Brief Overview on WordPress

WordPress, when it was first introduced in 2003, started out as a blogging platform where users can develop custom-tailored blogs according to their preferences. This customizability feature was actually one of the biggest reasons for WordPress’ popularity: the Theme System. In fact, WordPress’ huge collection of themes is still one of its strongest selling points.

Since 2010 with the introduction of WordPress 3.0, however, WordPress is now a full-fledged website builder and CMS (Content Management System). Today, we are with the WordPress 5.0, with the core update being the new, drag-and-drop website editor.

Key Highlights: Why WordPress is Popular

• WordPress is totally free, although you need to pay for a separate web hosting service and domain name
• A huge collection of customizable themes, you can virtually always find a theme to suit your current needs
• Huge collection of plugins for various functions: analytics, automatic optimizations, database, and so on.
• Reliable, safe, and secure, also due to various security plugins
• Relatively easy to use with all the available guides out there, and can handle various forms of media (embedded video, Instagram photos, SoundCloud audio files, etc.).

Pricing: Free, but domain name and hosting are not included.

Top 5 Best WordPress Alternatives

1. Wix

Wix is a relatively new player in the website-builder industry, but is now very popular, mainly due to their aggressive advertising campaigns that include Hollywood celebrities in a fun, flashy advertisement. Wix, in a sense, is a complete antithesis to WordPress in several ways. WordPress is certainly flexible and customizable, but will require at least a bit of coding knowledge. On the other hand, Wix is very easy to use where you can customize everything in a visual – drag-and-drop style –  builder. Above, we have also mentioned one of the key stumbling blocks in using WordPress is the fact that we’ll need to purchase our own domain name and hosting service. This, often discourage beginners who only wants to have a website running ASAP. With Wix, you get an included hosting service and a working tech support. However, although Wix is very easy to use for beginners, WordPress does offer more depth. For instance, due to the visual nature of Wix’s builder, it will become slower when you are developing too many pages. Also, if you know your CSS and HTML, you have more flexibility in customizing WordPress, as opposed to the template-based approach of Wix.

Pricing: free plan with free hosting, unlimited pages and 100+ templates, premium plan starts from $4.5 per month.

Conclusion: more attractive than WordPress for beginners or those looking for simplicity with its visual builder and free hosting service. Not as customizable as WordPress.

2. Weebly

Weebly is another popular website builder that in many ways, is somewhere in the middle between Wix and WordPress regarding its technical approach. Weebly is centered around a visual website builder – just like Wix, but also offers the ability to edit your HTML and CSS codes – like WordPress. However, Weebly is not an open-source platform like WordPress, so there are aspects that are not customizable. So, Weebly does offer more flexibility than Wix while retaining some of its ease of use, but still offers less freedom than WordPress. Also, similar to Wix, you also get a tech support and customer service with Weebly, including automatic security updates. Meaning, less headache for the technical aspects of building a website. You also get a free hosting service, unlike WordPress. Weebly, however, is not as easy to use as Wix, offering less templates than the latter. For ecommerce businesses, however, Weebly offers a lot of useful ecommerce features with their business ecommerce plans (starting from $12/month).

Pricing: Free for basic use (your site will display a small Weebly banner), plans start from $5/month, and starts from $12/month for ecommerce features.

Conclusion: Weebly is for those who want an easy to use website builder but still want a bit of coding and customization flexibility. Great choice for ecommerce sites with various e commerce-focused features (for its Pro plan and above)

3. Constant Contact (Website Builder)

Constant Contact is a relatively new player in the website builder industry, however, it has a popular, enterprise-level email marketing software widely used by many companies. The Website Builder, however, is more geared for smaller businesses taking a similar approach to Wix and Weebly with a visual, drag-and-drop style website builder. The key highlight of Constant Contact Website Builder, however, is the A.I.-driven automation tools, that can provide automatic optimizations and content suggestions. So, arguably Constant Contact is even easier to use than Wix as one of the most intuitive WordPress alternatives. There are various features that are intended towards website beginners, such as a logo maker, professional stock photo library, online store builder, and automatic syncing for social networks.

Pricing: 60-day free trial for premium plans, a free package with basic features including unlimited storage, plans start from $6/month unlocking advanced analytics features,SSL certificate, branded email and more ecommerce-related features.

Conclusion: great, affordable option for beginners, and has some interesting A.I.-powered features. Also a great option to build an ecommerce site.

4. Squarespace

Squarespace is also one of the most popular WordPress alternatives around, especially for creative, design-oriented people. Again, Squarespace offers a visual builder, much like Wix. So, no coding and technical knowledge are required. Choose a template, drag and drop the website elements according to your preferences, and you are good to go. Again, this will mean less customization flexibility as you can’t tweak the CSS and HTML of the templates. So, in many ways, Squarespace is very similar to Wix. There are, however, several key differences between Wix and Squarespace.Wix’s visual builder is more flexible, as in Squarespace you are limited to columns and inherent structures. However, Squarespace offers more website elements (called Content Blocks) than Wix, for example, there is a content block for restaurant menus. You can also import your WordPress site to Squarespace, so you can take a hybrid approach. Squarespace, however, is a little bit pricey at $12/month.

Pricing: free trial available for all plans, pricing starts from $12/month. Ecommerce features unlocked with the Business plan ($18/month).

Conclusion: a little bit pricey, and in most cases Wix is a better alternative. However, SquareSpace offers more website elements that look and function very well, which is its biggest selling point.

5. Joomla

So far, the four WordPress alternatives we have discussed above are simpler, more user-friendly platforms than WordPress. Joomla, however, is on the other side of the spectrum: Joomla is much more complex than WordPress, but on the other hand also offers more flexibility and advanced controls. Joomla’s website builder features numerous components,each with a sheer number of controls and options. Joomla also offers the ability to use different templates for each page, while in WordPress we can only use one theme for the whole site. Joomla, similar to WordPress, is also an open-source platform where it’s totally free. Joomla is also much more secure than WordPress with 2-factor authentication, among other security features, and there are also various plugins (called extensions) for various functions.

Pricing: Free, will need to buy a hosting service and a domain separately.

Conclusion: the WordPress alternative for more technical users that are looking for more depth and versatility.

