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Having a business website is critically important in today’s digital ecosystem. It is almost impossible for a small business to succeed without establishing some sort of digital presence, whether it be a website, blog, social media or local listings online.
The good news is you don’t have to be a master business website builder to create your business website, and not every start-up can afford to spend money on a shiny, new website. You can use a free easy to use simple website builder to give your company a digital presence with all the basic tools you need to get up-and-running.
Business Website
Having a business website opens your company to more opportunities. Unlike your brick and mortar store which is limited by local customers, a website with eCommerce capabilities literally opens a world of customers to you. an online website builder, whether it is free or a premium version makes this possible.
The market is now full of free and premium tools individuals without any coding experience can use to create their business website. In 2010, Small Business Trends compiled a list of its top seven website building platforms. But a lot has changed since then, and so, here’s an update, a listing of 2018’s top 20 free business website builders.
20 Free Website Builders
1. Weebly
Weebly has been around for a while, and so it’s definitely one of the most popular website builders out there. There are no hidden costs involved in constructing a new website — and although premium and ecommerce versions do exist, a vast majority of small businesses are unlikely to need them. Weebly’s top feature is its intuitive, drag-and-drop interface that makes Web creation dead simple for even the most IT-challenged individuals.
2. Wix
Wix boasts a similarly easy-to-use interface, and is immensely popular because the site offers users hundreds and hundreds of free design templates to choose from. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re operating in. Chances are, Wix will have a free template that caters specifically to your needs. After selecting a template, the site’s drag-and-drop feature makes drafting your first website a quick and painless process.
3. Webs
Webs is an ideal website builder for small businesses because it offers an unrivalled level of SEO functionality. Built-in search indicators can help you to optimize your new website so that your small business starts to generate organic traffic quicker. The platform’s themes are well-designed. Changes can be made instantly and all of the layouts are relatively intuitive.
4. DudaOne
DudaOne is an innovative website builder that focuses largely on producing responsive mobile sites. It has a clear interface, intelligent social media integration and a great built-in analytics system. By setting up a free site, small business owners gain a fast, natively responsive website, Web hosting on Amazon Cloud and crucial community support. From there, users can upgrade to various business and ecommerce packages that come with multi-language sites, push notifications and unlimited product categories for online stores.
5. SiteBuilder
SiteBuilder is still one of the simplest and most intuitive website design tools available online. Its platform is incredibly user-friendly, and comes with all of the tools you’ll need to get a dynamic small business website immediately live. SiteBuilder also includes basic ecommerce features and premium plans with a wide range of custom design tools.
6. Squarespace
Squarespace is a professional website building platform designed largely for those operating within creative industries. The site has loads of high-caliber templates geared at photographers, musicians, writers and art venues. Squarespace’s templates are extremely visual-based — and although they aren’t quite as customizable as the templates some other platforms may offer, small business websites built on Squarespace are some of the Web’s most clean and responsive.
7. WordPress
WordPress is still a small business favorite, and for good reason. WordPress is one of the easiest building platforms for beginners, and it offers some of the Web’s most well-designed free templates. WordPress also comes with a wide selection of free analytics and SEO tools that make it fairly simple to keep track of how your site is performing. Bearing all that in mind, it’s little wonder around one in five sites on the Internet are now constructed using WordPress.
8. Yola
Yola is a Web-based tool that makes life easy for small business owners who are after a simple, code-free way of producing a professional commercial website. Yola operates a drag-and-drop interface with fully-integrated social features and quite a few handy widgets. It’s worth pointing out that Yola’s free accounts don’t include access to the platform’s useful blogging tool — and so small business owners may ultimately need to go premium in order to unlock Yola’s full potential.
9. IM Creator
IM Creator is another simple drag-and-drop system that offers a wide range of professionally-designed Web templates that are hugely responsive. With IM Creator’s free package, users can take advantage of a second level domain and a respectable 50MB of storage. The platform also updates its selection of templates on a regular basis — meaning it’s a relatively quick and painless process to give your small business website a complete makeover.
10. Sitey
Sitey is an intuitive platform that offers small business owners incredibly professional-looking websites in the blink of an eye. With each free account, you’ll receive 50MB storage, 5MB file upload and 1GB worth of bandwidth. Better yet, you’ll gain access to Sitey’s database of excellent templates, image galleries and simple social media integration.
