month
  • Advanced (ecommerce) – $212 per month

Depending on the size of your website, we recommend either the free or the Basic plan. They have low storage and traffic limitations, but if you’re using your portfolio just for job-hunting, then you’ll find it suitable. If you want a home for all your projects, you may need to upgrade your plan for bigger storage.

Buying Guide: How To Choose a Portfolio Website Builder

While we’ve shown you the best portfolio website builders, we understand you may still need a bit of direction on how to pick the right one for you. Your choice will differ depending on your needs, but we’ve broken it down into three essential goals that every portfolio should accomplish:

  1. Showcasing – Are you able to show off your best work on your portfolio? Whether this is simply through images and video or specific integrations like with programs, your portfolio needs to be able to present your work in an engaging and professional manner – whatever the medium.
  2. Storytelling– Are you able to tell a convincing story through your portfolio’s presentation? Whether you want to show how your achievements grew in past roles or your creative evolution as an artist, a portfolio website builder needs to have an easy-to-use editor you can use to present yourself in the best way possible.
  3. Searchability – Are you able to be found online through your portfolio? The benefit of an online portfolio is that it exists for all to see, and with good SEO tools, your portfolio can be found by the right person at the right time, perhaps leading to opportunities you never saw coming.

How We Tested Portfolio Website Builder

Before we can confidently make any recommendations on the best portfolio builder, we carry out in-depth website builder testing. This is an important step – we want our articles and reviews to be data-led and based on experience with the platforms.

We analyze builders in six key areas and then give each a score out of five, which averages out to an overall score. However, because portfolios are different from online stores, so are their users’ demands. Therefore, different categories will have different weighting when it comes to their overall score to reflect the actual wants and needs of our readers.

Here are the unique weightings for our portfolio category:

  1. Design Functionality – 35%
  2. Website Features – 30%
  3. User Experience – 20%
  4. Help & Support – 5%
  5. Customer Score – 5%
  6. Value for Money – 5%

Best Portfolio Website Builders: Summary

A portfolio can be used to present your body of work professionally to employers or clients, or just as a place to hold all of your previous work. Either way, you will need a website builder that can showcase your own inherent creativity, but also build a presence and bring a certain level of professionalism.

For that reason, Wix is our best overall portfolio website builder. It allows you to make a portfolio that will impress your clients or employers, while also giving you fantastic freedom of choice in its creation.

Of course, any of the other best website builders we’ve covered could also be a good fit for your portfolio based on your needs. Here’s a quick recap:

  • Squarespace: Ideal for art and design professionals, Squarespace’s stylish templates make it easy to showcase your portfolio with creative flair.
  • GoDaddy:With a wealth of marketing tools and a beginner-friendly editor, GoDaddy is brilliant if you’re a marketing professional who’d like to showcase your projects with ease.
  • Hostinger:The platform’s budget friendly plans, from $2.99 per month (billed annually), are suitable for students who need to rustle up a quick portfolio.
  • Web.com: This website builder has brilliant integrated social media and blog post scheduling, which makes it perfect for copywriters active on multiple platforms.
  • Pixpa:This platform is most suitable for photography portfolios, with optimized image uploading tools and watermarks to protect your photographs.
  • Webflow:The most advanced builder on this list, Webflow is best for web development portfolios. Users will need an understanding of code and web design to get started.

Need some tips on how to make your portfolio shine? Learn how to make an online portfolio with our guide.

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Building Online Stores

What Is an Amazon FBA Business? A Beginner’s Guide

Sometimes it’s wonderful when other people do stuff for us. Like when they make us dinner. Or run to the post office. Or buy a fantastic gift for a loved one and put our names on it.

The same can apply to fulfillment of our online store’s goods.

If you are the type of online business owner who is either extremely busy, or hates any extra hassle (or both!) then Amazon FBA might be exactly what you’re looking for.

But what is an Amazon FBA business? Is it the same as starting a dropshipping business? And how do you know if it’s the right choice for you? To help you out, we’re here to give you a guide and talk you through the steps, the pros and cons, and the competition. Let’s roll!

What Is Amazon FBA Business?

So, what is an FBA business? An Amazon FBA business is the ultimate dropshipping model. 

FBA stands for Fulfillment by Amazon, so an Amazon FBA business is an online business that uses Amazon to store, sort, and dispatch your goods to your customers. It also provides the customer service that comes with the territory.

Getting Set Up With Amazon FBA

It’s fairly easy to sign up to Amazon FBA. Once you familiarize yourself with how to sell on Amazon, you’re ready to get started. Here are the steps:

1. Register and Pick Your Plan

You’ll need to register your business and provide all the legal, financial, and practical details necessary to run your online business. This includes your bank account info, a credit card, ID, tax info, and a business phone number.

Then you will need to pick which subscription plan works for you. (See below for the cost breakdown). You don’t have to feel anxiety to pick the wrong one – you can always switch back and forth.

Amazon FBA handles your orders, from picking products to packaging and shipping, for you.

2. Amazon Provides You with Your Seller Central Hub

This will help you keep track of everything – your sales, engagement, inventory, etc. Take your time and have a look around! There’s a lot of information there and you don’t want to miss out on anything that will make your life easier.

Advice from the Experts

Top Tip: Take advantage of the Amazon seller app so that you have your business on your phone on the go!

3. Check Out Your Competition, Both On and Off Amazon

This is a key step that some new online business owners skip at their peril. You need to see what competitor hubs look like, how much your competitors sell their comparable goods for, and which dispatch services and discounts they offer. That’s where market research comes in!

Online customers have no problem taking an extra two to three minutes to see if they could save money with someone else. We do it with our purchases all the time! So you have to make it worth their while. What can you offer that competitors aren’t? How can you improve the customer experience?

Advice from the Experts

Top Tip: A free gift can win you customers. Why not read up on packaging inserts – adding extras such as freebies, discounts, or even thank you cards are a great way to nurture a relationship with your customers.

4. Get the Product Information

You’ll need information and details about the products for your listing including SKU numbers and descriptions. Amazon provides detailed information and if you aren’t sure about what to include Amazon has a video to help.

5. Create Your Product Listings

If you want to edge out your competition, don’t forget to first focus on what your customers will feelif they get your product. It’s the emotional side of things that persuades a customer to buy. Then include the logical and practical stuff.

Have a think about how your customer’s life would actually improve if they bought it (honesty is important!). Will they have more fun? Will they delight a friend? Will they have fewer headaches? Will their day-to-day life be more organized?

It’s all about improving their lives. You just have to know the language to do that.

6. Make a Million Jillion Dollars!

Our favorite step. Bear in mind, it might take some time.

In all seriousness though, it does take patience and dedication to build up a customer base, grow sales, and beat the competition. Keep monitoring, testing, iterating, and improving, and you’ll get there! It also helps to understand your Amazon conversion rate, how to calculate it, and the factors that influence it!

Amazon FBA offers an app to make the experience easier for you and your customers

Amazon FBA: Pros and Cons

As with any service, there are pros and cons to using Amazon FBA.

Pros

Increased Visibility: Your products are eligible for Prime two-day shipping (yay, customers love that!) and will have the Prime logo on the product detail page. Not only do you know your products will ship according to ecommerce shipping best practices, but the Prime logo can increase visibility and sales.

Increased Convenience: Amazon handles pretty much everything, so you’ve got more time to grow your business.