6. Shopify

Shopify is one of the most popular WordPress alternatives if you want to build an ecommerce store. There are many unique features dedicated for ecommerce functionality. For example, various templates for ecommerce branding purposes, native store payment features, store database, and ecommerce-focused analytics, among others. Shopify’s goal is to allow anyone to build their own online store quickly without any technical and coding knowledge. However, Shopify also allows users to modify HTML and CSS, so there’s flexibility in customizations. Also, Shopify offers their own hosting service, so you wouldn’t need to pay separately, unlike WordPress, and this also means more security. Shopify has also expanded into various ecommerce-related services, for example, there’s the Shopify Shipping service.

Pricing: Free trial available, $29/month for basic plan (unlimited products for the online store, 2 staff accounts), the “advanced” plan is $299/month for 15 staff accounts, better security and cheaper Shopify shipping costs.

Conclusion: relatively pricey, but one of the best options if you want to build an ecommerce site.

End Words

Each of the six WordPress alternatives we have shared above has their own unique features—and flaws—, some offer easier, more intuitive visual website builder, while some others offer more flexibility and depth. It’s important to choose the right platform according to your needs, budget, and technical proficiency so you can make the most of it. If you want to make sure that your future site will be SEO friendly, contact a freelance SEO consultant for a free consultation.

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In the past, the answer is to hire a professional web designer to design the website, and a professional web developer to code the site. Not only it’s typically an expensive process, but also complicated and time-consuming. 

Fortunately, today we live in an easier time with the availability of various website builders using the WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get) philosophy. Today, we can create a beautiful website with just the cliks of your mouse.

In the past decade, the website builder industry has grown tremendously. While this means we have more options than before, it can be overwhelming for first-timers. There are various website builder platforms to choose from, each with their own unique features and benefits.

With that being said, here we have reviewed all the popular website builders available, and below is our top picks. 

Best Website Builders

1. Wix

Wix is not really a new player in the website builder industry, has been around since 2006, more than a decade ago. However, Wix gained a lot of attention in the past couple of years or so especially due to their aggressive marketing campaigns featuring Hollywood A-list celebrities. 

Now, Wix is the hype website builder for “cool” people, but does it deserve all the attention, or just a fad?

One of the reasons driving Wix’s popularity is the fact that it’s one of the pioneers in bringing the drag-and-drop, visual builder approach in a website builder. Essentially changing the answer to the question “how to create a website?”. Wix provides everything you need from templates to hosting service, from the very beginning of building a website to actually launching a functional site. 

The key highlights of Wix are its ease of use, 5

Pros of Wix:

• Wix is a full-fledged software as a service (SaaS) platform so you have access to fast and responsive customer service.
• Fully-hosted platform, so you will not have to pay for separate hosting 
• Very easy to use visual website builder with a drag-and-drop approach
• Great library of additional apps to enhance your site
• Free plan available with limited storage, cannot connect your domain
• SSL enabled

Cons of Wix:

• You can’t customize any coding aspect (HTML and CSS), so less freedom in building your site
• Migrating your site from Wix to another platform is very difficult
• You still need to purchase a separate domain plan with the Connect Domain ($4.5/month plan)

Pricing:

• Website plans:
  • Free, 500MB Bandwidth, 500MB Storage
  • Connect Domain: $4.5/month, 1GB Bandwidth, 500MB storage, Wix logo on your site, no free domain
  • Combo: $8.5/month, 2GB bandwidth, 3GB storage
  • Unlimited: $12.5/month, Unlimited Bandwidth, 10 GB Storage
  • VIP: $24.5/month, Unlimited Bandwidth, 20GB storage
• Business & eCommerce plans (can accept online payments):
  • Basic: $17/month, Unlimited Bandwidth, 20GB storage
  • Unlimited: $25/month, Unlimited Bandwidth, 35GB storage
  • VIP: $35/month, Unlimited Bandwidth, 50GB storage

2. Weebly

Weebly is in many ways, very similar to Wix.

Both offers drag-and-drop style, visual website builders. Both offer usable free plans (with similar offerings), and with their premium plans, Weebly offers slightly more expensive plans across all packages, but offers unlimited bandwidth.basic SEO and lead generation features even with the cheapest plan.

Weebly’s visual builder is simpler than Wix, which will translate to an easier to use platform overall. However, with Weebly you get less freedom in customizing your website, since the elements of your site are locked within “grids”, so you can’t move them as freely.

Another notable thing is that all of Weebly’s templates are mobile responsive, and you wouldn’t need to adjust anything (this is not the case with Wix’s templates where you need to make at least minor adjustments). Weebly does offer fewer templates than Wix (as of date), but the ones they offer work really well.

Last but not least in comparing the two, Weebly offers slightly more advanced eCommerce features and tools, but Wix’s eCommerce-focused plans are slightly cheaper.

Pros of Weebly:

• Fast and responsive customer service
• Fully hosted platform, so you don’t need to purchase additional hosting and domain name
• Great eCommerce tools and the Business Plus plan offers email marketing features
• Unlimited bandwidth for all plans (including free plan)
• Very easy to use, even easier than Wix, the best choice for beginners

Cons of Weebly: 

• Limited freedom to customize the templates according to your preferences, can’t edit any coding aspect of the templates
• 3% transaction fees for every purchase on your eCommerce store if you are not using Business or Business Plus plan
• Slightly more expensive across all plans compared to Wix

Pricing (Unlimited bandwidth for all plans) :

• • Free, 500MB storage, Weebly branding in domain name
  • Connect, $5/month, 500MB storage
  • Pro, $12/month, Unlimited storage, basic ecommerce features
  • Business: $25/month, advanced ecommerce features
  • Business Plus: $38/month, advanced ecommerce features, email marketing features

3. WordPress

It’s impossible to discuss website builders today—or even website development in general—without mentioning WordPress. 

WordPress is currently the most popular website building platform, with over a third of the whole internet is powered by WordPress. 

It’s important, however, to understand that WordPress is significantly different than Wix and Weebly, since WordPress is an open-source platform. On one hand, creating a website on WordPress is completely free. On the other hand, you wouldn’t get any dedicated customer support and you will need at least basic programming knowledge to use WordPress.