11. Jimdo
Jimdo is another well-established website builder, and is quite useful for those who are a little bit more comfortable with coding. Jimdo enables users to create free, mobile-friendly HTML5 sites. The platform’s top strength is its free online store as most website builders tend to charge an arm and a leg for this feature. Jimdo also offers a generous 500MB of storage and great customer support.
12. WebStarts
WebStarts provides a rapid solution for small business owners who need a website quick. The platform’s templates boast intelligent layouts, and its design interface is extremely easy-to-use. That said, those in need of a large website or more integrated features will most likely need to upgrade to a premium plan. WebStarts’ free version includes just 10MB of storage for a five page website.
13. Moonfruit
Moonfruit is home to some of the Web’s most creative design templates. The platform’s free version enables small business owners to create a website of up to 15 pages on a second level domain. But Moonfruit does a whole lot more than host a few free templates. It also enables you to create an optimized mobile version of your site, and can be fully integrated with your company’s social media profiles.
14. DoodleKit
DoodleKit offers some of the best editing functionality of any free website builder. Although its free version is limited, it does enable you to create a site up to five pages in under five minutes. You can also take advantage of the site’s free blogging platform, which is an immensely useful tool in order to expand your brand’s digital profile. DoodleKit includes a range of great design templates and hosts a useful forum that can help to inspire you when constructing your own site.
15. Voog
Established site Edicy has recently relaunched under the name ‘Voog’, but it’s still a fast and simple website builder that will help you to establish an online presence in the blink of an eye. Voog doesn’t come with the most all-encompassing user experience, but its free trial version does offer free lifetime hosting, generous storage space and allows you to register more than one editor in order to manage the site.
16. Mozello
Mozello is a website builder which lets you create multilingual sites for your business. According to the company, it’s the only free bilingual version on the market today. The free plan lets you build your own blog and features 500 MB of free.
17. Webnode
Webnode offers a dynamic solution for small businesses in need of a simple, online store. The platform’s free ecommerce package includes 1GB bandwidth, 10MB storage space and enables you to sell up to 10 products. In order to expand that store, you’ll need to upgrade to one of Webnode’s premium packages — but its free offerings are ideal for a part-time micro-business.
18. emyspot
emyspot is an all-encompassing website builder with an attractive range of free features. A small business site on emyspot has got no page limit, and enjoys use of a blog and unlimited bandwidth. Meanwhile, the platform’s free version offers a generous 250MB worth of storage. Dynamic ecommerce templates are available for an additional fee.
19. GoDaddy
GoDaddy might be better known for its hosting services, but the company also offers a user-friendly website construction platform. GoDaddy users enjoy quite generous storage limits, and a clear, drag-and-drop interface. The platform also includes decent photo editing software. That being said, users will need to go premium in order to take advantage of GoDaddy’s ecommerce, mobile and blog features.
20. Zoho Sites
Zoho Sites is another useful drag-and-drop editor. It’s a crystal clear building tool, and includes an ecommerce upgrade that is fully integrated with PayPal. The platform’s top feature is definitely its form builder. Users can take advantage of an unprecedented level of fields. Including drop-downs, URLs and file uploads.
Before committing to a website builder, you should always do your homework. After all, no two businesses are alike, and so you’ve got to come up with an idea of what it is you’re after in a website. But once you’ve figured that out, it doesn’t matter what industry you’re operating in or how comfortable you are with the Web. There’s definitely a website builder out there that’s perfect for you and your small business.
Photo via Shutterstock
Aira Bongco
I know several of them. Some people even call these as Web 2.0 sites if I am not mistaken. It is just sad that some people are using them for spam.
Nash: Squarespace is not a free website builder, for a reason. It is premium took. You get two weeks free trial. Full disclosure: I am using Squarespace for three of my sites at the moment. I am also using WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr, and Posthaven. I will check out some of the sites you have listed. Thanks for compiling this list!
WebStarts actually comes with 1GB of cloud storage rather than the 10mb listed in the review.
