Which website builder is the best fit for you or your team depends on what your business needs. Consider these factors as you choose the right tool for you.
Hosting and Domain
Does the free builder come with shared hosting and a free domain? The easiest way to get online is to use a website builder that includes hosting and a temporary domain. To stay consistent with your brand, make sure you can also register a domain through the builder or connect one you own through a third party. Also, check how much traffic a free site can handle—will you have to quickly upgrade to a paid option to accommodate your volume or will you be able to use a free site for a while?
Design
Do the available themes, templates and customization options fit your brand, or are you going to have to compromise your brand identity to use a free site? Do the free themes and templates include features that serve your needs? For example, make sure the website builder offers your brand’s preferred font!
Content Management System (CMS)
Is the blog and CMS sophisticated enough (or too complicated) for the ways you use content in your business? Different website builders manage content in very different ways to accommodate different business needs. Consider what you’ll do with your website—i.e., have a blog, upload videos, invite multiple contributors, host a podcast, run an online store or book client appointments. Does the CMS support that activity? If you just need a static web page with information about your business, is the website builder overly complex for you?
Ease of Use and Support
How easily can you make updates and changes? If you’re looking for a free website builder, you might not be interested in hiring a web designer or other specialist to keep the website up to date, so make sure it’s something you or your existing staff can easily change when needed.
Autonomy and Customization Options
How much control do you have over the look and feel of your website? Some builders offer strict templates with few options for customization, while others give you complete freedom to adjust design and functionality down to the back-end code. Make sure you know exactly what’s available with the free version of a website builder so you can ensure you’ll have the design and functionality options your business needs. Also, find out whether the free version displays ads on your site, as this might interfere with your customers’ experience of your business.
Mobile Compatibility
Every modern website builder should automatically include mobile-responsive design, so visitors have the same (or equally pleasing) experience no matter where they view the site. If you don’t see that, opt for a different builder.
Essential Features
When you’re shopping around for website builders, look for these must-have features:
- Design themes and templates: The main benefit of a website builder is the ability to build a site with limited design or coding skills. The level of technical know-how needed varies across services, so make sure the builder you choose aligns with the skills and resources available to you.
- Support for video, audio and images: No one wants to browse a text-only site anymore, so make sure you use a builder that has sufficient storage and functionality to embed videos, audio files and images on your web pages.
- Easy-to-use editor: Most website builders offer a WYSIWYG editor, so you don’t have to edit code. If you employ a developer to build the site, make sure the builder has an option to toggle to a code editor, as well.
- Security: Your website builder and host should have built-in security, so your site is safe on the web. Look for malware detection and a web application firewall (WAF) that protects your site from malicious attacks.
- Speed optimization: Some website builders bog your site down with unnecessary code that makes it slow to load—that means lost visitors. Check reviews and product details for site speed and opt for a page-load time of no more than one to three seconds.
- Hosting and storage: It’s unusual to find a website builder that doesn’t include hosting and file storage these days, but they’re still out there! Make sure you’ll be able to get your site online and store all of the site’s content through the same builder you use to design the site. (These features are so common, they might not even warrant a mention; all of the website builders listed in this review include hosting and storage.)
- Blogging and SEO: Make sure your website builder has a blog function so you can add dynamic content if you want to, even if you don’t plan to right away. It should also include support for SEO features, such as the ability to change URLs, add tags and alt text, and include SEO-specific headlines and descriptions to blog content. Also, look for technical SEO features that make your site friendly to search engines, including an SSL certificate, schema markup and XML sitemaps (you don’t have to manage those; just make sure the builder supports them on the back end).
Business features: Do you need support for e-commerce or a live chatbot, for example? Does the website builder integrate with your preferred CRM and email management system? Does it offer the level of site analytics and reporting your business needs?
Free vs. Paid Website Builders
A free website builder is a great place to start if you’re getting your brand online for the first time. But the functionality and options for customization are typically limited, so you might need to upgrade to a paid version as your business needs evolve.
A free builder generally comes with a free temporary domain that includes the host domain—for example, yoursite.wordpress.com. You generally have to upgrade to a paid plan to use your own domain (yoursite.com).
In some cases, the free version of a website will include ads, so your website will display ads for other businesses alongside your content. You don’t get the revenue from that, but your customers will experience the ads. Upgrading to paid usually gets rid of the ads.
If your website includes e-commerce, a free version might come with high transaction fees. That might make sense if you have a low volume of online transactions. Upgrading to paid might reduce or eliminate transaction fees, which could save you a lot of money if your business sees a high volume of online purchases.
Finally, some functionalities might be limited to different plan tiers. Some free website builders include robust functionality, but many of them give you only the bare minimum for free and require you to upgrade to paid to add functions such as e-commerce, email marketing and analytics.