However, due to the popularity of WordPress as a platform, there are plenty of resources to help you learn WordPress, including WordPress’s community guides. With WordPress, if you are willing to spend the time and have the necessary skills (design-wise and programming-wise), you have the absolute freedom to create a website according to your needs. 

Although WordPress is not as easy to use as Wix or Weebly, it’s still relatively easy to use with thousands of themes available, and if you want, there are also plugins allowing drag-and-drop building style like Divi.

Pros of WordPress:

• Free forever. You can allocate investments on hosting service, plugins, etc. according to your budget
• Complete control to customize every aspect of your website
• Many available resources to learn about the platform
• Thousands of templates (free and paid), some offer advanced features like analytics and automation
• Highly scalable as your business grows

Cons of WordPress:

• You need to at least know basic programming and web design (or willing to hire someone)
• Need to get a separate hosting service, which can be a hassle on its own
• Need to purchase your own domain name
• No customer service, you need to be proactive in learning and troubleshooting the platform

Pricing: Free (open source), but you will need to invest in separate hosting service and purchase a domain name. You might also need to invest on additional plugins and premium themes.

4. Shopify 

Shopify is a popular website builder especially in building eCommerce sites and online stores. Today, Shopify powers more than 500,000 online stores all over the world, with over $40 billion worth of online transactions. 

Shopify is an all-in-one website builder that also includes hosting service—similar to Weebly or Wix—, but especially focuses on eCommerce tools and features like an integrated payment gateway (Shopify Payments), payment processing features, inventory management, and so on.

It also includes hundreds of built-in templates to help you with in website creation, and also offer a visual website builder (again, similar to Wix or Weebly). Shopify also offers 24/7 customer service support (phone and chat).

Due to its eCommerce-focused features, Shopify is fairly expensive compared to other competitors, and the pricing models are based on eCommerce-related features (transaction fees, number of staff accounts, etc.)

Pros of Shopify:

• Advanced eCommerce-related tools and features (Shopify payment, inventory management, marketing solutions, etc.)
• Easy to use website builder with intuitive interface
• In-store POS system for physical stores
• Amazing integrations, including integrations with WordPress and other website builders
• Great reporting and analytics tools

Cons of Shopify:

• Expensive and limited plan options (note: Shopify Lite isn’t an actual website builder, just integrating Shopify’s eCommerce tools with existing platforms like Facebook or existing website). 
• Hard to migrate your site away from Shopify to other platforms

Pricing: 

• Basic Shopify ($29/month)
  • 2 user accounts
  • High transaction fees (2%) for external payment gateways, 2.9% online credit card rates
• Shopify ($79/month)
  • 5 user accounts
  • 1% transaction fees. 2.6% online credit card rates
• Advanced Shopify ($299/month)
  • 15 user accounts
  • 0.5% transaction fees, 2.4% online credit card rates

5. Squarespace

Squarespace especially emphasizes on design, as we can see from its website and brand philosophy. It offers a lot of (very) nicely designed templates and there are some unique features on the builder that are geared toward easier and more accurate design (i.e., a powerful photo editing feature).

Squarespace also offers a visual website builder, and in terms of ease of use, is a little bit more complex than Weebly, but easier to use than Wix (that’s already considering that Wix is already pretty easy to use).

The website editor and templates are responsive, so your site will always look good on mobile devices. However, you don’t get the feature to edit specifically the mobile site, like Wix, so less flexibility overall.

Squarespace also offer eCommerce-focused plans, so you can natively add an online store to your website. It offers pretty basic eCommerce tools and features, but the interface is really nice, clean, and easy to use.

Pros of SquareSpace:

• Clean, sleek, and intuitive interface
• Fair amount of well-designed templates, so you probably won’t need to make a lot of customizations. Best built-in designs overall. 
• Very easy to add content to your website, point anywhere on your site and you can create a content immediately
• Can easily create your own layout with drag and drop approach

Cons of SquareSpace:

• Limited third-party integrations
• Expensive for its features
• Limited payment gateway options with the eCommerce plans
• Less flexibility overall to customize your site

Pricing: 

• Personal ($12/month)
  • Unlimited bandwidth and storage
  • 2 users enabled
  • Basic reporting and analytics
• Business ($18/month)
  • Complete customizations with CSS and JavaScript
  • Professional Email address
  • Unlimited users
  • Advanced analytics
  • ECommerce integrations
• Basic Commerce ($26/month)
  • Promotional pop-ups and banners
  • Free commerce transaction fees
  • Unlimited product listing
  • ECommerce analytics
• Advanced Commerce ($40/month)
  • Advanced shipping 
  • Gift cards
  • Integrated accounting with Xero

Important Considerations When Choosing A Website Builder

What are the important factors to consider in choosing a website builder?

First things first, remember that the main goal is to help us create a website, and this should be our main principle when considering these different factors below:

1. Price VS Value

Yes, we all want a cheap, affordable option, especially when we are a small business with a limited budget. However, aiming solely to get the most affordable option is a wrong mindset. Rather, we should consider how much value we can get in relation to the price. 

Figure out what you actually need, any specific features you want, and aim to get the most affordable option that can provide these features. Define your website goals and KPIs, and figure out the necessary features to fulfill these goals.

On the other hand, since your website is a very important indicator of your reputation in today’s digital age. So. it’s probably wise to spend just a little bit more if you can get more value from the platform. 

2. Reliability

This platform will be the life and death of your website, especially when it also include a hosting service in the package.  

Website downtime can have very significant impacts on your business. It can cause you to lose potential customers who won’t come back, it can badly damage your reputation, and in some cases, drop or penalty in search engine rankings. In short, it can badly hurt your revenue both in the short and long term.

The reliability of the website builder, and the higher hosting uptime are important factors to consider when choosing between these platforms. 

3. Ease of Use VS Versatility

Newer website builders tend to feature visual builders where you’ll build the site upon a template with a drag-and-drop approach—no coding skills required. 

However, this type of website builders tend to limit your versatility in customizing the templates (with CSS or HTML), so you won’t get the freedom to build a site according to your exact needs.

Platforms that do offer some versatility, on the other hand, will require at least a basic coding knowledge. 