Excuse me dear author, please fix the link in 6th point. It has heading ”Squarespace” but the link given in this section to their site is wrong which sends users to “sitebuilder.com”. So please fix this 🙂
Shawn Hessinger
Fixed Satnam. Thanks for reaching out. 🙂
kanchipuram sarees
Excuse me dear author, please fix the link in 6th point. It has heading ”Squarespace” but the link given in this section to their site is wrong which sends users to “sitebuilder.com”. So please fix this ?
Apart from these, there are various other free website builders available online which allow small business owners to create a professional website. It is extremely easy and comfortable to use & offers a lot of features like attractive designs, WebStore, content, uploading of images and videos, photo gallery, SEO, monitoring, hosting, domain name purchase etc. just released an eclectic range of responsive web designs- specially for the smart end-users, absolutely free!
Dee
What’s the name of the site?
I would like to add one more tool into this list is Boomer Marketing App . Boomer Marketing App – a free website builder, to build responsive websites without any ads.Its absolutely Free! You can even link custom domain for free! No coding or technical knowledge required. Sure a considerable one for small and medium business to take off their business in online.
David M Pelly
I not tech or IT savvy.
I have just done some research.
Which web builder platform will be the best for me and have these features:
500 mb or more capacity
1 gb speed
Sell 50 products or more
Have good SEO
Have ecommerce ability, including paypal.
Have blog ability
Very good customer support
Free
David M Pelly
I not tech or IT savvy.
Typing skills are about 15 wpm 🙂
I have just done some research.
I want to build a personal and professional development course, that might have 20 or 30 levels.
And each level will be sold and charged separately or additionally.
You finish one level, then you buy another.
Each level could have around 50 pages.
Which web builder platform will be the best for me and have these features:
500 mb or more capacity
1 gb speed
Sell 50 products or more
Have good SEO
Have ecommerce ability, including paypal.
Have blog ability
Very good customer support
Free, at least until I can make enough money to pay for the site and upgrades.
And what are the range of costs of up grades and premium packages?
If you know the costs, please state them.
Thanks
Dzinepixels
This is a really nice and useful collection of website builders. Many thanks for gathering them all together for us. I am really happy today you are doing great job on your website. Thank you.
Heather A
Get article, but I wouldn’t use these hosted stores. God forbid if they went out of business or they went down (site wise or credit card) you would be screwed.
You cannot take your store or in a lot of cases your domain name if you want to leave to go to another hosting company. They own it all. Stick with companies like Magento, PrestaShop or even WooCommerce.
You can move them to any hosting company at anytime. I’ve been using Magento on eComLane for over 4 years now and I’m extremely happy.
Inga
I’ve been using some of these platforms for a while.
I started with Webgarden (not on the list), later they got somewhat still – no answering to email requests, nothing was happening there. So I went elswhere.
Some time ago, I doscovered Webgraden got alive again. Unfortunately, actual versions are not for me – I have no knowledge in coding.
From those “elsewhre”, the first one was Webstarts. Great designs – really great to my taste and needs, easy designing tools – all of the best for a mere user. However: there was a time that my sites (had 3) just… disappeared. When inquired about why, no answer was ever received, even after multiple reminders, though someone signed as Adam was constantly sending me eamils about upgrading.. Until one day a new email came from them signed by a new name. This new name was real, there was a person behind it, very quick and eficiente. He explained that the reason was a supposed inactivity of my sites. Gee! Those were my sites not blogues, for God’s sake! Why should one be fiddling with the sites if there was nothing new to tell? It seems they understand “activity” as upgrading only. Well, this new guy fixed everything quickly, I thanked him… and seveeral months and several emails insisting on na upgrade later, my sites disappeared again. They proved themselves to be simply not reliable.
Then Webs… Not so user friendly as Webstarts but they’re ok. What I found not really ok is that after a month of being online they also started asking for na upgrade. Otherwise, I couldn’t edit my site anymore. Well, that site was fr a temporary use only, so I just dropped the idea of editing.
Yesterday, after having found this article, I decided to try them again. And… Since yesterday, I cannot publish what I have created so far (little, to be honest, because every time I get this message: “Sorry, we were unable to publish your site, please try again in a few minutes!”
Many times several minutes… and nothing!
