Uncategorized Archives - Blogging

WEB HOSTING

Shahil Shah — Mon, 11 Apr 2022 17:32:44 +0000

They are a great number of hosting providers available in the market today, in order to help you make the best next decision for your website hosting whether for your business or personal use.

I have made a list and some essential tips for your next website host based on the load time, reviews, and support.

There are many hosting providers we can discuss because Hosting is Listed under

Managed WordPress Hosting
Guide on How to Choose The Best Hosting Service For Your Website
Best Web Hosting Services by Product, Service, and Industry
Best Hosting Provider by CMS you should try today
VPS Hosting
Shared Hosting
Dedicated Hosting
Best Hosting Provider Frequently Asked Question

Let’s dive in

What is Managed WordPress

Managed WordPress hosting has been a great way to an excellent step towards a better and more reliable web hosting provider since web hosting specially for WordPress can be speed-optimized, can withstand a great amount of your site visitors, provide you with the best-recommended bandwidth, and storage.

There are many advantages to going for a hosting provider made specifically for a website mainly powered by WordPress, you get access to the largely available support forum and knowledge base.

Automatic updates are provided for you, additional security from developers based on developing WordPress core updates, and automatic daily backups either with a plugin or other backup source.

In addition, you get tech support when you are having trouble fixing your website with its staging environment and SSH access.

All of this is the reason why if you plan on hosting your website on an uninterrupted hosting provider specifically for WordPress CMS the popular shared or VPS hosting most beginners get registered on shouldn’t be an option for you.

The best-managed WordPress hosting provider

1. DreamHost / DreamPress

Pricing plans from $2.95 a month

Essential features provided by Dreamhost/Dreampress:

There are automatic daily backups provided to you (plus, additional backups on demand if you like)
One-click staging site launch
You get a One-click WordPress installation
Built-in caching and SSH access
Unlimited CDN (higher-tier plans)
Numerous collections of WordPress themes included with your plan
Access to free website migration
A free SSL certificate is provided for extra security

Pros:

Affordable: DreamHost is one of the cheapest shared hosting providers around, compare to its competitors.

There are no upsells and upgrades: So many hosting providers get too salesy by recommending you into buying add-ons with numerous reminders. Going with DreamHost is going to be a release from marketing pitches.

A worry-free 97-day money-back guarantee: Dreamhost has promised to refund you if after 97 days you are still not happy with their service

A great performance: In many tests conducted and customer reviews (uptime & speed), it is worth stating that DreamHost performed really well per the average industry speed.

Unlimited bandwidth and optimized Storage: All accounts you register with them come with unlimited bandwidth and optimized yet useful storage space. Of which other competitors lack, that is there is no inodes limitation.

Cons:

There are no email account access in the starter plan: You need to pay for Email accounts separately for the Shared Starter plan, but don’t worry they are best affordable too.

You don’t have access to many 1-click installs CMS: It is believe that they only have automated installations for a few CMSs like the WordPress CMS.

Server is located in Only US-location: Dreamhost don’t have servers outside the US. These may not be suitable for users hosting from other regions like Europe or Asia.

They are some advanced features missing for higher features: Some functions suitable for larger projects are not provided There are some features missing like, no staging, no built-in caching or advanced backup solutions.

Limited Support: Dreamhost doesn’t offer live chat 24 hours a day, only from 5:30 AM to 9:30 PM Pacific time. Outside those hours you are left with ticket support, which is said to be slower and most time frustrating.

Features:

Advanced, Easy-to-Use Panel

Get admin access to everything needed to power your website full throttle. You can easily create new email accounts, add Let’s Encrypt SSL, forward domains, add users, and install WordPress in seconds.

Fast Solid State Storage

DreamHost believe that Lagging load times are a drag for your visitors. With their SSDs, your website, caching, and database queries are faster — 200 percent faster than old school HDDs.

Automated Backups

The single most important thing you can do to keep your website safe is to Back it up. DreamHost makes this easy — there create automatic backups of your WordPress website daily.

Pricing Plans:

Shared Starter

Great for new WordPress sites or small sites without much traffic that are just getting started.

It’s hosting plan starting at $2.59/mo includes
1 Website Free, Domain included
Unlimited Traffic
WordPress Pre-installed
Fast SSD Storage
NEW WP Website Builder
NEW Free Automated WordPress Migrations
Free SSL Certificate
Free Domain Privacy
Add Email as low as $1.67/mo
97 Day Money-Back Guarantee.

Shared Unlimited

Perfect for supporting lots of WordPress sites, larger sites, and even includes email hosting @ your domain.

It’s hosting plan starting at $4.95 per month includes
Unlimited Websites
Free Domain included
Unlimited Traffic
WordPress Pre-installed
Fast SSD Storage
NEW WP Website Builder
NEW Free Automated WordPress Migrations,
Free SSL Certificate
Free Domain Privacy
Unlimited Email @ Your Domain
97 Day Money-Back Guarantee.

Dream Host Final Review: DreamHost Comes Recommended by WordPress, ThemeForest, CNET, PCMag & Yoast.

2. Pressable

Pricing plans from $25 a month

Essential features provided by pressable

Free website migrations
Malware protection and removal
Automatic WordPress upgrades
Server-side optimizations
Data caching
Daily backups
Content Delivery Network
Free SSL certificates

Pros:

Custom solutions: There are unlimited solutions provided to suit your needs.
Extremely fast and reliable infrastructure: Pressable is believed to make use of one of the cutting edge technology in hosting infrastructure.
Friendly WordPress experts available for support: It’s support are a most try for any wordpress and non wordpress related issue.
Access to unlimited features: There is nothing has a good feeling knowing that they are great features that are worth giving a go.

Cons

Higher prices: There hosting renewal might not be suitable for all, so it’s important you pick a plan suitable for your needs and budgets
Limited hours for live chat: Unlike other competitors that provide a 24/7 live support, it’s important to note that live chat are on a chosen hours.

Features:

Outstanding Performance:

Turbocharge your websites on a global network built specifically for WordPress user’s.

Unrivaled Security:

Get peace of mind knowing your websites are hosted against malware and DDoS attacks.

Free Jetpack Security Daily:

Activate powerful security, SEO and performance tools with this premium WordPress plugin.

Wordpress Specialized Infrastructure:

Their infrastructure is built and maintained by the expert behind WordPress, exclusively for hosting WordPress websites. That means you get the highest possible level of speed, security, and reliability.

Pressable Pricing plans:

PERSONAL

$25.00 per month. You can save $50.00 by switching to an annual plan.

1 WordPress Install
30,000 Visits /mo
Storage 20GB
Bandwidth Unlimited
Perfect for setting up a small WordPress website for yourself or a business.

STARTER

$45.00 per month, You can Save $90.00 by switching to an annual plan.

3 WordPress Installs
Visits /mo 50,000
Storage 20GB
Bandwidth Unlimited
Design, develop, and launch up to three WordPress websites quickly and easily

PRO

$90.00 per month, you can save $180.00 by switching to an annual plan.

You get access to 10 WordPress Installs
There is an allowance for up to 150,000 visits per month
You get a Storage limit of 30GB
Bandwidth Unlimited
Ideal hosting solution for freelancers, small agencies, and in-house teams

PREMIUM

$155.00 per month, you can save up to $310.00 by switching to an annual plan.

You get access to 20 WordPress Installs
There is an allowance for up to 150,000 visits/mo
You get a storage limit of 50GB
Bandwidth Unlimited
Scalable, feature-rich WordPress hosting for agencies, MSPs, and many more

Pressable Final Review: Pressable is created and run by the same expert that brought you WordPress.com and WooCommerce.

3. A2 Hosting

Pricing Plan from $2.99 a month

Essential features provided by A2 Hosting:

Reliable uptime
WordPress pre-installed
Free website migrations
Automatic daily backups
One-click staging and SSH access
SSH access
Cloudflare free CDN and SSL
Managed WordPress updates and patching
DDoS protection

Pros:

Great Speed: A2 Hosting is one of the fastest providers you should try
Advanced features: When you select higher plans, it’s comes with interesting advanced options like staging areas or a server-side caching system.
Unmetered storage and bandwidth: Your storage is unlimited (for the highest 3 plns), although your total amount of files can’t be more than 600,000. Bandwidth isn’t metered so you can enjoy unlimited storage and bandwidth.
A2 Hosting provides Windows-based hosting: They are many other competitors that provides linux based or other server apps but with A2 Hosting Windows-based servers are available.
Great Uptime: A2 Hosting has greatly improved their uptime rate by investing in better infrastructure.
Multiple Server locations: You can choose to host your website with A2 Hosting in America (East or West Coast), Europe or Asia.

Cons:

You have to pay to get On-demand backups: If you’d like to use their on-demand backup system to create your own backups, you’ll need to purchase A2 Hosting add-on.
Misleading and salesy checkout: They are known has not been pushy as other hosting providers like Bluehost, but their check out is filled with add-ons that you might not find useful a great example is the paid SSL certificate).
35 concurrent HTTP connections: All shared hosting plans seem to be limited to 35 concurrent HTTP connections to A2 Hosting server – this may not be enough for some website.

Features:

Auto WordPress installation and pre-configuration (based on best practices on over 100,000 WordPress sites)
Easy-To-Use Staging – quickly and easily deploy a development copy of your site to test on
A2 Optimized: Performance caching on both server side and on the WordPress application level.
Easy WordPress Backups: Automated and provides daily backup protection for ultimate peace of mind
Automatic WordPress core updates & patches: Stay focused on building your site. Their team of WordPress experts will ensure you have the best WordPress version and patches.
Enhanced security both at the WordPress application side and server side.
Free SSL certificate – Developer friendly features including WP-CLI, SSH, GIT, and more.
Although it is important to note that there do not debug core WordPress functionality or maintain third party plugins, but be rest assured they do have resident WordPress experts on staff that can work with you or your developer to troubleshoot issues.

Some Other important features:

Their Turbo Server solution offers an additional speed boost with LiteSpeed Cache for WordPress. This powerful plugin communicates with your Turbo server and LSCache to statically cache your dynamic WordPress pages and greatly reduce your site’s page load time.

LSCache is built right into your server. This means overhead is greatly reduced and caching is more efficient compared to other PHP-based caching solutions.

Pricing plans:

UNLIMITED – STARTING AT $75.48 USD monthly

Unlimited Websites
40 GB Storage
Free SSL Certificate
Turbo (Up To 20X Faster
Powered by Plesk Control Panel
1-Click Site Staging
Easy, Automated Backups
Free Jetpack Personal License
Free & Easy Site Migration
Anytime Money Back Guarantee

A2 Hosting Final Reviews: A2 hosting provides up to 20x faster web hosting to boost your seo & conversion rate.

4. Wp engine

Pricing plans from $22/mo

Essential features provided by the WP engine:

Evercache integrated and SSH access
Free StudioPress WordPress themes
Fast speed: 441ms (#3 out of 8)
Reliable uptime: 100% (#1 out of 8)
Global Cloudflare CDN integrated
Automated SSL certificates
Free WordPress site migrations
Automatic daily backups (30-day retention)
WordPress pre-installed
“Dev/stage/prod” environments

Pros:

Reliability: WP Engine’s proprietary front-end layer system can handle traffic increase easily without slowing down your websitesite.
Security: WP Engine keeps your site protected with many advanced security features that you might not b given access to by other hosting providers.
Fast Loading Times: Their Servers are optimized just for WordPress, everything is cached at the server level, and you get access to their CDN.
WordPress Expert Support: WP Engine’s entire support staff is comprised of trained WordPress experts, so there can lead you and your team to the part of progress.
Great Customer Reviews: WP Engine is an powerful but yet popular host that gets great reviews from many customers for their reliability and excellent customer service.

Cons:

Domain Registrations are not provided: WP Engine is a suitable choice and only provides hosting services, of which domain registrations is out of their services.

This means you’ll have to register your domains with another provider like Namecheap, of which you may find inconvenient and time consuming.

Some Plugins Bans: It is important to know that WP Engine does not support some plugins, and so you are not allowed to install ruled out plugins on your WordPress website.

Reasons may be because they conflict with or duplicate WP Engine’s provided features, or cause a high server load.

This includes many caching, backup, related post plugins, and many other’s that you will be put through on.

You get Hosting Higher Costs: When you compare it’s plans to other shared hosting provider, WP Engine is definitely more expensive, but still many large business and even startup choose to work with them. Since the excellent services they offer are well-worth the investment.

Features:

Your Data are secured: Since they offer data encryption, multi-factor authentication and advanced user permission to keep your site secure.
Auto Migration: Your move to WP Engine is as simple as a couple of clicks using their auto migration plugin.
Automatic Encrypted Backups: There perform daily automatic backups, encrypted in transit and at rest, stored in redundant, off-site data centers to give you peace of mind in case you run into any site issues.
Free Let’s Encrypt SSL Certificates: WP Engine makes it easy to secure your site with SSL certificates included in all plans. You can add them with a single click in your user portal.

Pricing plans:

STARTUP

All the basics for starting a small website or blog.

Starting at $20/month (USD)

25,000 visits / month
10GB storage
50GB bandwidth / month
1 site included

GROWTH

Features you need for a growing business.

Starting at $76.67 / per month (USD)

100,000 visits / month
20GB storage
200GB bandwidth / month
10 sites included

SCALE

Higher capacity and site limits to scale your experiences.

Starting at $193/month(USD)

400,000 visits / month
50GB storage
500GB bandwidth / month
30 sites included

CUSTOM

For large businesses and mission-critical sites. This dedicated environment delivers high performance, with managed onboarding and their fastest support response.

Pricing varies upon request with it’s sales specialist.

Millions visits / month
100GB – 1TB storage
400GB+ bandwidth / month
30 sites included

WP engine Final Review: WP Engine is constantly investing to render the best possible secure environment for your business.

5. Cloudways

Pricing Plans from $10.00 – $274 a month depending on your use

Essential features provided by Cloudways:

Free WordPress Site Migration
There are automatic backups
You also get free SSL certificates
Offers hosting on top of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud providers such as Linode, DigitalOcean, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Vultr and Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
Decide whether you want to pay by the month or by the hour for use.
Does have an elastic email add-on and an SMTP add-on that you can use to configure an external SMTP service for email delivery and management.
Cloudways engineers will migrate your site for you.
Cloudways’ knowledge base contains comprehensive information about everything related to the platform and services.

Pros:

Choose From 5 Cloud Hosting Services: There are great selections to pick from.
Insanely Fast Servers: With cutting edge hosting infrastructure you would enjoy insanely fast website load time
Easy To Use Control Panel: It’s offer’s easy to use control panel that even a beginer will find easy.
24/7 Support & Live Chat: Do you have questions or technical issues, be sure to get help from cloudways support.
Free SSL Certificates: You are provided with free ssl certificates that you would have bought in order to secure your website.
One Click Staging For WordPress: Enjoy limitless wordpress features by choosing to host with cloudways.
Free WordPress Caching Plugin: A caching plugin will allow your website load faster like never before, be very to get increase in conversions.

Cons:

Doesn’t Include Email Hosting: You don’t have access to professional email accounts or get an email features witth cloudways a great selections are Google workspace
Lacks File Manager: You don’t have access to a file manager panel that can help with managing your website resources.
Support Can Be Technical: The support available might not be suitable for you as a beginner, because you might be introduced to more technical setup you might not have an idea of. Although an advance tech guru might find the support useful and engaging.
You Can’t Register a Domain Name: Many hosting provider makes domain name registration available, but cloudways does not provide domain name purchase that is you are required to get your domain name from a third party.
Bigger Server Means a Bigger Fee: Unlike other providers the more you more server you consume the more you are required to pay.

Features:

There offer expert 24/7/365 problem-solving for everyone. For a closer partnership, choose the Advanced Support add-on that enhances your support experience or the Premium Support add-on where their Senior Support Engineers work as an extension of your in-house team.
Cloudways CDN helps to reduce latency and improve response times when serving a WordPress website worldwide.
There regularly perform firmware upgrades and patches so your WordPress websites remain secure from potential threats.
There charge only for the server resources you consume so that you can enjoy hosting unlimited websites on a single WordPress server.

Pricing plans:

$ 10 per month

Including DO Hosting Charges
1GB RAM
1 Core Processor
25GB Storage
1TB Bandwidth

$ 42 per month

Including DO Hosting Charges
4GB RAM
2 Core Processor
80GB Storage
4TB Bandwidth

$ 22 per month

Including DO Hosting Charges
2GB RAM
1 Core Processor
50GB Storage
2TB Bandwidth

$ 80 per month

Including DO Hosting Charges
8GB RAM
4 Core Processor
160GB Storage
5TB Bandwidth

$ 135 per month

Including DO Hosting Charges
16GB RAM
6 Core Processor
320GB Storage
6TB Bandwidth

$ 230 per month

Including DO Hosting Charges
32GB RAM
8 Core Processor
640GB Storage
7TB Bandwidth

Note:

Including DO hosting charges means you don’t need to pay extra to Digital Ocean nor a Digital Ocean Account.

$0.033/GB per server will be applied for offsite backup storage.

Cloudways Final Review: It is the best managed cloud hosting for wordpress that guarantees success.

6. Liquid Web

Pricing plans: $15.90 per month

Essential Features:

Automatic image compression
Free migrations from other hosts
Automatic plugin updates
WordPress core is updated for you
24/7/365 support by email, live chat, or phone
No pageview or traffic limits
Automatic daily backups
WordPress-specific security protocols
Free, automatic SSL certificates for all sites on Managed WordPress plans
Multiple site management tools
Full server access for developers along with SSH, Git, and WP-CLI tools.

Pros:

Offers a wide range of high-performance plans: You can get higher advance performance by considering upgrading to more better plans, so the more you upgrade the more features you get.

Industry-leading support: Their support is believed to be available for 24/7 in order to get answers and response to any issues you might find challenging.

The best few hosts to offer 100% uptime guarantee: An uptime is the duration your website is available without experiencing failed loading or breakdown, so a guarantee from liquid web means your website will keep loading without been affected by errors or hacks.

Cons:

No shared hosting – just advanced plans: Shared hosting is a way you get access to cheaper hosting plan provided you share the same resources with other censored users
A Knowledge base that needs improvements: The knowledge base is believe to be of a least helpful source.

Features:

Most hosts limit the type of access to the server, Instead there give you full access to both the database and the server.

Never Think About Plugin Updates Again, It is believe that after two years after there introduced this feature they’re still surprised so few managed hosts are solving this problem for you.
They make a copy of your site and test plugin updates for you every night, automatically, so you don’t have to worry about keeping your site up to date ever again.

Pricing Plans:

Spark

1 Site
15 GB Storage
2 TB Bandwidth
30 Day Backups
Unlimited Email Accounts
Beaver Builder Lite
iThemes Security Pro and iThemes Sync

Start Your Free Trial with just $19 per month

Maker

Up to 5 Sites
40 GB Storage
3 TB Bandwidth
30 Day Backups
Unlimited Email Accounts
Beaver Builder Lite
iThemes Security Pro and iThemes Sync

Plan start from $79 per month

Designer

Up to 10 Sites
60 GB Storage
4 TB Bandwidth
30 Day Backups
Unlimited Email Accounts
Beaver Builder Lite
iThemes Security Pro and iThemes Sync

Plan start from $109 per month

Builder

Up to 25 Sites
100 GB Storage
5 TB Bandwidth
30 Day Backups
Unlimited Email Accounts
Beaver Builder Lite
iThemes Security Pro and iThemes Sync

Plan start from $149 per month

Producer

Up to 50 Sites
300 GB Storage
5 TB Bandwidth
30 Day Backups
Unlimited Email Accounts
Beaver Builder Lite
iThemes Security Pro and iThemes Sync

Plan start from $299 per month

Executive

Up to 100 Sites
500 GB Storage
10 TB Bandwidth
30 Day Backups
Unlimited Email Accounts
Beaver Builder Lite
iThemes Security Pro and iThemes Sync

Plan start from $549 per month

Enterprise

Up to 250 Sites
800 GB Storage
10 TB Bandwidth
30 Day Backups
Unlimited Email Accounts
Beaver Builder Lite
iThemes Security Pro and iThemes Sync
Plan start from $999 per month

Liquid web Final Review: Liquid web is an expertly curated complete solution for your wordpress websites that helps you build, optimize and grow.