Amazon’s Logistics Network:Amazon’s huge network makes everything easy and efficient.

Improved Product Listing: Your products will have priority in search results because they are stored in Amazon’s fulfillment centers.

Cons

Limited Control Over Shipping and Handling: Amazon controls the speed and quality of the service.

Potential for Stockouts:Increased visibility means your product could get popular, fast. This means a risk of running out of stock, which can harm your reputation and lead to lost sales.

Dependence on Amazon: You can become dependent on the platform, which limits your flexibility and increases your risk if Amazon changes its policies or fees.

Yes, there are costs (see below) but it’s a model where you have to do very, very little heavy lifting – literally and metaphorically!

Amazon FBA: Costs

We like to give it to you straight, so we will say that Amazon FBA can be expensive. There are a lot of fees to consider.

Subscription Fee: $0.99 per item or $39.99 per month

This is the fee for operating as a business under the Amazon umbrella. If you choose the Individual plan, you’ll pay $0.99 for every item sold. If you choose the Professional plan, you’ll pay $39.99 per month.

Selling Fee

Like you see on eBay, fees depend on how much the items cost. There might be additional referral or closing fees, so check if your item categories include these.

Shipping Fee

This varies wildly, depending on the size and weight of your items as well as what type of shipping services and speeds you offer. The locations of where you are willing to dispatch your items too will also alter your shipping fees.

FBA Fees: $3.22 – $158

These are separate fees that Amazon puts on top for handling the end-to-end process for you. This will include the storage and customer service costs. Fulfillment fees depend on the size tier, dimensions, and weight of your products.

Storage Fees: $0.87 – $3.63 per cubic foot

You need to pay for the storage your inventory uses in Amazon’s fulfillment centers. This is charged as a monthly inventory storage fee – the cost depends on your product type, size-tier, and the time of year. For example, “dangerous goods” are more expensive to store, and all products become more expensive to store during peak times such as between October and December.

Amazon FBA Alternatives

Amazon FBA is not the only choice you have as an online business owner – many sellers seek out Amazon alternatives. You’ve got dozens of options, but here are three of the most popular both on and off the Amazon platform:

Amazon FBM

FBM does increase your profits and reduce your overheads because you get to take advantage of Amazon’s enormous freight and shipping discounts. But you’re going to need to put in more work. With FBM, you as the seller stores your products and ships them directly to the customer.

You will be responsible for all aspects of fulfillment, including storage, shipping, and customer service. FBA is ideal for those who want to focus on product sourcing and marketing, while FBM is better for those who want to retain control over their fulfillment process and keep costs low.

FedEx Fulfillment

FedEx is a multinational courier delivery services company that provides shipping, logistics, and supply chain management solutions to businesses and individuals. The company offers a range of services, including wide coverage of ground and air delivery, international shipping, printing, and office services. It has also integrated with ecommerce website builders and offers inventory management.

At first glance, it can be more cost-efficient than Amazon FBA. But bear in mind you will need to store your goods and package them – that could drive up your costs again.

FedEx gives plenty of info on its benefits

ShipBob

Though both ShipBob and Amazon FBA are fulfillment models, there are some big differences. ShipBob integrates into a variety of ecommerce platforms. With ShipBob, the retailer retains ownership of their inventory, while with Amazon FBA, the retailer transfers ownership to Amazon.

ShipBob’s storage fees are cheaper than Amazon’s, especially during peak season. ShipBob partners with multiple carriers to offer shipping at competitive rates (so you’re not just stuck with one carrier option). ShipBob is more flexible on what type of products can be stored. It also provides dedicated customer service and account management.

Whichever platform you choose, it’s important to remember that with non-Amazon platforms there will be a steep learning curve when it comes to their systems and software.

Advice from the Experts

Top Tip: Always double-check that you aren’t bound to a certain period of time with a fulfillment platform unless you know for sure it works for you.

Is Amazon FBA For You?

Amazon FBA is an extremely convenient option for online business owners who want to sell products online but don’t have the space, resources, or expertise to handle storage and shipping.

Whether you are simply extremely busy, or your online business is a side-hustle, or you quite frankly hate admin, FBA is a great option.

But you have to be aware it is expensive, so the time that you save should be worth what you have to pay out in all the fees associated with using the service, including storage fees, fulfillment fees, and shipping fees.

You also have to be very comfortable selling products on the Amazon platform because you’re tied into its marketplace by signing up to FBA.

Summary

It’s nice to have so many options for your shipping and fulfillment. As long as you are aware of the benefits and costs associated with each, you’ll be able to choose which one is best for you. We started out by asking “What is an Amazon FBA business?” and by now you should know the answer, and have an idea of whether it’s the right path for your business.

Sometimes it can feel a little intimidating to make such a big decision, but remember, nothing is set in stone. If you find out that the fulfillment service you chose isn’t right for you, you can always change.

,Building Online Stores

Categories
Building Online Stores

Black Friday Ecommerce Guide: 10 Steps For More Sales

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are historically two huge days in the ecommerce calendar, starting on November 24th through to the 27th.In 2022 online customers spent a huge $11.3 billion during Cyber Monday. That’s a 5.8% increase on how much was spent the year before in 2021!

But what does that mean for online sales in 2024? Will this upward trend continue or will shoppers be reluctant to spend in a worrying economical climate?

Online shoppers and retailers are gearing up for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, so let’s take a look at what you can expect from the shopping season this year and how to manage your ecommerce site.

How to Get More Sales on Black Friday & Cyber Monday

  1. Prepare and Test Your Site
  2. Optimize Your Products
  3. Apply The Right Discounts
  4. Improve The Shopping Experience
  5. Improve Your Checkout Process
  6. Drive Traffic With Social Media
  7. Leverage Email Marketing
  8. Optimize Your Site’s Images
  9. Determine Shipping Costs
  10. Provide Quality Customer Service
  11. Optimize For Conversational Technology
  12. Smooth Shipping and Returns
  13. Optimize for Mobile & Desktop
  14. Follow Black Friday & Cyber Monday Best Practices

Prepare and Test Your Site

The biggest nightmare for any site owner is your website breaking down just as you get a surge in customers looking to buy.

It’s enough to make you wake up in the middle of the night in cold sweats. Downtime on a website is like putting up a sign on your front door inviting your customers to head over to the competition.

Preparing and testing your website for Black Friday and Cyber Monday therefore is essential.

The important thing is not to panic: crashing a website usually takes A LOT of traffic. Even so, it’s still worth giving your site a stress test before the big weekend. Think of it as giving your car an MOT before you compete in a Nascar rally event.

What can you do to make sure your store is fighting fit?

  • Test the load capacity (the amount of activity your store can take before it packs it in) using tools such as LoadImpact.com. If your store is self-hosted, you may want to consider upgrading the service or your hosting plan to unlimited bandwidth.
  • Test email marketing in advance – if you’re sending any automated emails over the period, test, test and test again that they are delivering properly and that the copy is clear. Sending the wrong email to the wrong customer could affect sales and really damage your brand in the long run by making you look amateur.
  • Test your site across different browsers (Google, Firefox, Internet Explorer) and across different devices (mobile, tablet, desktop) to make sure it’s working smoothly on all of them. Your shoppers will use all manner of browsers on a number of devices, so it’s important to spread your net as wide as you can to avoid missing out on sales.
  • Test your checkout process and make sure it can cope with a large volume of orders all at once. This is particularly important if you’re thinking of running flash deals or time-limited offers on the day.
  • Ensure your website is mobile-friendly. A website that doesn’t load or function on a mobile device is the stuff Black Friday nightmares are made of.

