If you have an offline business and are thinking about launching a website, or you have a great idea for an online business, but no clue how to get it started, then this article is for you.There are lots of different platforms you can use to easily build and launch a website, and below we look at the pros and cons of some of the most popular ones.
Shopify/BigCommerce
Shopify and BigCommerce are two very large platforms dedicated to building websites destined to be stores. Whilst both offer the ability to sell digital products too, a huge percentage of their users sell physical products.
They are flexible and easy to use with drag and drop editors, and the templates included in the plans don’t make bad looking websites. They are highly used among even small businesses like venture capital web design by Digital Silk. However, the pricing is quite expensive in comparison to other website building options, so you have to weigh up whether the price tag is worth it for you personally.
Both platforms have quite similar offerings, but Shopify seemingly gets slightly more attention than BigCommerce despite them having more preferential value options for customers.
The good news is, with either platform you can pretty much have your store up and running within a few hours, and so it is a very fast route to market.
WordPress
WordPress is a content management system that is extremely flexible. However, it does have a learning curve involved with it. Luckily, there are plenty of WordPress developers around who can help you take an idea to a fully functioning website.
WordPress was originally designed for blogs; however, thanks to developers creating thousands of templates and plugins for the platform, it can now make any website dream a reality.
It is extremely popular due to this, but the back office (dashboard) is not as simple to use as some other website builders and does take some time to get used to.
One of the great things about WordPress is that the software itself is free; you simply need to pay for hosting for it, which is often cheaper than other website builder software.
Hiring a professional to edit the code to your exact requirements is recommended, but once you are used to WordPress, you will adore the flexibility it offers and thousands of integrations and plugins to help you do almost anything on there!
Wix
Wix is seemingly taking the online website builder world by storm. This is primarily because it is super simple to use, and the templates are quite nice. It also has flexible payment options, so you can choose a package to suit your budget.
However, despite the traction it is getting, Wix can be limited in terms of SEO, with some crawlers (Like Screaming Frog) sometimes struggling to crawl and return data from Wix websites.
If you plan on only using PPC for your website, then Wix is potentially a good option; however, something like WordPress which is built for search engine rankings is going to be more suitable for organic traffic if that’s what you’re aiming for.
The kind of platform you opt for is going to be dependent on your individual business goals, but for an all-around solution, WordPress has flexibility and affordability and should be a top contender.
