What is meant by a Website Builder?

Whether you are doing starting your business or you are desired to move your existing brick and want to establish your business online, you are required to locate a website builder that can take you and your business online. Website builders used to come in a huge variety of options, so it is very crucial for you to find one that is best suitable for you and your website.

So, what is meant by a website builder exactly?

A website builder is a software that serves you in the creation of a website online. This software will be residing on a web server at a hosting company. Or it can be a part of a hosed Saas (Software as a service) platform.

In other words, you can understand it as you are not required to make use of your local computer (laptop or desktop) for holding your software that will build your website online with the help of software that is designed particularly for the creation of your website.

Top small business website builders are

WordPress
Wix
Squarespace
Weebly

What is the difference between a "self-hosted" software or a "hosted" solution?

If you take a hosted solution you are required to pay a monthly fee to have your software housed and to get it managed by a third-party company. You are not required to get worried about finding software updates or a hosting company.

Website builders that are self-hosted will need you to purchase your own hosting plan from a third-party company, you have to do the installation of the website builder software from another company, and you will also be required to perform software updates. Don't let the comments what you get make you scared. There are numerous hosting companies that will do the management of software updates for you and you are not required to touch anything.

Top Considerations To Pick a Website Builder

Custom Domain and Branding

Your website is deserving to have a unique design. A domain signifies the address of your website. You just think of a domain like it is a house number that is used by the post office to find your location. You would always have a desire that your domain should be memorable and unique. You have to ensure that your website builder facilitates you for this and doesn't make you make use of an extension of their URL.

Content Ownership

You are required to own your content. It may seem very simple to you, but there are some platforms that control your data. Similarly, when you are using Facebook, it has complete control of what is residing on your page or profile. Your website is a window into the world, so you are required to ensure that the content you are adding is owned and controlled by you!

Available Design Templates

Some of the website builders will serve you with beautiful templates that are modern-looking in both functionality and appearance. Some others templates look like they were created several years before, or worse yet, those were coded without the aid of a graphic artist by the developer. You have to ensure that you have chosen a website builder that has a plentiful supply of templates for you from where you can pick and try out.

Functionality Options

Before you hit that buy button, you have to think about the purpose of the website. You have to think that you have a requirement for podcast support, e-commerce, video integration, forum management, or lead generation? You have to ensure that the website builder chosen by you does support the functionality you require. On the other hand, some software like WordPress.org- facilitates you to do the addition of extensions and plugins, but all software doesn’t do that. You have to ensure that you have selected a platform that supports your current and future requirements.

Ease of Use

You should keep your website fresh and you have to serve it as a living document. For this to be the case, the website which you have designed must be easy to use and it should serve a WYSIWYG style editor. WYSIWYG stands for what you have seen is what you have got. Good website builders will make the addition and editing of the content very easy as it is easy to work in a word file. Ensure that you have reviewed the content options of your preferred website builder and also ensure that it serves with a tool with which you are comfortable using.

Lead Generation Opportunities

A good website will do the production of positive results for its owner. In most cases, it means lead generation. All the website builders do not make it easy. So, consider properly that the software and the ability of the software to quickly do the addition, editing, or customization intake forms.

Customization Availability

In many cases, the off-the-shelf templates will not be a perfect fit for the sake of your website. You might be required to do the customization of layout or colors slightly. You have to review the software options of your website and have to ensure that you have the ability to edit the layout and design as it is required.

Multimedia Support

We live in a world of Multimedia. People expect images, videos, audio files, and written content. A quality software package will facilitate you will all of these and will serve you to do the addition of such files effortlessly.

Search Engine Optimization

If you are indulged in building it they will definitely come. However, it is not exactly. You have a requirement for some quality SEO for your website to get rank on Google and for bringing search traffic. You have to ensure that your software is really having strong SEO features as part of the core software and serve you to do the addition on features with the help of an extension. You are required to be able in creating SEO-friendly URLs, meta titles, meta descriptions, headers, XML sitemaps, alt text, and have appropriate robot.txt file options.