7. Kinsta

Pricing start from: $30.00 – $1500 a month

Essentials features provided by Kinsta:

The ability to hook up a CDN of your choice
Automatic database optimization per week to boost the performance.
Self-healing PHP technology
Premium DNS management
Let’s Encrypt support
HTTP/2 support, PHP 7
SSH, WP-CLI, Git support
You get to choose your data center location
Staging areas available
Extensive knowledge base available

Pros:

Solid performance: Kinsta pages are the second fastest loading that are been tested. So It’s good for both your SEO and your user experience.

The powerful CDN, free SSL and last-gen PHP can also be a major breakthrough for a better usage.

A standard Uptime: Kinsta runs virtually 100% of the entire time. It is believed that if the rate drops below 99.9%, you get some money back.

This is not bad at all, since, WP Engine guarantees 99.95% uptime in their service level agreement (SLA).

Ease of use: straightforward navigation and a pleasant user experience for you if you need to spend a bit of time in their hosting provider dashboard.

Site backups: You will only get 14 days automatic backups on the lower plans. You’ll need to move up to the Business 3 plan to get 20 days. Manual backups and cloud backups are also available, while backups can be downloaded too.

Made for WordPress: Kinsta experts is believed to be an expert with Wordpress resources since there are trained on the basis of providing the best support via wordpress.

The architecture is optimized for the CMS, and you get useful resources on plugins and other WordPress-specific tools.

Cons:

There are a lot of limits: no unlimited storage, CDN or monthly visits. You should take note that if you used up your resources, you’ll be charged extra.

WordPress is only supported: You won’t be able to install any other CMS on a Kinsta server, If you are a fan of several CMS like Drupal or the like you should definitely try out other hosting provider listed here.

There are more higher prices: Kinsta isn’t the cheapest hosting provider. You get what you pay for, but it’s not for everyone. Since many new business or startup would rather go for a cheaper hosting provider.

Kinsta Features:

MyKinsta is the control center for your sites. From tracking bandwidth, visitor stats to creating SSL certificates, all the tools you need are in one convenient location.

Kinsta powerful multi-user feature allows you to add any number of users to your team. You can give them access to all your sites, just billing or add them as developers or administrators to a subset of your sites.

Kinsta dashboard lets you track important data for each of your sites separately; such as visitors, bandwidth usage, response times, and more.

Pricing Plan:

STARTER

$30 usd per month

1 WordPress install
25,000 visits
10 GB disk space
Free SSL & CDN

PRO

$60 usd per month

2 WordPress installs
50,000 visits
20 GB disk space
Free SSL & CDN

BUSINESS 1

$100 usd per month

5 WordPress installs
100,000 visits
30 GB disk space
Free SSL & CDN

BUSINESS 2

$200 USD / MONTH

10 wordpress installs
250,000 visits
40 GB disk space
Free SSL and CDN

Business 3

$300 USD per month

20 WordPress installs
400,000 visits
50 Disk space
Free SSL and CDN

Business 4

$400 usd per month

40 wordpress installs
600,000 visits
60GB disk space
Free SSL and CDN

Enterprise 1

$600 USD per month

60 wordpress installs
1,000,000 visits
100 GB disk space
Free SSL and CDN

Enterprise 2

900 usd per month

80 wordpress install
1,500, 000 visits
150 GB disk space
Free SSL and CDN

Enterprise 3

$1,200 USD per month

120 wordpress installs
2,000,000 visits
200 GB disk space
Free SSL and CDN

Enterprise 4

$1,500 USD per month

150 wordpress installs
3,000,000 visits
250 GB disk space
Free SSL and CDN

Kinsta Final Review: There’s a reason enterprise businesses and agencies choose Kinsta, Kinsta is a must if you need automatic scaling, state of the art security for customers’ data, unmatched performance, and blazing fast support.

What is a VPS (Virtual private sector) Hosting?

A virtual private server (VPS) is both virtual and private because you have complete control over your hosting solution.

VPS is a separate type of hosting from other server users on the OS level.

In simple understanding, VPS technology can be related to creating partitions on your own computer when you want to run more than one OS (e.g. Windows and Linux) without a reboot.

Running a VPS gives you access to set up your website within a secure container with guaranteed resources (memory, disk space, CPU cores, etc.) you don’t have to share with other users wanting a hosting service. With VPS hosting, you have the same root-level access as if you had a dedicated server, but at a much lower cost that would suit your budget.

VPS hosting is mostly chosen by website owners or businesses who are sure of having medium-level traffic that exceeds the limits of shared hosting plans but still doesn’t need the resources of a dedicated server that can consume a lot.

1. Scala Hosting

Pricing plan: $10.00 – $64.00

Essential features provided by Scala Hosting:

cPanel,
free website migrations
unlimited websites
CMS (content management system) auto-installers
Backups
SSL certificates
Powerful VPS Machines and the SPanel Control Panel
usage statistics
SSL integration
Boasts a 99.998% success rate in blocking attackers.

Pros:

Unlimited websites
Fully managed
Free migrations for unlimited sites
Good scalability
Daily backups, SShield security system
Dedicated IP address
Cloudflare CDN
24/7 support

Cons:

SSL certificate paid separately
Scala Hosting’s plans aren’t 100% SSD
Scala Hosting is still in the midst of upgrading its storage drives.

Hosting Features:

Scala Hosting utilizes 10Gbps redundant networks with multiple uplinks to premium upstream providers to deliver 100% network uptime.

Choose where you want your SSD cloud server to be deployed. They currently have datacenters in the US and Europe.

They keep 3 copies of your data on 3 different servers. In case of a hardware failure your cloud hosting server is automatically migrated to a healthy node.

Hosting pricing plans

Start

1 CPU Core
2GB RAM
50GB SSD

$10.00 Monthly

Advanced

2 CPU Cores
4GB RAM
70GB SSD

$19.00 Monthly

Business

4 CPU Cores
6GB RAM
100GB SSD

$33.00 Monthly

Enterprise

6 CPU Cores
8GB RAM
150GB SSD

$49.00 Monthly

Scala Hosting Final Review: Scala Hosting Promises to Be The Next Step in Hosting Evolution

2.HostGator

Pricing Plan: $19.95 per month

Essential Features:

Custom configurations
hosting for unlimited domains
State-of-the-art Intel hardware
2GB to 8GB of RAM
cPanel control panel
1.5TB to 3TB of bandwidth
Fully redundant network
Subdomains
Custom installs and configurations
email accounts
dedicated resources

Pros:

An attentive and Helpful support team: The Hostinger is an award winning team on providing the best support in any hosting related subject and can help trouble shoot issue with you.

Reliable hosting: HostGator guarantees an uptime of 99.99%. If you experience downtime below that, then you will get back one month credit on your account, which is a great deal compare to others.

Generous money back guarantee: HostGator offers 45 days money back guarantee. Normally, web hosting companies do not offer a money back guarantee exceeding 30 days.

Flexible billing periods: You can choose between monthly and yearly billing periods. When you pick longer billing periods, you will get you the most discount.

Free migration: HostGator offers free migration service with all new accounts. Their expert team will transfer your website from your previous host at no extra cost during the first 30 days of you signing up with them.

Cons:

No free domain: Unlike many other hosting companies, HostGator does not provide a free domain registration upon signing up.
Constant upselling: You need to review the additional services pre-selected and provided during your sign up process. If you are unsure of a service or you know you don’t need them, then uncheck them anyways. You can always add them later when needed.
Having cPanel installed is another $10 / month: Unlike other competitors that provide their custom panel, as for Hostagator you would need to pay a fee of $10 per month.

Features:

Full root access allows for your choice of CMS or custom code on your virtual private server.

Industry leaders, like Intel & AMD, ensure Hostgator provided packages are among the fastest available.

Make the better use of site templates, a powerful script installer, site development tools, & much more.

Hostgator perform a courtesy off-site backup of your private server data each and every week.

Pricing Plans:

Snappy 2000

Introductory offer $19.95 per month

vCPU 2 cores
Ram 2 GB
Storage 80 GB
Available Unmetered bandwidth
Dedicated IP 2 IP address
Available Root access
Optional cPanel/WHM
Operating System- CentOS 6 or 7, Windows, Ubuntu 16.04, Debian 8
Softaculous script installer
LetsEncrypt SSL included
Unlimited email accounts
Available Free content transfers
Network guarantee
Available MySQL
Unlimited Maximum outgoing emails
Unlimited Maximum POP/IMAP connections
Available Centralized DDoS Protection
Available Weekly offsite backups
Manual backups
Scheduled backups
Network uptime guarantee
US-based Data Centers
Fully redundant network
Multiple bandwidth providers – AboveNet, AT&T, Comcast, Global crossing, Level (3), NTT
Premium support
Server monitoring and remediation

Snappy 4000

Introductory offer for $29.95 per month

vCPU 2 cores
RAM 4 GB
Storage 80 GB
Available Unmetered Bandwidth
Dedicated IP 2 IP address
Available Root access
Optional cPanel/WHM
Operating System- CentOS 6 or 7, Windows, Ubuntu 16.04, Debian 8
Softaculous script installer
LetsEncrypt SSL included
Unlimited email accounts
Free content transfers
Network guarantee
MySQL
Unlimited Maximum outgoing emails
Unlimited Maximum POP/IMAP connections
Centralized DDoS Protection
Weekly offsite backups
e manual backups
scheduled backups
Network uptime guarantee
US-based Data Centers
Fully redundant network
Multiple bandwidth providers – AboveNet, AT&T, Comcast, Global crossing, Level (3), NTT
Premium support
Server monitoring and remediation

Snappy 8000

Introductory offer at $39.95 per month

vCPU 4 cores
RAM 8 GB
Storage 160 GB
Unmetered Bandwidth Included
Dedicated IP 2 IP address
Available Root access
Optional cPanel/WHM
Operating System- CentOS 6 or 7, Windows, Ubuntu 16.04, Debian 8
Softaculous script installer
LetsEncrypt SSL included
Unlimited email accounts
Free content transfers
Network guarantee
MySQL
Unlimited Maximum outgoing emails
Unlimited Maximum POP/IMAP connections
Centralized DDoS Protection
Weekly offsite backups
manual backups
scheduled backups
Network uptime guarantee
US-based Data Centers
Fully redundant network
Multiple bandwidth providers – AboveNet, AT&T, Comcast, Global crossing, Level (3), NTT
Premium support
Server monitoring and remediation

Host Gator Final Review: If your current web host is a let down or simply not keeping up with your growing traffic, it might be time to consider getting a Hostgator VPS server.

3. InMotion VPS

Pricing plans: $25 per month

Essential Features provided by Inmotion VPS Hosting:

Over 200 professional templates
Responsive design for mobile viewing
No coding skills necessary
Get your email, domains, security and more set up quickly
Your apps installed, set up, and optimized
cPanel to cPanel transfers
Money-Back Guarantee
Root Access and SSH Available

Pros:

Hyperfast instant load times: Enjoy super fast website loading with its improved hosting solution.

31 Day Money-Back: You don’t like a service, you get a worry free 31 day money back guarantee, No questions asked.

Resource Monitoring Dashboard: Every one likes to know how far they have used up a resources, Inmotion has not a great work by providing a dashboard for resources managements.

Unlimited Professional Email: You get professional email accounts by signing up with Inmotion.

Custom Advanced Policy Firewall: A strong security firewall is definetly a threats to hacker’s Inmotion has done its best by providing advance policy firewall.

Cons:

You need disk space to host everything on your site: the more pages, content and media you have, the more disk space you’ll need and the more you get to spend.

Poor Knowledge base: Information was hard to find and you might be left without answers to your questions.

InMotion is a Linux only app server, which means it does not provide Windows-based servers. If you’re fan of other server apps unlike Linux, then InMotion does not have what you need.

It is not the cheapest: InMotion Hosting plans are competitively priced, but they are not the cheapest in the market and you might find their plan not suiting your budget.

Phone verification: As a fraud prevention measure, InMotion Hosting asks users to verify their purchase by phone. This may be difficult if you live outside the US.

Features:

Instantly Scale: Inmotion VPS hosting is designed to accommodate all your business scale needs. You get increased speed, power, and flexibility to host, build, manage and launch any size app or website. And if you run out of RAM or space you can simply upgrade your account in your account panel.

Real-Time Redundancy: Engineered redundancy with real-time fail-safe measures against hard drive failure allows you to take on any heavy traffic limits. This protects against data loss and ensures your visitors will always get the speed they expect.

Highest Grade Commercial Security: Your customer’s data is always safe and secure in multiple layers of server-level security and monitoring.

Top security measures provide auto-updates on web apps, hack protection, and DDoS protection to keep your websites safe.

Custom Advanced Policy Firewall: Setup and execute advanced policies to thwart known internet attacks.

Pricing Plans:

VPS-1000HA-S

Save 70% Starting at $17.99 per month

$59.99 per month at renewal

4GB RAM
75GB SSD Storage
4TB Bandwidth
3 Dedicated IP’s
Free SSLs
cPanel & WHM Included

VPS-2000HA-S

Save 28% Starting at $64.99 per month

$89.99/mo at renewal

6GB RAM
150GB SSD Storage
5TB Bandwidth
4 Dedicated IP’s
Free SSLs
cPanel & WHM Included

VPS-3000HA-S

Save 45% Starting at: $84.99/mo

$154.99/mo at renewal

8GB RAM
260GB SSD Storage
6TB Bandwidth
5 Dedicated IP’s
Free SSLs
cPanel & WHM Included

Inmotion VPS final Review: Is a managed VPS Hosting that is

Powerful and secured Managed VPS Hosting solutions for growing websites and applications.

4. Hostinger VPS

Pricing plans: $3.95/mo

Essential features:

You get full root access
A dedicated IP address
IPv6 support
easy web script installers.
24/7 support available via live chat
100GB bandwidth
10GB storage
website builder
1 email account
Free SSL Security
30 days money-back guarantee

Pros:

Multilingual Customer Support: The support is designed to speak your language so that you don’t have problem with stating your issues with the support in the way you can.

Free Website Builder and Domain Name: You get access to a free website builder and a custom domain name at the control panel without waste time on deciding what is best.

Ultimate hardware & SSD space: Guaranteed private server resources is their credo. They promised to never oversell their cloud based VPS, so all your websites will always run with top-level performance and incredibly high speed.

Build it, own it: Hostinger give you the chance to build a project the way you want it. Their VPS hosting allows the use of multiple kernels and offers of a wide range of operating systems ready to install in 1-click.

Cons:

You must Be Logged in to Access Live Chat: Hostinger’s live chat option is only available if you’re logged into a Hostinger account. To get in touch with Hostinger without being logged in, click the “Contact Us” button at the bottom of its site.

Majority of server management tasks are on you: You do not get a support of any kind as you are left alone to figure situations and provide solution.

Low uptime percentage: Hostinger’s uptime guarantee isn’t up to industry standard.

No dedicated plan: Hostinger doesn’t offer any dedicated hosting plans.

Unsupported phone support: while the customer support options that Hostinger does have are robust, this provider doesn’t yet offer over-the-phone support

Features:

30-day money-back guarantee: If you’re not 100% satisfied with Hostinger, They’ll refund your payment. No hassle, no risk to start your journey with Hostinger today.

100 Mb/s Network: They can guarantee an excellent experience and loading time for your successful online business any time and in any place.

Dedicated IP: One of many premium features is a dedicated IP address. Even the cheapest VPS hosting plan is fully packed with dedicated IPv4 & IPv6 Internet protocols.

Top-level Data Backups: Your data safety is their main priority, Making virtual private server backup snapshots has never been so easy. Now you can backup and restore all your folders, files and databases with a few simple clicks.

Pricing Plans:

1vCPU

$3.95 per month

1 GB Ram
20 GB SSD Disk space
1 TB Bandwidth
Dedicated IP
Full Root Access

2vCPU

$8.95 per month

2 GB Ram
40 GB SSD Disk space
2 TB Bandwidth
Dedicated IP
Full Root Access

3vCPU

$12.95 per month

3 GB Ram
60 GB SSD Disk space
3 TB Bandwidth
Dedicated IP
Full Root Access

4vCPU

$15.95 per month

4 GB Ram
80 GB SSD Disk space
4 TB Bandwidth
Dedicated IP
Full Root Access

6vCPU

$23.95 per month
6 GB Ram
120 GB SSD Disk space
6 TB Bandwidth
Dedicated IP
Full Root Access

8vCPU

$38.99 per month

8 GB Ram
160 GB SSD Disk space
8 TB Bandwidth
Dedicated IP
Full Root Access

Hostinger Final Review: Hostinger is a cheap cloud VPS hosting with the highest virtual server reliability & performance. It’s has true virtual servers built for your website speed.

What is shared hosting?

Shared Hosting: Shared hosting provides the most cost-effective hosting solution. With many people contributing towards the costs of maintaining the server, the hosting company’s costs are distributed between them.

Basic plans start at around $30 a year while you can expect to pay over $100 a year for premium plans with unmetered disk space, unlimited bandwidth, and unlimited websites.

Each customer using the shared hosting platform’s server has access to features like databases, monthly traffic, disk space, email accounts, FTP accounts and other add-ons offered by the host.

Shared hosting is easily the cheapest and most economical option for your needs.

Since most hosting companies may offer the same amount of space and storage it’s important to choose a hosting provider you can trust.

I have provided a list on the best shared hosting that are worth your investments.

1. SiteGround

Pricing Plans start from $6.99 per month while renewal at $14.99 per month.

Essential features:

Unmetered bandwidth
10 GB storage website builder
free email acount
free SSL certificate
A knowledge base for customers to find their own quick answers
CDN included
Automatic or manual daily backup
Supports more than 500 applications
Good Customer Support Experience
Free Site Migration for 1 Website

Pros:

Good uptime (99.99%)
Good customer support
Free site migration
Free CDN and SSL on all plans
Stable page load time (673ms)
Highest tier of resources: More server resources for your website.

Cons:

Limited storage for the cheapest plan
Higher renewal rates
you can’t get refunds on renewal plans:

Features:

Top-notch Security: They manage the security of your sites at server and application level. They offer free Let’s Encrypt SSL that keeps your data safe and daily backups that ensure your peace of mind.

Reliable Email Service: Create an unlimited number of email accounts with your own domain and check your email from anywhere with our friendly webmail clients. They’ve added SpamExperts to protect you from SPAM.

Ultra-fast Sites: Their hosting platform is built on Google Cloud and uses its ultra-fast network and SSD persistent storage. On top of it they add their own server setup with multiple custom speed optimizations.

Domain Management: Enjoy the convenience of managing both your domain and site in the same place. They offer affordable domain registration and transfer services, a friendly domain management panel, DNS services, and more.

Pricing Plans:

StartUp

SPECIAL PRICE at $6.99 per month

1 Website
10 GB Web Space
10,000 Visits Monthly
Unmetered Traffic
Free SSL
Daily Backup
Free CDN
Free Email
Managed WordPress
Unlimited Databases
100% renewable energy match
30 Days Money-Back

GrowBig

SPECIAL PRICE at $9.99 per month

Unlimited Websites
20 GB Web Space
~ 25,000 Visits Monthly
Unmetered Traffic
Free SSL
Daily Backup
Free CDN
Free Email
Managed WordPress
Unlimited Databases
100% renewable energy match
30-Days Money-Back
In addition with
On-demand Backup Copies
Speed-boosting Caching
Staging
Add Collaborators

GoGeek

SPECIAL PRICE at $14.99 per month

Unlimited Websites
40 GB Web Space
~ 100,000 Visits Monthly
Unmetered Traffic
Free SSL
Daily Backup
Free CDN
Free Email
Managed WordPress
Unlimited Databases
100% renewable energy match
30-Days Money-Back
In addition with
On-demand Backup Copies
Speed-boosting Caching
Staging + Git
Add Collaborators
White-label Clients
Highest Tier of Resources
Ultrafast PHP
Priority Support

Siteground Final Review: Siteground is a fast & secure web hosting built for successful personal and business websites that is trusted by the owners of 2,000,000 domains.