Advice From Experts: Infinity Dish


Laura Fuentes

My number one tip for Cyber Monday is to make sure your site can handle the traffic pouring in.

Any tips for handling website traffic on BFCM?

Nothing frustrates a shopper more than slowed screens and glitches. Unless a shopper is intent on purchasing a particular item from your specific business, if glitches happen, they will move on and look for similar deals with your competitors. Use a service like Google to check your site speed and whether or not it is fully mobile compatible. Check these metrics out ahead of time so that you can upgrade your speeds and compatibility well before Cyber Monday is here.

Optimize Your Products For Sales

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2023 saw a 4.5% rise in holiday retail sales across key dates, including Black Friday and Cyber Monday. And according to our recent report on Black Friday statistics, 76% of Shopify customers were looking for high quality goods in 2022 rather than fast fashion items.

As a result, competition is much higher, and customers becoming more selective, so it’s crucial you give your products every chance of standing out.

If you took part in Black Friday and Cyber Monday last year, the first step is to analyze your sales data to see what went well. Use the information to make alterations to existing product layouts and product descriptions.

Plan ahead by creating a product schedule that determines when a product goes on sale and its price. Rather than playing catch up, you can get ahead of the game and then make slight tweaks rather than making it up off the cuff. Website builders like Shopify have apps that can help you auto post products. We like BigCommerce’s Discount Manager (more on this later).

Your product descriptions should instill urgency. Remind people they only have a certain window to bag the bargains on offer by adding phrases like:

  • Black Friday sale ends soon
  • Limited time only
  • Only one left
  • In high demand
  • Sold out soon

Add special mentions to Black Friday and Cyber Monday in the product descriptions to signpost their relevance to the shopper.

If you’re stocking products from any well-known brands, make sure the brand names appear in a prominent position – this doesn’t just improve your organic rankings (which equals more traffic and so more sales), it also adds credibility to your store and makes customers more likely to become repeat shoppers.

You might also think about running a keyword search on Google and using Google Trends to find some Black-Friday-related keywords for your products. Including these in your descriptions may give your site an SEO (search engine optimization) boost – by climbing Google’s rankings for relevant terms, you’ll get more traffic on the day and, hopefully, more sales.

The top search terms for Black Friday 2022 included Nintendo Switch Black Friday and Black Friday TV Deals, highlighting a need to alter your keyword targeting to be Black Friday-specific in the run up to, and during, the big weekend.

It’s also worth running a quick audit of your categories and product listings to make sure they’re up to date, to avoid overselling. There’s nothing worse than advertising a product you’re not able to deliver.

Plus, now might be a good time to review what you’re selling. The pandemic has changed consumer habits for the long-term, and purchases are starting to reflect this. People are spending more time at home, and products that fall into health and fitness, work at home, and eat at home have all seen an increase in sales. If you don’t want to completely rewrite your catalog, why not think about ways you can associate your current stock with these areas?

Top Tip: The products you display don’t have to be set in stone. Dropshipping means you can branch into new markets at the drop of a hat, so it’s always worth being flexible in case you spot an opportunity.

The Easy Way to Start a Dropshipping Business has everything you need to know.

Want to use any of the graphics on this page? Be our guest! You can access our graphics, 
plus a handy infographic summary, on this Google Drive. Just be sure to credit us by linking back to this article. Enjoy!
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Apply The Right Discounts, To The Right Products

Black Friday and Cyber Monday shoppers are bargain hunters.

Be prepared: you’re going to have to slash at least 20 per cent off your items to compete. You might want to consider offering a free gift with your products as a little sweetener; web builders like Shopify allow you to add gift cards to your store for free.

You can also get in the holiday spirit and advertise a percentage of sales going to a charity, making shoppers more likely to purchase from your store. Learn more about holiday marketing tactics in our full guide, including how to target emotions and offer holiday discounts for your customers!

Expert Advice: Rebate Key


Ian Sells

Ian has been using marketing to grow businesses. He sold an Amazon brand first and is now managing over 10 million in sales.

If you’re going to run Black Friday deals, you want to be strategic.

What is a common Black Friday & Cyber Monday mistake?

A huge mistake a lot of retailers make is to give discounts on everything. When you discount everything, you’ll end up unnecessarily losing profit.

What advice do you have on the lead up to Black Friday?

Try using a high runner strategy to draw more people into your store and optimize for margin. Amazon uses a high runner strategy itself. To build a high runner strategy, all you need to do is determine the most popular products in your store, then discount those products as a way to drive traffic to your shop. Once a consumer is in your shop, they’re less likely to navigate away, which means you have the opportunity for strategic cross and up-sells of complementary products.

When it comes to discounts, the more creative the better.

Plenty of retailers will be offering 20% off, but how many will be offering “50% off for first-time buyers” or “30% off if you buy more than 5 pairs of shoes”? Let your imagination off the leash!

How to Design a Product Page has everything you need on designing a product page for your ecommerce site.

Top Tip: A “doorbuster sale” – an eye-watering discount on one product of, say, 80% – can be a great way to draw a high volume of shoppers to your store. Once they’re on your site, you hope they browse around and buy other products. If you’ve got a product you’ve been struggling to shift, this could be a good candidate for a doorbuster.

Improve The Shopping Experience

Everything about your store’s design on Black Friday and Cyber Monday should be geared towards making a sale and turning browsers into buyers.

The first thing to check is that your website is fully optimized for mobile visitors. Mobile shopping made up 51% of all online shoppers throughout Black Friday week in 2022, up from 46% in 2021.

Because of this, double-checking that your website layout configures properly on different screen sizes without compromising UX should be high on your priority list.

Making sure all of your content is mobile-friendly not only plays a large part in boosting your sales, but works in tandem with Google’s Core Web Vitals rollout to determine the search engine ranking of your store.

As well as poor mobile optimization, a sure way of missing out on sales is overlooking key opportunities for cross-selling and upselling.  For example, if you’ve got a great discount on a pair of shoes, cross-sell that customer some cut-price socks by displaying them on the same product page. Or, if you’re wondering how to upsell, advertise a better version of the shoes. Doing this is easy if you build categories of products that naturally fit together (like socks and shoes).

A customer should arrive on your store’s homepage and be in no doubt where to go.

Consider building distinct Black Friday and Cyber Monday pages to clearly signpost where your customers need to go to get the deals. Ultimately, you want your customers to get to your discounted products in as few clicks as possible.

Just like your product descriptions, your whole site should convey a sense of urgency. Here are two DIY steps to create a sense of urgency in the same time it takes to eat your dinner:

  • Display discounts clearly on the homepage – this may sound obvious but it’s easy to get so caught up in your product pages that you forget to sort out the shop window.
  • Add a countdown banner – a timer that ticks down to Black Friday and Cyber Monday can really help build excitement. Tools like Powr (fully integrated with BigCommerce) can help you do this for free in a matter of minutes.

Here’s an example of a countdown banner we added through Shopify:

Adding a countdown banner like this Shopify example drives excitement for your store’s sale

Top Tip: If you already have a ‘sale’ section of your website, a quick and easy fix is to alter the text to make it a special Black Friday and Cyber Monday navigation bar. Ask your friends to road test your site before the sales weekend – they’re likely to be brutally honest about any shortcomings!

