Building a website might sound like a daunting task, especially for small business owners. However, fortunately, there are many options for website builders nowadays that are easy, fast, and affordable.
Wix, Squarespace, and GoDaddy are some of the easiest options for website builders available. So, if you are thinking about using Wix, you are headed in the right direction since it’s one of the options worth trying for small businesses.
However, every website builder is built differently, and the best website builders are the ones that fit your needs.
Today, we will review the best website builders for small businesses that are tailored to every need.
1. Best for Stylish Websites – Squarespace
Creating a stylish website can be important for small businesses. There are several reasons why a good website is important for small business.
When it comes to the stylish website you need, Squarespace is one of the best website builders choices. Squarespace offers a variety of templates and sleek design elements. The best part about it is that everything can be customised with the drag-and-drop style editor.
Squarespace also offers added value through a grid-style overlay that helps you snap elements into position. However, if your website heavily relies on text, you might want to consider another website builder.
In addition to offering a good visual appeal, Squarespace also provides a handful of tools to help you create any type of website to suit your needs. They offer templates for creating blogs, ecommerce sites, business websites, or personal webpages.
Squarespace pricing starts from $16 USD per month (billed annually), which equates to approximately $24 AUD per month. Their starter plan includes unlimited storage, a free custom domain, and SSL security.
2. Best for eCommerce and Selling Product – Shopify
If your small business aims to sell a catalogue of products using an ecommerce website, then Shopify can be one of your choices.
Shopify stands out as one of the best website builders for ecommerce due to its comprehensive range of tools. It offers features such as inventory management, multichannel integration, abandoned cart recovery, tax calculation, and discount code options.
Although it’s well-suited for ecommerce, we don’t recommend Shopify if you have only a small number of product variations. Shopify’s main strength lies in businesses with complex and growing inventories. Wix can be a good alternative if you are just starting your business and have a smaller product catalogue.
Shopify pricing starts from $39 USD per month or $348 USD per annual ($29/month), which means it is around $56 AUD and $504 AUD respectively.
Shopify pricing starts from $39 USD per month or $348 USD per year ($29/month), equating to approximately $56 AUD and $504 AUD respectively.
Please note for Australian small business owners that you will need to make Shopify payments in U.S. dollars. Therefore, it is important to be mindful of the GST and transaction fees that will be added to your final Shopify Payments credit card total.
3. Best for Marketing Your Small Business – Wix
To enhance your online business presence and expand your audience, consider Wix as your choice of website builder. Wix offers a wide range of website builder tools that can support your marketing efforts effectively.
Some notable features that make Wix the best website builder to assist your marketing efforts include:
- Integrated email marketing function
- Keyword support with SEMrush integration to aid in on-page SEO
- Support for 180 languages and automatic translation capabilities
All of these features provided by Wix contribute to boosting website promotion and broadening audience reach. A significant aspect of Wix is that the majority of its tools are built-in, allowing you to start building your website for free.
However, it’s important to note that the free version comes with limitations. To access more powerful features and remove ads from your website, consider opting for the premium plans.
On the other hand, builders like Shopify also offer email marketing features. However, you’ll need to explore the app market for the builder to have the specific features you desire.
Wix pricing starts from $17 USD (around $26 AUD) with limited features on the ecommerce side. Their most popular plan for small businesses is the Business Unlimited plan, starting from $25 AUD (around $38 AUD), which offers larger bandwidth and powerful ecommerce capabilities.
4. Best for for Beginners – Go Daddy
Designing a website with GoDaddy’s website builder requires no technical expertise whatsoever. Simply answer a few questions about your site’s purpose, and you’ll receive a prebuilt site ready for customization. Alternatively, you can select a template you like and begin adding your content using the drag-and-drop editor.
While GoDaddy does not offer as many design options as some of its competitors, its templates are clean and professional. The pricing page is conveniently easy to locate as well.
As an all-in-one domain registrar, web host, and site builder, GoDaddy includes features to assist with marketing and SEO. One standout feature is Artificial Design Intelligence, which creates a site tailored to your needs. It even includes stock images relevant to your site or business theme.