So, this aspect will depend on whether you have the required coding skills (or if you are willing to learn), and whether you are willing to spend some time to build the website, instead of simply using the given templates. 

Ideally, you should try to find a website builder that is easy enough to use for you while also providing enough freedom according to your needs. If that’s not possible, however, figure out which aspect you are more willing to compromise. 

4. Scalability

Obviously our hope is that our business will grow —and our website with it—. So, it’s important to consider how easy and affordable it will be to scale your website with the platform.

For example, you might need extra hosting space in the future. Does the platform offer the flexibility to do so? At what price? Also, how easy it will be to revamp your website in the future (if necessary?) 

5. eCommerce Integration

Some website builder platforms might integrate eCommerce viability in the builder, some others might require additional plugin(s), and some other won’t offer any eCommerce features at all. 

An eCommerce website will require several extra considerations from inventory management features, payment gateway integration, customer segmentation, dropshipping features, and shipping-related features, among others. 

Depending on whether you plan to include eCommerce store on your site, this might be an important factor to consider. 

6. Number of Templates

When you create a website using a website builder platform, the design process starts with the templates—or themes—provided by the builder. The template will be a building block, the one you customize upon to build your unique, functional website. 

You’d want a website builder that provides the right templates or themes according to your preferences (and/or references). Make sure the website builder offers enough number of themes and at least some degree of customization options—according to your needs—.

When you start with a template that is already a good fit for your business, you start with a very solid foundation in getting the perfect website. 

7. SEO-Related Features

No matter how good your created website is, it won’t bring any value to your business unless people actually find it. 

SEO remains one of the most effective ways to generate traffic to our website, so you might want to look for website builder platforms that also offer some form of tools and features that will assist your site’s SEO optimizations and performance. 

And The Winner Goes To…

It’s hard to pick just one website builder platform that can suit anyone’s needs, simply because  all of the tools we’ve reviewed, and especially the ones we’ve discussed above, each offered their own unique features and benefits. 

With that being said, here is our breakdown:

Best Overall: Wix

Wix is really popular nowadays and without its reasons: it’s very easy to use, it offers a lot of built-in templates and apps, it has great integrations with popular—and not popular— apps and platforms, and we get all of those with a relatively affordable price.

Easiest To Use: Weebly

The best choice for beginners and those who just want to quickly create a website without learning to code and design. Slightly more expensive than Wix, but still very affordable. 

Best for ECommerce: Shopify

Shopify is the most popular choice in building online stores because of its complete package: advanced eCommerce-related features from inventory management to payment gateway, advanced analytics and reporting, and for an eCommerce-focused alternative, relatively affordable.

Best Built-In Design: Squarespace

Squarespace provides the sleekest interface and offers a decent number of really well-designed templates. Quite expensive, but will be worth it if you really want to create a really good looking website without spending too much time on customizations.

Best Customizability: WordPress

The most popular website builder today, and quite different than the others on this list. WordPress is an open-source platform so you’ll need to get a separate hosting service and purchase your domain name. You will also need to know basic programming and design skills. However, if you are willing to spend the time and resources, you get the most freedom with WordPress.

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In a nutshell, hosting a website simply means uploading and storing the files related to your website on a server.

A server, on the other hand, is a dedicated computer (or can be just a program within a computer, or another device) that is tasked with storing and managing resources. The server is a centralized resource—in this case— for the website.

This process allows other people—from all around the globe— to “pull’ the necessary resources from this server and view your website. The server’s main task here is to receive and interpret incoming requests from users and then send the requested files (associated with specific page(s) to the user’s internet browser.

In the past, we will need to invest on our own server and hire a server engineer (or, learn the necessary skills ourselves). Yet, today we have thousands of companies providing the service to host and manage your website, at very low costs starting from below just $5/month.

In fact, today only a handful of giant enterprises with the size of Google and Amazon, to name a few, that host all of their websites and services on their own servers. Even companies like Netflix relies on a third-party hosting service (in this case, Amazon’s) for their hosting solution.

Using a third-party hosting company, simply allows us to “bypass” the necessary technical and financial requirements to host our own site.

Where To Start?

In the process of hosting a website, there are two different things we need:

• The web hosting service
• Purchasing a domain name

A web hosting service, as we’ve briefly discussed above, is a company that owns their web servers, and sell their services to host and manage your website. They simply take care of all the programming and technical needs, and usually us—as the website owner— will be given an easy-to-use interface to manage this hosting.

A domain name, is essentially the name of the website in the eyes of the human users. For example, _________.com will bring you to this site, and _________ is our domain name.

Some web hosting services, like NameCheap and GoDaddy,  among others, act as both a web hosting provider and domain name registrar, so they might be a good choice for you if you’re a beginner and are currently confused about the whole process.

Step-by-Step Guide To Host Your Website

Step 1: Figuring out The Type of Your Website

In general, there are two different types of websites, which will dictate different hosting needs. They are:

1.Static Site 

A static website is a website that doesn’t change in response to the actions taken by the user. So, the main goal here is informational, for example, in our About Us page, we only want to inform the visitors about the details of our business, and the page—and the source code— won’t change according to the user actions.

A static website is typically created with ‘just’ HTML and CSS in a simple text editor. However, static here doesn’t necessarily mean all the pages will look the same. Each of the pages can use different HTML codes0 and look very different. 

Another common misconception is that static websites is solely about textual content. Truth is, we can include videos, audio files, and beautiful images in a plain HTML message. 

Again, static here simply means the website’s source code won’t change no matter what actions a user performed on the site. 

2.Dynamic Site

As opposed to a static website, a dynamic website allows users to interact with the website’s elements, and the website will provide feedback according to the user actions. 

While static websites—as discussed above— use only client-side CSS and HTML, a dynamic website will also rely on server-side languages like PHP or JavaScript. 

A website with eCommerce functionalities (i.e., online store, is a good example of a dynamic website, as well as any websites that allow users to have individual accounts (i.e. forums, social network sites, etc.)

Step 2: Choosing Between Different Types of Web Hosting

Different kinds of websites might have different hosting needs depending on various factors from size to pricing to reliability.

On the other hand, there is not one single web hosting service —even if you opt for your own private server— that can cover all your bases. Some web hosts might be better in certain areas like server response time (speed) or might offer the latest technologies. Other platforms, however, might offer a more reliable server or a more affordable rate. 