2. GreenGeeks

Pricing start at $2.95 per month while renewals at $9.95 per month.

Essentials Features:

Standard Storage
Professional email accounts
A free custom domain for the first year
Useful backups
A full 30-day, ‘no-questions-asked’ money-back guarantee
free SSL certificate
Single Free Site Transfer
Free Website Migration

Pros:

Good Support
Free Domain & Site Migration
Environment-Friendly
30 Day Money-Back Guarantee
Above Average Uptime – 99.98%
Good Load Time – 445ms
Multiple High-Quality Server Locations: Greengeeks server locations are located in multiple countries which are Phoenix at US, Montreal at CA, Amsterdam at NL and Chicago at US.

Cons:

Higher Renewal Price
Questionable Refund Policy
Setup and domain fees are not included in refund.
Under GreenGeeks 30 days money back guarantee refund policy, you can ask for a refund during the first 30 days trial period.

Features:

Best Speed Technologies: The latest in speed tech: LiteSpeed, LSCache, MariaDB, HTTP/2, PHP7 and free CDN.

Built-in Scalability: Easily scale computing resources when you need it. Seamlessly upgrade your hosting.

Advanced Security: They keep your websites secure with custom security rules & zero-day vulnerability fixes.

Developer Friendly: GreenGeeks is built by developers, so they know how to make you as a developer or your team happy.

By default, you will have access to SSH access, Git, WP-CLI, SFTP, phpMyAdmin, a staging environment, and option for multiple PHP versions. If you’re ever in need of technical help, their expert WordPress support staff is always available to you.

Hosting Plans:

Lite

Suitable for those just getting started or those with personal websites.

SPECIAL PRICE at $2.95 per month while regular plan at $9.95 per month

1 Website
Unlimited Web Space
Unlimited Data Transfer
Free SSL Certificate
Free Domain Name for 1st Year
Unlimited E-mail Accounts
WordPress Installer/Updates
Unlimited Databases
Free Nightly Backup
Free CDN
Standard Performance
LSCache Included
300% Green Energy Match
30 Day Money-Back Guarantee

Pro

Suitable for those who want to host multiple websites & require more speed.

SPECIAL PRICE start at $5.95 per month while Regular at $14.95 per month

Unlimited Websites
Unlimited Web Space
Free SSL Certificate
Free Domain Name for 1st Year
Unlimited E-mail Accounts
WordPress Installer/Updates
Free Nightly Backup
Free CDN
Unlimited Databases
2x Performance
Unlimited Data Transfer
LSCache Included
300% Green Energy Match
30-Day Money-Back Guarantee

Premium

Their premium hosting plan, suitable for those with online stores or very busy websites.

SPECIAL PRICE start at $11.95 per month while Regular at $24.95 per month

Unlimited Websites
Unlimited Web Space
300% Green Energy Match
Unlimited Data Transfer
Free Premium SSL
Free Domain Name for 1st Year
Unlimited E-mail Accounts
WordPress Installer/Updates
Free Nightly Backup
Free CDN
Unlimited Databases
4x Performance
LSCache Included
Free Dedicated IP
30-Day Money-Back Guarantee
GreenGeeks Final Review: With greengeeks your website belongs on the web hosting platform that’s faster, secure & eco-friendly.

3. Bluehost

Pricing plan start at $2.75 per month while plan renews at $7.99 per month.

Essential Features:

Unmetered bandwidth
Unlimited Websites
Unlimited Storage
A custome Free Domain for 1st Year
A one-click WordPress install
Multiple CMS integrations
Free SSL Certificate
Spam Experts
Domain Privacy
A worry free 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee

Pros:

Packed with security options and features
Great uptime (99.98%)
Fast, 581 ms load time average
Low introductory pricing
Easy to use for beginners
30-day money-back guarantee
Fast and reliable 24/7 customer support
One free WordPress site transfer
WordPress recommended host

Cons:

Constant upsells: Their system is packed with continuous upsell pitches.
Higher renewal fees
Cheapest plan restrictions

Features:

Built For Results: Optimize with design freedom, marketing tools, insightful analytics and scalable growth.

Peace of Mind: Guaranteed reliability, automated security updates, backup data protection and 24/7 support.

Get Started Fast: Name your website, select a design template and start building with the right hosting plan.

Resource Protection: Even if there are other websites on the shared server, your site’s performance stays protected and unaffected.

Pricing Plans:

BASIC

When you need just one site.

Special Price at $2.75 per month, Normally 36 per month term

1 Website
50 GB SSD Storage
Custom Themes
24/7 Customer Support

You also get free services like:

Domain – 1 year
CDN Included
SSL Certificate

PLUS

For those running multiple sites.

Special Price at $5.45 per month, Normally 36 per month term

Top Features
Unlimited Websites
Unlimited SSD Storage
Custom Themes
24/7 Customer Support

You also get free services like:

Domain – 1 year
CDN Included
SSL Certificate
Office 365 – 30 days

CHOICE PLUS

With added privacy and security features.

Special price at $5.45 per month, Normally 36 per month term

Unlimited Websites
Custom Themes
Unlimited SSD Storage
24/7 Customer Support

You also enjoy free services like:

Domain – 1 year
CDN Included
SSL Certificate
Office 365 – 30 days
Domain Privacy
Automated Backup

PRO

Get more power with optimized web resources.

Special Price at $13.95 per month, Regularly at 36per month term

Unlimited Websites
Custom Themes
Unlimited SSD Storage
24/7 Customer Support
Optimized CPU Resources

You also get to enjoy free services like:

Domain – 1 year
CDN Included
SSL Certificate
Office 365 – 30 days
Domain Privacy
Automated Backup
Dedicated IP

Bluehost Final Review: Bluehost Shared Hosting provides you with all the flexibility, reliability, speed, and security you need to build your website and get it online for the world to see.

4. GoDaddy

Pricing Plans start at $1.00 per month while renews at $8.99 per month

Essential features provided by GoDaddy:

100 GB Storage
Free 1st Year for Office 365
Unmetered Bandwidth
Professional Email account
Free Domain Name
24/7 Live Chat
Phone call support
WhatsApp chats
150+ Other Apps with a One-Click Install

Pros:

Good Customer Support
Over 150+ One-Click Install Applications
Great Page Speed – 508 ms
Good Value
Good Uptime – 99.96%

Cons:

A Lot of Upsells
High Renewal Rates
Base Plan Lacks Critical Features
Confusing Money-Back Guarantee

Features:

Malware scan and removal: Hackers use malware to steal your customers’ info, deface your site and ruin your reputation. Godaddy Website Security (in Ultimate and Ecommerce plans) finds and removes malware before it does damage.

Daily backups with 1-click restore: They will back up your site every night — files, databases, everything — and keep that version safe for a full month. Need to restore a file? Do it with just one click.

Tools to get found on Google: Their WordPress search engine optimization (SEO) plugin reviews your pages and automatically handles your basic SEO needs so Google can find your site.

Pricing Plans:

Economy

As low as £1.00 per month, £5.99/mo when you renew

Best for a basic site

1 website
Unmetered bandwidth
100 GB storage
Free Office 365 Email (£17.88/yr value) – 1st year
Free domain with annual plan

Deluxe

As low as £4.99 per month, £7.99/mo when you renew

Best for small business websites

Unlimited websites
Unmetered bandwidth
Unmetered storage
Free Office 365 Email (£17.88/yr value) – 1st year
Free domain with annual plan

Ultimate

As low as £7.99 per month, £12.99 per month when you renew

Best for complex, high-traffic sites

Unlimited websites
Unmetered bandwidth
Unmetered storage
Free Office 365 Email (£17.88/yr value) – 1st year
Free domain with annual plan
2x processing power and memory
Free SSL certificate – 1st year (restrictions apply)

Godday Final Review: It is believed that millions of customers rely on their domains and web hosting to get their ideas online.

5. Interserver

Pricing Plans start from $4.50 Per Month

Essentials Features:

Unlimited Storage
Free SSL Certificates
E-commerce Plug-In Support
Easy-Install Payment Systems
PCI Compliance
Power and Uptime Guarantees
Unlimited Bandwidth
Cloudflare CDN
SitePad Site Builder (Interserver own Website Builder)

Pros:

Price-Lock Guarantee” means no price hikes ever (and no fine print)
Convenient 24/7 support via phone, email, live chat
WordPress expertise means hassle-free hosting
Range of services: No matter your hosting needs, InterServer has got you covered.

Cons:

Weekly backups (instead of daily).
Free hosting for students is for 1 year only
USA only data centers

Interserver Features:

Ultra-Fast Speeds: Your website will load faster than ever because their servers are never overloaded. The network is route optimized. They also run the latest server optimization and security technology.

99.9% Uptime: Industry-leading reliability of service and content delivery. They partner with Cloudflare and utilize its global network of caching data center.

Development: Integrated with the Webuzo control panel, Bread basket scripts help satisfy all your development needs. If you are a Developer you can can enjoy tons of scripts that help ease the management of blogs, portals, forums, image galleries, e-commerce, etc.

Better Collaboration: As your website data is stored at one place on the cloud, it will be super-efficient for team members located at a different place to access the files and other data to make necessary updates.

PLANS

ASP.NET

$8.00 Per Month

Easy to use Control Panel
Speed Optimization
Unlimited Storage Space
Free Website Migration
Unlimited Support

VPS SPECIAL

$6.00 Per Month

2GB RAM + 30GB SSD Storage
Multiple Operating Systems
Instant Activation
cPanel or Direct Admin
Unlimited Support

DEDICATED

$80.00Per Month

Xeon E3-1230v2
Memory – 8 GB
Hard Drive – 2000 GB
Hardware Replacement Guarantee
Unlimited Support

Interserver Final Review: Their all-inclusive web hosting plan has everything you need to power your website. Try their service to see for yourself why so many are making the switch.

What is Dedicated Hosting?

A dedicated hosting is the best plan for large businesses and enterprise, although it is a hosting feature that you can go for if you have established a professional and authoritative presence online.

So a dedicated hosting in simple terms is when you purchase a hosting server dedicated to only your website and you are given access to manage every affairs of your website host.

Going for such a plan means you are been leased a whole functional server to your self which use to depend on the resources used, most hosting expenses you get are based on bandwidth, storage space, and amount of RAM and choice of hardware.

Let’s dive in to the best dedicated hosting provider:

1. AccuWeb Hosting

Pricing plans from $80.00 per month

Essentials features:

Dedicated Resources & Full Control
Self Managed & Fully Managed Linux & Windows Servers
Specialize in Custom Server Configurations
8 GB to 512 GB RAM options
SATA, Enterprise, SSD, NVMe disk options
10+ Server Locations Available
SSL certification
Free daily backups
LiteSpeedWebServer
An extensive knowledge base
Money-back guarantee
Support available through live chat, email, telephone

Pros

Extensive range of scalable, customizable packages
Support staff available round-the-clock
Excellent server uptime
Excellent Windows VPS hosting packages

Cons

The large available plans can be confusing for beginners
Some users has find th Automatic WordPress management to be a bit unnecessary

AccuWeb Features:

Storage Servers

Storage servers are the best fit for those looking for increased storage space for storing a large volume of data, archiving, or backups (backup servers). AccuWeb servers offer the best price for high performance and reliable disks.

Licensing

They do offer a wide range of licenses, which include OS (Windows & Linux) licenses, control panel licenses, MSSQL server licenses

Backup Options

They understand that the data is everything. For the majority of their dedicated server plans, they do offer 500 GB separate backup space. Apart from this free backup, CDP daily (Automated) backup is available for all dedicated server plans.

AccuWeb Pricing Plans:

Worried about your mission-critical site/app? Don’t be! With AccuWeb Hosting, you will have a fully performance server with guaranteed dedicated resources. They are believed to never compromise with the hardware.

If you are looking for a low-cost server or high-end resources, they have all the solutions available for you.

They do offer a wide range of servers in the USA, UK, Canada, South Africa, Singapore, Australia, India, Germany, France, Poland, and the Netherlands.

Most of their servers come with free powerful SoftRaid and Anti-DDoS protection. When you host your site on their secure infrastructure, you will benefit from their high-availability server.

With over always updated 948 results, pricing plan can be from $80 per month and will varies from the location and features you choose.

Order your desired plan

AccuWeb Final review: AccuWeb Hosting can custom configure nearly any dedicated server specification you require, featuring quality Supermicro hardware. They support Intel and AMD based multi-core processors.

Since they build all servers onsite at their partner owned datacenter, they’re not limited to only certain configurations like many other providers.

2. Host winds

Pricing plan start from: $79.50 per month

Essential features:

Serving Multiple Locations
High-Quality Networking
1 Gbps Ports
Customize the size and amount of disks
custom-made server based on the amount of RAM and type of CPU(s)
Fully Managed access
Nightly Backups Available
24/7 Tech Support

Pros

Unlimited monthly data transfers
support team 24/7 via phone, live chat, email, and the ticket system
offers Advanced Website Monitoring for an additional $1.50 per month
Free domain name
Easy integration with the Cloudflare content delivery network

Cons

no money-back guarantee
Limited server locations
You need to buy SSL certificates at an additional expensive cost
Refunds conditions might not be suitable for beginners
The money-back guarantees also only apply to few plans and services.

Hostwinds Features:

Nightly Backups

Protect your server’s data with Hostwinds’ Nightly Backups add-on service. Backups are taken of your server automatically each night and retained as long as you like. You have full access to your backups at all times.

Server Monitoring

Put your mind at ease with Hostwinds’ Server Monitoring add-on. They will monitor your service 24/7 and, should an issue occur, automatically open a support ticket for you so their available team of experts can resolve it as when due.

Full Management

You can host with them with confidence. If you need assistance or need to resolve an issue, their team of support experts is here for you. You should take advantage of their enterprise support offerings, no matter how big or small the request you make are.

Hostwinds Pricing Plans:

Storage RAM Bandwidth Starting price per month

500 GB 8 GB 10 TB $79.50 per month

All of the pricing are listed and shown in the image, the above summary is a quick highlights of what Hostwinds provide.

Order your desired plan

Hostwinds Final Review: Hostwinds guarantees an uptime of 99.999% as a result of its robust infrastructure and gives you flexible payment options.

3. Media Temple

Pricing plan starting from $2000

Essential features:

cPanel control panel
Installatron 1-click installer
99.9% uptime guarantee
SSD storage
Installatron 1-click installer within cPanel
SSH access
24/7 network monitoring (DDoS protection
30-day money-back guarantee

Pros

SSD storage
30-day money-back guarantee
Wide range of hosting solutions
99.9% uptime guarantee

Cons

Above-average prices
Expensive prices
Doesn’t offer free SSL certificates

Features:

Manage It Your Way

Build out your server from the ground up with the self-managed option. Or have them install a control panel and essential software with the managed option.

Run the Complex Stuff

With 128GB of RAM on board, your server handles complex tasks smoothly. That means a better user experience when your site has CMS, dynamic content, or high traffic.

Peak performance

Boost your sites’ power with the proven performance of their DV platform. By loading state-of-the-art data centers with high-performance hardware and expertly managed server architecture, DV delivers a dedicated server you can count on for speed, security, and availability.

Pricing Plans:

You can choose your dedicated server and save with an annual plan. In the Cart you can select yearly, 2 year, or 3 year under terms.

Order your desired plan

Media Temple Final Review: Whether you choose their robust software stack of their managed option or the command-line control of self-managed, there’s plenty of freedom.

How to Choose The Best Hosting Service For Your Website

So now you have decided to build a website online, but you are still faced with the challenges of getting a good web hosting.

As the case may be there are important factors you must take into consideration in order to get the best services and compare based on what you believe is best for your business.

Without much further ado, here is a quick checklist on how to choose the best hosting services for your websites.

1. Uptime guarantee

A website uptime is generally known as the duration your website is up and running, in this case your website provider care much about the availability of your website. You can get different Uptime promises like 90%, 99.99% and some 100%.

Since uptime can guarantee how well your website lives and functions on the web for your business growth. An uptime guarantee can be gotten via request from the provider or may be indicated when you are purchasing your hosting plan.

To ensure your website runs as smooth as possible and does not have loading glitches uptime robot can help track your uptime and if you have detected significant decrease in uptime, you can get compensated in the form of hosting credits by contacting your hosting services.

2. Speed factor

Speed is a sign of an healthy business and since your website is your form of generating customers and revenues. Your website speed should be your top priority, hosting price like $4 per month does not generally offer the best regarding speed, you can still get the best speed from a well optimized blog using free seo tools and the best on page SEO practices.

3 . Customer support

Who doesn’t like to be cared for and be guide in the best way? I guess nobody. This is why another important checklist to consider is the availability of a good customer support.

Many hosting companies offer email support, live chats, phone calls and a helpful resource blog.

Many users like you would want a hosting provider support team that can be by their side when there need support, the best support channel should be either phone calls or live chats as email support might results to significant delay which you may not find helpful.

Other Essential features and checklist for each hosting provider has been listed in this article, be sure to find the best by weighing the insights provided here and your needs.

Best Web Hosting Services by Product, Service, and Industry

The Best Hosting Provider for Startups

Are you just considering starting an online business, then you might not find the access to enough or excess funds to get an expensive hosting. In the list below are great selections for you.

InMotion
HostGator
A2 Hosting

Best providers for Finance

Every one loves money and many people like to talk about money issues, so establishing an expertise based on what affect people everyday lives should be taken seriously. A dedicated hosting would be great to consider because you are simply given a full resources to host your website files.

Accuweb
WP engine
Hostwinds

Best Hosting providers for Forum Sites

A VPS Hosting is the most preferable hosting type for high traffic website like forums and knowledge center, hosting type like this can withstand major increase in traffic and can host all the server files with breaking down or needing always changing hosting upgrade, because you can get resources based on what you pay for.

SiteGround
A2 Hosting
HostGator

Best providers for Enterprise Businesses

Going for an hosting provider for your already established business should be of great selection, because you have consider going for the best quality, a good number of dedicated hosting with advanced features, unlimited bandwidth, and unlimited storage should be at your interest, a great selection are already listed.

HostGator
Bluehost
InMotion

Best Hosting providers for Bloggers and Authors

If you are blogger and want to start a blog then wordpress would be a great pick of CMS since you are given the flexibility of customization and wide support base, and also a hosting provider that have in mind by providing professional emails, ssl certificates and domain availability in order to build and scale faster. A list is provided below.

HostGator
Bluehost
WP engine

Best hosting providers for Small Businesses

A small business doesn’t neccessarily mean you go for cheaper pricing, as you countinue to grow you should go for an hosting plan that can provide services in order to accommodate your ever increasing need.

A resourceful shared hosting or VPS hosting should be on your target. Get the best from this list

Bluehost
InMotion
HostGator

Best hosting providers for Online Stores

An online store is likely compared to a physical store, so it must be given full attention and the best features in order to accommodate increased number of visits, processes taking place and last I forgot the special events that makes customers tour through your website for the best deals like black Friday or anniversary sales.

A2 Hosting
Siteground
WP engine

Best Hosting providers for Beginners

As a beginer you might be lucrative with technical issues or setup so a web hosting provider with the best features like website building, ssl certificates, professional emails and domain name availability shoud be your priority. Find a great selection below.

GoDaddy
Hostgator
Bluehost

Best providers for Nonprofits

A charity organization usually depend and survive on funds receive because there might not be a budget made for hosting or expensive hosting expenses, so a great selection with affordable renewal price should always be the watch, provided they offer needed features

Bluehost
Hostinger
Dreamhost

Best Hosting providers for Artists

As an artist with lot of creative works to showcase you definetly need to go for a hosting provider with a lot of flexibility and unlimited storage and unlimited bandwidths at the best pricing rates. Be sure to get a target deal from the list below.

Bluehost
InMotion
iPage

Best Hosting providers for Photographers

A photography career should not be on a verge to fail due to poor hosting performance, as a photographer you would sleek and hassle free hosting experience, up-gradable or unlimited storage capacity and also the best support in case if any technical issues comes up. Find the best selection here.

Bluehost
HostGator
WP engine

Best providers for Personal Sites

A personal website can be your hobby sites, blog or just a portfolio website, so a shared hosting which is usually affordable should be your go to plan don’t forget to check the review on what they provide best in this article.