Improve Your Checkout Process

You might think, “my checkout is working fine, if it isn’t broken, why try and fix it?”

That would be a mistake.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday shoppers are fickle – they’ve got thousands of stores to visit and a limited amount of time, and so won’t think twice about leaving you hanging at the checkout.

Taking some time to improve and optimize your checkout process could pay off on the day. In 2023, cart abandonment rate reached 70.72%, so there’s always room to improve your customers experience at checkout.

Can you add extra payment options such as PayPal or Bitcoin? The more strings to your ecommerce bow the better because you’re giving your customers more opportunities to give you their money.

With 36% of American’s now having at least 3 digital devices to their name, a single online transaction can span multiple devices before completion. Tying shopping carts with accounts means your customers don’t lose their orders if they switch device, and you don’t risk losing out on almost a third of your revenue.

It’s a win-win!

Top Tip: If you already have a ‘sale’ section of your website, a quick and easy fix is to alter the text to make it a special Black Friday and Cyber Monday navigation bar. Ask your friends to road test your site before the sales weekend – they’re likely to be brutally honest about any shortcomings!

Use Social Media To Drive Traffic

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Running campaigns on social media sites like Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram can be a great way to get eyeballs on your ecommerce site; but it’s not enough to just push ads out there, you have to push those adds to the right people.

Watch out for Black Friday and Cyber Monday hashtags you can piggyback on. Using the social media plug-ins available from ecommerce website builders will let you integrate your store with Facebook or Twitter.

In our experience testing ecommerce stores, Facebook is the most effective channel to drive traffic to your site and generate sales. This is reflected in the stats we found in our recent report on digital marketing ROI statistics: it sees the best ROI, with 40% of marketers citing it as their leading social channel.

To give your social media strategy and campaigns the best chance of success, choose a quality product image and add your logo and some text advertising your deals. Make sure you start circulating the ad at least a few days in advance to build excitement. Leave it to the last minute and customers may only see your ad once, which means they’re unlikely to click through, given how many retailers will be demanding their attention.

Advice From Experts: Dark Horse Schooling


Tracy Brinkmann

Start working on your social media presence now to gain traction for those all important big sale days!

How do you leverage social media in this holiday season?

When it comes to social media there is a recipe to this – you cannot just be throwing random content out there and expect people to react. I mean it is social media, after all, so you have to be social, so put up some R&R content (i.e. jokes, funny stuff, throwbacks). Then some enlightening content (i.e. tips, trivia, etc). From there, toss in something to strike up a Conversation (i.e. polls, surveys, ask advice etc), as well as some Invigorating and Inspirational content (i.e. quotes, client success stories).

What is the outcome?

Once you’ve done that, hit them with a Promo (eg. show customer reviews, give a discount, invite them to a webinar). Finally, show off your Endeavour (i.e. show behind the scenes, let them see behind the curtain). Your spending time being social before you hit them with a ‘Buy My Stuff’ message.

Want to learn more about social media?

3 Easy Ways to Set Up a Facebook Store is the guide you need to get your Facebook marketing campaign off the ground.

Learn How To Grow Your Business on Social Media in our helpful guide.

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Send Top-Quality Email Marketing Campaigns

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For many of us, Black Friday and Cyber Monday can feel overwhelming. Email gives you the chance to cut through the noise and provide a really personal offering to your customers.

We asked 65 business owners, which channel was the most effective for marketing, and 24% said email marketing!

Make sure you start your email campaign at least a week in advance to whet your customers’ appetite for the sales you’re going to offer them on across the weekend.

A simple but effective email campaign would include:

  • One weekly email from four weeks until Black Friday.
  • An email both the night before Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
  • An email on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

You may even consider offering your long-standing customers a special VIP offer over email. For example, you could give them a sneak preview of your Black Friday and Cyber Monday discounts and offer them an early chance to buy them. This can be a great way to build up brand trust; because repeat customers are more valuable to you, it also makes commercial sense.

Email gives you the chance to provide a really personal offering to your customers. Research shows that personalization helped increase email open rate by 30% and click rate by 50% on average

Advice From Experts: USA Wholesale


Alexis Frankel

In the past, the best campaigns I’ve produced have been for Black Friday/Cyber Monday ($10,000+ in a single day from email campaigns).

Is email marketing valuable during the Black Friday season?

Leads are in the mindset to buy and will do so if they see what they like. Give them what they want! Use data from their previous purchases, abandoned cart items, and average order value to target specific promotions that they will be interested in. Make sure to tweak and test for the best results.

Even if you do all of the above, you’re not done.

Make sure you follow up after Black Friday and Cyber Monday to ask for feedback and invite them to revisit your store.

Adding an automated abandoned cart recovery email is a great way of stopping customers slipping through the net. If a customer gets all the way to the checkout but then fails to purchase, they’ll get a follow-up email allowing them to go straight back to their cart.

This is a useful tool for your customers and potentially profitable one for you!

Top tip:An easy way of staying on top of what your competitors are doing for Black Friday and Cyber Monday is to subscribe to their email list. You can get a clear idea of their marketing strategy and incorporate any ideas into your own plan.

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Optimize Your Site’s Images

Black Friday and Cyber Monday online shoppers are ruthless. With so many retailers competing for their attention, they can afford to be.

If your store is even remotely slow to load, many shoppers will simply vote with their feet and close the tab. Big, colorful product pictures and homepage banner images make your site look good but they can also affect load time and hit your conversion rate (the percentage of visitors who go on to make a purchase) and your rankings in Google.

The simple way to solve this issue is to use an image optimizer. These are tools that compress your image into a smaller version, without affecting the dimensions or the quality. Shopify has its own tool to help store owners resize and optimize images, but we’ve used a tool called Kraken.io before, which also works well.

Other helpful pages:

  • Image Optimization for Best Website Performance – Find out what steps you can take to optimize your images and boost your site’s performance.
  • How to Take Product Photos – Give your products the best chance with our guide to great product photography.

Determine Shipping Costs

Determining how much your shipping will cost is almost as important as determining how much the product itself costs.

High shipping costs can be off-putting to shoppers, especially those looking for big bargains. In fact, many Black Friday and Cyber Monday shoppers will expect free delivery.

It’s up to you to weigh up the cost of free shipping against the discount you’re offering. For example, many shoppers would rather have free shipping worth $6 than a discount of $10, bizarrely.

A survey conducted by Finances Online found that almost half (49%) of all Black Friday 2022 shoppers stated shipping rates as their primary influencer for making a purchase and that they could be swayed into making an order if they were offered free shipping.

Advice From Experts: M&I


Brian Deschesare

Use a loss leader product, and offer free shipping on expensive orders.

What are your thoughts on shipping costs during Black Friday?

A ‘loss leader’ is a product sold at a loss to bring in more customers. You might be wondering why you would ever sell a product at a loss, but the idea is simple. You want to make it cheap enough to get them shopping. That way, they’ll start taking a look at the rest of your products, and they’ll buy even more.

Is using a loss leader too risky?

Without first using a loss leader, your customers might not even start shopping with you. There needs to be that ‘initial push’ that gets them browsing your store. The next step is to introduce free shipping over a certain amount.

