Introduction
There are an awful lot of website builders available but which ones are best when you're starting a new business or building a brand new site? Let's find out. (upbeat music)
Weebly (Best Simple Builder)
The first website builder on our list is Weebly. Now I first started using Weebly back in 2013 and what I loved about it was just how intuitive it is when it comes to creating your web pages and really adding anything to those pages.
Here on the left hand side, you can see that we've got all of our building blocks, all of the different components that we can add to a page and almost everything is drag and drop. If I want to add an additional button here because you can't have too many buttons, I can do so.
And even if I want to drag things around, the spacing is very natural as well. Here you can see when I pushed this button to the right hand side, it evenly spaced things out.
Now, that can sometimes be a drawback as well because what you can't do here within Weebly is adjust everything just precisely. As you'll see in some of the other website builders we're going to take a look at, Weebly does not have a grid aspect.
So you can't just drag anything everywhere but what it lacks in that it really makes up for in great looking design especially when it comes to their mobile view. So here at the top, we can preview our site in this mobile view.
Now note you cannot edit most templates or most themes in the mobile view, but I actually think that that is a plus in many cases because you want to be able to edit your website in one format or one place and just have it look beautifully in its mobile view.
And I think Weebly is very strong in that category. No matter what you create in the desktop view, things are responsive and look very, very good here in the mobile view.
So if you're looking for something that is very, very easy and quick, something that you can start to use in a matter of minutes, Weebly may be the choice for you.
Google Sites (Best for Google Users)
Now second on our list is Google Sites. And if you're already a Google Workspace user or if you use other products such as Google Drive for example, Google Sites may be the solution for you because one of Site's great aspects is that you can quickly and easily import information from your other Google tools.
So for example here, I'm going to come down here and I'm actually going to add, what I want to do here is I want to add a form. So if I come up here, I'm just going to select this section so it's highlighted here and I'm going to select forms.
And what I can do is I can select, let's say this survey and say insert and immediately I've put it right here within my homepage. It's listed here. It's ready to go. People can now fill out this survey when they visit my website.
In most other editors, you either have to use their survey or their form builder and if you want to use something like Google Forms, well then you'd have to use their embed code in order to place it here.
So if you're using things within Drive, if you're already a frequent Google user, Google Sites may be the option for you. Google Sites may be a little more limited when it comes to its drag and drop capability.
You can see that they do have somewhat of a grid format here, but it's maybe not quite as flexible as I would like to see. And that pertains to the colors as well.
If you're wanting to change the color of certain buttons and backgrounds, it will keep you within your theme. Here you can see, I can change this to the yellow or move it back to the white, so forth.
But what I like to do is a button test. And can I change any button to any color I like? And unfortunately, as of this recording in Google Sites you cannot do so.
So one of the cons of using Google Sites.
Zyro (Best Design Elements)
Next on our list is a website builder called Zyro. And Zyro really gives us an awful lot of flexibility.
Unlike the first two website builders we've taken a look at, what Zyro does is actually give you a true grid style. So for example here as I drag this image you can see all the different places where I can place it. It gives us these little squares.
And what I love about this is that I can do something like this. I can stagger my videos. I think that's a little more eye-catching as people are scrolling down this website.
This is something that is almost impossible to do in programs such as Weebly or Google Sites. Maybe I want to bring it up even more. Maybe I want to stagger them. How about something like this? Hey, that's kind of eye-catching as well.
See how easy and quick that was for me to do. The other thing that I like to do is like I said, a button test.
And if I come in here and select, edit this button, I've got my standard options such as, you know, what do I want to name this button for example, maybe I want to name it register now. But it goes more than that.
When it comes under style, I can stick with my standard button style of either dark or light but I can come down further and I can say, you know what? This is a registration type of thing so I want to make it sort of a bit of a green. Yeah, that looks pretty… That looks pretty good right there.
So let's make it that green. That's the kind of button that I want. And again, just like other elements, I'm using this grid style. So if I want this register now button to appear somewhere else within this screen, I can do so.
