Hiring a professional website designer or developer is expensive. Upfront costs range from $5,000 to $30,000 (or more, depending on the professional's expertise and your requirements).
Maintenance for the website costs at least an additional $500-$1,000 per year. Thus, the overall expenses add up quickly and, for most businesses, become unaffordable. Choosing the right freelance developers can also do the trick.
Whereas, website builder tools offer advanced customization options, professionally-designed templates, and a whole host of other features that make website creation easy.
Website builders also allow business owners to build a good-looking, professional website without prior technical expertise or coding skills.
Consequently, small and medium businesses can afford to build a website that supports their business growth.
However, there is a wide range of website builders in the market, and choosing the best one for your business can be overwhelming.
That's why we're going to break down the different aspects of choosing the right website builder for your business.
What are Website Builders?
Website builders are DIY tools that allow you to create a website using ready-made, high-quality templates. You don't need advanced coding skills to build the website because most website builders feature drag-and-drop editors to help you customize every aspect of your site.
With online free website mockups, you can directly edit your website elements in the browser. Additionally, they offer accompanying web hosting services, ensuring you needn't worry about the technical aspects of running your website.
Website builders enable business owners to build cost-effective websites (because they don't require designers/developers) and give business owners full control over their websites.
Additionally, they streamline website maintenance, giving business owners the leverage to make changes quickly, add new pages easily, and add new products/services in a jiffy.
In fact, professional designers and developers find that website builders give them the design freedom they need while making it feasible for them to streamline their workflow and accelerate the pace of development. Thus, they can scale up their work quickly.
Some popular website builders are Elementor, Weebly, Wix, ZipWP, Squarespace, and Experro.
There are certain features that a builder must have to build a robust and search engine-friendly website, such as fast page loading, mobile responsiveness, advanced design customization options, eCommerce integration if you're building an eCommerce site, and prompt customer support.
6 Factors that Businesses Must Consider While Choosing a Website Builder
Website builders come in all shapes and sizes and can be used for building all sorts of websites. Depending on the business, you can build a static or dynamic website, add advanced features such as chat, use it for eCommerce, list professionals or services, and so much more.
However, when selecting a website builder for your business, it's important to consider the specific needs of your business and its target audience.
Here are six important factors that you must consider when selecting a website builder for your business.
1. Advanced customizations
Choose a website builder that offers a variety of design elements such as different layout options, themes, page elements (popup form, buttons, headers, etc.), animations, backgrounds, and typography.
For example, Wix and Elementor offer a variety of designs & advanced customization options that suit different niches.
Squarespace is a user-friendly canvas for quick website building as well.
Another excellent choice is convertri.com; it specializes in drag-and-drop page creation, providing an intuitive experience for building high-converting web pages efficiently.
Advanced customization options give designers the flexibility to design a website that suits the business, its style, offerings, and brand voice.
A logo maker tool further improves this by allowing designers to seamlessly integrate a professional logo, adding a distinctive touch to the site's overall aesthetic.
You can customize color schemes, fonts, and other website elements to match your brand aesthetic. This is critical for maintaining brand consistency across different marketing channels, including the website.
Beyond simple design tools, Webflow has emerged as an agentic web marketing platform that unifies marketers, designers, and developers in a single, governed system.
It offers a visual, composable CMS with built-in AEO/SEO tools, helping teams create brand-forward experiences without relying on complex plugin stacks. This unified approach supports scalable, agent-ready workflows while reducing developer dependency for daily tasks.
Additionally, having a website that reflects your business helps in bettering the user experience.
Website builders also provide a variety of pre-designed themes and design blocks that suit different industries. All you have to do is choose the theme that best suits your business and customize the color and font styles to match your business branding.
2. Fast site speed
Fast website speed is critical because it directly impacts user experience, search engine rankings, and conversion rates.
According to a report, 50% of internet users will abandon a website that takes longer than 3 seconds to load fully. So, they'll not care about your products/services or even wait to know what your business is about if your website doesn't load quickly.