Now that they have one cheap item in their basket, they’re going to start browsing through the rest of your selection. This is when you advertise that you offer “free shipping on orders over $50”, for example. Your customers are now a lot more likely to find items that they like.

Provide Quality Customer Service

With Walmart and Amazon dominating Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales, you might feel like a small fish in a big pond.

The trick is to turn this to your advantage.

One way to do this is by providing personal and quality online customer service. If you haven’t already, write a detailed FAQs section specific to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, so any questions your customers might have can be dealt with as seamlessly as possible. Make sure you cover key areas such as:

  • Your refunds and returns policy.
  • How long your sale lasts for.
  • Expected delivery time.

If you employ any staff to help you run your store, make sure you give them a brief pep talk on the importance of being polite and helpful. You could provide them with certain customer service phrases or advice on how to respond to negative reviews, to ensure all customer interactions end on a positive note.

Anything you can do to improve the on-site level of service can have a big effect. You might, for example, want to introduce BigCommerce store, offers a free 30-day trial, so time it right and you can add a really attractive customer service tool for free.

Optimize For Conversational Technology

If you aren’t using conversational technology as part of your ecommerce strategy, Black Friday and Cyber Monday make for the perfect excuse to get started.

With over 130 million people visiting US online stores over Cyber Weekend 2022, digital shopping isn’t set to go anywhere anytime soon – voice technology and chat solutions are ideal for bridging the gap between online and in-person shopping experiences.

Conversational commerce covers everything from voice search (assistant) technology to chatbots and boxes. Each can be used to bolster customer service efforts, as well as acting as an extra channel for matching customers with new deals and upselling related products.

Given that almost 33.3% of the global population now shops online, conversational technology fills the person-sized hole left in your shopping experience. For example, fashion stores like H&M use chatbots to deliver custom recommendations to customers, whilst Alexa reports all of the best Black Friday deals when asked. There are plenty of ways for you to use and optimize for voice search!

So at the very least, we recommend installing a chatbot to your site to give customers a deeper level of service, even when they’re shopping digitally. Not only will it foster better relationships, but it’ll drive sales, too – with business leaders estimating that chatbots result in a 67% increase in sales.

Advice From Experts: The Converted Click


Dave Nilsson

Our voice search optimization strategy gave us an increase in website traffic of 23.7% and an increase in sales leads of 34.2%.

Why did you add conversational technology to your website?

As SEO specialists we have implemented voice search optimization on our website with great success. We implemented voice search optimization on our website to increase our sales leads.

How does this help your customers?

Our approach is to focus on creating detailed answers to common conversational questions from our customers. For each question, we create content that gives clear and concise answers. Our content framework starts with a headline asking a common question, provides a concise answer in the first paragraph, then elaborates with further details in the rest of the page.

Smooth Shipping and Returns

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Touch wood, you’ll be receiving more orders than usual across Black Friday and Cyber Monday. A lot more orders, hopefully.

It’s crucial to make sure your shipping process can cope and you’re not going to fail to deliver orders if they’re coming through thick and fast, or that you won’t sell out too quickly and end up failing to meet demand. Contact your supplier and make sure they know what’s happening.

Test your order fulfillment process, whether you’re using a dropshipper, a manual system or a fulfillment app like ShipStation.

You also need to ensure you’ve set up a smooth and optimized returns process. Black Friday and Cyber Monday may result in a lot of sales, but they can result in a lot of returns too if customers aren’t happy with the items or regret their purchase made in a haze of discounts and deals.

Plan your returns process in advance, make it easy to find the relevant information on your website, and don’t keep customers waiting for a refund. Good returns management, and an easy returns process, can help to ensure they return to your online store in the future.

Top Tip:It pays to be have a backup plan. If your shipping company turns around on the day and says they can’t fulfill the orders, what are you going to do? Make sure you build relationships with different suppliers so that when one fails you, you can transfer over and minimize the effect on your store’s productivity.
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Optimize for Mobile & Desktop

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When making sure your store is ready for the busiest shopping days of the year, it’s easy to forget how important it is to make sure all the changes we’ve suggested work as well on mobile as they do on desktop.

Mobile devices made up a staggering 76% of all Cyber Week traffic in 2022, with the upward trend predicted to continue in 2024.

Don’t forget to look at navigation on a mobile, mobile responsiveness and the buying process.

Advice From Experts: The Gray Dot Company


Tory Gray

I recommend testing your site’s mobile compatibility in anticipation of these big-spending days.

What are your mobile and desktop recommendations for BFCM?

It’s more important to target mobile searches than ever before. Mobile makes up a whopping 61 percent of Google’s organic search traffic. Mobile users are also more likely to convert than desktop users, so it’s crucial that you are mobile-ready in the lead up to Black Friday and Cyber Monday. I recommend testing your site’s mobile compatibility in anticipation of these big-spending days. You should test your site’s responsiveness, loading time, and image sizes to make sure they are mobile-ready. Not only can mobile compatibility make for better user experience, but it can also improve your ranking and visibility on Google.

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Black Friday and Cyber Monday Best Practices

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Many retailers get caught up in the competitiveness of Black Friday and Cyber Monday and risk damaging their brand with unethical practices. Here are a few rules of thumb to bear in mind:

  • DON’T spam customers with relentless emails. Just because they’ve bought from you or signed up to your newsletter doesn’t give you right to abuse their inbox.
  • DO always have an unsubscribe button on any emails.
  • DON’T offer promotions or products in paid advertising that you aren’t offering on the site. Customers must get what they were promised when they click on a paid advert.
  • DO offer genuine discounts. Don’t raise the price a week before and then drop it back down to its original price but advertise it as a discount. You’ll be caught out and shoppers will punish you in the long run.
  • DON’T be rude to customers requesting refunds or making inquiries. Black Friday and Cyber Monday can be stressful, but you should always remain professional and courteous.
  • DO make sure any pop-ups you add to your website are as unobtrusive and as relevant as possible. We’d suggest they only appear after a visitor has been on your page for 10 seconds. There is nothing more off-putting than arriving on a webpage only to be attacked by a pop-up immediately.

Not built your online store yet?

Don’t worry it’s not too late!

  • How to Build an Online Store – get the tools you need to get ready for Black Friday online sales.
  • Online Store Builders Comparison Chart – our comparison chart will help you find the perfect online store builder for you.
  • Best Website Builders – discover the best website builders compared side by side.
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More Sales on Black Friday & Cyber Monday: Summary

There are no hard-and-fast rules, Black Friday and Cyber Monday trends are always evolving and changing. With it we’re always updating our content to keep you in the best of loops!

We hope we’ve helped prepare you for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the biggest shopping dates in the calendar. Standing out of the crowd can feel impossible if you’re a small online store with limited resource.

But if you ask yourself the right questions, and take the right steps, you can ride the Black Friday and Cyber Monday wave and get in on the action!

Hopefully this guide has shown you some easy DIY methods to get your ecommerce store ready for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, without needing to hire an expensive developer or a designer, and pointed you in the direction of some really helpful tools available from top ecommerce website builders.

If you haven’t even built your ecommerce store yet, it’s never too late to get up and running.

Check out the Best Ecommerce Website Builders and the Best Free Ecommerce Website Builders to find which builder is best for you and your store.

Explore the Best Ecommerce Software to help you sell online, which shows you how quickly and easily you can build an online store and start selling, without needing any technical knowledge whatsoever.