HostGator
Bluehost
GreenGeeks

Best Hosting Provider by CMS you should try today

Best Hosting Providers for PrestaShop: Are you building a ecommerce store but need to try prestashop, prestashop is a great selection for full ecommerce based website and while providing add’ons like plugins for a upgrade plan, and it is Open source CMS too. Want to get ecommerce based features, make the great selection from the list below.

Bluehost
InMotion
HostGator

Best Hosting Providers for Drupal

Drupal is popularly used also because it is not limited a particular kind of CMS, you can build online stores, Blogs and websites with this full access to customization CMS. Do you want to try Drupal hassle free features be sure to get the best hosting from the list.

Interserver
Bluehost
SiteGround

Best Providers for WordPress

Every one loves Wordpress due to its high customization’s and functionality, it powers over 75 million websites and the great number of support is what makes it the best selection.

In order to get the best experience hosting providers like the one listed in this article should be of consideration

Bluehost
A2 Hosting
HostGator

Best Hosting Providers for Joomla

Joomala is another popular CMS best for blogs, websites and apps and it is preferable for business who would not want to make use of CMS like Wordpress, in order not to get linked with similar features with other sites but needs full customization. Do you prefer Joomla get the best from the list below

SiteGround
Interserver
Bluehost

Best Hosting Providers for Magento

Magneto is a CMS specially built for ecommerce sites and it is getting wide popularity in use because you are getting features based for high functional store. Enjoy Magneto easy to install and automatic updates from the best list below

HostGator
WPengine
Interserver

Best Hosting Provider Frequently Asked Question

What is web hosting?

Many Business choose to have a presence online, web hosting can make it possible by providing through a business or entreprise which provides the resources and tech servers needed for your business website to be hosted online and be visited by potential customer’s.

I have provided a great list of hosing provider’s that can help with bringing your business online, a domain name is essential but be sure that if a domain name is not available the list I provided can help with getting one for you.

How does web hosting work?

A web hosting provider company gives you the option to purchase resources you would like your business website to use based on your budget by offering different pricing plans and essential features.

Are there different types of hosting services?

Yes, there are, as of now they are four types of hosting services which are shared hosting, VPS hosting, Dedicated Hosting and managed wordpress hosting. Features and reviews can be found in this article as they have been provided to your best interest.

Do I need to have technical knowledge to use web hosting?

No you don’t need to, because most web hosting providers handles all types of technical issues you are supposed to figure out and maintain. Choosing an easy and reliable hosting provider like Hostinger will help you get online faster.

What are the main differences between shared hosting and a VPS?

A shared hosting provider plan is the most affordable and popular way for getting online because you and other website owners can share the same resources, share maintenance expenses and get the same resources allocated based on your chosen plan

While, a VPS is a more better way although it is an expensive method for getting online but it is definitely worth it because a VPS hosting will allow you host your website with our sharing technical fails with others and can also help with SEO ranking because search engines wouldn’t find you linked with blacklisted website. It is the safest way to get online and considering the fact that you pay for what you use, find a good list in this article.

Which is the best web hosting service provider ?

I and other experts would recommend Bluehost, be reminded that this is not another random review about Bluehost, but be aware that Bluehost offers the best services especially for popular CMS like wordpress, Drupal, Joomla e.t.c. You can enjoy great Uptime since they are always newly upgraded data centers due to wide customer base to provider better hosting solutions.

Which website is best for, a full comparison Hosting services in detail?

Dreamhost is best for VPS or Cloud Hosting
Hostgator is best for shared hosting service
Hostinger is Best for Cheap Hosting Plans
A2 Hosting is best for Fast & Reliable Shared Hosting
GreenGeeks is Best or Eco-Friendly Hosting
Bluehost is the best overall web hosting service
WP Engine is Best for Managed WordPress Hosting for scaling and growth
Inmotion is Best for VPS Hosting
SiteGround is Best for Customer Service

Which hosting provider is the best for free unlimited hosting and unlimited daily spikes in traffic?

Not all hosting provider provides unlimited services, but they provide resources that can be attained to you by purchase while using the desired pricing plan. Interserver and WP engine seems to offer unlimited hosting but Interserver unlimited service can be reliable because Interserver build it’s own Server and also its network cables and computer hardware via its wide range data

centers.

Which is the fastest web hosting provider?

The fastest web hosting provider is WP engine, WP engine boasts to offer services to big brands and business with a 24/7 support teams that makes your website up and running. And also making a score rate of average from just 92 user reviews compare to other providers it’s show WPengine knows what they are doing and can offer you the best care.

What is the best web hosting site for small business?

Small business doesn’t use up resources and may not own a technical team, Bluehost is the best for business start ups that would like to get online faster because Bluehost hosting plan can get you online faster since they provide the most affordable pricing plan and it is recommended by most CMS and experts.

Which hosting is best for ecommerce website?

If you would like to host your ecommerce website and get the best experience, you should look out for a hosting provider that offers a plan specifically for ecommerce. Siteground is the chosen hosting provider for ecommerce because they have a plan for ecommerce which are startup, growbig, Go geek starting from $6.99.

What is the cheapest and best web hosting service?

A cheap hosting provider doesn’t mean you can not get the best hosting services, Hosinger is recommended for the best cheap hosting provider that is priced under $1 while providing free SSL certificate and optimized wordpress hosting

Can I host my own website at home and with my computer?

This is definitely a question that comes to the mind of website owners, yes you can host a website but you need to know that they might be limitations because your ISP internet service provider may not allow it and you would need to maintain every technical issues and you would have to invest huge money in building resources. So it is advisable to find a hosting provider that suit your needs and budgets.

How much does it cost to host a Web site?

A website can be hosted without spending a whole lot of money and prices can be estimated by Shared Hosting having a $2.49 – $15 per month plan. VPS Hosting having a $20 – $80 per month plan. While Dedicated Hosting having a $80 – $300 per month plan, but be sure to check this guide for a list and pick a plan that suit your budgets

What should I know about web hosting companies?

What I think you should know about hosting companies is their number of data center’s, essential features provided, load time and up time and if they have a great support team and useful knowledge source.

Does it make a difference which web hosting service I use?

Yes it does make a difference, in fact the seriousness of the hosting provider of your choice can greatly affect your site performance and your business progress. So be sure to get a great deal from the recommended hosting providers.

Can I publish a website to the internet without using any web hosting service?

You definitely can not do that for life, it is just like having a business in mind without a physical plan or a implementable goals, your website files need to stored on a server and you cannot make purchases like professional emails and even SSL certificate. So it is best to choose a plan now.

What is the most secure web hosting?

Many website expert will give you a list but for me the most secure hosting provider is Liquid web because It’s provide security for its physical servers and beyond that, it also provide security against online attacks like DDoS. While having a dedicated team for scanning security breaches and fixing data errors.

Thank you for reading this far, a good web hosting is essential for a successful online business, so be sure to pick the best choice from the available options based on your commitments.

Be sure to pick a plan that suit your budget and a Hosting Provider that best provide the features and necessities needed for your brand.

I love questions like you do, please do as much to provide your thought in the comment section and if you have tried the services recommended and you wish to help other readers with other provider. Do your best by making a review.

The post WEB HOSTING appeared first on Blogging.

How To Create a Website For Free ( And Make Money )

Shahil Shah — Mon, 11 Apr 2022 16:45:59 +0000

Step by Step Tutorial Guide on How to Create and Network a Website by Niche

Getting online is easier than before so it shouldn’t be more complicated for you with over 200 million website on the web, anyone today can create a website based on his or her needs.

There are two ways to make a website of your choice: either with a website builder or with WordPress. website builders like Wix, Squarespace and Weebly are the best way for tech novices to get online.

This article will give you a better choice by providing website tools best based on your niche or your purpose, regardless of your technical skill level.

Disclosure: The impartial research carried out are based on my personal experience and users feedback, all tips provided are to help you get started faster at no cost to you, I may get commissioned from your purchase.

source: yeeply.com

You are about to be guided on the simplest website building processes for getting a ready to use website regardless of your tech skills, if you would buckle up and follow the convenient steps you are just an hour to launching your website especially with a website builder.

Looks fulfilling? Time to get some work done…

Option 1 : Create a Website with Website Builder’s (by categories)

How to Build a Website in 9 easy Steps

Choose the right website builder for your niche or needs.
Sign up for a plan that best suit your needs and budget.
Choose a unique and branded domain name.
Pick a design template that suit you niche or needs.
Customize your template design .
Upload and format your own content.
Choose and download apps.
Preview and test your website.
Publish your website on the internet.

Step 1: Choose the right website builder for your niche or needs.

A good number of people who want to be on the web fast use website builders to make a business or ecommerce website.

Wix alone has over 100 million subscribers, while Shopify recently passed 1.2 million.

This is mainly because Website builders gives you the power to make a website, regardless of technical skill. Gone are those days when making a website on the internet required a standard understanding programming languages like HTML (Hypertext Markup Language, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) with other programming languages.

As new programming languages are emerging all of this can be confusing since there are not sure way to build a website, A Website builders can be a good choice since it’s takes care of major technical changes which you might not have time or the knowledge for and let you focus on things that matters like your design and content.

Most website can be successful built through templates, others through drag-and-drop interfaces without coding knowledge.

So I bet you have been asking which website builder should you choose?

What is the best way to build a website and get online? I understand this are your everyday questions you try to find the answer With so many website builders available it is definitely going to be time taking and exhausting to find a website builder

In other to help you make smart decision I have done the homework through a very deep and in-depth research and in fact it is organized according to the best function they can deliver so be rest assured I am working round the clock to see that I deliver the best through personal experience and user ratings.

With impartial research in depth, all of the ratings and reviews are based on user testing and interviews, while hundreds of features are track across dozens of products in order to provide you a raw but yet effective method for making the right decision hence giving a view of how what, and where you can get the best you ave being looking for.

In other words I want to help you find a website builders that do not only fit your needs but also suitable to your budget. Without much further ado I have listed a list of the best website builder available on the market and what they best fit in.

Let’s go

Free and Paid Beginner Friendly Website Builders for Business and their review:

Wix

Wix is perfect for small businesses, restaurants, online stores and artists such as musicians and photographers due to lot of flexibility customizing your design and the cutting edge templates with ready made designs for your needs.

Wix is a free, user-friendly, website building platform. It can help you to create amazing, professional-looking sites, which can be updated and edited with ease with no technical skills required.

Your website would be optimized for mobile devices and search engine friendly, with numerous apps available from the Wix App Market you can integrate useful and relevant functionality to your website.

Wix

Free Plan Yes

SSL Yes

Automatic Backup Yes

Apps Yes

Weebly

Weebly is great if you have a good coding experience this is because its gives you access to the templates source code which can help you tweak some perfect designs for your business although their themes are not only stylish but also responsive, you don’t need to worry about mobile display display since weebly design adapt perfectly to mobile devices and it’s SEO friendly.

They also have a professional page template system customization, allowing you to easily create a very good website.

Through the App Center you can add a wide range of extra functionality made by Weebly and third parties. E-commerce is included in all plans available.

Weebly

Free Plan Yes

SSL Yes

Automatic Backup No

Apps Limited

Site123

Site 123 is built for individuals and businesses need to get things done online without much editing. If you need a website up fast but don’t have any knowledge of coding, or how to create a website in general, then Site123 is a great choice.

Site123 uses design assistance to help you create a website– you will just be asked a general type of questions about what type of website you’re after and then generates you a template with the relevant features, many site owner with little technical knowledge has claimed it is a very time saving option to get things up fast.

SITE123 makes website building very easy, even for beginners. A user-friendly interface, helpful tips and tutorials, and 24/7 live chat are there to guide you through the entire process. The mobile-responsive templates and e-commerce features will be more than sufficient for some users.

However, if you’re planning on building a complex site, or if you’re looking for more design freedom, SITE123 may be too limiting for you.

Site123

Free Plan Yes

SSL Yes

Automatic Backup No

Apps Yes

Go daddy

Go daddy Has been most used and known for their domain name and web hosting services, But they also offer website builders to build your website.

The beginner friendly website builder provides responsive mobile optimized design, the easy to use editor is well structured for easy customization involving adding and removing elements or blocks to your website.

Do you need to accept order’s or you want your website to work like an online store? The latest version provides a solution for marketing where you get access to e-commerce features like selling digital products, abandoned cart recovery emails, email newletter tool and the ability to integrate with marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay.

Go Daddy

Free Plan Yes

SSL Yes

Automatic Backup Yes

Apps Yes

Free and Paid Beginner Friendly Website Builders for Creatives and Portfolio and their review:

Squarespace:

Squarespace is popularly known as a dream website builder for creative professional with little coding or technical experience but needs sleek designs. With over 60 templates that are responsive to mobile devices, sqaurespace also offers high quality images and ready to use design templates that allows you as a creative showcase your work.

Squarespace is a drag-and-drop website builder that provides a clean and modern interface for photographers, artist and even marketers to work with, with the G Suite and PayPal integrations plus SEO tools, e-commerce functions, and easy social media integration it is a great tools to support you as a business owners and creatives if you are also looking to sell product online.

Sqaurespace

Free Plan No

SSL Yes

Automatic Backup No

Apps Yes

Zenfolio:

Zenfolio is a niche-oriented website builder allows you to both display and even sell your work, while also providing the functionality to create hiring pages, galleries, and everything in between. there are very few templates for for you to pick from, but the templates that provided are mobile-friendly.

Based on your choice of budget from the available plans you’ll receive a huge variety of different features to utilize on your website – everything from content uploads, social media integrations and search engine optimization, plus eCommerce features you’ll be able to receive sales reports and payouts, display featured galleries and products, accept all of the major payment options, and so on.

Zen folio

Free Plan No

SSL No

Automatic Backup No

Apps Limited

IM creator

IM creator is loved by creators because it offer’s great portfolio features that allows you launch your portfolio website quickly, you can add and remove elements easily from your desired templates, modify existing elements, and integrate niche-specific features.

There are professional designed templates for you to choose from either for photography, music, graphic designing or tech startups that are fully responsive and mobile optimized and are also cleverly categorized by niche.

IM creator offer a very exclusive free plan for students, artist and non profits with access to advanced features and tools, of which you are required to provide written proof.

Although there is no drag-and-drop feature, it does provide some beautiful templates, unlimited bandwidth and disk space, basic eCommerce, and you can connect your own domain.

IM creator

Free Plan Yes

SSL No

Automatic Backup No

Apps No

Format

Format is a specialized portfolio websites builder, Format is believed to have everything you need to showcase your work and unveil multiple opportunities with it. The website builder allows creating trendy portfolios with responsive design and versatile structure. It makes it possible to integrate a web store into your portfolio website to sell the works and services you offer

What you can also do with format is sharing private client proofing galleries, reviewing customer feedbacks, enabling file downloads, watermarking your own images It is also possible to adjust client access rights to password protect separate galleries and grant individual access to certain users only Format allows integrating social media accounts into your project.

Format

Free Plan No

SSL Yes

Automatic Backup Yes

Apps Limited

Free and Paid Beginner Friendly Website Builders for Blogs and Information Blog and their review:

Wordpress.com

WordPress.com is a platform for self-publishing that is popular for blogging and information source. It is owned and operated by Automattic Inc.

The text editor I believed are much more friendly to beginners as it uses blocks to add text, media or any other kind of content. It comes installed by default, a WordPress user has the ability to customize his or her websitewith plugins and there are over 56,77 free and premium plugins available for customization.

Visitors can sign up to your newsletter through the Mail-chimp integrated service, if mailchimp is not your type you can check on ther services but you will need a plugin for that.

With wordpress.com you can get access to other email marketing integration’s, popups and discount offers, or specific analytics tools which means you can have complete control over marketing.

All of this requires you to install plugins which you can only do with a business plan or higher.

Wordpress.om

Free Plan Yes

SSL Yes

Automatic Backup Yes

Apps Limited

Constant Contact

Constant Contact is best known for its email marketing service, but they also claim to have the “industry’s best website building and ecommerce platform, it use AI to auto-generate a website for you it walks you through the website building process step-by-step in a simple and straightforward manner. You simply tell the platform what your website is about, pick a title, add a main image and/or logo, pick a color scheme, choose your font, and you are set for launch.

Constant Contact doesn’t have its own app store packed with third-party plugins but the ADI makes it easy to get a working site together, and you don’t feel overwhelmed with options

It has a Generous free plan, easy-to-understand analytics, excellent and email functionality to mention a few.

Constant Contact

Free Plan Yes

SSL Yes

Automatic Backup Yes

Plugins No

Ghost

Ghost was launched as an alternative of WordPress to focus only on blogging. It has SEO and speed built-in. It’s easy to use and maintain.

The administration features are good, there’s plenty of themes and It’s easy to use overall.

Also, since it’s running on nodejs, performance is better than most CMS platforms. If it weren’t for the lack of creation and update actions in the API, this would be the best CMS. (Yes, they exist, but they are private, not documentated and can change any second.) Ghost CMS have inbuilt integrations to hundreds of services and the best part is that you can also add custom integrations to completely migrate from WordPress to Ghost CMS.

Ghost

Free Plan No

SSL Yes

Automatic Backup No

Plugins Limited

Free and Paid Beginner Friendly Website Builders for E-commerce and online store and their review:

Shopify

Shopify is a popular ecommerce platform available on the market that helps you build your own online store, with hundreds of built-in features and tons of apps without coding.

It requires no software installations and no hosting services are required, with over 1,200 apps, specialized features such as inventory tracking and shipping tools, and a range of price plans,

Shopify is a powerful platform to choose Shopify has a free trial and number of plans, so you can choose one that best suits your needs and budget.

Shopify

Free Plan Yes

SSL Yes

Automatic Backup Yes

Apps Unlimited

Bigcommerce

BigCommerce is a paid-for, ‘hosted’ e-commerce solution that allows business owners to set up an online store and sell their products online.

BigCommerce has the best in-house features of any ecommerce builder. These provide a high level of quality and reduce the mishap you may have on third party apps.

You effectively have everything you need right at your fingertips, and for no extra cost, over 65 integrated payment gateways to choose from. With one-click setup, mobile payments, and multiple currencies supported, BigCommerce does its best to get you paid fast without hassle.

Go Daddy

Free Plan Yes

SSL Yes

Automatic Backup Yes

Apps Limited

Woo commerce

WooCommerce is an open source ecommerce plugin that’s built for WordPress, it is a free, popular, easy to learn platform that can help you to build almost any type of powerful ecommerce website. You can install the various mobile-optimized templates or even develop your own template.

If WooCommerce is in itself free of charge, don’t forget the hidden costs of hosting, a domain, the theme, additional plugins, or extensions.

Since it is exclusively for wordpress it is best to start with Bluehost their offers focus on several pre-installed “WordPress + WooCommerce” bundles and siteground They have WordPress (WooCommerce) optimized servers.

Woo commerce

Free Plan Yes

SSL Yes

Automatic Backup Yes

Plugins Unlimited

We have come to the very end of the list, Although this listed easy to use website builder are just a great pick from the other website builders.

But they perform best overall in the research conducted, while it depends on your need for a great selection.

To make your decision making easier WordPress.com is best built and widely used for blogging, while Shopify still stood its ground as still the most used and efficient ecommere store and squarespace for portfolio showcasing.

Step 2: Sign Up For a Plan That Suits Your Needs and Budget:

Once you’ve chosen your website builder, it’s time to find your price plan. If what you just need is a simple rich feature free website, let’s take for instance a a portfolio or small service business, the cheaper plans will probably work just fine. If you need something more functional with rich feature, it is recommended you check out the features on offer with the more expensive plans. If in doubt, start by registering to the free trial if available and then upgrade later upon satisfaction.

Once you’ve settled on a website builder, you need to sign up for a plan. Website builders tend to offer multiple plans. While different sites may have different needs based on what is supposed to be built for, plans ensure you aren’t paying for things you don’t need by giving you breakdown of what you are purchasing.

With flexibility in ensuring transparency of plans, Website builder plans can be different in price, but may as we all know its can cost between $8 and $40 per month, which is an all inclusive price. If you’re on a budget, there is always a free plan with most website builder that you can start with but be aware that they also have their disadvantages.

