The Ultimate Guide To Choosing The Right Website Platform for Your Business

𝐶ℎ𝑜𝑜𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑟𝑖𝑔𝑏𝑡 𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑚 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑏𝑢𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑏𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑓𝑢𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔. With so many different options available nowadays, it can be hard to know which platform you should be choosing for your business and which one is more suitable for your business.

And that’s the reason why I’ve decided to spend some time to come up with this ultimate guide on my blog for those of you might find this useful in the near future. You can use this guide to compare some of the most popular website platforms out there.

This post is a detailed comparison of Squarespace, Wix, Shopify, WordPress and Showit. I will highlight the pros, cons, cost, recommendations and so much more.

We hope this helps when you’re figuring out what website platform to use next!

Choosing the Best Website Builder – What to Look for?

Before even comparing some of the top website platforms, I highly recommend that you write down what you want to do with your website? What are your goals and what features would you like to see or use on your website.
This is essential, because when most of my client reach out to me they generally already have an idea in mind of what they what their website to do, and what features they want to see or have on their website.

You can write down things like:

– Have a blog section

– Photo Gallery

– SEO Features

– Online Store (E-commerce)

– Reservation System

– Social media features

– Contact form

If you are unsure what you want on your website, you can always refer to your competitors or other website that you like for inspiration. Once you figure out what features you want on your website, you will then need to consider your growth options. Will you be adding regular updates to your website? Would you be selling more products on your website in the future? or do you need a blog section? Figure out what your short-term and long-term objectives are based on your business plan and your mission statement. Finally, you need to make sure that the website platform you choose is capable of handling your needs as your business grows.

1| Squarespace

Description

Squarespace in a popular professional website builder known for its great designs and ease of use. It can be perfect if you just want to quickly build a website.

Adding content to your website is very easy on Squarespace. Just point anywhere on your website and start typing. You can easily drag and drop items on pages to create your own layouts.

Recommended if:

You are looking for something easier than WordPress.
You are a podcaster and need a platform for easy publishing.
You want to create a stylish and modern website
You need customer support 24/7 and don’t mind paying a premium.

Not recommended if:

You need a really easy website editor
Page speed is very important for you
If your main purpose is to sell high volume E-commerce Products.
Squarespace offers limited integrations with third-party service which can be a hurdle in growing your business.
Their ecommerce plans only allow Stripe, Apple Pay, and PayPal for payment processing. You cannot add additional payment gateways.

Pricing: Squarespace websites start from $12 per month and $18 per month. Their online stores start from $26 and $40 per month.

Who is it for? Solopreneurs or small business owners.

2| WIX

Description

Wix offers an excellent drag-and-drop site builder to create small websites. There are 100s of templates available. Wix provides its own web hosting as well as domain names (free and paid).

Recommended if:

You need cutting-edge templates with ready made design for your industry (e.g. Architecture, Fashion, Advertising, photography, hotel, restaurant, Designer, etc).
You are a photographer who wants to showcase your images in stunning galleries (and even sell your photos).
You need a lot of flexibility customizing your design and easy to use
You want to be able to add additional apps easily (appointment, event calendar, forum, etc.)
Your require an integrated newsletter tool.

Not recommended if:

You want to create a large website or complex online store (with 30+ individual pages).
Your main goal is blogging
You need a responsive website layout that adapts perfectly to tablet devices.

Pricing:
Information here

Who is it for? Solopreneurs or small business owners.

3| Shopify

Description

Shopify allows beginners (and pros) creating online stores without coding. No software installations or hosting services are required. Shopify has become the leading ecommerce solution with more than 800k online stores.

Recommended if:

You want to sell physical and digital goods.
You require customer logins.
You need an easy way to integrate third party e-commerce features and apps.
You would like to have full control of the templates.
You need a wide range of payment options.

Not recommended if:

You want to open a multilingual online store.
Your store is only a small side-business of your main website.
You are a blogger or service based business.

Pricing: Information here

Who is it for? Small, medium and large business who wants to scale their e-commerce business by selling physical and digital goods.

4| WordPress

Description

WordPress is an open source software and content management system that you can use to create a website or blog.The term “open source software” means that the original source code for a software is freely open to the world and can be redistributed and modified. It is extremely flexible, which is the main reason why it is a popular choice to build a website. You can use WordPress to build almost any kind of website Imaginable! Recommended if:

Ultimate choice if you are after complete customization, total control, and a real hands-on approach to your website.
Made for coders, there are no limits.
Great for SEO.

Not recommended if:

Not ideal for beginners or someone who needs a quick build websites.
Host & SSL is a headache.
Not user friendly.
More coding knowledge required.

Pricing
The cost of WordPress itself is free but you will need to purchase a domain and host for your website.

Who should use it
Anyone that is looking to start a website (blog, online shop, membership site, etc)!

5| SHOWIT

Description

Showit is a website platform for small business owners of all types. Originally designed for photographers, shout is a wonderful platform for business owners of all kinds and also a drag and drop website builder.

Recommended if:

Drag-and-drop website builder, your design can truly be as creative as you’d like.
Your want to customize your website as much as little as you’d like.
Showit has a live chat support feature.
You need fully customizable blogs.
No code required.

Not recommended if:

You need a website quick.
You need an all-in-one system, for example Showit doesn’t have e-commmerce abilities and a Showit blog system, etc.
Mobile Site isn’t as responsive as other site builders.

Pricing: Information here
Who is it for? Solopreneurs or small business owners.

Final Thoughts

When choosing the right website platform, there are a lot of options to consider. Ultimately, we favour Squarespace and Wix for service based businesses and Shopify for product based businesses.

While WordPress works better for business owners who already familiar with Coding and are very blog heavy.Squarespace, Wix and Shopify are great drag-and-drop website builders for business owners who want less headache. Feel free to reach out to me or contact me if you have any question or if you are ready to elevate your business to the next level.