Let’s hear it for a successful Black Friday and Cyber Monday!

More Information

  • How to Design a Customer-Winning Product Page for Your eCommerce Store: Part 1 – for the 8 pieces of content your ecommerce product page must have if you want to supercharge your online store.
  • How To Sell Online | 4 Superb eCommerce Solutions To Help You Succeed – your one-stop guide to selling online successfully, covering everything from building a brand to technology that helps you sell.

Introduction Statistics

Statistics sourced from:

  • Black Friday Ultimate Ecommerce Guide.
  • 27.7% drop in ecommerce season sales
  • 140 million people
  • 65% of shoppers are going online

Found This Guide Helpful?

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Website Builders

5 Best Free Website Builders 2024: The Definitive List

You’ll get more out of website builders if you choose a paid plan, but unfortunately, not everyone has the budget for that. So how is someone able to create a good website for free without limiting future growth?

The 5 Best Free Website Builders

  1. Wix – Best overall free website builder
  2. GoDaddy – For getting a free website online quickly
  3. Square Online – For selling online for free
  4. Pagecloud – For one-page websites
  5. Webflow – For having limited ads

Well, many website builders offer free plans, letting you create and publish websites with zero cash transactions necessary. However, you get what you pay for. These free plans often come with immovable ads and limited features, meaning you may find you need to upgrade to a premium plan after all.

Of these free builders, Wix is by far the best overall. It offers the best editor and features to build your website, though you’ll have to contend with ads. Each builder has its own merits apart from just being free, and I’ll review them thoroughly below, starting with a helpful comparison table of their key features.

In a rush? Take our free and speedy quiz to find out which website builder we recommend for you:

What type of website do you want to create?

Business (Including Online Store)
Portfolio
Informational
Blog

Find Your Builder

This article was updated on 09/10/24 – find out more about the changes I’ve made:

I’ve added more information about the features included each of the builders’ free plans to help you make the right choice. This includes SEO and marketing tools, as well as limits on bandwidth, site visitors, and blog posts – all  important considerations for a range of different websites.

Compare the Top 5 Free Website Builders

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Get all of the key information at a glance with our helpful comparison table:

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BEST IN TEST

Wix

GoDaddy

Square Online

Pagecloud

Webflow
Overall Rating
4.8
Overall Rating
4.3
Overall Rating
3.6
Overall Rating
3.5
Overall Rating
3.2
Cheapest plan

$17

$15.30 with code ‘TAKE10’
Cheapest plan

$9.99
Cheapest plan

$29
Cheapest plan

$20
Cheapest plan

$14
Number of free templates

900+
Number of free templates

200+
Number of free templates

50+
Number of free templates

50+
Number of free templates

40+
Storage space on free plan

500MB
Storage space on free plan

Unlimited
Storage space on free plan

500MB
Storage space on free plan

Unlimited
Storage space on free plan

1GB
On-site ad on free plan

Sticky top banner
On-site ad on free plan

Top banner
On-site ad on free plan

Bottom banner
On-site ad on free plan

Footer disclaimer
On-site ad on free plan

Limited ads
Visit Wix Visit GoDaddy Visit Square Visit Pagecloud Visit Webflow

Prefer to have someone talk you through the key highlights, pros, cons, and pricing of each builder? Check out our video comparison!


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1. Wix – Best Overall Free Website Builder

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Editor’s Choice

Wix

Best overall website builder with a variety of free features

Outstanding

4.8

out of 5

  • 900+ customizable designs
  • Easiest builder to use
  • Tons of creative freedom

Free plan available

Paid Plans: $17 – $159 / month

Pros

  • Plenty of features on the free plan
  • 250+ apps to add more power to your site
  • Free SEO wizard helps gain more traffic

Cons

  • Free plan ads are very noticeable
  • Can’t switch templates after publishing
  • Cheapest upgrade costs $17/month

Wix Review

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If you’re looking to make the best website for free, I can’t recommend Wix enough. While all the free plans on this list come with some limitations, it’s the versatility of the Wix editor that makes even its free plan head and shoulders above the competition!

What I Like

️ Customization options: I could drag anything anywhere, making it easy to line things up exactly how I wanted them! The text options were also incredibly varied, letting me choose between fonts, sizes, colors, shadows, and even letter spacing.

️ Template choices & designs: I used Wix’s AI chatbot builder to build my chosen template after answering a few questions. The generated template had great pre-made menu options and features based on my answers, saving me time in the design process.

️ SEO options: I’ve seen Wix’s SEO options greatly improve since we last tested the builder, and it now lets users access Google Search Console directly from the dashboard. It also has onboarding video tutorials to help teach website owners.

What I Dislike

 Ads: On the free plan, Wix places a banner ad at the top of your website, urging visitors to go check out Wix. This is quite distracting and may harm your website’s perceived professionalism.

 No custom domain: You can’t use a personal domain (a custom website address) with Wix’s free plan, so your domain will follow this format: yourusername.wixsite.com/yoursite. So, instead of lucyscupcakes.com, I was stuck with a much lengthier https://carnagelucy.wixsite.com/lucyscupcakes.

 Limited storage: With only 500MB of storage on the free plan, I was limited by the number of images and videos I could have on my site. You’ll also only get 500MB bandwidth, limiting how much traffic you can handle, though Wix will helpfully let you know when you’re close to exceeding this limit.

To see a free Wix website in action, check out my demo site: carnagelucy.wixsite.com/lucyscupcakes 

I created a free Wix website for an imaginary business called Lucy’s Cupcakes. Click the image to see it in action! Source: Website Builder Expert

My Experience With Wix

On the free plan, you’ll get a choice of over 900 impeccably designed templates, ranging across a number of varying industries. When testing, I used Wix’s AI website builder which created a custom website template for me.

From Wix Booking, Wix Menu, Wix Video, Wix Forms, and a whole host of other free-to-install apps, Wix sets itself apart by giving you the best variety of features to use and make your website your own – no matter what type of website you want to make.

However, there are some drawbacks to the free plan. You’re limited to only 500MB of storage, meaning your site cannot be too large to have too many images. Additionally, while you do get a lot of customization options, I found Wix’s editor a little overwhelming with too many creative options at times – even on the free plan! If you do get stuck, Wix’s Help Center can guide you through its handy search bar directly in the editor.

A banner ad on my Wix demo site. As you can see, it takes up a lot of space and distracts from my website’s design. Source: Website Builder Expert

Upgrade Cost: $17 per month

Wix’s pricing begins with the Light plan for $17 per month, billed annually. This plan removes any ads from your site, lets you use a custom domain, and increases your storage to 2GB.

If you’re looking to sell, you’ll need to upgrade to the Core plan, which begins at $29 per month.

These plans are slightly more expensive than others on this list, so I understand you may not be entirely convinced to upgrade. But with all the features on offer, our research shows that Wix is still great value for money.

If you love getting deals, use the code TAKE10 at checkout to get 10% off your Wix plan.

Read our full Wix Review for more.

More Information

  • See Wix’s potential for an online store with our Wix Ecommerce Review.
  • What’s better? Wix AI vs Wix Editor? See our detailed breakdown to find out.

