With all of Facebooking, Tumblrling, and tweeting, it’s strange that personal websites are still being built at all. For most people, short bursts of communication with friends and family seem to be sufficient to satisfy most common messaging urges.
Nonetheless, business and personal websites continue to thrive, fueled by the desire to tell stories, sell products, and promote events. Large companies always allocate large sums of money to engineering and design talent, but small businesses and individuals, especially those without advanced coding skills, have an easy and affordable way to provide attractive, template-driven options. are increasingly dependent on online services.
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The nine online site builders below offer a number of elegant designs that you can style and plug into your content. commercial purposes. It also includes a responsive site that easily adapts to desktop and mobile viewing.
Whichever site you choose, consider flexibility, ease of use, maintenance, technical support, and price.
word press
WordPress is extremely popular and almost everywhere, and there’s a reason for that. It offers different styles and implementations via thousands of plugins. Being an open source platform, even professional coders can dive in and design the tools they need to further customize their site.
You can start simple and build up over time. WordPress offers a large number of built-in themes for every taste and subject, but an entire industry has emerged dedicated to creating themes for the platform.
Added benefits to WordPress include natural integration with social media, statistical analysis, and international support across 50 languages.
However, WordPress is not a visual builder. You don’t really know what your page will look like until you preview or publish it. If a visual design environment is important to you, some of the alternatives below are better suited and require a lesser learning curve.
price: Free with ads (individual) to $299/year (business)
square space
You don’t have to sign in or reveal any information about yourself to try Squarespace. With just a click, 28 ready-to-use templates are displayed first. Most sports that emphasize a minimalist look will emphasize a primary photo to help anchor the design, but some prefer a series of photos for a more homely look.
Each design previews the entire site using its specific template so you can get an idea of how the whole site will look. View nearby sites. The “Create a site like this” button helps. Newcomers can start with the cover page, a single-page design that has become very popular, and his drag-and-drop WYSIWYG interface will appeal to non-coders.
price: $96 per year (individual) to $312 per year (business).free trial
weebly
When you launch Weebly’s site, you’ll see over 50 templates across categories like blog, creative, store, business, non-profit, and more.
Weebly is especially well suited for businesses looking for an affordable DIY website option featuring new sleek, minimal themes that stand out. A click-and-drag interface lets you place elements (images, galleries, maps, forms, multimedia) onto your site.
The service’s many guides explain in great detail how to navigate the site. Users appreciate the Luminous theme, which offers additional designs to choose from.
price: Free (with ads and page limits) to $25/month
Jimdo
When you log into Jimdo, you can choose from pre-made templates for Business, Store, Portfolio, and Professional. Add popular elements such as guestbooks, Flickr, blogs, store catalogs and RSS feed widgets with just a few clicks.
Powered by HTML5, the Jimdo platform also features built-in Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest integrations, and additional social network share buttons.
You can also plug in multimedia content widgets such as photo galleries, YouTube videos, and audio players. It’s easy to set up flexible blogs and even password-protected private sections of your site.
Jimdo’s mobile apps for iOS and Android let you create and edit sites on the go.
price: Free, from $7/month (Pro) to $20/month (Business)
Wicks
The Wix development platform allows you to create HTML5 websites and mobile sites using drag-and-drop tools. Wix also supports ecommerce sites on its paid plans, so you can accept online payments using PayPal or authorize.net.
Wix aims to cover all major site subjects and types. The Business & Services category has 18 template subcategories ranging from Advertising & Marketing to Games & Toys to Veterinary & Pets.
The Design category has six subcategories. We also have blank templates if you have your own design ideas. If you’re having trouble visualizing what your topic looks like, Wix has you covered.
price: From free (with ads) to $24.92 per month (VIP), with several tiers in between.
format
This web builder is especially aimed at people who want to build a portfolio of their work. Regardless of the target audience, the format helps a wide variety of people showcase just about anything.
Format’s themes have presets that allow you to choose a starting point by viewing the theme in different colors and fonts. A clean, modern theme provides a simple structure that lets your content focus instead of grabbing attention.
The themes are nice and the biggest hurdle is deciding which one to use. Once selected, a simple sidebar interface lets you choose elements such as text and links, list pages, gallery pages, and social network icons. The site tends to cater to visual users, so there are plenty of presentation options available.
A convenient preview is just a click away for desktop, tablet and smartphone layouts. The look is classy, sophisticated and fun.
price: Monthly plans are available from $5.75 (Basic) to $20.75 (Agency) per month, billed annually.
surprisingly
It used to be a perennial belief that visitors hated scrolling down websites. If the page was too long, the editors split it into multiple parts. The problem is, readers don’t like endless clicking either. “One page of his website” has grown in popularity over the last few years due to its clear information section and large pictures in a simple format. Amazingly, you can even start with an automatic instant site based on your LinkedIn or Facebook profile.
With a simple, mobile-friendly design, Strikingly removes barriers to entry by allowing new site owners to sign up and get started in one step. To keep your materials on one page, there are also simple templates for creating business, personal, or portfolio sites.
The company says a website can be built in under 30 minutes, but if you give Strikingly access to your social networking pages, that time is cut in half.
price: Free up to $16 per month (Pro)
web flow
Webflow allows you to start with a blank canvas or a template from the company’s free and paid template collection.
This tool is aimed at non-coding design professionals to create sites for their clients, with standard web components such as text blocks, links, lists and various widgets such as customizable sliders, social media icons and embeds. It offers an intuitive interface with You can drag it onto your page.
Webflow is a static site builder that is not tied to a content management system or blogging platform, so it can be used as a starting point for WordPress sites or to create responsive websites.
Webflow’s advanced HTML and CSS features are hidden by default in the editor, but you can toggle them on if you want to experiment with coding.
price: $15 to $250 per month for 4 plans
WebStart
The first thing that struck me about WebStarts was the similarity to desktop apps I used in 2008 or thereabouts. Just because it gives you a desktop feel, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
WebStarts includes many different elements that you can add to your site. The interface felt a little cluttered, but there were several ways to accomplish certain tasks. The template wasn’t flashy, and it wasn’t quite as hip or minimalist as other templates I’ve come across, but a more rustic approach might suit some.
There are some nice extras that set it apart from the pack. The map feature works well and you can zoom or drag anywhere on the page. With our contact form, you can send messages to multiple email addresses, create custom confirmation pages, and choose from a variety of field options.
price: Free to $16.95 per month (Business) with several tiers in between
Conclusion
Building an aesthetically pleasing website with a huge number of assets may not be for everyone. Sometimes you want an easy-to-use online blog that you can update from anywhere, but with a slightly more formal look than Tumblr.
The above online web builders offer enormous scope and flexibility to build your online presence, whether it’s personal or commercial, making the task quick, easy and economically accessible. Realize
This roundup is intended to introduce you to various web builders, but it is not an exhaustive list. So if you have a favorite authoring tool other than the above, be sure to drop it in the comments.