In general, however, we can differentiate the different hosting services into several types, and here are some of the common ones:

1. Dedicated Hosting

When you subscribe to a dedicated hosting service, it means you are renting one physical server, and you can use this entire server for your website.

This will translate to a faster, more reliable, and more secure hosting, but you also get additional flexibilities like the ability to use your preferred operating system and install your own software.

However, a dedicated hosting service is usually the most expensive out of the bunch. Also, since you’ll be managing your own server, it might require some technical skills and programming knowledge (or you might need to hire a system admin). 

You generally only need a dedicated hosting service when your business is already so big you are comfortable to afford the necessary costs of hiring a system admin (or even a team of admins) and the monthly costs of dedicated server. 

Pricing: starts from around $70/month.

Recommendation: GoDaddy and NameCheap offers some of the best, most reliable dedicated hosting services out there.  

2. Shared Hosting

As opposed to dedicated hosting, here you share one physical server with other websites. You do have your separate (secured) account, so you still own your website privately. 

The main advantage of this type is the shared cost, so your overall hosting cost can be much cheaper than a dedicated hosting, as low as $5/month. 

However, since you share the server with other sites, if there’s a site with a lot of traffic sharing the same server with yours, it can compromise your site’s speed and performance. On the other hand, if you are the site using the most traffic on the server, you get the most of this server’s speed and performance while spending very little. The speed of the site is an important ranking factor in any SEO strategy.

A good choice for businesses that are just starting out or if you don’t expect a lot of traffic (at least initially).

Pricing: Starts from around $5/month to around $30/month

Recommendation: Bluehost is a popular and affordable shared hosting provider, NameCheap and GoDaddy are also good options. 

3. VPS Hosting

VPS stands for Virtual Private Server, and is essentially a shared hosting server with extra features. VPS hosting especially offers tools and resources to handle traffic spikes—the most common issue with shared hosting.

With a VPS hosting, we get a partition of the shared hosting, creating a “private server”, hence the name. With this, a VPS service offers the affordability of the shared hosting while also providing the stability and versatility of having a dedicated resource. 

A great choice for medium-sized businesses and eCommerce businesses, or those looking for an upgrade from shared hosting.

Pricing: Starting from around $25/month

Recommendation: NameCheap and HostGator offer good VPS plans. 

4. Managed WordPress Hosting

This type refers to hosting services made specifically for WordPress. In essence, this is a shared web hosting service where the service provider will also help maintaining your WordPress environment from making sure everything is updated correctly (and won’t clash with other updates), protect your site from hackers and other security risks, and so on. 

Relatively affordable—-while not as affordable as a standard shared hosting service—, and is a good option if your site is WordPress-based or some alternative CMSs to WordPress. 

Pricing: Starts from $35/month

Recommendation: WPEngine for affordability, GoDaddy for reliability. ) 

5.Cloud Hosting

Cloud hosting allows more than one physical servers to collaborate together via the cloud, before they host a website or several websites—like a shared hosting system. 

In theory, hundreds of servers can work together. So,with this type of hosting we have a virtually unlimited potential to scale our website’s hosting according to our needs. 

Cloud hosting is usually very good at handling traffic spikes (i.e. during a DDoS and application layer attack). 

A very versatile hosting service type where you can also adjust your budget based on your needs.

Pricing: Typically uses a pay-per-use model, so will vary depending on your needs.

Step 3: Deciding Between Linux and Windows Hosting

Most of the popular website hosting services will let you choose between Linux or Windows hosting.

Linux is the most popular operating system for web servers (as of 2019), and the common misconception is that Linux environment is more secure than WIndows. Both OSs are equally secure, and factors like the server’s setup and the team behind the servers will matter more to security. 

The key factor to consider here, then, is the fact that Linux-based hosting is significantly more popular, so there are more applications that are compatible with the OS, and more web designers/developers/admins that are familiar with it. Linux and Windows servers use different control panels, so familiarity will be important. 

With that being said, unless you have websites which need specific Windows-only applications, Linux is the better choice.

Applications Specific for Windows Hosting

• Microsoft SQL Server
• Microsoft Access
• C#
• Visual Basic 
• ASP Classic
• ASP.NET
• Microsoft SharePoint (requires separate installation and license)
• Microsoft Exchange (requires separate installation and license)

Applications Specific for Linux Hosting:

• Many different Apache modules, scripts, and applications
• SSH
• Scripts written in PHP, Python and Unix Languages (very common nowadays) 
• MySQL and PostgreSQL, also very common in today’s websites

Step 4: Setting Up DNS Address

After you’ve decided on a web hosting service, you will get a Domain Name Servers, or DNS (also known as Name Servers). 

We can think of DNS as the Yellow Pages of the internet, where all IP addresses are listed and indexed. So, before you can get your website up and running, you will need to first change the DNS of your domain. 

Fortunately, this will only require several simple steps:

1. Go to your Domain Control Panel, will differ depending on your hosting service, but should be available on your customer account on the hosting service’s website.
2. Login to your customer account
3. Choose the Domain Name for this specific site (if you only have one site, there should be only this one).
4. Go to the Domain Registration section, then DNS or Name Servers
5. Replace the existing DNS with the ones provided by your current hosting service, and then click apply or update

Step 5: Uploading Your Website

After you’ve setup everything, it’s time to upload your website to the hosting server. You can use the hosting service’s File Manager (commonly with cPanel) or use an FTP client such as WinSCP, CyberDuck, or Filezilla.

The process will vary depending on the FTP client you use, but it’s usually a pretty straightforward process, but here are a few things to pay attention to:

• FTP always runs on Port 21, so make sure it’s set properly
• Make sure to use your website’s correct IP address in the FTP Address field
• Make sure the FTP is connected properly before you drag and drop the files and folders to upload your website
• Re-check the uploaded folders (and files), and repeat uploading if necessary

FAQs About Hosting a Website

Here are some of the most commonly asked questions regarding website hosting, and our answers for them:

1. Why do I need a hosting service to host my website?

You can certainly purchase your own physical server and host your website on it. However, you will face several issues:

• Time and Resources: you will need to scale up your physical servers as your website grows, this can be extremely time-consuming and expensive
• Human Resources: unless you possess all the required skills to maintain, secure, and troubleshoot the site, you will need to hire engineers and administrators
• Security: the risk of potential data breach and other security risks are serious, and you will need to pay constant attention to these possibilities

Subscribing on a hosting service provider will allow you to “bypass” these problems and turn your attention to things that will help your business—and website— grow. These hosting service providers specialize server maintenance, with their own system engineers and administrators that will consistently monitor their servers 24/7.