2. GoDaddy – For Getting A Free Website Online Quickly

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GoDaddy

Best for getting online quickly for free

Very Good

4.3

out of 5

  • User-friendly with ADI
  • Quickest builder to use
  • SEO Wiz to help optimize

Free plan available

Paid Plans: $9.99 – $20.99 / month

Pros

  • Plenty of features on the free plan
  • Switch templates when you want
  • Improved site performance

Cons

  • Lack of creative control
  • No mobile editor
  • Upgrade for custom domains

GoDaddy Review

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GoDaddy is a lot like Wix in that it comes with plenty of features and templates, even on the free plan. GoDaddy also features an AI builder and suggested I use it before looking at its templates. Ease of use is the name of GoDaddy’s game, and thanks to its AI functionality, the builder even matches Wix for user experience in our research.

What I Like

️ Efficiency: The speed at which GoDaddy set me up with a website template and then let me edit and publish it stands out among other free website builders. If you’re looking for the most painless building experience, this is it!

️ SEO features: By heading over to “Get found by Google” in the Settings, I could start optimizing my website in just a few clicks. No need to soak up any SEO knowledge before building.

️ AI builder: GoDaddy’s AI builder is simple to use and very effective. I used it during testing and it generated a different template every time, so I knew it was personalized to my answers.

What I Dislike

 Ads: GoDaddy places a “Powered by GoDaddy Websites + Marketing” banner at the top of your website.

 No custom domain: You domain name will automatically have a .godaddysites.com placed at the end of it.

 SEO locked by upgrade: The full suite of SEO tools by GoDaddy is locked unless you upgrade, meaning you don’t get access to rank tracking or SEO tips on the free plan.

To see a free GoDaddy website in action, check out my demo site: samspetgrooming.godaddysites.com

This is what the final design of my demo website homepage looks like. Click the image to see it in action! Source: Website Builder Expert

My Experience With GoDaddy

With the support of AI and a breezy editor, I could build a polished GoDaddy website in under an hour.

But this does reveal a weakness of GoDaddy’s, which is its lack of customization options. This can appeal to beginners who may agonize over creative choices with a builder like Wix or Webflow, because GoDaddy gives you a much more limited array of options for creating a website. However, I don’t recommend it if you’re looking for lots of creative freedom.

I was impressed that, on the free plan, I could utilize the basic features of GoDaddy Studio to create visual content for my sites. Plus, I was able to send marketing emails – albeit with a default GoDaddy domain. Its range of features,  as well as how easy it is to use, makes GoDaddy a great option if you want to experiment with website building for free before starting to sell online – which you’ll need to upgrade to GoDaddy’s Commerce Plan for.

I was able to access the SEO features from the editor – but saw that to use more advanced SEO features I would have to upgrade. Source: Website Builder Expert

Upgrade Cost: $9.99 per month

GoDaddy’s pricing begins at $9.99 per month, when billed annually with the Basic plan. With this plan, you get access to a custom domain, no ads, plus improved marketing capabilities like advanced SEO and the ability to send 100 emails per month for your business.

If you want to dive into the world of ecommerce, the dedicated Commerce plan is your go-to, setting you back $20.99 per month. It has everything you need – from selling on Facebook and Instagram to connecting with marketplaces like Amazon and Etsy.

Read our full GoDaddy Review for more.

More Information

  • Everything you need to know about building an online store in a flash with our GoDaddy Ecommerce Review.
  • We compare the differences between Wix and GoDaddy to help you decide.

3. Square Online – For Selling Online For Free

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Square Online

Best for selling online for free

Good

3.6

out of 5

  • Sell online for free
  • Speedy set up
  • Mediocre templates

Free plan available

Paid Plans: $12 – $79 / month

Pros

  • Good value for money if upgrading
  • Simple to navigate dashboard
  • Unlimited products on free plan

Cons

  • Hard to customize
  • Pay for the best features
  • Weak design options

Square Online Review

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Square Online is the only builder on this list that lets you sell for free. This is a huge advantage for those who want to create an online store without breaking the bank in website costs.

What I Like

️ Selling for free: Being able to create an online store for free is Square Online’s biggest selling point. With every other website builder asking you to upgrade before accepting purchases, Square Online still allows for the cheapest way to start an online store, though notably limited in scope.

️ Dashboard: While the editor is limited in customization, I could quickly switch between it and the dashboard, allowing me to add products and change my store’s settings in a more user-friendly manner.

What I Dislike

 Ads: Square Online, like GoDaddy and Wix, brands your website with its logo. This time, it’s a large unmovable footer at the bottom of your website.

 No custom domain: On the free plan, your site’s URL will have .square.site/ following your website’s name.

 Lack of customization options: The free plan lacks many customization and feature options, trying to lead you into upgrading to a paid plan. You even have to upgrade to get website themes!

To see a free Square Online website in action, check out my demo site: lucys-cupcakes.square.site

My finished Square Online homepage is pretty simple in nature. Click the image to see it in action! Source: Website Builder Expert

My Experience With Square Online

With Square Online, I was able to access basic SEO tools, integrate social media, and choose from lots of widely accepted payment types – all for free. This builder does charge transaction fees for each purchase made on your site, meaning you’ll have to pay 2.9% + 30¢ on each transaction. However this is a common occurrence with most builders, and being able to make a profit (transaction fees notwithstanding) for free is an incredible feature, and one not shared by any other on this list.

Unfortunately, Square Online’s editor and design customization are some of the weakest I’ve tested. Unless you upgrade, you won’t be able to access themes, remove Square Online ads, use custom fonts, or connect a custom domain.

Once I uploaded a handful of products, I could then add sections for featured items or categories to the page. Source: Website Builder Expert

Upgrade Cost: $29 per month

Square Online’s pricing begins with the Plus plan for $29 per month, when billed annually. This plan is more expensive than others on this list due to the fact Square Online is primarily an ecommerce platform, meaning it needs a wider range of features to accommodate businesses. These features include accepting PayPal, scheduled product drops, subscriptions, and personalized ordering – as well as giving users custom domains and no ads.

Read our full Square Online Review for more.

More Information

  • Read our How to Customize a Square Online Website to get the most out of your plan.

4. Pagecloud – For One-Page Sites

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Pagecloud

Best for one-page websites

Average

3.5

out of 5

  • Not ideal for beginners
  • Lots of customization
  • Drag-and-drop editor

Free plan available

Paid Plans: $20 / month

Pros

  • Unique website elements
  • Build with other people

Cons

  • No autosave feature
  • Difficult to navigate

Pagecloud Review

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Coming in fourth place on our list of the top five free website builders is Pagecloud. When building my demo website with Pagecloud, the editor and dashboard were fairly easy to navigate but it didn’t feel as intuitive or user-friendly as other builders, such as Wix.

What I Like

️ Customization: Pagecloud gave me a ton of creative freedom thanks to its detailed editor. If you have the time to figure it all out, you can build something wonderful.

️ Drag-and-drop editor: The familiar drag-and-drop style made it easy to format the pages to my liking.

What I Dislike

 Ads: Pagecloud has a “Powered by Pagecloud” banner at the bottom of your page. Nothing too intrusive, but not as discreet as Webflow’s ad.

 No custom domain: Without a custom domain, Pagecloud’s free plan will present your site with .mypagecloud.com at the end of the URL.

 Lack of features: On top of only giving you one page on the free plan, Pagecloud also limits access to critical website features, such as AI tools, redirects, and team members for editing and management.