GoDaddy is ideal for small businesses and online stores. There are many integrated marketing and SEO tools in the dashboard, although not all are included in your monthly plan.
GoDaddy pricing starts from $13.95 AUD for basic website capability. If your small business requires ecommerce functionality, you’ll need to opt for their “Ecommerce” plan, starting from $26.95 AUD.
5. Best Price – IONOS
IONOS is commonly known as a web host, yet its website builder, MyWebsite, competes with some of the most popular standalone builders. It offers a user-friendly interface and drag-and-drop functionality, making it accessible to everyone.
On IONOS’ Pro plan, you can create personalised content for specific visitors. This allows for displaying different content to first-time visitors compared to returning visitors. Additionally, you can configure it to showcase content differently based on sales, holidays, or other specific events.
If you’re willing to invest slightly more in the mid- or top-tier IONOS plan, this website builder could prove beneficial for a small business website. According to a comprehensive list of the best website builders for Australians from Forbes, IONOS offers the best pricing of all.
IONOS offers pricing as low as $1 USD (approximately $1.54 AUD) per month for six months for their Plus plan.
This plan offers beneficial features, including AI Website Builders, a one-year free domain, and basic SEO features. They also offer advanced SEO features with their Pro Plan, starting from $17 USD ($26 AUD). If you require ecommerce functionality, you’ll need to opt for their ecommerce plan, starting from $32 USD ($49 AUD) per month.
6. Best for One-Pagers – Strikingly
Strikingly can be an interesting option, especially if you only want to create a one-page website.
You know there are many reasons and importance to build a website for small business. So when you are just launching your small business, you might not need a complex website to introduce yourself, a single page can suffice.
This website builder comes with a very intuitive, beginner-friendly editor and site creation tools specifically designed with landing pages and one-pagers in mind.
Despite its simplicity, it does not mean that you are limited in scaling the website. If you want to expand your website and use it as a store, there are simple online store options available.
Additionally, if you wish to start a content marketing effort through your website, Strikingly offers blog modules that can help you attract organic visitors through content. Although you’re limited to a choice of only 29 templates, this ensures simplicity and ease of use.
There is a free plan available if you wish to begin with a strikingly.com domain, but paid plans commence at highly competitive prices. Striking pricing starts from $8 USD per month billed annually (approximately $12 AUD) for their “Limited” plan. With the basic Limited plan, you can only sell up to five products.
Their most popular plan is the “Pro” plan, which is priced at $16 USD per month billed annually (approximately $24.57 AUD). This plan offers additional features, more pages, and increased ecommerce capability, allowing you to list up to 300 products.
7. Best for Simplicity – Gator
Perhaps you don’t mind about ecommerce and aren’t particularly concerned about having a visually appealing website for your small business? If your primary goal is to quickly and inexpensively construct a basic site, then you might consider choosing the Gator website builder.
Hostgator can be considered one of the top web hosting services, as it also features its own drag-and-drop website builder known as Gator.
It offers solid services for small businesses, as it supports password-protected pages and the ability to add an online store. However, sometimes simplicity comes with limitations. You can’t customise much, especially in the online store section. The SEO tools aren’t great, there are no email marketing tools, and you can’t schedule a blog post with it.
However, if none of these aspects concern you, it remains a viable option. They also offer 24/7 live chat, phone, and email support to assist you whenever needed. The pricing starts from under $4 USD (around $6 AUD), making it one of the most cost-efficient options for small businesses as well.
Conclusion – Best Overall Website Builders
So, that concludes the list of the best website builders for small businesses, tailored to your needs. If we were to choose one as the best overall website builder, Wix could be considered for that title. This is because Wix offers great value for money for small businesses.
They provide an easy-to-use drag-and-drop website builder, a wide selection of templates, affordability, user-friendliness, and are built with small businesses in mind.
While all these website builders may seem impressive, some of you who have recently started small businesses may not have enough time to prepare everything on your own.
That’s why you might want to consider Nexa Lab’s web app development services, which offer customised solutions for businesses of any size.
We provide the best web app development services, ensuring scalability and performance, comprehensive testing and quality assurance, consideration for security and compliance, as well as offering maintenance and support.