2. Can I just buy a domain name first and host the website later?

Yes, it’s possible. In fact, it’s a pretty common practice.

Remember, however, that the domain name will be “empty” and won’t point to your website before you host the site properly and set up the right DNS. 

You can use services like Name.com or Domain.com to register your domain name. They offer relatively easy to use domain management platform, so you can have an easier time in connecting the domain name with your chosen hosting service later.

3. Should I buy a domain name and hosting service from a single company?

Generally speaking, yes, unless there’s a specific reason not to. For example, the reason stated in question #2 above, or when your preferred domain name is only available in specific provider but you don’t like what their hosting service offers. 

Using the service from the same company for both will mean that you can manage them under the same platform and dashboard. Also, some companies might offer a better deal if you decide to purchase both (for example, Bluehost offers a free domain name if you subscribe to their hosting service.). 

4. Can I host the site on my computer first?

Yes, you can, and it’s a pretty common practice to test things before commiting on purchasing a hosting. However, the faster you get an actual hosting, the faster you can grow your website.

5. Can I change provider later on?

Yes, and in general there won’t be any risks involved. You can use an FTP client to migrate your website to a new host.

6. Which hosting service should I choose?

There are so many hosting companies out there, and nowadays, each of them offers so many different packages encompassing all the different hosting types.

So, understandably, choosing the right one for your website can be overwhelming. 

With that being said, here are our recommendations:

• GoDaddy and NameCheap are the most reliable hosting services with years of experience between them. They offer various different types of plans so you can choose one depending on your budget and needs
• For starter websites, Bluehost is an affordable alternative 

7. How much would it cost to host a website?

The cost of hosting your website can vary greatly depending on several different factors from the type of hosting service (as we have discussed above in step 2), the hosting plan, the reputation of the hosting company, and so on. It can be as low as below $5/month (typically for shared hosting) and as high as thousands of dollars each month for high-end dedicated servers. 

Our recommendation is to weigh your current needs and choose the cheapest possible option that provides the features you want. As your business and website grow, you can gradually upgrade.

End Words

We certainly hope this guide has helped you learn how to host your website properly. Remember that there isn’t any single best approach to host your website, but rather you have to choose the right approach and the right hosting service according to your current needs and the available budget. If you don’t have the experience you can always reach out to a B2B marketing consultant to get it right. 

Nowadays, it’s relatively easy—and safe— to migrate between different hostings, so remember that choosing a hosting service isn’t a commitment you can’t break. Choose the one according to your current needs, and as your website and business grow, upgrade to a better service.

The post How To Host a Website: Your Ultimate Guide appeared first on Mike Khorev - SEO Consultant.

So, the main highlight of Shopify is its ease of use even for complete beginners, with various templates to choose from for both branding and functional purposes. 

Although we’ve stated that you don’t need any technical knowledge to build a store with Shopify, having HTML and CSS proficiency will allow you to have more flexibility in customizations. This is actually a huge plus point, so power-users can also opt for depth and more personalization. We can also customize Shopify online store with Shopify apps, as well as custom codes.

There are five different plans available:

• Shopify Lite ($9/month), you don’t get an actual e-commerce site but Shopify Lite integrates with Facebook and existing site
• Shopify Basic ($29/month) 
• Shopify ($79/month)
• Advanced Shopify ($299/month)
• Shopify Plus: custom-tailored according to your needs, will range around $1,500-$2,000/month

The more expensive the plan gets, obviously more features will be unlocked, with the key differences to pay attention to are:

• Reporting features: only the $79/month Shopify plan and above has the reporting feature, and the ‘Advanced’ plan unlocks advanced reporting features
• The feature to produce gift cards for the ‘Shopify’ plan and up
• Real-time Shopify shipping for ‘Advanced Shopify’ plan
• More staff (user) accounts the more expensive the plan gets
• POS, only ‘Shopify’ plan and above offer point of sale (POS) feature

The recently introduced Shopify Lite plan, however, is currently Shopify’s biggest unique factor among its alternatives, giving a much cheaper option at just $9/month. Keep in mind however, that the Lite plan doesn’t give you an actual ecommerce website, but will allow you to integrate Shopify with existing platforms (physical store, Facebook, existing website via Shopify’s Buy Button).

It’s also important to note that, with Shopify, you’ll need to pay transaction fees on every single sale that is not processed through Shopify Payment.

Top 7 Shopify Alternatives

1. WooCommerce For WordPress

WordPress—traditionally a blogging platform— is now the most popular website builders powering 34% of all websites in the world. However, WordPress, unlike WordPress alternatives, doesn’t offer a native ability to build an e-commerce store on its platform, but due to its open-source nature, there are various e-commerce plugins that can do the job.

Among these plugins, WooCommerce is the most popular for two main reasons: it’s free (with exception if you need to pay for the advanced extensions), and it works.

With WooCommerce, however, your site must be built on WordPress, where the WooCommerce—as a plugin— will provide additional tools to create your online store. Meaning, this won’t be as easy to use as Shopify, and you’ll need a bit of technical know-how. Yet, this will also give you more flexibility and depth in customizations.

Pros of WooCommerce:

• Both WooCommerce and WordPress are free. Paid advanced extensions, but you have the freedom to choose what you actually need
• More flexibility in customizations with the WordPress platform
• Huge user base with established community where you can get help from fellow users
• Very stable and reliable, as expected from WordPress platform

Cons of WooCommerce:

• You will need to pay separately for a domain name and hosting service
• Open-source, so you don’t get any customer service
• Steep learning curve

Pricing: Free with various paid extensions. 

Conclusion: the Shopify alternative for more technical users that are looking for more versatility and personalization.

