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Strategic brands and websites for service providers.
A professional website for your small business is essential for building credibility, attracting customers, and boosting your lead generation. But with so many website builders out there, how do you choose the best one for your needs? Here’s my expert breakdown of today’s top website builder options for small businesses—ranked from the most beginner-friendly to the most advanced.
Platform | Best For | Ease of Use | Pros and Cons |
Squarespace | Beginners, DIYers | Easiest | Intuitive, beautiful templates, e-commerce options, great support |
Wix | Beginners, DIYers | Easy | Drag-and-drop, 800+ templates, e-commerce options, poor customer support |
Shopify | E-commerce | Moderate | Powerful store features, scalable, 24/7 support |
Showit | Creatives, DIYers | Easy-Moderate | Total design freedom, gentle learning curve, great support |
WordPress | Customization, Bloggers | Moderate-Hard | Flexible, blog-friendly, Complex |
Webflow | Advanced, Future-forward | Moderate-Hard | Dynamic design, powerful templates, sleek animations |
Squarespace and Wix are direct competitors and both provide “one stop shop” solutions. These platforms are great options for solo business owners and entrepreneurs who want to confidently create and manage their own site. Both platforms offer:
While both are user-friendly, Squarespace stands out for its truly intuitive interface and ease of creating pWhile both are user-friendly, Squarespace stands out for its intuitive interface and ease of creating professional, stunning sites. Its templates are a step above in design, and the platform is streamlined so you can focus on your business, not on troubleshooting. In my experience, Squarespace’s customer support is more responsive and helpful than Wix.
Wix offers more templates and customization, but that flexibility can be overwhelming for beginners. Their editor can feel cluttered, and customer support often falls short compared to Squarespace. Squarespace is going to be the best website builder for your small business if you want a quick, beautiful site without the learning curve.
Showit is perfect for creative businesses that want total creative freedom—think photographers, designers, and event planners. Its drag-and-drop builder is highly intuitive, and you can customize every detail without code. Showit also integrates seamlessly with WordPress for blogging, giving you the best of both worlds. The design tools are excellent, the learning curve is gentle, and their customer support is excellent.
If your main goal is to sell products online, Shopify is the industry leader for small business e-commerce. It’s built for selling online, with robust inventory, payment, and shipping tools. Shopify’s themes are clean and conversion-focused, and you can expand functionality with apps as your business grows. If your primary goal is to create an online store, Shopify is going to be the best website builder for your small business.
WordPress has long been the industry standard for flexibility and customization. Even now, WordPress currently runs 43% of all websites today. However, it’s become less relevant as new, robust builders have entered the market.
The platform is facing an identity crisis, with a complex ecosystem, plugin conflicts, and frequent updates that can be overwhelming for non-developers. While still powerful for highly customized sites, most small businesses will find it unnecessarily complicated and time-consuming compared to modern builders.
WordPress remains the top choice for bloggers thanks to its origins as a blogging platform and its powerful, built-in publishing tools. Its intuitive editor makes writing, formatting, and optimizing content for SEO easy for both beginners and experienced writers. The platform also offers a vast library of plugins to help bloggers grow their audience and monetize their content.
Webflow is at the cutting edge of website design. It offers unparalleled design flexibility, advanced animation, built in SEO tools, and a visual CMS that empowers businesses to manage content easily. Webflow’s new AI website builder integrations and dynamic animation capabilities make it the future of web design,
Building a site from scratch comes with a steep learning curve. However Webflow’s extensive template library allows even newbies to create a beautiful robust site with ease.
The user-friendly editor interface and CMS set-up make ongoing updates simple for business owners. A professional designer can help you set up your site for ease of use using CMS. Webflow is ideal for companies that want to stand out as industry leaders and are ready to invest in a platform that will evolve with their business.
I can help you find the best website builder for your small business. Whether you need advice on which builder to use, or want support with designing your business website—I can help!
Schedule a consultation today!
As the founder of Shelby Design Co, I’ve worked extensively with all of these platforms. I help small businesses like yours create beautiful, effective websites that truly reflect their brand and drive business growth.
I’m here to guide you every step of the way. Whether you want a simple, user-friendly site or a custom, cutting-edge design. Ready to build a website that works as hard as you do? Let’s connect and make it happen!
Strategic brands and websites for service providers.
Based in Denver, CO - Available world-wide
hello@shelbydesign.co
Brand & Website Design by Shelby Design Co
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