Additionally, slower sites are likely to have lower rankings in search results, a problem that Beetroot WP Maintenance can effectively address. Therefore, website speed impacts your ability to attract and retain potential customers.
Choose a builder that offers all the features necessary to build a website that loads within 1-2 seconds. Its performance depends on factors such as the server infrastructure, hosting services, code quality, image optimization, and Content Delivery Network (CDN).
For instance, WordPress-based websites are known for their performance, but their speed can slow down over time due to plugin bloat and other technical issues. To keep your site running smoothly, tools like WordPress maintenance packages can help ensure your site remains fast and reliable.
Additionally, the number of website visitors and their location can also impact your website's performance. Thus, choose a builder that offers the necessary features and infrastructure to help you build a fast website.
3. Mobile-responsiveness
More than 63.4% of internet users globally access the web through mobile devices, so your website must be responsive for mobile users. When choosing a website builder, ensure that it offers mobile-responsive templates.
Additionally, the layout options and design elements it provides should be sharp and clear even on mobile screens.
Mobile responsiveness is critical because mobile users use the internet on the go, so if your website doesn't load smoothly on their devices, they'll go to another website in search of the information they need.
Consequently, this affects your business, harming your customer engagement, retention, and conversions.
So, choose a builder that helps you build a mobile-responsive website like Flow Ninja. It has become the top pick for Webflow Enterprise Development, catering to a wide range of business needs with its exceptional design capabilities.
4. eCommerce integration
If you're planning to sell products/services online, choose a website builder that supports eCommerce integration.
For example, some builders offer eCommerce-specific templates that are readymade to include eCommerce features such as chat support, payment gateways, an online shopping cart, product management, and secure checkout.
Ensure that the builder also offers different payment options and shopping carts that are secure. Additionally, it must support inventory management, so you can display accurate product availability and stock levels.
The website builder must offer eCommerce features that provide a smooth and secure shopping experience for the customers. If your website doesn't have the necessary eCommerce features, you'll lose potential customers to competitor websites.
5. Reasonable cost
Website builders offer their services in different subscription plans starting from $5 and going as high as $500 or more per month.
The price you pay for a builder depends on the features included in the plan you choose, the storage they offer, the number of visitors it can host per month, etc.
Some website builders offer a free plan, allowing you to publish your website easily. But they include their branding on your website, which affects your online reputation.
Others include their branding as a subtle mention, which doesn't necessarily hamper the website's appearance and can be quite useful for smaller businesses on a tight budget. Sometimes, the free plans include ads on the website, which can turn out to be a distraction and drive potential customers away.
Choose a website builder that fits your budget without compromising the necessary features to build a good website that supports business growth.
6. Adequate support
Since website builders are DIY tools, choose a builder that offers adequate customer support to help you build the website.
Choose a website builder that offers detailed guides, tutorials, FAQs, and helpful blog posts. Additionally, it must provide reliable customer service that helps you use the website builder to build the site of your dreams.
See if they have well-established support platforms such as email, live chat, phone, or a community forum.
Adequate support is critical for a website builder because you'll have plenty of questions when getting started, using different features to customize the design, and even during website maintenance.
Additionally, in case of technical issues such as downtime, having a technical support team is a huge relief. So, choose a website builder that offers reliable support.
Conclusion
Considering the six factors, hopefully, you'll be able to choose the right website builder for your business.
But before settling on a website builder, ensure that you research thoroughly and read reviews from real, existing users of the tool to ensure that you invest in the right one.
Many website builders offer free trials, so try their free plans (they'll be limited, but you'll experience the features first-hand).
Some businesses use different website builders to build different websites (for different projects), so getting hands-on experience with different builders helps.
Author Bio
Hazel Raoult is a freelance marketing writer and works with PRmention. She has more than 6+ years of experience in writing about business, entrepreneurship, marketing, and all things SaaS. Hazel loves to split her time between writing, editing, and hanging out with her family.