2.BigCommerce

BigCommerce is probably the most direct competitor to Shopify, because they are indeed very similar in many different aspects. For instance, all of BigCommerce’s plans are $0.95 more expensive than Shopify’s, but you won’t need to pay any transaction fees with BigCommerce. So, on paper BigCommerce can be the cheaper one, depending on your payment gateway. 

Feature-wise, they are also very similar to each other. Some features are offered by Bigcommerce’s starter plan, but only available on Shopify’s more expensive plans, and vice versa. For example, BigCommerce offers the gift card feature on the standard plan, which is only available on the ‘Shopify’ plan (the $79/month). On the other hand, BigCommerce offers the abandoned cart recovery only from the ‘Plus’ plan, which is available on Shopify’s Basic plan. 

Pros and Cons of BigCommerce: 

Since BigCommerce and Shopify are very similar to each other, we won’t list specific pros and cons. However, there are three key consideration points when choosing between Shopify and BigCommerce:

1. If you exclusively use Shopify Payment, Shopify is more cost-efficient due to no transaction fee. If you use other payment gateway, BigCommerce is almost always better.
2. Make sure to study each plan’s features lists extensively. As mentioned, there are features that are available on BigCommerce’s certain plan, but only available on Shopify’s more premium plan, and vice versa.
3. BigCommerce limits your revenue with each plan. When your sales volume reach $50,000 in 12 months, you will be upgraded automatically to the Plus plan ($79.95/month). This doesn’t happen with Shopify, so you can stay with the Basic plan forever if you want.

 Pricing: Standard plan is $29.95/month, Plus is $79.95/month, Pro ($249.95/month) and custom-tailored Enterprise plan (BigCommerce claims that it is cheaper than Shopify Plus). No Lite plan available.

Conclusion: very similar to Shopify, and choosing between the two will ultimately depend on your specific needs discussed above.

3.Volusion

Volusion is one of the oldest ecommerce platforms available, and also one of the most popular Shopify alternatives. 

Volusion offers exactly the same pricing as Shopify across all their different plans. However, there are several key differences between Volusion and Shopify, as we’ll discuss in the pros and cons section below. 

Volusion, BigCommerce, also doesn’t charge transaction fees, while Volusion also offers their own payment gateway—meaning, lower credit card processing fees—-. However, also like BigCommerce, Volusion limits your revenue with each plan.

Pros of Volusion:

• Similarly priced to Shopify across all plans
• No transactional fees
• No paid app for subscriptions
• More built-in features with each plan (in Shopify you’ll need to pay for extra apps)
• Native payment gateway

Con of Volusion:

• Limited paid apps mean less versatility
• Limited revenue and products sold per plan (i.e. 100 products sold and/or $50,000 revenue per year for the Personal plan)
• Limited integrations compared to Shopify

Pricing: Personal ($29/month), Professional ($79/month), Business ($299/month), custom Enterprise plan available. Exactly the same pricing as Shopify.

Conclusion: best if you are selling subscriptions (no additional costs necessary), offers more built-in features than Shopify with similar price.

4. 3dcart

3dcart is also an interesting Shopify alternative for several reasons. The Startup plan is one of 3dcart’s unique selling point, which at just $19/month ($9.5/month for the first 6 months), is significantly more affordable than Shopify and the alternatives we have discussed above. This Startup plan already offers unlimited product storage and all of 3dcart’s core features, with the main limitation is that you can only use it with 1 user at one time.

3dcart, however, has a fairly modest—if not relatively obsolete— user interface, and Shopify offers better mobile-responsive design. However, 3d cart offers in-house web design service that is fairly reasonably priced, which might be an interesting option if you don’t want to design your store yourself.

Pros of 3dcart:

• Unlimited product listing starting with the cheapest plan
• More affordable with its 6-months 50% discount
• Very fast load speed
• No transaction fee
• Web design service
• Supports many different payment gateways

Cons of 3dcart: 

• Obsolete themes and user interface
• Shopify offers better drop shipping
• Less reliable customer service overall

Pricing: All plans 50% for the first 6 months, Startup ($19/month), Basic ($29/month), Plus ($79/month), Pro ($229/month)

Conclusion: a great, affordable option, also an interesting option if you want someone else to design your site.

5. Magento

Magento is among the most popular ecommerce platforms available, while offering different features and selling points than Shopify.

For instance, Magento is an open-source platform, which will mean two things: first, it’s not as easy to use as Shopify, BigCommerce, Volusion, and will require at least a bit of programming knowledge. On the other hand, if you have the technical requirement, you get more freedom with Magento.

Being an open-source platform, Magento is totally free, but you will need to pay for your own domain and hosting service, — which might be more affordable or far more expensive than Shopify’s monthly fees, depending on your choice. 

Pros of Magento:

• Totally free, except for hosting and domain services
• Great SEO features,if you are aiming to implement SEO
• Very versatile due to its open-source nature
• A lot of extensions
• Responsive designs

Cons:

• Will need coding knowledge, including e commerce security
• You will need to pay for a separate hosting service and get a domain, which can be a hassle

Pricing: Free (open-source)

Conclusion: a great option for those with programming and network security knowledge, totally free, and you have the freedom to customize your site according to your needs.

6. BigCartel

BigCartel is a popular Shopify alternative among small businesses and design product sellers for several reasons: it’s very affordable, has all the essential features, and if necessary, there are the HTML and CSS customizations.

With that being said, the $9.99/month pricing is a very interesting offer, with all three plans offering similar core features and the main differentiator is only the number of product listing. The most affordable plan allows 25 products, while the most expensive plan allows 300. Meaning, if you only sell a few products, BigCartel can be an interesting option.

It’s worth noting, however, that BigCartel offers a more limited set of features compared to Shopify, but there are some interesting features like integration with familiar platforms like Google Analytics, PayPal, and Facebook, and its core features are sufficient for small to mid-sized ecommerce.

Pros of BigCartel:

• PayPay integration, no extra transaction fees (unlimited)
• A free plan with full feature for 5 products or less listed
• Easy to use and intuitive

Cons of BigCartel:

• Limited customer support
• Modest set of features (no inventory search function, etc.)