To see a free Pagecloud website in action, check out my demo site: lucys-cupcakes.mypagecloud.com

Setting up my homepage with Pagecloud was pretty easy with the template it provided. Click the image to see it in action! Source: Website Builder Expert

My Experience With Pagecloud

I faced a lot of slow loading times when editing, and some steps felt unnecessarily complicated. For example, I could edit text directly on the page, but editing an image opened up a separate menu, which was very frustrating.

Pagecloud’s free plan feels more like a free trial; it’s incomplete, and geared towards pushing you to upgrade to a paid plan. For example, it only lets you publish one page. One-page website builders do exist, but they’re limiting in terms of the type of website you can make. Plus, you’ll be capped at 10 blog posts and 1,000 website visitors per month – limits that will be problematic for many ecommerce and personal sites.

That said, Pagecloud’s free plan would be a solid choice for certain types of portfolio websites – such as for a presentation or school project – that work well with the one-page format and won’t require a high volume of site traffic.

Pagecloud placed a small banner at the bottom of my website featuring “Powered by Pagecloud”. While not too big, it could still affect my professionalism, especially if I created a portfolio. Source: Website Builder Expert

Upgrade Cost: $20 per month

Pagecloud’s pricing begins at $20 per month, billed annually on the Launch plan. With this plan, you get 100 pages, redirects, no ads, a custom domain, plus free Google Workplace (priced at $72 value).

While the Launch plan is closer in price to an ecommerce plan, it doesn’t have sales features. If you require ecommerce functionality, Pagecloud’s ecommerce pricing begins with the Starter plan for $29 per month.

Read our full
Pagecloud Review
for more.

5. Webflow – For Having Limited Ads

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Webflow

Best free plan with limited ads

Above Average

3.2

out of 5

  • Advanced customization
  • Section block editor
  • Industry-specific themes

Free plan available

Paid Plans: $14 / month

Pros

  • Virtual design assistant
  • Ideal for experienced builders
  • No ads on free plan

Cons

  • Overwhelming for beginners
  • No drag-and-drop editor
  • Hardest free builder to use

Webflow Review

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Webflow is a website builder with advanced customization features and superb-looking templates, plus its free plan has the least amount of ads on it – a small, unintrusive “Powered by Webflow” at the bottom of the page!

What I Like

️ Template choices & designs: Webflow makes it clear which templates are best for certain industries, offering users a pretty wide selection of free themes (when compared with other builders).

️ Creative freedom: Webflow gave me lots of creative control and its free plan comes with an array of customizable features, as well as adding comments for team collaboration.

️ Limited ads: While it’s a shame that Webflow couldn’t be devoid of any ads, I’m still giving it a special mention for having the least amount of ads.

What I Dislike

 No drag-and-drop editor: Of the builders on this list, Webflow offers the most difficult user experience due to its confusing layout and reliance on code to add new features or templates.

 No custom domain: Once again, you must upgrade if you wish to have a custom domain. On the free plan, Webflow users will have .webflow.io at the end of their domain names.

To see a free Webflow website in action check out my demo website: lucys-cupcakes-e53b96.webflow.io

A Webflow demo site for Lucy’s Cupcakes. Click the image to see it in action! Source: Website Builder Expert

My Experience With Webflow

Webflow’s advanced customization features are pretty technical, and I had trouble feeling comfortable when using the builder. Webflow is designed with professional web developers in mind. In my experience, I found the lack of a drag-and-drop editor to be a struggle. For beginners, Webflow is difficult to get to grips with.

But, if you have web developer experience (or just the patience to learn), Webflow’s free plan will give you a great-looking website for free with limited ads.

Although its editing capabilities are strong, Webflow’s free plan also caps your site at 1,000 monthly visitors, like Pagecloud. You’ll also only have 1GB bandwidth to work with, making it best suited to simple static sites. I wouldn’t recommend Webflow’s free plan if you’re looking to build a content-heavy site, as it won’t be able to handle much traffic.

The editor of Webflow can seem a little overwhelming at first, but after a few tutorials I got the hang of it. Source: Website Builder Expert

Upgrade Cost: $14 per month

Webflow’s pricing is split between two types of paid plans: General and Ecommerce plans.

Of the general paid plans, the Basic plan costs $14 per month (billed annually). You’ll get:

  • A custom domain
  • No ads
  • Increase in traffic allowance from 1K visitors to 250K
  • 150 pages to edit instead of just two

If you want ecommerce, the Standard plan starts at $29 per month, when billed annually. The plan gives you access to over 500 product slots to sell – this is disappointing when compared to Square Online which, for the same upgrade cost, gives you unlimited items to sell.

Read our full
Webflow Review
for more.

More Information

  • See which of these website builders wins the battle of design in our Squarespace vs Webflow head-to-head.

How To Choose a Free Website Builder

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When choosing a free website builder, you must first accept that you’ll be receiving a lesser product than if you paid for it. Website builders are businesses after all, and they charge a subscription fees so they can make a profit where no one else can.

That being said, it doesn’t mean you should lower your standards when looking for a free website builder. You can have it all if you know what to look for. That’s why we’ve come up with three important questions you should consider when looking over the potential candidates for your free website builder:

  • Do the limitations outweigh the benefits?
  • Will there be any other costs?
  • Would you be better off with a paid subscription?

You should consider each of these carefully when choosing. For instance, if you want to build a free online store with Square Online, you have to take into account that its customization is weak and you’ll still have to pay transaction fees. In the end, it may be worth just spending the money for a full ecommerce platform subscription.

Can You Actually Make a Website for Free?

Yes, as long as you’re fine with the limitations. It all depends on the type of website you want to make. If you want to start a business with a professional website front, then I recommend shelling out a bit to make sure you look like a trustworthy business someone could spend money with.

But if you just want a website to journal thoughts, post art, or info-dump on niche topics, a free plan on any of these builders mentioned is absolutely fine for that purpose. Ads, non-custom domains, and limited design options won’t matter if the website is predominantly for you – and if you can’t accept the ads or non-custom domain, the builders tend to do a thorough job of directing you to the upgrade button!

How We Test

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At Website Builder Expert, we pride ourselves on sharing data-led recommendations with our readers. To bring you the best free website builders on the market, our in-house research team has put over 50 builders through our expert research methodology.

While the most important aspect was whether they had a free plan or not, we also wanted to evaluate each free plan by its own merits. This involved changing the weighting of our research categories, so that website features and sales features counted the same because being able to sell for free is a significant advantage for a website builder.

Here is the full list of our unique category weightings for free website builders:

  • Website Features – 25%
  • Sales Features – 25%
  • Design Functionality – 15%
  • Help and Support – 12%
  • User Experience – 10%
  • Customer Score – 8%
  • Value for Money – 5%

5 Best Free Website Builders: Summary

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To recap, I recommend Wix as the best free website builder. While its ads and no custom domain can be annoying, the free plan offers the best features and editing tools of any builder on this list. You can truly build an extremely professional website with Wix, even for free.

It’s possible to create a website for free – as long as you don’t mind the limitations. They may not seem like much in the beginning, but they can lead to further frustration down the line once your website takes off.

That’s why I suggest you make the most of the free plans by building, playing, and experimenting with the different website builders, but I don’t recommend staying on a free plan forever. There’s no time limit for the free plans, meaning you can have all the practice you need to nail the look and purpose of the website before upgrading to a paid plan.

So enjoy trying out our favorite free builders – come back and let us know which one you liked the most!

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