So you know that you need a website, but you do not know how to create one. Without the appropriate design and coding skills, you are quite not sure where to start. Thankfully, these days, you do not need to have complex skills when you want to build a website. What you need is a great website builder.

But with so many website builders available in the market, it might be a challenge choosing the right one. Your end goal here is to pick an attractive design, as well as a site that is fast and SEO-friendly.

To achieve this, here are the nine factors that you need to consider when choosing a website builder:

Ease of Use

The best website builders in the market should make the website building process easy. When it comes to choosing a website builder, pick an editing tool that’s highly intuitive to help shape the overall look and feel of your site.

Moreover, the drag-and-drop feature makes it easy to move various elements with your mouse, editing tools that allow you to switch colors, add in various elements and media that you want to place on your site without writing a single line of code.

Responsive Options

People are browsing the internet with their phones more than ever. So in order for your site to work out for a majority of your audience, it must be mobile-friendly.

The best way to achieve that is to create a mobile-responsive website.

Responsive sites have all the elements and content no matter what device the user is on. They’re also arranged in a way that makes them look great no matter what screen size a site visitor will view it on.

The website builder that you pick should provide an easy way for your site to be responsive. Providing responsive templates is an excellent option because you won’t have to do additional stuff to make your website mobile-friendly. You could start with it that way.

Customization Options

Web design templates are great. But at the same time, you also have to ensure that you can turn that particular template into something exceptional.

A great website builder will provide you with a lot of options to pick from to be able to customize your site. You should be able to switch colors, add new pages, icons, and buttons, into sizes and shapes that you want to.

You don’t have to create a site that looks basic and common. Instead, you have to build something that will represent your brand.

Select a website builder that will provide you with a lot of room to personalize the template that you choose, turning it into something that represents your brand well.

Affordability

Before picking a website builder that you want to use, it’s also important that you check the costs that are associated with it. This is to make sure that everything meets your budget without having to compromise the quality.

Trial or Free Package

Most website builders will offer a free version of their services, so do not go rushing to buy the very first package you come across without checking if it has everything that you need.

With a majority of site builders, you could sign up for a free trial or a feature-limited package. This allows you to test your website builder’s capabilities and some of its primary features.

From there, you can come up with an informed decision on which website builder you are likely to purchase.

Good Customer Support

At one point or another, you might need technical help. So, when choosing a website builder, make sure that there’s plenty of resources and that someone from their support team will have your back whenever you need them.

Just keep in mind that not every website builder will offer the same amount of customer support.

Some will only provide you with email support, and you have to wait out for their response through email. Others offer a more dynamic 24/7 phone and chat support.

There are even some website builders that don’t offer any kind of support at all. So you have to depend on forums or an online knowledgebase.

SEO Features

Placing your site “out there” won’t guarantee you anything. Your site needs to have basic SEO features like meta-descriptions and titles, headers, and alt text for search engine optimization purposes.

In a nutshell, SEO is the process of enhancing your website for search engines.

Search engines like Google and Bing will help rank your site based on several factors like trust, authority, domain, quality, and quantity of your backlinks, social metrics, and so much more.

Design Templates and Functionality

A lot of website builders are unique and can have varying ways of letting you customize your site. These allow creating, managing, and optimizing your website a lot easier. It’s also more affordable compared to working with a web designer and developer.

When picking a website builder, you have to consider the quality and quantity of its templates and designs. Otherwise, you will need to look for another website builder that offers hundreds of templates and customization options.

Here are also other features regarding templates and design that you need to be aware of:

• Designs should be fully-customizable, meaning you can place images, texts, videos, and so much more.
• There should be a huge variety of professional and modern-looking designs and categories.
• Templates should be mobile-responsive.
• There should be an option to import and export content from your site.

Apps and Integrations

When it comes to apps, a lot of website builders have hundreds of apps and integrations. Every app serves a different purpose and can be helpful for small business owners.

The first thing that you should do is to assess your website’s goals. For instance, if you’re selling products, Stripe and Paypal are helpful in processing payments.

Meanwhile, if you want to create meaningful relationships with website visitors, you can tap into customer relationship management integrations like Hubspot and Salesforce. They can also help you organize, manage, and contact important leads.

Several apps help you with email marketing, building forms, booking and organizing events, blogging, and so much more.

Here are some integrations and apps that you can add on your site for more improved user experience:

• Third-party reviews
• Social media profile
• Social media share buttons
• Video and music options
• Customer relationship management system
• Marketing tracking tools like Crazy Egg, HotJar, etc.
• Analytics tools such as Google Analytics

Over to You

There you have it. Listed above are the most important things that you need to consider when picking a website builder.

At the end of the day, the website builder that you go with can have an impact on your site visitors’ user experience. If you considered some of the factors mentioned in this post, then it is highly likely that you will start your site off with the right footing.

Also, as you grow your page, you will notice more and more features that might help scale your site. So, do not be afraid to take charge, learn to understand and play with the platform, and know what is best for your website and your business.

Originally posted at RuhaniRabin.com
Click here to subscribe now. Would You like to write at RuhaniRabin.com?