Feb 12, 2024 | 8Min Read
After years as an SEO content marketer, I've tried numerous free website builders, such as WordPress.com, CMS Hub, WordPress.org, Webflow, Wix, Weebly, and others. I produce job and side business information on this custom web development. Over time, I've learned their skills. Website builders’ newbies may not know where to start. Which is ideal for non-coders? Who gives the most for free? Which domain names are better than confusing subdomains?
With various features, web builders help you with website design and publish websites online. Free web builders offer hosting, domains, themes, visual editors, and templates. Are you thinking of building a website? You undoubtedly know your options. Most individuals buy hosting and a domain name before installing WordPress.org or Joomla.
Installing WordPress and Joomla doesn't include a manual or page content. Blank pages made my websites look unfinished and amateurish until I hired a developer or built them. I worked for less with free website builders like CMS Hub and WordPress.com. The themes' placeholder information and photographs make my website feel more complete than a CMS.
My major consideration when picking website builders for this post was workflow. Does website creation need much effort and experience? Free website builders likely have modest setups. So, I chose Standard tools.
I've made many WordPress.com sites for fun. Free, fast signup and a less ugly but more memorable domain name, unlike other free website builders on this list. Does “XYZBrand.wordpress.com” sound good? WordPress.com differs from org. As a fully-hosted website builder, WordPress.com is free, but WordPress.org is an installable CMS. WordPress.com is the leading for free web development. WordPress.org is helpful if you know a little about website construction and are willing to learn WordPress hosting.
Typical website builder, Weebly includes web design, e-commerce, hosting, and domain registration. Using WordPress or CMS Hub to build a store requires an e-commerce plugin or third-party integration. Weebly allows you to create a store during registration. I strongly suggest it for the building of e-commerce websites. The well-known payment processor Square is compatible with this website builder.
Free website builder Webflow is perfect for professional coders who seek customization. It enables many workspaces and client websites, making it ideal for independent web developers and companies. Another perk is Webflow's Adobe Creative Cloud-like UX. Webflow rocks setup. Create a website for business, clients, or yourself immediately.
Wix is a famous free website builder you probably considered when researching tools. Fully hosted platforms include drag-and-drop editors, tools, and professional templates. When I first used it, one of the most robust website builders, Wix, had terrible performance and optimization. Wix's biggest draw is helping entrepreneurs go online.
Google's website builder is free and easy to use—no upgrade is needed. Similar to Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides. Select a template from sites.google.com and edit. Google Sites provides student, employee, and individual templates. I wouldn't suggest this site-building tool for any business, freelancer, startup, minor company, or enterprise because of its restricted functionality and lack of connectors. Google Sites are crucial for companies.
The app is user-friendly, easy to set up for Google users, and mobile-optimized. However, there are some drawbacks.
Knowing what you want makes choosing a website builder easier. Watch for these features.
Website builder theme markets offer completely adjustable themes and templates to simplify site styling. For customers to avoid creating templates, website builders should offer niche-specific themes.
Web templates must include photos, content, and other features. Every website needs a homepage, an About page, and a contact page. Replace the example material with yours. Themes and templates can be changed with many backgrounds, layouts, fonts, and color options.
Text-heavy websites bore me. Multimedia should break up text or make a website more entertaining, except for blogs and Wikipedia. Mixed media on your website breaks up and helps it stick. Add multimedia content and photos to your website to support important information and interest users.
Stock photos, vector images, backdrops, stock videos, sound effects, and video editing templates may liven up your website. Many websites offer free content media, such as the famous illustration and picture website Freepik.
Along with themes and templates, the best website builders feature drag-and-drop capabilities and WYSIWYG editors for website customization. It's great for beginners because you can construct your site in a few clicks by dragging and dropping objects and seeing how it looks.
I also predict that utilizing a WYSIWYG editor will save you a lot of time making adjustments after you publish your site because you can see how everything will look when developing it, so consider that when picking the best website builder.
Choose a website builder with security in mind. Keep your website-building tool that screens for viruses. Automated malware screening prevents catastrophic attacks.
WAFs have great significance. Your website is protected against assaults by WAFs that lie between the server that hosts it and the internet. Malicious network traffic can be filtered, watched over, and managed to stop SQL injections and XSS.
I recommend site security and page performance enhancement. Website load speed impacts customer experience, conversions, money, and mobile usability. Portent says sites that load in 1 second convert 5x faster than 10 seconds. Many methods can improve website performance, including employing a CDN. CDNs speed delivery by storing heavy, static content on worldwide servers and loading it close to the user.
If website builders can't get your site live, why use them? Some systems only offer website builders. To get your website up, hosting will cost you more. Website builders provide web hosting to simplify website creation. Personal use with free website builders limits bandwidth and storage; upgrade to shared, dedicated, or managed-to-host.
Web hosting provides storage space and bandwidth. For novices, most free builders for websites offer sufficient (limited) storage but require you to purchase additional.
Websites and blogs tend to be confused. Blogs have many topics. They get new content often, whereas websites get updates. Therefore, every blog is a website, but not every website contains a blog. Blogs can facilitate business sales, exhibition, or distribution of information.
The majority of free website builders include basic blogging features like commenting and article creation.
Organic search is second in website traffic, per the 2023 Web Traffic & Analytics Report. Optimizing your website for search engines boosts traffic and views. For on-page SEO, alter URLs, meta tags, and image alt. Most website builders provide free SSL certificates, schema markup, and XML sitemaps for technical SEO.
While testing the website tools builder mentioned above, I couldn't fix some flaws, so I chose one with customer support. Technical, sales, billing, payment, and experience difficulties are handled by customer support. The website builder may offer the following support channels.
Most of the website builders use multiple channels and respond quickly.
Thinking of selling physical or digital goods? Consider ecommerce website builders. Ecommerce website builders may charge for shipping and payment software. Sometimes free of cost, website builders provide a store or link with a third-party ecommerce program.
The worst happens when your tech stack fails to integrate with your website builder. Third-party connectors are essential when picking a website builder. Email marketing, ecommerce, and social applications should integrate with your website builder to include live chat. WordPress.com has plugins almost 1,400+ third-party integration apps.
Track popular pages, visitor bounce rates, average visitor length, and more with web reporting and analytics from your website builder—track website stats with an analytics and reporting app. Combining site analytics with funnel data like trials and activation rates on a dashboard lets your team examine and obtain insights.
That's it, dear! If you're unsure which of the above website builders is the most outstanding fit, try out a few, as most of them are free. To ensure that one of these builders will meet your objectives, pay close attention to what you truly want from your site.
