Having a well designed website can help improve your online authority, credibility and unique brand story. But if you have never built a website before it can be a daunting task.
You have two options available to you. The first one is to pay a company to design a unique and professional website for you. The second option is to go it alone and build your own website from scratch.
In today’s article, we are going to take a look at 5 of the best free website building sites that are perfect for building your own site.
It wasn’t all too long ago that building your own website meant you needed to have knowledge of coding. Luckily, that is a thing of the past and today you can create a website in just a few clicks of a button.
The only drawback to these types of sites is that they tend to be extremely generic and black personality. But if you are looking for a free way to pull together a website from scratch without any coding knowledge, then the internet gods have you covered!
Another benefit of codeless websites is that you don’t need to download any software to get started. Everything is done in your browser and typically involves dragging and dropping blocks to create your site.
So now that you know you don’t have to be a guru to build your first website, let’s take a look at five of the best free website builders of 2019.
When it comes to free website builders, Wix currently holds the crown. Having been around for many years, clever marketing campaigns and the ability to be able to build a website from scratch for free has seen it grow into one of the world’s largest CMS platforms.
Wix offers up two different plans. The first is the free plan, which is great if you are new to the world of website building. If you are looking for something more customisable and professional, they also offer a paid plan.
But as this is a post about free website building sites, let’s focus on the free side of Wix.
The free plan comes fully loaded with an inbuilt SEO optimisation tool. This is fantastic for those who also have limited knowledge about search engine optimisation. A website created on this platform is also mobile responsive and comes with unlimited pages, a fantastic app store, and easy to build website blocks.
If you are looking for a free website builder that is easy to use and offers lots of useful site building features, Wix is definitely worth trying.
The second free website builder on this list is Webstarts. Again, Webstarts offers several different plans ranging from free to premium. Webstarts free website builder is extremely easy to use and has a friendly user interface.
The ability to import external apps makes managing pictures, videos, forms and social media sites easy to integrate into your website. One of the downfalls of this platform is that websites do not always adapt to mobile phones and tablets.
You will also discover that once you have chosen your template, you are fixed to it. Creating a highly customisable website with Webstarts can be hard.
However, where it truly shines is its ease of use. Take advantage of free storage space, free product listings, and an intuitive user interface that makes website building a joy. If you have tried Wix and found it not to be your style, Webstarts is a great second choice.
Having recently been revamped, Webnode is becoming an extremely popular free website building site. Much like Webstarts, once you have selected your theme for your website on webnode it becomes permanently fixed. If flexibility and adaptiveness are what you are looking for, this may not be the site for you
However, before skipping on to the next free website builder on this list, it is worth checking out what benefits Webnode has to offer you.
First of all, when you build your free website with Webnode you have access to the free SEO optimisation tool. This will prove to be invaluable for those who are unfamiliar with SEO tools such as SEMrush and ahrefs. You also get 100 megabytes of free space to use. Though this is less than ideal if your website is going to be image or video heavy.
While themes become permanent once selected, the themes that they have to offer for free are extremely stylish and professional. This makes them a great choice for businesses looking to focus primarily on text-based content and in need of a quick and easy build.
As a newcomer to the free website building scene, Jimdo is rapidly growing in popularity around the world. This free website builder provides you with a large range of free templates that are both customisable and mobile responsive.
Another huge benefit of Jimdo is that you are able to edit your website from a mobile device via the mobile app. This makes managing your website easy, even when you are on the go.
If you are looking for a website that has an online store feature, Jimdo lets you build one for free. You also get to take advantage of 500 megabytes of storage space, free page by page SEO optimization tools, and unlimited pages for publishing your content on.
Sometimes, it takes the new kid on the block to come and shake things up. And Jimdo definitely gives other free website building sites something to be worried about.
No free website builder list would be complete without featuring Weebly. As one of the most famous free site builders the world over, it comes with a stealth reputation for both business and personal websites.
The free plan on Weebly comes with unlimited pages, free SSL security, a free domain name with Weebly branding, free SEO and lead capture forms, 500 megabytes of storage and an active community forum.
When it comes to ease-of-use, Weebly is definitely a leader. Building a website from one of the free templates means that you can have your site up and running in less than 10 minutes.
Of course, customising your website is going to take a bit more time. But the fact that you can launch so quickly makes this perfect for those short on time. The fact that it comes with several free benefits that other free websites only provide on paid plans makes Weebly even better!
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When it comes to choosing a free website builder to create your website, a few things should take priority over the rest.
Storage – storage is important if you want to be able to upload videos, images and logos to your website. Anything less than 500 megabytes is going to be useless for 99% of people. The more storage space you have available, the better it is for building your website.
Customisation – building a brand identity is about stamping your own mark on your website. If the website builder is too restrictive and the themes are not easily changed to suit your needs, it will do nothing but cause you frustration. Complete flexibility and customisation options are key for building your website.
Security – Google takes site security seriously. Any free website builder that offers free SSL security is definitely worth considering. This not only boosts your reputation with Google, but with your audience as well. If you are building an e-commerce store, it is a vital feature that you cannot do without.
Branding – all free website builders will feature their branding on your site. This is only fair as they are providing you with a service for free. However, you do not want branding to dominate your website and detract from your own branding. If the free site builder has branding that dominates your site, it can make you look extremely unprofessional.
One final thing to be aware of when signing up for a free website builder plan is that many of them have aggressive up selling tactics. This is to be expected. After all, they are a business themselves.
However, before making your mind up run a few Google searches for testimonials and reviews to find out which ones don’t constantly spam your inbox trying to get you to pay for more services.
The idea of free website builders is that to get to trial their functionalities and capabilities before deciding to upgrade. If you are being pushed to upgrade before you have had a chance to test everything out and see how it works, it’s only going to make you resent the provider.
And that’s about it for today. Make sure you check out our blog for more fantastic SEO and website building articles.
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