This is a huge plus of internet site developers in comparison to website builders. An internet developer is estimated to charge between $300 and $1,000 for just template customization, and a totally custom designed website constructed from non-existence will regularly result to a lot of money being spent. Making your personal internet site using a builder, meanwhile, permits you to get a completely functioning website up and working for less without breaking the bank.

Can you make a website for free?

It is possible to create a free website, in fact many website builders and other blogging platform makes it easier to host your contents online fro free But you should remember that a free accounts either on website builders or other free CMS can suspend your access to very important featured which you can only access by upgrading.

You really can’t use your desired domain name, and your free website will have ads telling your visitors where you are possibly hosted and your free website may also be used as a marketing channel. You should only go for a plan if you’re looking to learn more about website building or to test one or two things before your go live.

It is important you go for a paid plan if you want a professional, feature-rich website and appear has some one to be trusted, of which you’re going to have to pay a renewal fee without breaking the bank.

Check out the best hand picked website builders and click on the choose your plan to see what you can get just by signing up without spending more than you budget.

	WIX	WEEBLY	SITE123	GODADDY
Cost	FREE PREMUIM	FREE PREMUIM	FREE PREMUIM	FREE PREMUIM
Ease of use	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
SEO Plugin	Available	Available	Available	Available
Plugins	Limited plugins	Limited plugins	Limited Plugins	Limited Plugins
Theme	500+ themes	100+ themes	1o0+ themes	Limited themes
Mobile Friendly	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
	*Choose Your Plan*	*Choose Your Plan*	*Choose Your Plan*	*Choose Your Plan*

	Square space	Zenfolio	IM creator	Format
Cost	Start $8/ month	FREE PREMUIM	FREE PREMUIM	FREE PREMUIM
Ease of use	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Social media integration	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Plugins	Limited plugins	Limited plugins	Limited Plugins	Limited Plugins
Theme	30+ themes	10+ themes	30+ themes	20+ themes
Mobile Friendly	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
	*Choose Your Plan*	*Choose Your Plan*	*Choose Your Plan*	*Choose Your Plan*

	Wordpress.com	Constant Contact	Ghost
Cost	FREE PREMUIM	FREE PREMUIM	FREE PREMUIM
Ease of use	Yes	Yes	Yes
SEO support	Yes	Yes	Yes
Blogging	Flexible	Limited	Limited
Theme	Unlimited	100+ themes	Limited themes
Mobile Friendly	Yes	Yes	Yes
	*Choose Your Plan*	*Choose Your Plan*	*Choose Your Plan*

	Woo Commerce	Big Commerce	Shopify
Cost	FREE PREMUIM	FREE PREMUIM	FREE PREMUIM
Ease of use	Yes	Yes	Yes
Templates	Unlimited	UnLimited	Unlimited
Payment Processor	Available	Available	Available
E-commerce Plugins	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
Sales features	Yes	Yes	Yes
	*Choose Your Plan*	*Choose Your Plan*	*Choose Your Plan*

Rating on this graph is done with the help of impartial personal test and user ratings

Step 3: Choose a Unique and Relevant Domain Name:

Domain name is the address of your website that people type in the browser URL bar to visit your website. Your own custom domain name adds professional credibility to your business, Provides visibility for your brand, much like receptionist to your business, and a good domain should create awareness and attract customers.

Quick checklist for purchasing a good domain name:

Do not generate your domain name from slangs

Consider if today you are trying to satisfy or belong to some set of beliefs either from an high school experience or political ruins for your domain name. You would possibly sound very unprofessional, however the audience might probably locate that choice of phrases laughably outdated.

Making plans for long-time period achievement means picking a domain name with classic attractiveness, not a domain name that can fade from popularity within a few years.

Make your research to avoid hidden fees

As with any purchase decision, price can be a big factor you would like to consider. It is important to know that it’s easy to be lured into buying a domain at a very low price or a price that sounds too good to be true.

But don’t be fooled, some domain registrars offer promotional pricing at an extremely low cost or rather at no cost at all, but then hide lots of fees in the contract, lock you in after your purchase, and charge high renewal rates of which if you don’t pay you lose the domain name to your competitor.

A shorter domain name is better

As we just discussed, a good domain name is easy to remember – and shortening it helps a lot. If there are multiple words in the domain, people will need to remember all of them and the order they’re in, not to mention correctly typing the domain name. There aren’t many one-word domain names available today, but they are good domain name provider for finding a short domain.

Don’t hesitate to register your perfect domain name with this best domain name provider:

	Domain.com	Godaddy	Namecheap
Domain Cost	$9.99 per year for a .com	$9.99 per year for a .com	$8.88 per year for a .com
Customer Support	24/7 phone and FAQ area	24/7 phone, live chat and FAQ area	live chat, email support and FAQ area
SSL Security	$8.99 per year per domain	$9.99 per year per domain	free
	*Choose Your Plan*	*Choose Your Plan*	*Choose Your Plan*

Once you’re sure about a domain name, simply register it as part of the signup process with your chosen website builder.

Step 4: Pick a Design Template You Love

It is great to still have you here, now that you’ve chosen a website builder, signed up for a plan that best suit your budget and needs, and registered a domain.

You’re ready to start creating a website with just a few actions. Rather than leaving you to figure all of the necessary actions to be taken by yourself your chosen website builder should support you through the process with templates.

Templates provide a framework for your website – a canvas for you to tweak the content of your website onto. They’re how you can have a website that that best fits your purpose without having to hire a designer.

Somewhere among the thousands of website builder templates hanging around the internet is the perfect layout for your site.

I’ve examined and gotten feedback from templates directory ,through as many templates as possible to create this list of the most used and responsive templates, so you have a ready to use or more selective place to start searching.

According to the research here are most favourite templates used:

Best Templates for Creatives:

Utica by Squarespace

Christian Adams by Site123

Kevin Matsuya by Squarespace

Best Templates for Businesses and Local communities:

Clean Lines by Weebly

Acquire – Slick by Weebly

Barbosa by Squarespace

Best Templates for Portfolio:

Press Kit by Wix

DJ Beat by Site123

Kitui by Squarespace

Best Templates for Blogs

The Traveler by Site123

Personal Blog by Wix

Bedford by Squarespace

Best Templates for Events

Tech Meetup by Site123

Business Conference by Wix

Carmine by squarespace

Although your website builder will guide you to this stage after you’ve signed up. Most templates are categorized by industry, niche or the purpose. It is advisable you preview and read reviews if available before going on final templates.

Squarespace website builder came out on top in the research for best design, followed by wix with also very good designs so if you still haven’t found your perfect match, it’s a good place to start!

Step 5: Customize Your Template Design

As we said in the last step, templates provide a layouts. It is possible you find website that uses the same designs as yours because of the large number on the use of website builder, so it is very essential you find a template that makes you stand out or at the other way customize your templates.

What goes into customizing a website? Well, that’s largely up to you. Website builders are very flexible these days.

Essential Customization can include:

Changing the size, colors, and fonts of buttons
Editing the images on your homepage gallery
Choosing a different color palette
Adding new pages to your navigation
Adding new elements like contact forms and menus
Linking/embedding social media channels

Most website builders will show you the process on how to go about editing and customizing your templates, so don’t get overwhelmed or feel they is more to do. They understand people make use of web builders these days in order to build a website in a simple method and build a website as soon as possible.

Since your major occurrence might be the drag and drop interface As is so often the case with website builders, don’t be afraid to play. You’ll be surprised by how how much you can do.

If those template customizations don’t look like enough for you (though if you’re building your first website, they will be), you might want to think about building your website on an open source platform like WordPress.org – this is the ‘Option 2’ ( a full guide on how to use wordpress can be found in this article)

You will get more flexibility, but if you’re not a coder or you have little technical knowledge, learning WordPress takes a lot of time — especially compared to drag-and-drop website builders.

You can have access to tweak the templates as part of a free trial with most website builders, knowing how to customize your website before you upgrade will save you the cost of dissatisfied with the available templates

Step 6: Upload and Format Your Own Content

Now your website is starting to take shape, it’s time to fill it with your own images and written content. You can replace any ‘placeholder’ content already on your template, as well as ‘dragging’ text and image boxes around each page (if you use a drag-and-drop builder).

Once you’ve completely setup the colors and layout of your website, it’s time to start adding your content – that means images, videos and text.

Quick checklist for a homepage

A slider or hero image with a headline and subheadline.
A small section to tell readers more about what your website is about.
The main call-to-action button taking readers to an important page, post, or email opt-in form.
Internal links pointing to your important content to make it easy for readers to navigate around your site.

Quick checklist for a better About Page

Who you are.
What motivated you to start your business
Your expertise or background to build trust with your readers.
The pain point you’re solving and how what you have learnt dealing with the struggles
Your achievements so far.
A call-to-action.

A good Contact Page should contain:

An email address
A phone number
Active social media links,
A contact form.

Step 7: Make your content stand out with images and infographics

Now, on to graphics. When it comes to picking the right display for your website, consistent quality is key, It is advisable to avoid blurry or low resolution images that does not speak to your audience on what you contents is all about.

You can get access to free and licensed free images from some web builders that you can use at will. If not, there are plenty of free image sites available online.

Unsplash

Unsplash is a website dedicated to sharing stock photography under the Unsplash license.

This website claims over 207,000 contributing photographers and generates more than 17 billion photo impressions per month on their growing library of over 2 million photos.

Pixabay

Pixabay is an international, copyleft and free-to-use website for sharing photos, illustrations, vector graphics, film footage and music, As of November 2017, Pixabay is said to offer over 1,188,454 free photos, illustrations, and vectors and videos.

Pinterest is an american leading image sharing and social media service designed to enable you save and discover information’s and ideas on the network using images and, on a smaller scale, animated GIFs and videos, in the form of pinboards.

Getty Images

It is a supplier of stock images, editorial photography, video and music for business and consumers, with an archive of over 200 million assets.

You can find the perfect royalty-free image for your next project from the world’s best photo library of creative stock photos, vector art illustrations, and stock photography.

Step 8: Choose and Download Apps

Check out your website builder app store to add any missing functionality and extend your capacity with apps such as forms, widgets and social media integrations to your website. There’s an app for just about anything, and downloading them is really simple.

Quick checklists on The essential tools to try for business growth:

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic, this analytics provides information about the number of visitors to a website and the number of page views.

It helps gauge traffic and popularity trends, which is useful for market research.

Wix Logo Maker

Wix Logo Maker provides the tools necessary to create a business logo, and you don’t have to put in any difficult design work. Wix Logo Maker is a cost-saving way to make use of professional design tools and insights.

The option to customize your logo ensures that you’ll be satisfied with the end result, and you get full commercial use rights of any logo you create. you’ll just answer a few questions about your type of business and your personal design preferences.

Canva

Canva is a graphic design platform that allows users to create social media graphics, presentations, posters, documents and other visual content. Users can choose from many professional designed templates, and edit the designs and upload their own photos through a drag and drop interface.

Canva also allows you to collaborate with your team or design partners on a visual, within the same platform. Simply click on “Share”, navigate to “Link

Aweber

Aweber is an email marketing provider that allows you to, create a mailing list and capture data onto it, design newsletters that can be sent to the subscribers on your list.

You can automate your emails marketing via use of ‘autoresponders’

Aweber, comes with significantly more advanced automation features, and it is cheaper too than its competitors.

HootSuite

Hootsuite is a social media management tool with features to help with planning, scheduling, and syndicating social posts, covers almost every aspect of a social media manager’s role.

It basically functions as a dashboard where you can control all of your company’s social media accounts in one place. It is great for driving engagement because you can respond instantly on any channel, to what people are saying about your brand online.

Google Drive

Google Drive is a cloud-based storage solution that allows you to save files online and access them anywhere from any smartphone, tablet, or computer. You can use google drive on your computer or mobile device to securely upload files and edit them online. Drive also makes it easy for others to edit and collaborate on files.

Google Drive allows you to store important business files securely that can be recovered on their servers, synchronize files across devices, and share files so you don’t have to lose them

Stripe

Stripe primarily offers payment processing software and application programming interfaces for e-commerce websites and mobile applications.

Stripe is a simple way to accept payments online. Stripe has no setup fees, no monthly fees, and no hidden charges.

Instapage

Instapage is a service that lets you build landing pages for your online marketing and promotion campaigns with ease.

It offers features such as A/B Testing, multiple campaign management, easy page building, and lot more. It is the leader in post-click automation and helps digital advertisers designed to scale marketing efforts while lowering the costs.

Step 8: Preview and Test Your Website

Always preview any changes to your website before publishing them. You need to be sure things are working the way you want them to.

Quick checklist before making your website live that you should consider:

Is all the spelling and grammar correct?
Are all the buttons on the menu working?
Does your site fulfill a purpose?
Is your formatting consistent?
Does it function on desktop and mobile phone screens?
Does the site load quickly?

How do you preview your website?

Website builders make previewing your site really easy. Usually you just have to hit the preview button in the editor mode to see what your website would look like live. Most offer a toggle so you can see how it works on different screen sizes.

Don’t forget about making your website display fit on mobile devices With the daily use of mobile device, it is said that more than half of searches by users are carried out on mobile, and this number is only on the up. Making your mobile experience a seamless one is a must for any successful site.

An easy-to-use preview mode saves you a lot of time as you won’t need to keep saving changes and switching back and forth between editor and preview mode. You can make a change and then just hit preview to see how it would look when it is live.

Step 9: Publish Your Website On the Internet

Once you know you are all set, hit the Publish button! But don’t worry – it’s easy to make changes to your site after you’ve published it. Just bear in mind that some builders won’t let you switch templates after your site is live.

Using a Website Builder FAQs you might want to be sure of

How do you create website for free?

Anyone can make a website, so it is necessary you do your research although most of the free and paid website builders had been shared with you, you can come up with a wonderful website by simply signing up with any plans that best fits your needs and budgets from the list provided.

How long will it take to build a ready to use website?

With most websites builders you can create your website in less than an hour. You don’t need to be fast to launch your website or getting all of the settings you want so quick.

Infact with what I recommend is that the best way to create a good website ready for launch is to schedule a free time or a day to make changes with the software and implements the unique standard you want your website to have.

Keep in mind that it can take much longer than a day or just free time to make a ready to publish website– all of this factor depends on how many pages you have and how much customization you need to do.

Can I get ranked on search engines with website builders?

If you build a website that’s optimized for search engines, then yes it will. In fact most website builders provide you with SEO tips and are very secure and regularly updated so that you don’t lose your ranking to a competitor because of failed services.

Be rest assured that since you don’t need to struggle with SEO plugins you can do better by focusing on SEO strategies.

How to create a website that ranks in Google will require good content, and a bit of background research into SEO. Building websites that people can find is key to a good website marketing strategy.

How do I build an ecommerce store regardless of my tech skills?

If you already have a Wix, Weebly, or Squarespace website or any generic website builder you can upgrade to an ecommerce price plan which will unlock sales features and tools.

However, I and other bloggers would recommend Shopify or BigCommerce which are e-commerce focused platforms, offering the best tools for growing your business.

I need the easiest website builder, Any recommendation?

Wix is the best all-around website builder mainly because it’s so easy to use and can build a professional websites for you. It has the most intuitive drag-and-drop design and offers plenty of simple visual cues so you know that what you see is what you get.

Squarespace is best for showcasing your portfolio or services in the best eye appealing way possible, with lots of themes and better editor you can setup useful functions in minutes

Is it possible I move from one website builder to another?

You can and you should be able to carry out that action without assistance but there’s usually a lot of unappealing occurrence involved because most, if not all, of your content will have to be moved to another source all by yourself.

You can be given limited access from website builders, This is the reason it’s so critical to test a couple of competitors before joining any

What software would you recommend I use to create a niche website?

Choosing a website builder depends on what you’re looking for or primarily on your needs. They all have different pros and cons but the best website builders are:

Shopify – best e-commerce store

Squarespace – best for showcasing

Wix – best for business website or blogs

Weebly – best for small business

In what way can I create a functional website?

The easiest and most affordable way to make a website is with a website builder. They don’t require any coding or much technical knowledge, and some platforms even offer free plans.

You can use a CMS like WordPress, most tech beginners don’t find it an option Or you can hire a web designer, but this can be expensive and may take your time.

I want a professional website, how do I get it?

Every website builder lets you create professional looking websites thanks to their sleek templates and intuitive design tools. Squarespace is the best platform for portfolio or design, wix is best for highly functional websites, letting you create truly stunning websites worthy of any web designer, and they offer a 14-day free trial to begin with.

I want to make money online by selling can I make my website do that?

You can build an online store with website builders like Weebly, Wix, or Squarespace by upgrading to their ecommerce plans, which will give you access to their sales tools. However, I recommend you use an ecommerce-specific platform like Shopify or BigCommerce because they have better sales features and you get get expert advice regarding sales and commerce.

What exactly do I need to start my website?

Website builders have everything you need to create a website in just one subscription.

You can add graphics, videos, e-commerce features, contact forms and everything else, without having to spend time on or code, unlike other open source platforms like WordPress, you have to code everything yourself, and organize web hosting and security certificates.

How much is the estimated cost is to create a website?

It depends on what you want your website to do. Website builders have set price plans, but you have to pay for most apps and integrations.

Some platforms, like Wix and Weebly, have free plans, but other platforms can cost anything from $8 – $40 /month.

Are there any platform to hire a website designer?

There are a number of freelancing communities where you can get a web designer that for your requirements from the available talents.

The platform with highest customer satisfaction include:

UpWork

Fiverr

99designs

Toptal

Option 2: Create a Website with Wordpress and Niche recommended tips

How to Build a Website in 8 Steps:

Decide if WordPress is right for you.
Choose the right web hosting provider
Buy the right hosting plan
Choose and register a domain name.
Install your WordPress site with one click.
Choose a theme for your site’s design.
Create and customize your content and pages.
Choose and install useful plugins.
Make final checks and publish.

Step 1: Decide if WordPress is Right For You

Almost a third of all websites are built on WordPress. It’s a subtle, essential part of the internet. But it also requires more setup work and maintenance than most website builders do. The first step of building a website using WordPress is estimating your budget and knowing what you’re signing up for.

WordPress is not an all-in-one software. It’s a free open source Content Management System (CMS). This CMS only allow you to create and organize digital content. All other necessary actions to get your websites working like hosting and web registration should be done separately. It’s up to you to bring these together in service of a WordPress site.

Fear not- despite it not being the all in one package most beginner will go for, I can testify that it isn’t very difficult or hard to setup as you might think, but it’s not the easiest available way to make a website. It is really not for folks with little technical knowledge or for you if you would want to get a working website fast.

In addition, there is a robust and friendly community ready to help you create a website that is dynamic, unique, and powerful.

Step 2: Choose the right web hosting provider

If you are seeking to build a website without taking web hosting services, registering domain names will serve no purpose. Having a web hosting account is very important in order to get a website hosted. A web hosting company makes it possible for your website to be accessed by everyone on the web.

To help ensure your site is optimized for visitors and search engines, you need a high-speed hosting provider like Bluehost, although there are other better alternatives.

See the Google trends report below to the most used hosting provider showing you that Bluehost is going to be the smartest decision to make for easy to use and for efficient service.

On top of that, Bluehost is very affordable with basic plans starting at just $2.75 per month.

Plus, it has some great features:

An easy-to-use dashboard that comes in handy for beginners

Numerous hosting options to choose from

24/7 customer support

Free SSL certificate

Easy cPanel dashboard

99% server uptime

High-end security measures

High-speed servers

1-click WordPress Installation

Recommended by WordPress as the host of choice

Low introductory pricing

Money-back guarantee

Only costs $2.95/month (via my link )

Setting up an account with Blue host is very easy, you just have to follow the simple steps below.

Step 3: Buy the right hosting plan (I recommend Bluehost).

Open up Bluehost Now in a new window and follow up here, the first actions you need to take is to click on the Get Started Now to setup your blog.

Now that you are on the Blue host page, choosing a plan might not be difficult for you since they are several hosting plan for you, so you just select the plan that works best for you.

Blue host offer different kind of service, they have three different hosting option you can choose from, and while majority of their hosting plan includes a free secure sockets layer (SSL) certificate, user’s are given a full year of free domain, and a marketing credits of $200.