The best of the best so far, at least for me, has been Wix. Just checked them – my site created in Feb 2014 is still alive with all my blogue entries thoug abandoned since the sme Feb 2014.
I guess, I will transfer my contents to Wix from Webstarts and sorry but won’t be recommending them to anyone anymore.
For my new ideas, I will also use Wix.
I am tempted to try some other platforms but most of them have names y«that don’t sound serious and that alone is a big put off no matter how good they might be.
Dee
Just a note for those of you who may be looking for a recommendation. I used SiteBuilder for 10 years and they are phenomenal! Supported by intuit I think, so they are not going anywhere. I owned my domain name and was able to transfer at anytime. I am anything but computer savvy. But they are idiot proof and always available to assist. Fantastic layouts and design tools. I had dozens of pages with thousands of pics. Paypal. I did upgrade and it was WELL worth the $20 to $25 dollars I paid monthly. I am here because I do not need such space for my new business. So I will check out these sites also. (Thanks for putting them all together for us). But I have a feeling I will go back to SiteBuilder.
Thanks I like to use these for linking purposes.
Thanks for the write-up Nash! This looks like a very comprehensive list. I feel these site builders are great for individuals just starting out, as it does get them started online. Being in the website development space, we find many of the clients that come to us have previously started in this direction, and are now looking to take their business to the next level. While these tools are great for building… Without the knowledge of design, layout and general website design principles, these can often leave the site much less effective in conveying the brands messaging, telling the proper story and converting visitors into customers. The other main issue we see is the time that it takes for a new business owner to create a sub par site when they should be focusing on other aspects of their business.
In my opinion, and of course, I am a little biased… It’s worth investing into a professional. There are options to get a professional website built by professional at a realistic budget. Not to be spammy… But it might be of value: Here is a professional web design company building professional websites for small businesses at a very reasonable budget. https://www.liquisdesign.com/services/affordable-websites/
I have been searching for some time for a great website builder that would take care of my website needs. Then tonite in my research I read each of the top 20 and when I got to Site Builder my guts told me to choose this one. But then reading all of the posts from readers, I was happy to see the best report was for just this one that my guts told me to go with.
I have tried and tried Go Daddy and while they have phenomenal tech service people, I tried to use their site builder and loved the fact that everything came with it, from hosting to email, to SEO and more, it costs (NOT FREE) and the font was so small I could not read it with my glasses even though I don’t need glasses, and then changed to the lesser of the two choices they have website builder and that was exactly the same, cannot enlarge the font or the whole page enlarges but not the font and make page smaller, font still stays the same. Spent way too much wasted time and sad to say will cancel tomorrow to use (as my feelings tonite tell me to do) site builder.
Thanks for having this site and all of your input and from readers as well.
I tried to work with Word Press when Blue Host was apparently required to sign up for the hosting. what a freaking night mare all of that was, costs, delays and unbelievable disappointment. So trying one more time, doing site builder.
My web host in Italy hosts my main site and built it for me as well using Presta Shop. I just want to create another site with a different name and keep that one and he as my host.
Toddp
WordPress is NOT one of the easiest website builder for beginners.
It lacks so many of the required options to making a site easy.
Users have to get all kinds of plugins one after the other to test to find one that works as they should which most do not.
I have built a few websites in the late 90s and they were easy compared to WordPress.
It is NOT user friendly and most of the themes they offer are not very easy to customize with a lot of parts of them are not able to change unless you are into code..
They do offer you free website software but its two so called free to make your website but you have to pay if you want to use your newly created site if you use them.
If you want an easier website maker to use then I suggest you stay away from WordPress.
The list can go up to 50. But we end up using 2 or 3 to the max. Rest others are used when a client wants us to do so.
Make your design stand out in a crowd using the smooth drag and drop Free website builder – Contentder components.
I’m looking to make a website for a group that I am in. Now I know that there are many DIY sites that I could use, as you listed out some here. I would probably want to go with a professional since they would be able to make the site look exactly how I wanted it to.
Oder here free website development : https://marketingdukaan.com/freewebsite
you can create good content for free website builders.
Thanks, this aticle so help me.
Thank you very much for this list but I will still take a look, because there are often updates and I don’t like unpleasant surprises.
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