Pricing: Free plan (5 products or less), Platinum ($9.99/month, 25 products), Diamond ($19.99/month, 100 products), Titanium ($29.99/month, 300 products) 

Conclusion: the key highlight of BigCartel is its affordability, and you can even use the free plan if you only sell less than five products.

7. Pretashop

Pretashop is also one of the more affordable Shopify alternatives that might be suited for those who only wanted to start an online store without spending too much on a platform. 

Pretashop is—like Magento or WooCommerce—, technically free, but you’ll need to invest in separate hosting service and get a domain name. However, Pentashop does offer several partnerships with various hosting services like BlueHost and Microsoft Azure. 

Pretashop offers few templates and themes, but it offers a very good set of features for a free product: no transaction fees, multi-lingual support for 20+ languages and currencies (international sales), unlimited product listing, and so on. If you need more, there are premium (paid) modules to further customize your store. It is worth noting, that some of these premium modules are really good. 

Pros of Pretashop:

• Free, not including hosting service and domain (paid hosting packages available)
• No transaction fees
• Supports international sales in various currencies and languages
• Great set of features overall, especially the paid ones

Cons of Pretashop:

• Steep learning curve, might need the help of a web developer
• Few templates included

Pricing: free with paid modules (extra features), optional hosting service package

Conclusion: a great alternative for those with tech knowledge or those with a tight budget. 

End Words

Each of the Shopify alternatives we have discussed on this list has different price offers, different sets of features, and different pros and cons.

Figure out your needs in building your online store, and choose the right platform according to your needs, goals, and budget to maximize ROI.

The post Top 7 Shopify Alternatives for Effective Online Stores appeared first on Mike Khorev - SEO Consultant.

So, this means that there’s a great value to design own website, right? Not really.

Taking the DIY route with website design vs. hiring a professional is an apples and oranges comparison. Think of it as the difference between cooking at home vs. dining out at a Michelin 3-star restaurant.

There are some benefits to designing your own website, including the fact that it’s easier than ever. Yet, the cons outweigh the pros. Working with a professional web design company like BreakThruWeb gives you a better chance to reach your goals.

Here is an overview of six reasons you shouldn’t do your own website design:

1. You Can’t Match Professional Quality of Web Design

Build it and they will come. Not going to happen! The sheer number of websites on the web means that any new website is likely to get lost in the crowd. You need a high-quality, first-rate site to reach your target audience. Businesses with a subpar site lose credibility and authority. Your site should have a responsive design while being mobile-friendly and beautiful.

Close to 50% of people state that the design of a site is the most important factor when determining a business’ credibility. Not to forget, 38% of people will click away if the layout or content of a site is unattractive.

So, what’s the solution?

You are more likely to end up with an inferior layout if you design own website. Website building tools, especially the free ones, offer limited features and tools.

2. More Sales: Professional Design Helps Buyer’s Journey

Let’s say you use Wix for building your website. You can use the drag and drop design to add the different features and elements. You will end up with a functional website. In fact, the platform also provides designing your own website tips to make the process easier. As easy as ABC, right?

Well, it’s easy for you. But you are not building to be used by yourself, right? Your website is for your customers. And you have to design it to function according to their convenience.

Keep in mind that the design of your website has a direct impact on the buyer’s journey. Your sales can drop by 27% if your website takes one additional second to load.

You can virtually eliminate this risk by working with a professional designer.

3. SEO Knowledge and Performance

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a constantly evolving beast. Keeping pace with the changes in the rules and algorithms is virtually impossible for the non-expert. Simply put, you have to test your website’s performance in compliance with Google and other search engines before going live.

When you design own website, you might end up making mistakes with regards to SEO. Even a small error can drive away thousands of visitors. Any web designer worth his/her salt knows all about SEO-friendly design and will build your site accordingly.

The numbers clearly show why you should hire a professional for website design. Optimizing your website will boost your visits by 113%, and contributing to 117% more clicks.

4. The Right Tools and Experience

Website builders change the process of designing a site into a by-the-numbers format. Yet, you cannot ignore that it is a specialized task. Web designers use a range of tools to execute their jobs perfectly. These tools include Photoshop, software for auditing your website, and plug-ins. Some of these tools cost a pretty penny.

Professional designers have the expertise and experience to use these tools to create a world-class website. Moreover, they have access to the tools as part of their job. If you design own website, in all likelihood, you will not be able to use this software or tools at all.

You can spend several months (or even years) learning to use the tools to design a truly remarkable website. Or, you can look for a professional designer to do the job for you. Not a tough decision, right?

5. Security and Support

Designing and launching a website isn’t difficult. Securing it, however, can be a major challenge. Google might shut your website down if you are not complying with their regulations. Also, you have to protect your site from hackers. The last thing you want is your visitors to end up with malware or a virus just due to your website.

Vulnerable scripts, plug-ins, or a dishonest vendor, are the backdoors cybercriminals can use to tamper with your site. Needless to say, your credibility goes down the drain even if there is a minor attack. You have plenty on your plate already. You shouldn’t have to play firefighter!

Moreover, you will require technical support from time to time. If there are dead links on your site, you need an expert to deal with the problem.

6. Your Best Competitors Use Professionals Designers

You might feel you have sufficient time to design your own website. Easy website building tools make it possible for you to design a site without any major hassle. However, you should keep in mind that you are competing with other websites.

A simple glance over your competitors’ sites might give you some design ideas. Possibly, you might want to tear your hair out if your site doesn’t measure up in terms of quality and attractiveness.

The fact of the matter is that if your competitors hired professionals for the job, their sites will be superior to yours. And not just in terms of appearance but functionality and SEO as well. You get what you pay for when it comes to website design. Hire an experienced professional and you will receive a high-quality website that rivals your competitors’.

A survey by Econsultancy and Adobe shows that over 80% of industry experts believe design-driven businesses are more successful. You have to focus on quality when designing your website!

Conclusion

So, there you have it, six reasons why DIY website design is not a suitable option for any business. You can simply Google ‘how to design your own website’ and build one from scratch.

However, when it comes to the results you expect, you will not make significant progress. You only have a few seconds to capture a visitor’s interest.

A professionally designed website has a much better chance to succeed.

The post 6 Reasons You Shouldn’t Do Your Own Website Design appeared first on Mike Khorev - SEO Consultant.