Introduction
As a small business owner, you absolutely need a website for your business. Your website gives you a level playing ground with the bigshots in your niche. If you use your website in the right way, you can get the same amount of visibility (and even sales) as bigger players.
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But before you can take on your competition, you’ll need to spend a lot of time and money on website design and development.
Earlier, this was a significant factor stopping small business owners from getting a business website. Neither did they have the monetary resources to hire experts. Nor the expertise and skills to take matters into their own hands.
But in the last decade, website builders have started mushrooming by the minute. They replaced web designers and let business owners be in total control of their website.
And there are plenty of small business website builders available for you to choose from. No matter how specific your need is, you will find a website builder tool that is your ideal match
But if you are confused about going with a website builder for your small business, we have got you covered. We have not one or two but eight ways in which your small business can benefit from using a website builder.
Read on to know more and make the right call.
Nowadays, having a website adds value to a business. That’s why more and more small ventures include building an online presence as part of their overall branding and marketing strategy.
This also explains the growing popularity of the top free website builders ‒ an online-based web design application that allows business owners to set up a professional-looking website within minutes.
So, how can small businesses benefit from using a website builder? Continue reading to find out.
Easy for Beginners to Use
Website builders are created with a low learning curve for those who are not tech-savvy but would want to set up a website on their own.
Thus, it allows small business owners ‒ especially those without prior knowledge in coding ‒ to play around with the platform and start a website of their own.
What makes a website builder easy to use is its intuitive platform and the drag-and-drop feature. Not to mention that the majority of web builders come with design templates that business owners can customize.
Doing so allows them to set a professional-looking and visually appealing website that matches their overall branding up and running.
Easy E-commerce Integration
In 2019, it was estimated that there are at least 12 million e-commerce websites in the world. And your new website can be one of them.
Mind you, a lot of small businesses opt to have an online store so that (1) they can serve more people and (2) for them to grow and scale.
So, if you are one of them, you would be pleased to know that there are website builders that allow e-commerce integration.
Now, all you have to worry about is how you can produce high-quality product images and descriptions and how you should set up your payment gateways.
No High-Priced Web Studio
Another benefit of using a website builder is that it eliminates the need to scout for web developers, as well as the back-and-forth messaging to communicate your needs. Instead, you can work on your website and customize it the way you want it to look like.
Come to think of it, discussing your requirements to a developer can take time, which you could have spent generating sales and revenue for your business.
Simply put, having a website builder allows you to do two things:
- It saves you money from not necessarily hiring a web developer
- It lets you earn money as soon as your website is up
Launch Your Site in Minutes
In relation to the previous point, using a website builder lets you launch your website as soon as you are happy with it.
And if it is already up and running, you can make and implement changes on the fly with just a click of a button — no need to wait for web developers to tweak your website.
Because as we have mentioned earlier, discussing your requirements to a developer can take time. Not to mention that they could ask for an additional charge for the changes you wish to implement.
No Coding Knowledge Required
As mentioned earlier, website builders allow business owners to create and launch their business website even without prior knowledge in coding.
That’s because these platforms come with drag-and-drop features. Meaning, you can pick which element you would like to add on a web page (i.e., an image), drag it to where you would like to be, and then edit it as needed.
In addition, there are website builders that let you change the colour scheme of your design template based on your branding. And even if this functionality comes with a price, it is way more affordable than hiring a web developer or designer.
Mobile-Friendly Website
It was in mid-2019 when Google made mobile-first indexing as their default. Meaning, the search engine giant will use the mobile version of your website for indexing and ranking purposes.
Hence, it is important that you have a mobile-friendly website.
Do you need a web developer to help you with that? Not exactly.
That’s because website builders do not only come with beautiful design templates; these themes are also mobile responsive. Meaning, you can create a website of your own that will still look good on a mobile device.
Lots of Flexibility and Options
Other than being able to customize your website’s look based on your business branding, as well as integrating e-commerce, website builders provide you with tons of flexibility and options.
Do you want a slider for your homepage? You can use a plugin or widget to make it happen.
Do you want a gallery page? Just click it from your list of web page options.
Do you need to add an online form on your Contact Us page? Drag that design element and drop wherever you want to place it. However, there may be situations when no suitable design is available. In that case, you may use an online contact form builder, which includes a range of different themes and can also be customized to your taste.
Here’s the thing: You do not want your website to look like everybody else’s. So, you should leverage your website’s builder customization options that can include the following:
- Colour options
- Fonts
- Backgrounds
- Formating
Make Update Anywhere
Since website builders are online-based web design applications, it means that you can update your website and make changes to it while on the go. As long as you have access to the Internet, that is.
Mind you; there are website builders that would even let you tweak your website on your mobile phone or tablet with zero hassle.
So whether you are in your hotel room or on the road, you can just simply connect to the Internet and make your changes in a click (or tap) of the button.
Conclusion
Having your own website does not necessarily require hefty resources, such as a team of web developers. Not to mention that taking the “traditional” route could take some time ‒ time that you could have spent earning money.
Hence, your best solution would be to look for a website builder that you can afford and suit your needs. That’s because this application will allow you to take the first step of building an online presence for your business ‒ with only the fraction of a cost.
Do you have any website builder that you can recommend? Let us know in the comments!