Creating a good website is essential these days – especially considering that between 70% and 80% of potential customers search your webpage before visiting a small business or making a purchase.
Establishing a web presence is now easier than ever, and we're here to help you every step of the way.
When it comes to creating a webpage, there are two methods we recommend: using a website creation platform or a content management system (CMS). The first is a tech newbie's dream, while the second requires some coding knowledge.
Both are great options, but their settings are slightly different. Using our many years of website creation experience, we'll walk you through the main steps of each one, providing some helpful hints and tips along the way. What if you're not sure which one to choose? Don't worry, we'll help you with that too!
Before you start creating a webpage, there are a few things you need to decide. You might be excited to dive right in and get started, but taking the time to do some serious planning will save you a lot of trouble down the road!
As boring as the planning phase can be, it will serve you well in the future. A well-planned website has consistent branding, a setup that makes it easy and seamless to grow and develop, and lots of SEO-optimized (search engine optimization) content with the right keywords in mind.
Below, we've listed some key elements to consider:
- Determine the main purpose of your website
- Identify your target audience
- work your budget
- Do some competitor research
- prepare your content
Should you use a website creation platform or wordpress to create your business web page?
Once you've checked all the items on our pre-build list, it's time for your next big decision: a website creation platform or WordPress?
Before making your choice, it's important to understand the fundamental differences between the two. While both make for a beautiful site in the end, the way you get there – and the skills you need – are different.
Website builders are very easy to use, mainly because they don't require much, if any, coding knowledge. They are “out of the box” solutions, offering a range of models and covering all the complicated technological bits like hosting and security for you. However, they have their downsides.
Advantages of using it to create a webpage
Easy to use platforms
With beginners in mind, they often feature an easy-to-use drag-and-drop builder and built-in tutorials.
No coding required
You don't have to be a skilled tech genius to get yourself up and running, with most builders offering a wide range of attractive prefab models.
Free Plans or Free Trials
All builders at least have a free trial, with some even offering a free plan – so you can get started without spending a dime.
Customer support site builders often come with a support team to help you if you get a little stuck during (and after) the setup process.
Configuration site builders
Quick are often quick ways to get at least one basic site up and running.
restricted creativity
The templates offered limit your creative control and make it difficult to create a truly unique website.
Costs can be expensive
Depending on the type of website you are building. The more advanced you want, the more you will have to pay.
Because of limited creativity and steep costs, there's a chance you'll outrun your website creation platform faster than you'd like.
Switching platforms can be tricky
If you want to switch to another builder at any time, chances are you'll need to recreate a webpage basically from scratch.
WordPress is an open source platform which means you will need to use the code to create your business website. However, the creative possibilities are endless as it provides a framework for you to build a fully customized website.
Both platforms will help you build a business website to be proud of, but whichever you choose comes down to your personal preference and the level of technical skill you have.
If you're not sure you have the technical prowess to take on WordPress, we recommend taking both methods of building a website for a spin to see which one you prefer. Also, you can always switch to the other platform later if you decide your first choice wasn't right.
website builders
Starting a website is much easier and cheaper than it used to be thanks to the wide range of easy-to-use web builders that consumers can now choose from. We've compiled a list of do-it-yourself website builders above, highlighting the features that each offers.
When choosing a website building platform, you must first consider what kind of website you want to build and what kind of functionality you need. Below is a list of the key decision-making factors you should consider when choosing a website building platform to help make the right personal or business website for you.
Consider Software Features to Create a Web Page
There are a lot of great website builders to compare and choose from, but your best choice will depend on the features that matter most to you. For example, Wix and Squarespace are great choices for users who want absolute simplicity. Wix and Web.com both offer excellent stock images and photo editing tools. Squarespace and Shopify are equipped with world-class shopping cart solutions.
If you're just looking for a quality hosting platform that works with WordPress or another preferred CMS, you might favor iPage or FatCow.
'A great site deserves a great model
Your template is the backbone of your website. It understands the entire layout, including its menus, colors, background elements and alignment of photos and text. A worthy website creation platform will have hundreds of templates to choose from, but the quality of those templates is also critical.
For example, wix and networking solutions offer fewer free models than some of their competitors, but the models they offer are among the nicest you'll find. Squarespace is another great choice for quality models.
To pay or not to pay?
Should you go with a free platform like WordPress or a paid platform like Squarespace? It depends on how much control you want over your site and how big you want it to go:
Free website builders are great on a budget, but they usually don't allow you to connect your own domain. Also, you will have to keep company advertisements on each webpage.
Paid builders are definitely an investment, but you get more storage, bandwidth, and tools. Also, you can use your own domain and get rid of those annoying ads.
The brand is important, too.
We know trust is important when you're choosing a website creation platform. All of the website builders featured and compared on this page are industry leaders, and some of them have been in the business for over two decades. Register.com has been around since 1994, Web.com since 1995, and GoDaddy since 1997. Network Solutions has been in operation since 1979!
Industry praise is another great indicator of a brand's value. Take Squarespace, for example, which has taken home a myriad of Webby Awards over the years for everything from Features & Design to Web Services & Applications and Best Practices.
