What is the Best Website Development Platform for Small Businesses in 2019?
As of 2017, over 70% of small businesses had a website, and that number only continues to increase.
If your business doesn’t have a website yet, you’re missing out on valuable sales and marketing opportunities.
It’s time to take your business’ online presence seriously, and the first step is to decide which website builder to use. But with all of the options to choose from, how do you know which one is right for you?
If you’re having trouble deciding, keep reading to learn about the top website development platforms of 2019.
Best for Ease of Use
Deciding between website platforms can be tricky for even the most tech-savvy of business owners. But for those of us with little to no website building experience, it’s even more difficult.
Luckily, Wix‘s website platform was built with ease of use in mind. It’s fully hosted, so you only have to pay for your domain name, and it’s simple enough that even the least experienced user can make a beautiful website.
Wix has a user-friendly drag and drop interface and has hundreds of pre-made templates that you can customize to your needs. Its newest feature, the Wix ADI, can help you build a rough draft of your site automatically. It will also help you install any updates or new features that are released.
Best for E-Commerce
The potential to generate income online is one of the main reasons why your business needs a website. If you run an e-commerce business, however, having a great website is of even more importance.
Our top website builder for an e-commerce based business is Shopify. It lets you sell through your website, various online marketplaces, and social media accounts. You can even use it in-store with Point of Sale.
While Shopify was limited to online storefronts in the past, it now allows you to create a full website and blog as well. If you’re concerned about tracking your sales and finances, don’t worry! Shopify keeps those records for you and protects them with a free SSL certificate.
Best for Beautiful Design
Squarespace is the best website builder for creating clean, modern websites without the need for lots of tech experience.
If your brand identity relies on clean design, this may be the platform for you. Squarespace is known for its beautiful templates and even lets you install multiple of them on the same site.
Squarespace isn’t free, but the basic plan will let you build a 20-page website. That’s a great amount for a small business to start out with, and you can upgrade plans to get more space as your business grows.
This website development platform lets you set up a basic online store that’s easy to use. It also displays analytics and is fully hosted, so you don’t have to manually update your site or track data.
Best for Plugin Integration
WordPress.org (not to be confused with WordPress.com) is the internet’s most popular website builder—for good reason. If you have experience with web development and are looking for maximum customization, WordPress fits the bill.
WordPress is an open-source, self-hosted platform, and requires manual updates and site backups. But if customization is important to you, it’s worth the extra work.
WordPress integrates with thousands of free and paid site templates, e-commerce plugins, and analytics features. It also makes optimization for mobile devices a breeze. The majority of web apps and tools will integrate with sites built on the WordPress platform.
Best Website Development Platform of 2019
The best website development platform is the one that fits your small business’ unique needs, but these are definitely some of the top contenders.
Regardless of what’s most important to you—ease of use, e-commerce, beautiful design, or custom plugin integration—using one of these platforms will help you to build your best website yet.
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