The other nice thing that is flexible with Zyro is that you can continue to edit in mobile mode. Now I know you just heard me say a few moments ago that this may not be a desirable feature because you have to keep track of the two, but let me just show you a quick example.
Let's say when it comes to the mobile view here you want this button to come first. You want it first and foremost. I'm going to put it at the top of the screen but that's not going to change it here on my desktop view.
So depending on your needs, depending on the level of customization, you can change things, also add and remove certain things between the mobile and desktop versions. Now Zyro is a website builder provided by Hostinger.
Hostinger is one of the most popular and reliable web hosting platforms. So if you need a safe and a secure place to host all of your websites, you should check out Hostinger.
For just a few dollars a month, you can get their premium shared hosting where you are going to host up to 100 websites and get a 100 gigabytes in storage. Hostinger also is one of the most reviewed web hosting platforms and currently has a 4.2 rating on the G2 website.
If you'd like to learn more about hosting your websites on Hostinger and get a special price, be sure to click the link in the description below.
Squarespace (Best Templates)
Now number four on our list is Squarespace. And Squarespace is popular amongst many entrepreneurs and many businesses. Why? Because they have a lot of wonderful templates to get you started.
And if you're looking for a very clean website then Squarespace may be the choice for you. Here what I need to do is actually click on edit to get into my editing mode.
And what makes Squarespace a little different than the other website builders we've looked at is that we do not have a dropdown menu or a side menu to put in building blocks. Instead, what we need to do is look at these little plus symbols which are scattered around all throughout the website.
So for example, if I want to add a button here I need to click this little plus and that will open up all of my options available to me. Now Squarespace does have a lot of elements that we can add, they even give us a handy search bar here at the top.
But if I want to add that button for example, I need to come down here and now I can start creating that content here. And it does give me some design options, but you're typically locked into that template.
Again, this may be a pro or con depending on your needs. How much do you want to go outside of the box? How much control do you want to have when it comes to changing this image for example, or do you want to make sure that it's gonna look good in the template that you're using already?
If you want something that has almost ready out of the box then Squarespace may be the right choice for you. Now, Squarespace does give us a mobile preview as well as we've seen in other areas.
And as we just saw with Zyro, you can edit this text here within the mobile view as well.
Wix (Best Flexibility)
Last but not least, we are going to look at Wix which is giving us perhaps the most flexibility of the five website builders that we've taken a look at here. Here I've uploaded a pre-made template within Wix which looks really, really good.
And if I want to come in here and change something when it comes to this image, including sizing, et cetera, et cetera, I can do so here as well. Wix gives us an awful lot of flexibility when it comes to changing our content.
But the other nice thing that Wix does here is that it gives us some other business-specific tools available to us. So for example, if I click on plans and pricing, here you can see they've actually created elements and even entire pages that are prebuilt just for our business needs.
So we're already familiar that this is perhaps the most common way in which we can sell something or put something up on a sales page. Instead of trying to design this for yourself with the little boxes and making the numbers bigger here and then adding your own buttons, you can come in here and edit this content directly.
So if I want to come in here and edit the content, you can see here on the left hand side I can edit this pricing plan. The other nice thing is that it has things such as booking online, which is not just exclusive to Wix, but what I like about it is that it's more than just an element.
They give you a full template to work with. So you can start to book immediately here within your Wix webpage and start adding that to your own calendar.
So Wix is certainly very business centric or can allow you to add these additional tools as a part of it. It may take a little bit longer for you to get comfortable with the ability to edit the different elements here within Wix.
Again, if I click this edit icon here you can see that everything is here on the left-hand side. One of the things that I don't really enjoy about Wix is that if I want to edit this text, I actually have to edit it over here on the left hand side and then I will see my changes appear here.
What I do like about some of the other tools that we've looked at today, including Weebly and Zyro, is that we can just edit that text in place. So you can see what it's going to look like live rather than going back and forth, left to right.
Now, pricing does vary among these five options and each have multiple packages, too many for me to include in this video, but I've included a link to each of their pages in the description down below.
Now is there another website builder that you think I should have included on this list? If so, be sure to let me know in the comments down below.
Thank you so much for watching today's video and remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.