The basic Blue host plan: Which is the most popular hosting solution that provides everything a user with no technical knowledge will find easy to get started. The blue host basic plan is an efficient and affordable hosting option for a blogger with a single site.

The plus Blue host plan: It is the best Blue host hosting plan to choose from if you are looking to scale and expect more visitor traffic to your website because it allows you to own multiple website and feature the 30 day free trail of Microsoft 365 email essentials package.

The choice Blue host plan: The choice plan is the biggest offer by Blue host, this plans cover’s every package listed in the basic blue host plan and the plus blue host plan, the choice blue host plan provide it subscriber’s Free automatic daily backups of their, code guard monitoring and restore services and full domain privacy.

Step 4: Choose and Register a Domain Name

Every site needs a domain name. This is basically your site’s unique address. You can get a domain name directly through some hosting providers (like Bluehost), or otherwise you’ll need to get it from a domain registrar like Domain.com, Godaddy. This will typically cost around $12 per year.

Quick checklist to consider for purchasing the a good domain name

There’s no secret formula for choosing a great domain name, but there are a few things you should consider:

Make Your Domain Name Easy to Pronounce and Spell

You should be able to easily share your domain name when speaking as well as writing. You never know when you’ll be asked to share your domain name in person so make it as simple as you can ever imagine.

Keep It Simple And Descriptive

A great domain name is something that describes your blog without having to go into much explanation. If you had marketing.com as your domain name, for example, it would be pretty obvious that your blog was based on the concept of a marketing or sales. Keep this concept in mind when choosing your domain name.

If you’ve already thoughts of your name, then you can add the information here. And if you need a new one, you get your domain name for free for the first year.

If you need more time to come up with a website name, you can always sign-up and choose your domain later.

If you’d rather get one separately, simply go to a domain registry site like domain.com or godaddy, find a name you like and is available, and buy it. It’s that simple. Once you’ve acquired the domain the registrar will give you an account. It’s through this that you can attach a domain to a site.

Once you register a domain, it’s all yours. You should always keep at the back of your mind to always renew the subscription, if you don’t renew you might lose the domain name at which point it will be available for other users to acquire

Step 5: Install Your WordPress Site With One Click

It is here that you enter Your Essential Account Details:

Here are the “Account Information” details you need to enter to create your account.

The details you are required to enter is very essential so make sure to input the correct details, including your first and last name, business name if applicable, country, address, etc.

After selecting your preferred host plan and chosen your domain name, you will need to add your account billing information and complete the package information to complete the setup.

As a Bluehost long time user I recommend you go for the 36 months plan because that is the best value so far.

While selecting your plan you will see optional extras that you can obtain, It is entirely your decision to consider purchasing the extra’s if you really want to.

But I don’t recommend purchasing the extra’s since they can be gotten later on if you decide you need them.

Finally, pick your payment option. Bluehost has flexible payment option’s either you choose to make the payment via credit card or PayPal.

You have successfully registered your hosting plan with Bluehost

Congratulations – you’ve set up your hosting for the first time and you now officially own a website.

Let’s move on…

Once you sign up to a hosting plan with Bluehost, an account will be made for you automatically, though setting up a WordPress requires something from you: a click.

Don’t forget this is where you have the access to install wordpress.

When you have signup to the latest Bluehost version with my link Wordpress will be automatically installed for you.

Which simply means you have to login to your registered bluehost account, and then click the login Wordpress button to get started.

WordPress’s massive popularity means it’s in the interest of hosting providers to make setup easy.

Accordingly, most offer one-click WordPress installation. In the case of Bluehost, that means going to ‘My Sites’ on the dashboard. As you can see below, it’s very easy to find.

If you bought a domain name as part of signing up, a WordPress site will already be there (a no-click setup!).

To create a new one, you simply click ‘Create Site’. Most web hosting providers offer a similar experience

Step 6: Choose a theme for your site’s design

While website builders have templates, WordPress has themes. Your theme shows your visitor what your site is all designs, from it looks or used images and even navigation.

On the wordpress plugin directly you can have access to free themes and paid themes, and you can change your website’s theme as often as you want.

The upside with free themes is the cost, obviously, though bear in mind a nice free theme is likely being used on a lot of websites similar to your pick or niche already. Purchasing a paid themes can make you stand out from other website and can give you the optimal access to tweak its design.

Some only require a one-off payment, while others offer a subscription in exchange for support, updates, and maintenance.

Once you select your WordPress site you will find yourself in the WordPress dashboard.

Your wordpress dashboard is where you don’t only have access to themes you can also find other functions like plugins, new posts or pages and it’s here that you can manage themes. A large number of default themes are available for you to choose from, and adding new ones only takes few minutes of your time.

To add a new theme, go to ‘Appearance’ and then ‘Themes’. Click the option to ‘Add New’ to the right, and you’ll be taken to the WordPress Theme Directory to browse a new theme.

There are thousands of templates to choose from in WordPress’ own Theme Directory. Search for the types of themes you’d be interested in.

If you’re setting up a marketing search ‘marketing’, if you need a site for your fashion search “fashion”. You will see dozens of website builders, if not hundreds, of similar theme.

Clicking on a theme takes you to its own page where you can see user reviews and preview the theme in action.

Customization on WordPress requires much more technical skill than it does with website builders. You’ll need to dive into the code to make the changes you want.

If you’re comfortable with HTML, CSS, and Javascript (or looking to learn more about them), this shouldn’t be an obstacle. Be aware that WordPress offers more control than website builders, but only if you have a good technical knowledge or programming languages.

Responsive and easy to use Themes provider’s

Astra

Astra has always been at the cutting edge of WordPress themes, innovative and forward-thinking. If you need a theme that works perfectly with page builders, super simple and fast, and yet has all the power and flexibility you could imagine, look no further than Astra.

Total

Total is developed and supported by WP Explorer, the creators of many exceptional WordPress themes and plugins, it is both free and premium it aims to be non-distended, allowing you to to disable features that you won’t be using most themes don’t offer this option and end up with cluttered interfaces

Ocean WP

OceanWP is a free WordPress theme that can be used as a standalone product or as part of a page builder it is fast, customisable, and friendly page builder, primarily it’s strength is with e-commerce websites and has all the feature that you would normally expect to pay for.

Divi

The Divi WordPress theme is one of the most used themes in 2020, it and enjoys a lot of popularity and positive reviews among both web developers and site owners.

Divi combines great looks with a wealth of impressive features to deliver a truly useful multipurpose WordPress theme. A great range of page templates and an easy to use page builder will suit both those looking for an out-of-the-box solution, as well as anyone who wants to create custom designs without coding

Step 7: Create and Customize Your Content and Pages

Adding content to WordPress is much more structured than you might think.

Content on WordPress sites essentially breaks down into two types: pages and posts. What they look like will depend on the theme you use.

Pages are static one-off pages that make up the backbone of your site. Your homepage and contact page would be pages, for example. Posts are more timely. If your site has a blog, each entry in that blog would be a post.

Creating pages and posts is easy. Both require just few clicks from you in the WordPress dashboard. For pages you go to ‘Pages’ and ‘Add New’.

For posts you go to ‘Posts’ and ‘Add New’. Both ‘Add New’ options will take you to the editor, where you can add content, preview, and publish.

To add pages to your main menu you simply go to ‘Appearance’ and ‘Menus’. From there you can select which pages appear in which menus. For most sites and most themes you’ll only need one navigation menu, so putting one together is easy.

Step 7.2 How to create a homepage

Your homepage is your only chance to get them to stay on your site and become a customer.

And since a company’s homepage accounts for up to 50 percent of the site’s total pageviews, it’ll make or break your business.

Use Plenty of Whitespace

A good way to deliver an enjoyable experience to your website visitor is to understand more about whitespace and how you can use it to create a nice, simple and elegant design. Whitespace is actually really important to web design because you can use it to improve readability and website performance.

White space is useful for clearly separating text, graphics, and other elements, and prevents pages from feeling too crowded, It can also enhance the importance and distinctiveness of the type and draw the eye to specific pieces of copy.

l Appropriate calls-to-action

Whether you use your CTA to create a sense of urgency or to easily lure your readers toward the checkout line, the important thing is that you use it. Ignoring the uses of calls to action is a mistake that could make your engagements and business growth fail

The main goal of every webpage should be to capture the target audience’s attention in order to guide visitors further into the website, encouraging them to go check out a case study, leave their contact information, or otherwise engage with you

Be Concise

Show visitors what they’re looking for, show them where to start, and establish your company’s credibility.

You should be able to accomplish everything you need in one to three sentences, as a general rule. This way, you don’t have to worry about them getting distracted — because all they’ll see is your most important copy.

Step 7.3: How to create a about us page

An “About Us” section is an opportunity to introduce yourself on your own terms. It’s also a visitor’s first encounter with the people and story behind your site, and a strong page will transfer your passion on to your readers.

A good “About Us” page starts with the basics, but quickly moves beyond them. Yes, users need to know who you are and what services you provide.

Essential info a about us page should contain

A reason to trust you: People coming to your website for the first time are primarily interested in what you have to say – which is why we’ve put so much emphasis on how to go about saying it. But when a new visitor is forming his or her opinion of your business, it helps to provide some outside testimony for validation.

Use testimonials: Testimonials are an extremely important part of the success of your business. On your relationship-building journey, which is lined with credibility and expertise, testimonials from loyal customers are a critical part of the presence of your business.

Include a Timeline: Has your business been around for more than a few years? Does it have an impressive history of growth and achievement? A timeline can be a great addition to your About Us page. Include all the relevant breakthrough and details about your business.

Step 7.4: How to create a contact us page

A ‘Contact Us’ page is one of the top four most important pages on any website because it is typically one of the most visited site pages for most companies.

It must be easily accessible from the home page. You should put the link to your “Contact Us” page on a prominent (expected) place on the website so that the users could easily find it.

Essential info a contact us page should contain

They include an email and phone number so that the visitors could quickly find the required information.
Keep it Simple: You don’t want to put too many barriers between the site visitors and the contact information they’re looking for. Keep your contact us page short, sweet, and to the point.
They include an email and phone number so that the visitors could quickly find the required information.

You should take “ contact form ” on your website as the backbone of the lead generation. You can grow your business by opting for it.

Many businesses can’t reach success today because they are not designing contact forms correctly or not using them.

Step 8: Choose and install useful plugins.

A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites.

WordPress has tens of thousands of plugins for everything from search engine optimisation (SEO) to image compression. Browse the WordPress plugin directory and you’ll soon get a sense of how vibrant and creative a community it is.

Each plugin has its own page with descriptions, screenshots, user reviews and more.

To install plugins it’s easier to browse within your WordPress dashboard.

To do this go to ‘Plugins’ and ‘Add New’.

There you can sort through featured, popular, and recommended plugins, as well as search for them yourself. To install simply press ‘Install Now’.

Step 8.2: Most Essential Apps and Plugins for a Wordpress Website

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is one of the most powerful tools available and it’s free. It’s very simple to deploy as long as you have backend access to a website.

You can use Google Analytics on a daily basis to track website analytics, behavior flow, conversion, and goal tracking, and build custom marketing funnels infact it is a great tool for tracking overall site progress

Wordable

With wordbable you would love using Google Docs. Since It’s simple yet highly functional, and it’s the best shared editing experience online. Wordable can allows you to fully utilize Google Docs This tool is the perfect example of what a single function tool should be. 100% recommend for an app that help transfers blog posts from Google Docs to Wordpress with the click of a button. It allows you to draft and collaborate in Google docs

Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO is a popular plugin that comes with tons of features to optimize your website. It has built-in content analysis, meta keywords and description management, managing duplicate content, xml sitemaps, social features, rich snippets, and much more.

It also gives you tons of flexibility over your site’s content, letting you set up titles, meta descriptions, and social sharing information on a per-post basis. It can also be an an easy way to set up a sitemap, adds some basic schema, and it is very beginner friendly.

AddThis

This easy to set up, easy to use is a great yet an affordable social sharing tool for adding and tracking social sharing to your blog or website that can primarily help you focus on the social performance of your content.

This tool is always free, customizable, privacy compliant, and designed with your audience in mind.

WP rocket

WP Rocket is a caching and performance optimization plugin to improve the loading speed of WordPress websites. You can install and configure WP Rocket in less than 3 minutes.

This WordPress site optimization plugin is built to help clean up your WordPress database for maximized efficiency. The plugin also works to de-fragment MySQL tables as well as remove data like pingbacks, expired transient options, post revisions, blocked comments.

Smush

Smush is one of the easiest plugins to perform image compression for WordPress. With more than one million active installs, this image optimizer is one of the most popular WordPress plugins in the official plugin repository.

It users has testify it is one of the best image optimization plugin for improving the page speed of your without losing quality

BuddyPress

BuddyPress is to greatly enhance the capability of WordPress in building a community website. It will give your website members the ability to create groups and invite their friends, check activity feeds, create discussion boards while its adapts smoothly to the needs of users,

BuddyPress works just like any other online community platform whether they require additional functionalities or want only the essential features and tools.

Contact Form 7

Contact Form 7 is a free plugin which means it doesn’t cost you charges for upgrade. It has a very simple interface for creating forms, with no live preview of your form while you work on it creating forms it is much easier and more with its drag-and-drop user interface.

Contact Form 7 looks as sleek and minimal and does not use up too much resources on your server and wordpress installation

HubSpot

HubSpot provides tools for social media marketing, content management, web analytics, landing pages, customer support, and search engine optimization. HubSpot has integration features for salesforce.com, SugarCRM, NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics CRM and others.

Their knowledge and expertise about all things inbound has resulted in a marketing platform that caters to every stage of a successful inbound plan and the buyer’s journey.

Business focused tracking and analytics are available from HubSpot Plugin

UpdraftPlus

This is a WordPress backup plugin that supports more cloud backup options than most other plugins. It is built as a backup solution that highly delivers on speed, UpdraftPlus is commonly referred as the optimal preferred choice, Since it’s highly optimized for server performance, it consumes fewer server resources when compared to most of its competitors.

This all of this WordPress backup plugin is useful for every website that uses the open-source wordpress creating tool to manage online contents.

You can manage your plugins in the ‘Installed Plugins’ section of the ‘Plugins’ tab. There you can edit plugin settings and toggle installed plugins on or off.

Creating a Website with Wordpress FAQ you might need to know about

Is wordpress really free?

Yes, WordPress is free, it’s just that everything around it isn’t. You’ll need to pay for hosting and a domain, and you might want to opt for paid themes or plugins too.

Can I maintain wordpress easily?

You’d be surprised. Once it’s up and running WordPress is pretty straightforward to manage. The real trick is juggling the elements that go into a WordPress site, rather than WordPress itself.

What would you recommend I use, Wix or Wordpress?

Put simply, Wix is much easier to use than WordPress, so it depends on your level of technical skill. With Wix, everything is there in one place for building a website, and you don’t have to use any code. WordPress requires coding throughout the process, giving you unlimited customization.

Why is Wordpress the best CMS?

WordPress is widely believed to be the best CMS because it currently powers 33% of active website, and it’s certainly the most popular one.

What can I know about the difference between wordpresss.org and wordpress.org?

WordPress.org is the CMS version we’ve referred to throughout this article, and WordPress.com is the WordPress version of a website builder. WordPress.org is more complex to set up, but offers greater scope for customization. WordPress.com is simple to set up, but limited – I’d recommend it for blogs, but not much beyond that.

Do I really need a web host for a website?

You will need a web host to create your WordPress site because it’s an open-source platform. However, if you are using a website builder like Wix, Weebly, or Squarespace, you are not required to find web hosting – everything you need to get online is there in one place.

Can setting up a wordpress site be time consuming (for how long is it)?

Most hosting providers provide one-click setup, so you can technically set up a WordPress in five minutes. Setting up a good WordPress site rich in content shouldn’t take you more than a day if you’re clear on what you want to achieve and have the technical know-how.

Steps to Set and Edit WordPress Website Homepage

No business can do with out a homepage, infact it is one of the essential parts of a website. Although, It is an easy task to set and edit the homepage in WordPress.

Having a website with wordpress you should take note that the newly uploaded blogs and posts are displayed on the website’s homepage by default without your attention.

If you own a website mainly for blogs, media or the likes you wouldn’t find it difficult infact it is mostly figured out for you.

Although this method is not adaptable to most website, especially businesses and companies since a static homepage is the most effective way for easier user experience.

For most of these companies and businesses, the homepage of their website should have information about their products, services, in other to tell visitors what they do as soon as possible a blog is needed also in order for visitors to learn about their products but it should come second.

So, it is essential to set and edit the WordPress homepage.

Here is why you should edit and set your Homepage:

An edited homepage can help you generate more sales and helps to focus on the services you offer.

It helps in increasing email subscribers and get more leads because you have made it easier for visitors to navigate your website.

Most time it is not necessary that you have your blog on your landing page or homepage, editing your Homepage gives you that chance.

Step by step tips on how to set a static homepage via WordPress

I have mentioned that some businesses like to have the services and products there offer displayed on their landing page.

Some would like to add a product gallery or slider to their homepage and even would like to change the homepage to a static homepage. With all of this mentioned homepage changes. It is possible to change and set the homepage in wordpress to your needs.

Most of the premium themes you purchase require the immediate switch of the homepage to a static homepage.

3. To set a static homepage in WordPress, follow the below process.

You should log in to WordPress either as an admin or a root user.

Navigate to the ‘Settings’ option in the left-side menu bar and select the ‘Reading’ option from the drop-down to open your homepage settings.

In the ‘Reading Settings’ page, navigate to the ‘Your homepage displays’ section.

If you want to change the display settings from the default ‘Latest posts’ option to the static home page, click the ‘A static page’ option to set the new homepage.

After the selection, WordPress gives two options to you:

The first option from wordpress is to set the homepage of your website.
While the second option from wordpress is for the blog posts of your website.

If you there are multiple pages on your website, you can select the pages for the two options from the list.

Take note that you need to create and publish the pages before you are given access to select them.

After all the editing you would like to input, you can now select ‘Save Changes’ in order to have you changes go live. Now, visit your live website to see for your self if the homepage got changed to the static page and errors are not present.

4. Step by step tips on how to Set the Blog Page as Homepage

To set a Blog Page as Homepage in WordPress, follow the below process.

You should log in to WordPress either as an admin or a root user.

Navigate to the ‘Settings’ option in the left-side menu bar and select the ‘Reading’ option from the drop-down to open your homepage settings.

Then, change the display settings to ‘Your latest posts’ to set the blog page as the homepage.

Note that after the changes from a homepage to a blog page, Your latest post or the changes you want depending on how your blogs need to be arranged or shown can be done by following this steps:

5. Here is how to make your blog post arranged the way you need it to be

Set how many posts get displayed on a single page in the text bar next to the ‘Blog pages show at most’ option.

Set the count of RSS feeds in the text bar next to the ‘Syndication Feeds Show the Most Recent’ option.

Set how the post should appear. If you select the ‘Full text’ option, all the details of the post get displayed on the page. But if you select the ‘Summary’ option, only a summary of the post gets displayed on the page.

Step by step tips on how to Create a WordPress Main Menu

Website menu is a major features to a website, it is how you can make your website easier to navigate, take note that most of the WordPress themes do not give you access to a menu automatically.

To create a WordPress menu in WordPress, follow the below process.

Navigate the ‘Appearance’ tab in the left-side menu bar of WordPress.
Click the ‘Menus’ option.
In the Menus page, either select an existing menu from the drop-down or click the ‘create a new menu’ link.
select the categories, such as posts, pages, tags, and more that you want to add to the menu or add a custom link as an item on the menu.
click the ‘Add to Menu’ button.
Drag the menu items to reorder or nest the menu.

7. Select the display location of the menu from the list and click the “Save Menu’ button.

8. Navigate to the ‘Manage Locations’ tab to set the primary or main menu and the footer menu from the drop-down. The menu locations vary with each theme.

9. After all the editing you would like to input, you can now select ‘Save Changes’ in order to have you changes go live.

Now, visit your live website to see for your self if the new added menu got changed in your websites and errors are not present.

With this tips you can create and set a menu in your WordPress website. Do take note that each WordPress theme is different and the number of menu locations available in the layout might be different to other themes that you may come across.

