What’s a Website Builder?
Choosing how to build your website can be really daunting, there’s just so many options out there that promise to deliver - and a good portion of them probably will. The beautiful and frustrating reality is that there are so many different ways to achieve your website dreams.
Over the past decade, I’ve built websites, web apps, and mobile apps of various different sizes and purposes. A lot of this work has been custom built for very specific and nuanced needs. For example start-ups whose product is their technology (their app), teams that want total control over their animations on their marketing site, and complex online storefronts servicing huge markets. All super cool, complicated, and expensive projects.
The thing is, a website doesn’t need to be complicated and expensive by default. What it should be is reliable and easy to navigate both as a user and as a content creator! That’s where website builders come into play.
Don’t Reinvent the wheel (if you don’t need to)
Website builders are a type of foundational tool that allows creators to build websites within their system that has already battle-tested different situations and has solutions to common issues faced when creating websites. They have a visual interface that lowers the bar for creating websites without understanding computer programming. They are incredibly popular and very reliable.
Globally, Wordpress is what over 40% of websites run on. Granted, WP has a headstart on newer companies since they’ve been around for over 20 years. If we zoom into just the United States (where I am), WP usage is shrinking while Squarespace is approaching 20% of websites and GoDaddy’s Website Builder is close behind. Builtwith has a fun breakdown if you’re curious.
The list of website builder platforms is expanding, each has different pros and cons that I’m not getting into here. For now, I want to give you a primer on what these solutions can offer because it can end up saving you money while growing your business.
For example
Let’s say you’re a therapist and you want clients to be able to book appointments online. Building this functionality custom would take a team at least 4 weeks, there’s a good chance the team (despite their best intentions) missed a use-case which will leave a client hanging. Dates are notoriously complicated! Sure, you might end up with a revolutionary appointment widget that changes the world as we know it, but is this where you want to sink thousands of dollars? If the answer is no, it’s not how you want to light 10k on fire, you could build this in under a week using Squarespace and their Aquity extension without the jaw dropping price tag. While you’d still get some customization, you’re not reinventing the wheel and you know that it’s been tested and vetted by not only the product but also 1000s of other websites using the same product so your customers will benefit.
Or, you’re finally launching your own company after so many years of deliberating about it - all you need is one page that says your business, what you do, a contact form that customers can submit, and a way to track who’s contacted you. That’s what a website builder is for. It’ll allow you to create a foundation to launch from and space to grow. So, when you’re ready to add a blog or customer reviews or maybe a small online store to coincide with your offering - you totally can. All the hard foundational work is already taken care of.
How it works
Generally, within your chosen builder you get a dashboard to navigate the different aspects of running a website. You’ve got your content that’s displayed to users (customers, clients, visitors) and you’ve got all the behind the scenes things that help with search engine optimization, branding, collected user information, orders and invoices - you get it.
Builders allow for customization of your colors, fonts, imagery and how things look on your phone versus your laptop through no-code visual interfaces. They rely on drag and drop functionality which is really useful for non-technical folks but is usually temperamental when handling for different screen sizes.
A key thing I like to point out to my clients is that you don’t need to be afraid of making a change. The chances of you imploding your website while updating what a button says is truly so small. If you decide you want to use yellow and not blue as an accent color it should be a simple change! These are tools meant to empower you to create your own content, not act as gatekeepers slowing you down.
How to choose a builder
Different builders have different limitations - some of them are better for storefronts (shopify, squarespace) and others are great for landing pages (webflow). It’s not a one size fits all and each of these requires some finesse to achieve a quality finished product. But that work pales in comparison to the undertaking of custom software.
While I’d love to prescribe you a solution here and now, I can’t. It depends on what your goals and budget are. Some of them require less set up but have more restrictions, others have less restrictions but require more set up. At the end of the day, a handful of options will work just fine - it’s simply a matter of choosing how you want to approach the problem. If you have specific questions about website builders let me know and I’ll try to dive into it in a future post.
For further reading, I strongly recommend this Wirecutter piece that the New York Times released last year that breaks down options really well.
I can help!
Want some assistance navigating getting started with a website builder? Together we can identify your website’s needs to determine options to move forward with. Let me demystify the process for you, send me a message today.