Looking for design services to create your web page?
Yes, these website builders offer a lot of home logo designs, but sometimes, you need something a little more personalized. If you're looking to have a professionally designed beautiful website in your name, your best bets are Wix, Web.com and Network Solutions. All these platforms offer competitively priced web design services.
Once your website is built, you can still use their easy content management system to maintain your website.
If your site includes a storefront, BigCommerce is another great option. They can connect you with one of their carefully controlled BigCommerce design partners. Best of all, there are hundreds of partners to choose from, so you can compare rates and portfolios and find the option that works best for you.
Don't forget about Google when creating your webpage
If you want visitors, readers, potential customers to find you, you need a site optimized for search engines. SEO (which aptly means “search engine optimization”) refers to all the techniques and best practices that enable a website to achieve high rankings on search engines.
If you want to ensure that your website builder is SEO compliant, look for resources like:
- The ability to edit title tags, meta descriptions and alt image attributes
- Automated XML and HTML sitemaps
- Easy-to-search URLs (good: mysite.com/latest-news; bad: mysite.com/349596)
- Keyword Density Tools and Conversion Tools
- Wix and Web.com are two of the best website builders for SEO. Both support all of the features mentioned above, and Web.com even employs SEO experts who can optimize your site on your behalf (additional fees apply).
Hosting and domain packages to create your webpage
Your hosting is like your property. But instead of paying for land, you're paying for a few gigabytes of storage and enough bandwidth to make your site run smoothly. Squarespace is one of the few hosting providers that will give you a free domain when you sign an annual contract.
Weebly and Web.com both have hosting plans with unlimited storage and bandwidth. This is a big advantage for any website owner. BigCommerce also offers these advantages, but if you have an online store with thousands of products and customers, you may be forced to upgrade to a more expensive corporate plan.
When comparing your hosting options, just be aware of the implications of “unlimited” bandwidth. A plan is not really unlimited. That is, the hosting provider will not stop you from receiving large streams of traffic, but it may slow your website down after you reach a certain threshold.
What to Consider When Choosing a Website Creation Platform
The best website creation platform is the one that best fits your needs. Ask some of these questions about your new website:
What kind of website will it be?
Are you managing an online store? If so, how big will it be? Some website builders have ecommerce plans that limit the number of items you can sell per month.
Ease of Use
The most important feature of a website creation platform is its usability. So try out the UI on the top 5 website builders listed above using the test site creation platform. This will give you an idea of which one you think is more intuitive and also easier to use. So, if you have some coding knowledge, make sure site builders give you access to CSS code, too.
E-commerce
I hope your business will expand. So you need to ask yourself if you need a website creation platform that can handle more online bookings, reservations, sales or sales inquiries. Likewise, if you decide to transfer your website to a different hosting option in the future, can you easily download the full website?
Models
You should also check which models are available. Take the opportunity to verify that they are not just small variations of the same model. You'll need templates for your specific business category, so a builder with hundreds of blog templates but none for restaurants won't be much help if you're promoting your corner cafe.
Features
All the best website builders offer a number of extra features to make building your website easier as well as better. So, here are some features to look out for:
- Setup wizards that guide you through the build process
- Intuitive interface for designing your website
- SEO tools such as editing meta tags
- Marketing tools including email marketing
- Built-in analytics to track visitor demographics, location, interests, and more
- E-commerce tools such as multiple payment processor options, inventory tracking tools, product descriptions, etc.
- Integrated social media buttons to connect your social networks with your new website
- Mobile responsive sites that update at the same time as your main site
- Mobile editing tools that let you keep tweaking your new website from your mobile
When creating a webpage you must take into account speed and technical support
Your site's loading speed is also important. You don't want to lose visitors just because your site takes a long time to load. 24-hour tech support is vital if you're building a website yourself and need help when you get stuck, even if it's in the middle of the night. Finally, while pricing shouldn't be the main yardstick you use to measure a good website creation platform, you don't want to pay too much for a mediocre website creation platform, so compare prices too.
Is a free builder worth creating a web page?
If you just want to build a basic website without an online store, then a free website building platform is a solid way to start. Keep in mind that free plans come with less storage, slower load times and also less SEO and marketing tools. So if you know you need e-commerce facilities, lots of storage space (for high-resolution images, videos, etc.), extra customer support and/or lots of web pages, then free website builders are unlikely to work for you.
That said, free website builders are ideal for testing the waters, but also for having a ready-made platform to share with contacts and social media followers. Plus, if you decide you're ready to implement more features, many companies offer easy and cost-effective upgrades.
With Wix, for example, you can choose from 4 premium upgrades that provide increasing amounts of bandwidth, storage and access to analytics and marketing tools, thus allowing you to grow at a rate — and cost — that meets your needs from your website.
With Colors Agency, we guarantee much more than just an attractive look and a modern layout for your website.
Our main focus is to offer companies around the world effective solutions, that is, to generate visibility on the internet.
Our agency develops SEO strategies as well as brand positioning for multinational companies, large, medium and small, all projects are important to us.
