Yes, your business does need a website. No, I don’t care what you heard elsewhere. It’s 2019, and more likely than not your business website is going to be your storefront. This is even more important with your online business — yes, I have heard that you don’t need to have a website for your online business, not sure who started that rumour. But what website platform should you use to build it?
While there are a ton of website builders out there to choose from. With that in mind, I’m only going to talk about the ones I have personal, first-person experiences with (and are popular in the business world). That leaves us with WordPress, Wix and Squarespace.
WordPress Website Platform
WordPress is my favorite website platform, I use it for all of the websites I build. Seriously, every single one of them. And I’m not the only entrepreneur that finds WordPress to be a great platform.
When it comes to running any kind of website — whether it be a blog, e-commerce website or otherwise, I find WordPress to be the most comprehensive website platform. I like control over the look and function of my websites, and find that WordPress offers the best. It can be integrated into almost everything, perform any function you want it to and has a ton of great plugins for you to use.
That said, one of the main issues cited with WordPress is that to do anything above basic you do need to have a bit of web design knowledge. And I would have to agree. However, there are a ton of great themes that are already built for you and self-teaching WordPress is totally doable!
I highly recommend the WordPress website platform if you’re building a website for your business. But I will note that hosting, while reasonable on a monthly leve,l usually has to be paid yearly so you’re looking at a bit of a higher cost depending on who you choose.
Wix Website Platform
Not that long ago (though ages in internet years) Wix changed their website building platform to a drag-and-drop style. I’m the first to admit that I really disliked their previous website platform builder as I had used it during university and come out with a website that looked built circa 2000. However, I gave Wix a second chance when I started building my business and while there were certain functionality pieces that I liked and it was super easy to use, I didn’t end up using it. I found that I was consistently running into issues integrating it with programs that I wanted to use like MailChimp.
My opinion aside, a ton of people with little-to-no website experience that need to create and manage their own website and want control over what it looks like have been having success and loving the Wix website platform. Wix has a lot of functionality and is pretty easy to use. If you’re just starting out, you don’t have any experience in website building or money to hire a designer and want an easy-to-use platform when you can learn as you go then Wix is a great website platform for you.
Wix is a pretty reasonably-priced website platform with plans ranging from $5 to $35.
Squarespace Website Platform
Squarespace makes beautiful websites, I won’t pretend that’s not true. It’s quite easy-to-use and is perfect for the new-to-website building crowd. While it takes a moment or two to get it worked out, once you know what you’re doing it’s really easy to navigate.
That said, I would recommend both WordPress and Wix over Squarespace for two main reasons. I find Squarespace to be pricier than the other options. While it starts at $12, I remember that I previously hosted a podcast on there and paid a minimum of $35 per month for a fairly basic website.
My second Squarespace comment is that I didn’t find a lot of variety for website looks. I can tell when I’m on a Squarespace website, and though they’re beautiful websites (they really are), they kind of look the same to me. I never found that I was able to achieve the look I wanted to.
But if you love the Squarespace brand and look, have a little extra website building cash and want something quick easy, and pretty much premade — then Squarespace might be the perfect platform for you.
What website platform do you use? Share it with me in the comments below!
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Tae started out as a journalist before following the money into the corporate world. But it turns out that the grass isn’t always greener and now you can find her spending most of her time writing about all the things she loves. Namely, money, travel and business with a hefty dose of self-deprecating humor. She is a podcast fanatic, blogging aficionado and loves to find new ways to turn passions into cold hard cash!