Best Free and Paid Tools to Test Website’s Performance

A range of 26%-40% bounce rate does mostly occur with a standard websites.

Recent studies had shown that if a standard website takes more than 5 seconds to load fully for display, then the bounce rate of the website can rise to 70%.

A slow website can have significant effect on the SEO rankings and index both for a mobile visitor or desktop visitor to your website.

There are several reasons that can slow down your website speed, seo ranking and visitors.

The contents of your website, such as videos, images, infographics, and more, can be a factor that affects the speed of the website.

Your webpage loading time is the time it takes your website to load a webpage from the servers and display it on the browser of your visitor.

Your website speed has a significant impact on your user experience, as the average users expect your website to load in just under 2 seconds or even less. If the website is slow, then it can lead to a bad user experience to your website visitor.

In this tutorial, you will learn about the best free and paid tools that can help you to analyze the performance of your WordPress website before you lose seo rankings or deliver bad user experience to your website visitors.

5 Best free and paid tools to test the Website’s Performance

Many performance tools are available for you to use either paid or free to test the overall performance of your website. To help you make the best choice I have handpicked the best free and paid website performance tool you should try.

Google pagespeed insights

This performance tools provided by the tech giant is considered one of the best online tools that help to analyze the performance of your website. Google pagespeed insights provides basic and useful suggestions to optimize your website pages and to speed up the loading time and performance of your website. Google pagespeed insights can anaylyse your website performance on any web browser you are using at the moment.

Google is so supportive that you can get this tool for free without upgrade plan and also getting access to all the functionality that can help you get simple and straight forward results on the speed and performance while testing it on a desktop device or a mobile device.

Your website performance is graded on a scale of 1 to 100 and divides it into different categories as low, medium, and high based on its priorities.

It is always important to check the performance of your website on a mobile version because most of your visitors might be using a mobile device to browse through the web and you might be getting your traffic from a mobile device. So testing it always via mobile version should not be over looked.

The two screenshots highlighted for you are the performance analysis of both the mobile and desktop version of a website.

The First Contentful Paint (FCP) mentioned in both the screenshot with a tri-color bar is the time taken by a website to display or paint the content on the screen.

In the results listed above, the desktop version of the website loads 47% of the website content in less than 1 seconds, and the mobile version of the website loads 35% of the website content in less than 1 seconds.

The second tri-color is the First Input Delay (FID), and that is the time taken by the website to respond to the first interaction.

In the above desktop version of the site, around 93% of the initial interaction responded to is in less than 100ms.

This site also displays different suggestions to improve website speed and performance.

The Google PageSpeed Insights report also displays some of the other parameters affecting the performance, but these parameters won’t directly affect the performance score of the website.

Varvy Pagespeed

Varvy Pagespeed provides extensive reports that are presented effectively and yet very eye appealing. The metrics are well explained and the reports presented to you follow guides to help you understand some important terms you should definitively know about. The guides also provide optimization tips for better performance and load speed.

After you run a test, you are given a summary of the server issues, you web page issues, and other resources. A easy to understand visual representation of the results and as well as the count of resources are displayed to you for accountability.

You are given a very detailed presentation of important metrics such as Image Optimization, Browser Caching, Keep-Alive, Enable Compression, CSS delivery, JavaScript usage, Server Response Time

GTmetrix

GTmetrix is one of the free and most popular tools used to analyze website speed and performance. GTmetrix is said to be famous in the wordpress community and the best overall since it gives you full display on essential yet detailed performance report.

On top of been famous they offer a free signing up to GTmetrix that can unlock several customization options of the tool for your use.

This tool provides diversity in analyzing the content and its rule by generating two different results scales. On the GTmetrix the PageSpeed and YSlow categories display the score based on the generated rules and not based on the website contents you own.

As a GTmetrix tool user you can get seven test locations available for you and you have the options to choose any one of the lists and then also set the test browser to your favourite browser it could be either Chrome, Edge or Firefox. Also, select the type of internet connection you are on before analyzing the website speed and performance.

The two sections of the GTmetrix scorecard are the top tabs and the bottom list. The top tab displays the overall PageSpeed and YSlow score.

The YSlow score mainly deals with the front-end structure of the website, the number of requests, load time, and total page size. And the bottom list displays the performance insights in detail.

The bottom list further splits into different tabs, such as PageSpeed, YSlow, Waterfall, Timings, History, and Video. Each of these tabs displays different performance insights in detail.

For example, the Waterfall tab graphically displays the time taken to load each element, and the History tab graphically displays the previous results of your website.

The GTmetrix also provides an automatic feature to test the loading time of your website at regular intervals.

Pingdom tools

The Pingdom is a website monitoring tool that helps to analyze the website speed. The Pingdom tools have seven test servers on different locations, and you can select the server near to your location before running the test. The major concern of the Pingdom Tools free version is that there is no option to select the connection speed or browser.

The Pingdom tool analyzes and scores the performance of your website in a range of 1 to 100. This tool also displays the load time, the number of requests, and page size along with the performance grade. This tool has a unique feature as it displays the percentile of your website’s performance in comparison with all the websites tested with this tool or platform.

Google test my site

Google Test My Site is a feature of Think with Google. This site gives you the insights you need to optimize your website for mobile devices. This tool is configured to work prominently for website performance on mobile devices.

Having a google test my site tool can also help predict the potential increase in annual revenue when you improve your site speed. With all of this amazing features you can get a reports generated by this tool with a report of all the progress you have had which is available to you at anytime for you to download for free.

Here is a quick-list on how you should categorize your website load time

A Fast website is expected to load within a second.
An average website can start to load in 1 to 2.5 seconds.
Slow website can take more than 2.5 seconds to load completely

With these tools you can develop strategies to boost your website speed against your competitors and if you are a digital marketer or you trade online and you don’t want your bounce rate to rise unexpectedly you should find these tools useful.

How to Add Google Analytics to your WordPress Website

Google Analytics is a free web analytics service provided by the very tech giant Google which tracks and reports website traffic.

This service was said to launch in November 2005 after google acquired Urchin. It is the mostly preferable and widely used web analytics service on the internet as the case may be, with very basic requirements Google Analytics is easy to set up for any kind of website.

To enjoy the most of the awesome services provided by google, you are only required to add a few letters or numbers called codes that google analytics provides to you.

But, if you are using WordPress as your CMS builder of choice, the process to install Google Analytics is very much easier, because WordPress has numerous plugins specially built to install Google Analytics on your website so you don’t go wrong while installing google anaylytics. There are some advanced plugins that you can use to tweak the tracking to suit your needs.

You are here to learn the simple setup guides, you are in the right place.

In this tutorial, I am going to show you how to add Google Analytics to your WordPress website.

To get access to the features of google anaylytics and also configure the analytics in your WordPress website, you would need to create an account in google analytics. In order to make the process easier and avoid wasting of time, let start with creating an account, if you don’t have.

Create a Google Analytics Account

1.2 Log in to the Analytics dashboard using your desired Google account. Once there, you will be asked to create a new property of which you will see a form just like the following image.

1.3 In this form, you will be required to enter all the required information like your website name, URL, Time zone and category.

1.4 Once you are done with the form, click on the Get Tracking ID button given at the bottom of the page you are on.

1.5 Now, It will generate a unique tracking number for your website. Once done, it will redirect you to a page where you can find the tracking ID as well as the tracking code.

Take a look at this screenshot to see where to locate your tracking ID and the tracking code.

You should copy the tracking code so you can add it to your wordpress website of which I would show you the how to below.

How to a add google analytics tracking code to your wordpress website

2.1 To add the tracking code you should log in to the admin panel of your WordPress website. Move all way to the Plugins option given in the left sidebar and click on the Add New button to search and install new plugins.

In the WordPress plugin repository, search for Google Analytics and install the plugin that is highlighted in the provided screenshot below.

There are a wide collection of anaylytics tools of which you can also use different analytics plugins based on your needs, While the plugin you are being about to be lectured on has the simplest installation method from all other alternatives.

2.2 Install and Activate that plugin. After that, click on the Settings -> Google Analytics option from the left sidebar of the admin panel. On that page, you will see a form with one field and one submit button, just like the following image.

2.3 Enter your tracking ID in the Web Property ID field and hit the Save Changes button.

2.4 Now, Google Analytics will start tracking visitors on your website and will also give you insights for increased visitor engagement. So, this is how you can install Google Analytics on a WordPress website.

What is Website Permalink and the best practices you must try today

What is Permalink?

A permalink is a URL that can tell what a specific web page is usually by a content management system. Permalink is known or that because they are permanent links and are not meant to be changed.

Quicklist of what Permalinks is

1) Permalinks are permanent static links to a web page that is they can be a source url to your post or page.

Permalinks are very easy to understand since there usually contain letters or numbers which are readable by human.

Permalinks should always remain unchanged. So that they are less susceptible to link rot (link death).

Link rot refers to the process by which hyperlinks directing your web visitors to your webpages or other resources becomes unavailable permanently.

You should know that such a link that does not work or function like it is suppose to is known as a broken link or dead link.

4) A change in permalink can cause the users accessing the webpage to get a 404 not found error.

5) WordPress uses permalinks to point to the websites using WordPress as the content management system.

A permalink is a link to a standalone post or page in your website

You should always use permalinks in order to get indexed by web crawlers and also appear professional to your visitors.

A very important ranking factor is the URLs of your blog posts and pages.

When you add a new page or post, you should see the page editor and can choose the URL you want that can help you tell what the post or page is all about after dot com.

here is an image below for reference:

This text after the .com is what a permalink looks like.

Permalinks are static hyperlinks that will lead your audience to a specific web page.

By default, your permalink is set to “yourdomainname.com/postID.”

This does not only looks unattractive but isn’t the best from an SEO standpoint.

Before you start writing content for your pages or posts, you should make sure to set a specific permalink structure.

From your WordPress dashboard, go to “Setting” —> “Permalinks.”

You can choose from a couple of options. Most website that get large audience daily and rank higher by search engines follow the “Post name” or “Custom” structures below.

The main thing to know is that every post or page your website contain should focus on one target keyword, which should be in the area right after the dot com.

For your website pages or posts, this permanent URL is the only thing that needs to remain unchanged.

You can always change a page or post’s title, meta description, content, and headings, but the URL needs to stay the same, this is because if you get inbound links to this URL, changing it would result in a 404 error and losing that link value as I have already mention initially.

Finally, make sure to save the settings before exiting the page.

How to make your website more seo optimized with 7 simple and effective tips

Most CMS out there are mostly seo friendly ” but there are several changes that can lead to good enhancements that you can make to allow your website to perform better on search engines.

I am mostly going to be focusing on Google as my detailed point of view because Google get very increasing rise in search traffic which other search engines don’t have as close to Google.

Knowing this I understand you wouldn’t argue with me on why you should focus your search engine optimization (SEO) techniques to the best of what is important for helping Google’s search engine crawler and spider which are known as Googlebot to determine what your website is about so that it will be easier for search engines user to find what they’re searching for and what they intend knowing.

Change your website
tag for the post/page title to an
tag.

The

tag of your website post should be used for the post/page title, and there should be only one

tag per page, so you would need to edit your theme’s header.php file to remove the

tag.

To do this, this may require some additional styling with CSS to make the title look the same as it did before removing the tag. You can avoid the stress of removing or editing your post tag by using an image for the title or logo.

Use custom permalinks that describe the page/post content of your website.

In the Permalinks area of your CMS admin, select the custom option and use the following:

/yourpostname/

This will include the post’s title in the URL, usually your website permalinks should contain expressions in numerical format and text like format and most time a mixture of this two can can have negative effect to your SEO ranking and even become a source of increasing bounce rate.

Let’s take for instance, if the title of your post is “SEO tricks and techniques,” then your post URL using a permalinks would be:

http://yourdomain.com/SEO-tricks-and-techniques/

3. Make Use of an SEO plugin.

Plugins can help increase functionality so it is advisable you invest in one, the most popular plugins to try are All-in-One SEO Pack (AIOSEOP) and Yoast plugin, both of which are free.

Although they almost work the same way, and there are many reviews and you can get access to “how to” guides that are available that can help you choose the best plugins for what ever requirements you wish to derive

4.) Invest in an XML sitemaps plugin

Your “sitemap” is a file in XML format with a .xml extension. It’s meant to be an accessible list of your website indexable file URLs, and also the dates that they were created, and how often they should be crawled by search engines.

Like robots.txt, the sitemap is mostly placed in the root or around the footer of your website. It should also be named sitemap.xml:

E.g http://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml

To have Googlebot and the likes notified that you have such a file, you can place the following line in your robots.txt file:

Sitemap: http://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml

It must be the correct path of your website, not something related or not even necessary.

Infact, if all of this sound like a task you cannot handle manually but you’re using WordPress, you can use a plugin called Google XML Sitemaps to handle the sitemap creation and automatic insertion of the sitemap’s path into your robots.txt file. It’s as simple as that.

Make Use of a caching plugin

A caching plugin is necessary and important especially if your website receives a lot of visitors.

Making use of a caching plugin will help make your web pages load much faster, which can help to also enhance the user experience to the level your bounce rate would decrease and makes your website very seo freindly and also attract search engines spiders because your website page load time is now used as an SEO ranking factor.

You should try W3 Total Cache because it is the most popular plugin mainly used for website caching.

6. Develop a meta descriptions that contain your page keywords, but also an I want to know more descriptions, that will make actual visitor want to click over to your website.

Most time the keywords that a user searches for will show up in bold in the search results, which makes them stand out more from other results, and your description should be so enticing in such a way that makes the user want to click on it.

Infact writing an effective meta descriptions is usually considered as a rare knowledge, but if you’re good at hitting the emotional button of your readers and making them want to know more, you may receive more visitors to your website unlike if your meta description for a post or page is so generic and boring that visitors may have to try other website just because you gave a wrong impression at first through your meta description.

If you decide to invest more time on making a eye catching meta description know that it is no longer relevant for SEO ranking and it may no longer be evaluated by Google or search engines in terms of SEO, but having the right meta description may be useful for achieving a higher “quality score” on pay-per-click (PPC) landing pages.

7. Make use of an SEO-friendly theme

As CMS availability increases and the race to deliver a comfortable user experience to a website visitor is usually done by picking an eye appealing design.

Many themes today rely heavily on graphics that can eat up resources and an abundance of JavaScript/JQuery files.

Having an eye appealing design may look fancy and might be considered as top notch, but going for this style of design can make your website load slowly which can hurt your SEO ranking and increase visitors bounce rate.

Infact most visitors don’t care about your fancy theme so for SEO purposes, your theme should be clean and simple, without a lot of graphical design elements that require huge .js files in order to function properly.

Do as much to stay away from using external .js files because external scripts can slow down your website load time even more, especially if the domains where your theme scripts are hosted are experiencing technical problems.

How to Change Footer Text in your WordPress Website

WordPress is the most flexible content management system ever built with an increasing number of free plugins an themes in ts repository that allows its users to a different functionalities and designs to their website wordpress is definitely a great pick.

Builing a website is another issue but knowing what to edit is another, One of the most important area of your website is the footer.

It is advisable that you also consider tweaking your footer to the standard you would want to derive from your website.

WordPress does not provide it users an option to update footer text. However, some themes might allow you to update Footer text without working on the PHP and HTML code. You can check if your theme provides an option or not in the Appearance -> Customise option from the left sidebar.

Many of the free and paid themes available does not provide an option to edit footer text including the default WordPress themes.

But with this guide you would learn how to update your footer text in wordpress in the simplest form although you need to gear up your technical ability for this settings because it requires you to have a little bit of HTML and PHP experience.

If you do not have any prior experience with PHP, you might break the code and the whole site will face downtime. So, make sure you understand what you are doing. Having known the requirements and the consequences of doing it all wrong let’s dive in into the action of the day

1.1 How to change footer text in your WordPress Website

1.2 To change the footer text in your wordpress website, you need to Log in to the admin panel of your WordPress site. Then, click on the Appearance -> Theme Editor option from the left sidebar.

A screenshot is provided below for you to take note of, See the following screenshot for reference.

Now that you are here, a list of files in the right sidebar is what you will see. All the files in the list are the very essential part of your current theme.

Any change in any of the file will affect how your WordPress application works and looks.

In this case, look for the footer.php file from the right sidebar and click on it. It will show you the code just like the screenshot display below.

Having this access to the footer.php file you can now update the footer text to any words or phrases you would find more relevant and effective in any wordpress theme.

Having a basic or pro knowledge about PHP can help you go further by making it dynamic.

How to add HTML to a WordPress Website Page or Post

WordPress provides Visual and Text options to edit your articles or content. In visual mode, you do not have to write the tutorial in HTML.

While in the Text mode, you have to manually type the basic HTML to create the content.

You should take note that WordPress does not provide you with an option to enter HTML snippets in the content.

You can use the basic HTML in Text mode but it is not recommended to use it for complex or custom HTML snippets.

You would find in this part of this article how to input any type of HTML snippets in content. To make this a success I would use a popular plugin called the Insert HTML Snippet to create HTML snippets and inserts them into the content using short codes.

Without much theory let’s dive in to how to add HTML to a wordpress page or post.

Below is How to Add HTML to a WordPress Website Page or Post

You would need to log in to the admin panel of your WordPress site.
You should click on the Plugins -> Add New from the left sidebar.
In the search bar, search for Insert HTML snippet. Having found the right one you should then Install and Activate the plugin.

Your plugin should be active after the activation, click on the XYZ HTML -> HTML Snippets from the left sidebar. On this page, you will see a list of snippets available in your WordPress installation. Then, click on the Add New HTML snippet to create a new snippet.

Having click on create a new snippet, On this page, you will see a title field and the content text area, you are required to enter the title in title field.

Then, create or paste your HTML code in the text area.

Once done, click on the Create button given at the bottom of the form.

Having done all of that, you will see your new HTML snippet in the list of available snippets. Under the Snippet Short Code column, you will find a short code for that snippet you created.

You can simply copy and paste that short code in your WordPress Page or Post to display the recent snippet.

This plugin is not only use for your posts or pages infact snippet plugins have a very wide range of uses, You can use this plugin to create snippets for banners, Adsense code or any other advertising code.

How to Show or Hide Widgets on Specific WordPress Websites Pages

Widgets are the very basic features many, if not all of the wordpress website possess, Widgets will allow you enabling additional functionality to your website pages.

Since widget is considered a main features that comes in many themes it would definitely be shown in every page of your website. It’s actually an advantage because of the extra functions that you can add but sometimes, it may give a negative impact especially if you don’t have a needs in having a widgets displayed on your website.

What is a Widget?

A widget is a block that will do specific functions on your website. You could place these widgets in spaces like sidebars, footers, etc. A calendar widget is shown as an example below. The primary and most attractive feature of Widget is it will be there on any pages of your website. Sometimes this may impact your website negatively.

There is no way we can decide on which page a widget should be displayed. This is the default settings.

Right in this guide it is possible to show/hide widgets on pages you would like. I am going to be guiding you on how to show or hide a widgets with the help of a plugin ‘ Widget Context’.

With the help of this plugin you can now manage each widgets all by yourself while you could choose which widget should be displayed on which pages you would want it to.

How to hide/show a Widget in a wordpress website

2.1 To hide or show a widgets you would have to login to your wordpress admin and search for install a WordPress plugin called “Widget Context”.

2.2 With the help of widget context, you can configure which Widget should be displayed on a specific page in your website. In order to configure which widgets should be displayed on a specific page in your website you would have to go to the Appearance >> Widgets from the dashboard.

2.3 Now you can see the list of available Widgets. click on the desired Widget. Here, we are taking the Calendar Widget as an example.

2.4 When selecting the widget, a pop-up window will be shown which will contain available areas you could place the Widget. You need to select the desired area and click on the button “Add Widget” to proceed.

Now you will be redirected to the next page, available options for the Widget will be present. You could select the preferred option from the listed options.

2.5 You could click on the drop-down menu to view available show/hide options for the Widget.

You could select from four options from the menu. The options are shown in the below screenshot.

2.6 To make the widget displayed in specific pages, you could either select the second or third option and tick the checkboxes beside to the desired pages to show/hide Widgets on the pages.

After selecting the options, click on the button “Save” to save the changes made.

How to create Sitemaps and the basics for beginners

If you want your website to show up in search engines and your visitors to be more responsive to what you offer, you should seriously consider adding a simple feature known as a sitemap to your website. Sitemaps are very easy to set up and can help you optimize your website for search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo, and other search related terms as well as assist your website visitors who want to quickly discover one or two things on your website while having a glimpse on whatever it is that you offer by simple navigation provided.

What is a Sitemap?

A sitemap is a file that lists all of the URLs available on your website; to a better understanding of what sitemap is we can call it’s a page on your site that links to every other page on your website.

Tyes of Site maps you should know about

2.1 HTML sitemaps

2.2 XML or Google sitemaps.

An HTML sitemap allows your website visitors to see all of your site’s contents with just few navigations, and an XML or Google sitemap shows search engines the entire structure of your website.

HTML sitemaps should be visible and accessible to every of your visitors who visits your website and are usually linked to on the bottom of every page in a website, whereas only search engines can see and understand XML sitemaps.

This two kind of sitemaps will help your site get indexed or “added” to listings of search results for seo ranking and online visibility.

In addition, XML sitemaps help search engines access the very rare to come across pages of your website—that is, pages that they may not have found or would have found much later—as soon as possible, which is a major benefit for your new website that will be updated regularly.

Having set up a sitemaps that can be accessible, sitemaps can indirectly increase the chance that people will find you when they type relevant keywords into Google and other popular search sites.

2.How to Create a Sitemaps

If you lack technical knowledge in creating a website you should find it easy to do that since creating sitemaps is a simple but yet effective process.

However it is important to note that HTML sitemaps can be created manually irrespective of technical exposure.

Even though it is possible to do this, it would be difficult for you to go through your website just creating links to every single page, because you are simply using up time and resources that might be useful in other ways like adding value to your contents or even developing strategy to generating traffic to your website.

I know you would love it if a simple method is provided for you to explore, the best solution is to find a free program or plugin that would automatically scan your website and generate an effective sitemap for you. Simply use Google or another search engine and type in the words “create an HTML sitemap.”

XML websites can be very easy to create. There are many free browser-based and downloadable programs that can automatically generate XML sitemaps for your website. In order to do this, simply search the words “create an XML sitemap.”

In addition, if you’re using WordPress to build your website, there are good numbers of plugins available that can generate both HTML and XML sitemaps for your website at a go.

Many of these plugins can be found without stress by searching for sitemaps plugins on the wordpress plugin directory.

Having followed the procedure and you have successfully create your sitemaps, you should upload them to the root folder of your website.

Take it into consideration to link your HTML sitemap on many more pages of your websites to allow easy access by either search engines users a.k.a your website visitors or search engines like google, bing, yahoo and the likes.

Here are the listed steps you need to follow If you’re using a WordPress plugin.

Using a Webmaster Tools for sitemaps

Now that you have create your XML sitemap, you need to submit your sitemap file to search engines. Infact one of the preferred and effective way is for you to make use of this free resources that I have mentioned above which is Google Webmaster tools. Having make use of this resources you can immediately alert Google about your XML sitemap and have the Google’s spiders crawl your website in order to discover contents that can rank better on the search engine.

Bing search engines allow has a resources of webmaster tools that you can use to submit your website XML sitemaps.

I want you to understand that submitting your XML sitemap can usually be once.

After submission I urge you to leave the search engines to keep returning to your website and also look for newly updated posts or articles while search engines will pick up on the regular changes and updates you have made to your websites.

If major changes to your website structure are made however, it may make sense to create a new sitemaps and revisit webmaster tools to make a new submission for your website.

Sitemap can greatly improve the performance of your websites because you would make it easy for your website visitor to come across or see what you are all about all in a glance and also giving search engines a very easy way to crawl through your website contents without limitations.

Considering all of this benefits, sitemaps are easy to generate and are easy to submit to search engines.

Basic Search Engine Optimization Guide for Beginner

So now you have build your website so what next? I believe you want your contents to rank better on search engines

Here is a quick list on important SEO terms :

Index: Search engines stores all web pages that it knows about in its index. The index entry for each page describes the content and location (URL) of that page. To index is when search engine fetches a page, reads it, and adds it to the index:

Crawl: The process of looking for new or updated web pages. Search engines discovers URLs by following links, by reading sitemaps, and by many other means. Search engines crawls the web, looking for new pages, then indexes them (when appropriate).

Crawler: Automated software that crawls (fetches) pages from the web and indexes them.

SEO: – Search engine optimization as a simple term refer to the process of making your website better for search engines and search intents.

Create unique, accurate page titles

A title tag tells both users and search engines what the topic of a particular page is. The title tag should be placed within the head element of the HTML post. You should create a unique title for each page on your website.

Create good titles and snippets in search results, Using the “description” meta tag

A page’s description meta tag gives Google and other search engines a summary of what the page is about. A page’s title may be a few words or a phrase, whereas a page’s description meta tag might be a sentence or two or even a short paragraph.

Like the title tag, the description meta tag is placed within the head element of your HTML document.

Use heading tags to emphasize important text

Use meaningful headings to indicate important topics, and help create a hierarchical structure for your content, making it easier for users to navigate through your website.

Navigation is important for search engines

The navigation of a website is important in helping visitors quickly find the content they want. It can also help search engines understand what content the webmaster thinks is important.

Although major search results are provided at a page level, search engines also likes to have a sense of what role a page plays in the bigger picture of your website.

Most Simple and Effective Method on promoting a Website

Make use of google my business:

List your business for free with Google My Business, so when potential customers search local businesses or look on Google Maps, your business will show up, complete with hours, location, reviews, etc.

Make sure your listing includes a link to your website. Remember that registering with Google’s business directory is a smart move that can improve your search-result visibility for your website.

Develop contents for video sharing sites:

Developing videos and engaging users with your content on youtube can spread your content and hyperlinks for your website.

You could embed it on your blog and distribute it in your social media accounts, and so can different users.

Make sure the description links to your internet website consist of a name to mention inside the video — ideally one that takes visitors on your website. Having your videos on youtube can also help you generate continuous revenue.

Make use of social media:

While platforms like Instagram are great for photographers and fashion stylists, Medium is the platform for readers.

Anyone can write and publish a story or blog post on Medium, and other users find, comment, applaud, and interact with articles and authors.

Even if you have your own blog, networking and publishing on Medium by posting unique content, not a redo of posts from your blog to increase visibility for your business and attract more traffic to your website.

Create a Webmaster Account

Set up webmaster accounts with both Google and Bing and other search engines, ideally as soon as you set up your website. Doing so makes sure your site is indexed with them and will be included in their search results, and it will allow them to communicate with you about any problems or recommendations for your website.

Start implementing Link-building

Whenever another site, especially an established and authoritative website, publishes a link to your website, it’s more likely that your website will be found by search engines and potential readers. Links back to your site are called appropriate backlinks.

Just few link back from this source should be enough to ensure your website is found, but the more backlinks to your website, the more valuable search engines will perceive your website— the advantage of this is that you would rank better on major contents.

Another easy way to get a reputable backlink is to make a respectable and insightful comment on a popular blog, it should be a highly respected and a website that ranks well on search engines relating to your niche.

Most blogs will let you include a link to your own site with your comment.

Create Your Own Infographics

Infographics are clickable and shareable. They are great sources of backlinks to your site, and they are can be simple to make on websites like Infogram and Canva.

When designing infographics and incorporating them into your website, keep your entire audience in mind; make sure the graphics are accessible to all users.

Develop an email list:

Email marketing is a high-impact, low-cost way of delivering your marketing message to current customers and prospects It essentially involves collecting the email addresses of any and every potential customer and then sharing content — newsletters, promotions, discounts, and information — as a way of building relationships.

Building an email list is still one of the smartest things you can do to start – and grow – your business

Complete beginner guide on how to make money on a website on any niche

Offer consulting services

Another option to monetize your website is to offer consulting services. This is a good idea if you want to put your strengths at value and offer consulting to different companies, in exchange for money.

A short presentation of yourself will instill trust and build your credibility as a consultant who’s worth paying.

Sell ad space

Instead of acting through third parties, you directly sell advertising space to media buyers. Therefore, 100% of the advertising budget will go directly to you.

No more bothering about traffic, visits or conversions. However, it may require in-person meetings and negotiations that will, however, pay dividends in the long run.

Get involved in Sponsored posts

This is a great way for your brands to get in front of the audiences that are trying to target. And this a great way to make money blogging.

However, it’s important that you notify readers somewhere on the article page that it is a sponsored post and that you received compensation for writing it. In addition, you need to make sure any links are “no followed”, and Google will then be okay with the sponsored post.

Create a piece of software or course

A lot of people are drawn to creating online courses because they know that they are profitable. While the money aspect is exciting, that’s just one of the many reasons that you should create an online course, you can create an online course which can be your area of exposure to your network.

You can tell your readers what you actually feel or your area of expertise about a certain subject, it can be anything you can create a course about.

Direct affiliate programs

Registering directly on affiliate programs can be done at a low cost, meaning you can get started quickly and without much hassle. There are no affiliate program fees to worry about and no need to create a product

However, if you are in a certain niche, you will know the types of products that your visitors might be interested in.

As a result, just do a quick Google search to see if those companies offer an affiliate program. Just type in “company name” + affiliate program, so something similar to find results.

Would a Website Builder or WordPress be a great pick for you?

Website builders are built to help you get online fast. They’re easy to use, don’t require coding knowledge of any kind, and has good amounts of templates for any niche pre installed to make your website design.

WordPress can be time consuming because It’s an open source platform so you’ll need to get major functions ready yourself, and organize web hosting and other major features.

Although, WordPress gives you total freedom in terms of creativity, but demands more technical skill than website builders.

Below is a well summarized comparison to help making decision even easier and better

Website Builder Pros	Website Builder Cons
Beginner FriendlyEasy to use without coding Available customer supportsAutomatic Backup	Prices varies (might be expensive)Limited templates and designsNo room for advanced creativity
Wordpress pro’s	Wordpress cons
Unlimited customizationPopular and reliable softwareOver 54,000+ plugins availableLarge helpful supports forum	It is difficult to estimate expensesNot suitable for tech beginnerNo dedicated customer supportRequire’s add-ons for site updates

With the information shared with you, I believe you can boldly take actions on getting your website ready, although it all comes to your needs and the level of your tech knowledge.

Starting a website gives you the freedom to share your expertise, show your self online and carry transactions efficiently, So focus on getting the process done no matter the limitations or doubt you have towards the available options. Just Do It…

Would you like to be helpful to other reader with your area of knowledge with starting a website? Please do share and if you would like to ask questions the comment box are for you.

How to Start a Website Answered FAQ

How can I make my website optimized for mobile and multiple display?

Most website builder templates and CMS themes automatically comes with a mobile-optimized version that would provide better user experience to visitors, although be sure to test your website by sharing the pre launch website with family or friends to see if the display is how you need it to be.

2. I want a professional website, should I use a website builder or hire a web developer?

Many business or professionals who needs to get online quick make use of website builders because there are easy to use, requires no coding and there are support teams available, while hiring a web developer can be great if you need your website to stand out and you have plenty of time to test , test and test.

You can explore Wix marketplace to find a certified web developer freelancer or agency if you need to build a custom website that suits your budget that doesn’t break the bank.

3. I want a free website and a custom domain name, how do I do that?

You can create a free website with the best websites builder listed in this article that usually come with a free domain. But in other to look more professional and promote your brand you would need to invest in getting a domain name because it helps build trust as an authority and can help visitors find you online.

You can start building your brand by using your custom domain in for example a custom email address (contact@promarketing.com), your social channels, email marketing campaigns and more.

I want to include my own backend coding (like in php), Can Wordpress or any other site builders allow me do that?

Many free CMS like WordPress is the best option if you need to your own backend coding – using a free CMS gives you major control and customization over your website that allows you to code. Are you a lover of coding?, you can add custom code to WordPress and other CMS using a plugin.

Although some website builders can allow you to code Squarespace for example does a great job for allowing you add custom codes, – there’s are many limitations when choosing to code on this with website builders, With squarespace used as an example you can still add custom code, code injection, client-side code into website created with Squarespace , but with no access to server-side code.

As a pro coder or if you have basic knowledge with coding languages and you wish to derive freedom with coding you definitely cannot go wrong with going for wordpress or other CMS, be sure to register your website with Bluehost for better experience.

5. How can I create a simple one-page website?

A one page website is best for portfolio display or just a contact form page, for a website like this I would recommend you go for Wix and Weebly because they are easy to use if you are a beginner, there provide a good selection of high quality templates that would be great for a simple one page website that are generally simple and are user friendly

6. Why should I focus on a niche website? Many business you witness them grow but you see them out of business is as a results of not having a focused niche, A niche is simply your area of expertise where you stand out and can in the process know who your targeted audience is.

When starting a website the first thing to note is that you really have to decide on your niche especially if you need to gain large audience traffic or you would like to monetize your website

Many profitable niches that are worth trying are lifestyle, art, business growth, technology, health, fashion, news, making money guides.

7. Is Website builder or Wordpress better for e-commerce or multi-purpose website ?

Website builders can help you with whatever reason you have for creating a website, Wix is best for small and medium businesses, Squarespace is best for portfolio display while Shopify is best for e commerce although WordPress.org is totally customizable with the help of paid or premium plugins, if you have a good amount of time to learn and test features wordpress.org would do just great but you would have to consider the cost of plugins, hosting and themes before you decide on going with wordpress.

Is it really easy to build a website as a beginner?

Yes it is easy to build a website as a beginner you can either consider investing in a website builder that works well with your purpose or you can consider investing in a web designer if time is what you have and the cost of hiring a website designer is not a problem.

I don’t know how to code, can I still create a successful website?

Choosing a website builder like Wix, Squarespace and Shopify does not require you to learn coding or have any coding knowledge in other to get a successful website running.

So if you are a beginner you can go through this article with a list of website builder by comparison is provided that can suit your budgets.

How to create high quality images for my website?

Creating a high quality image is easier than before with the increasing number of free stock images provider you can definitely get one that can fit inline with your contents.

Since you know it is important to focus on providing value to your audience by creating image optimized articles it is wise to invest in one or two stock image provider (you can find a list in this article).

How much does it cost to build a website? Website building cost depends on the purpose and the option you would like to go with, a low cost website can be from $90 and up to $200 in just 4 years, if you are just on a start, a shared hosting is recommended and prices can range from $0.80/month to $3.45/month, with a domain name which usually cost up to $10 per year.

For high investments website it’s may cost $470 and up to $2000 in just four years, if your website is a large investments a cloud hosting is recommended and price can start from $7.45/month.

Other things to consider than the hosting and domain names are plugins, themes, marketing strategy, your developer team or people that could work for you on your business and other additional features like Extended Validation ssl certificate, Email services and premium cloudflare.

Depending on the website, it is best to plan your budget before hand so that no unexpected expenses would catch you by surprise, as it would save you time and money

How much does it cost to build ecommerce website ?

An e ccommerce website is like having a real physical business with seen and unforeseen expenses, in other to help with providing value at first hand the is a breakdown on how much it cost to start an e ccomerce website.

There are good available e commerce website builders like shopify, bigcommerce, oberlo that provide high quality services. A starter website hosting plan can cost an average of $29 per month, although other factors affect the pricing such as ssl certificate, a custom domain name, payment processor and other external functionalities you would like to own.

For a complete review on e commerce website be sure to find in this article the complete breakdown on the pricing.

How to build a real estate website? Becoming a successful real estate agent is directly related to the amount of effort you put to make it a success. You should know that each state has different requirements for realtors, so be careful to follow the guidelines specific to your targeted state.

Choose your perfect niche: Many successful real estate professionals can boldly tell you that you need a niche in order to find new customer and stand out from the crowd.

For example, if you have previously worked in the community developments industry, you would be successful and will be able to create policy that will be to the concerns of community home owners in a way that other real estate professionals cannot.

If finding the perfect niche is difficult to come up with, You can get started with this 792 real estate niches ideas to start with

Choose the perfect name that resonates with your audience: A perfect name is very necessary especially if you have a broad niche let’s take for instance you want to provide consultations to residents in Brooklyn it’s wouldn’t make sense to use (Tom knows best) as it’s doesn’t sound professional and does not tell in an instance who your target audience is. A better and perfect name can be (Brooklyn homes).

Choose your hosting provider: Hosting provider’s like Bluehost and WP engine are great for website with heavy traffic as your website would definitely be of high traffic.

Choose your theme: If you are using a CMS like wordpress you would have great available options to already made themes for real estate blog and if it is a website builder a good number of templates is available for use.

Other quick list are:

Brainstorm ideas on how to monetize your website
Establish credibility with your potential customers by updating your website with educating contents.
Add basic contact me or about me information on your website

How to build a photography website ?

Your photography website can be your online portfolio that you can use to show your professional standards in photography and give potential visitors which might result to your customers a gallery of free or paid images to observe.

Choose your perfect niche: You can’t argue the reason why you need a niche as a professional, in order to monetize what you do and stand out from the crowd, you simply need a profitable niche. Your niche could be for travelling that is you take photos of sacred or adventurous place, your niche might be for cool technology gadgets do you have love for new technology gadgets or you are just possessive of tech gadgets you should definitely become a technology photography, other kind of profitable niche can be food, lifestyle, interviews and many more.

Choose the perfect name that could allow you stand out: Photography is a very lucrative and a broad skills because every one has access to a device that can either take advance photos or edit photos professionally.

In order to stand out and make money from what you do, you should pick a name. A simple name can be (animals on the rescue) or if it is a targeted location (Houston scenery).

Choose your hosting provider: A photography website is suppose to be host on a secure and quality hosting provider due to the large amount of media contents in your website. Bluehost and Siteground can do the job very well with a hosting plan that doesn’t break the bank.

Choose your theme: A theme is basically the back bone of your website so it mustn’t be over looked, there are themes available for any kind of photography niche you wish to go for provided you search for the right one and read reviews to know it’s weakness. Squarespace is the best website builder for photography and creative website.

Other quick list are:

Brainstorm ideas on how to monetize your website be it by subscriptions to access your full work
Establish credibility with your potential customers by updating your website with educating contents mainly like how to use photography softwares, devices and basic how to’ guide.
Add basic contact me or about me information on your website for easier connection with your potential customer

How to build a dental website?

A dentist website can come in various ways depending on your level of expertise, who you want your target audience to be and the services and contents you would like to provide.

Choose your perfect niche: As a dentist your profession is the most lucrative but yet very sensitive occupation to be involved especially if you decide to own a niche. A niche can make you stand out and help tell target audience or potential customers what you deal it. Could it be sore gum, or you deal with teeth removal or removal or even if you care for young persons like babies and teenagers. All of this is relating to a niche, that is you will never go wrong for going for a niche.

Choose your perfect name: A perfect name can be a way that people see you as an expertise, imagine you start a dentist website with the name (doctor cure all) this name is definitely hilarious and would scare away potential customers to other dentist with a better name like (healthy gums). So before deciding to launch a perfect dentist website choose a perfect name that resonates with what you do.

Choose your hosting provider: Bluehost and Greengeeks are best for website like this that can hold a lot of patients files, so you definitely would not go wrong by selecting one as your choice.

Choose the right theme: Theme can tell a lot when a visitor visit your website, if you deal mostly with the teeth, it would be nice to see a theme with happy smiling white teeth people as a major means of attraction.

Other quick list are:

Brainstorn ideas on how to monetize your website be it by proving healthy teeth guides, health medications or guides.
Establish credibility with your potential customers by updating your website with educating contents mainly like how to care for some path of the mouth, how to use teeth related devices and how to make the right purchasing decisions for teeth self care.
Add basic contact me or about me information on your website for easier connection with your potential customer

How to get first 1000 visitors to your website ?

Getting your first 1000 visitors can be very possible in a simple way. In order to do that, start with:

Create contents that can solve your visitors problem and help them get better knowledge than they would have gotten from in other sources.
Start building wide social media presence, like a group chat, a page and other online actions you can take. Then you can use this to share links to your new posts or any updated contents you need people to be aware of.
Be focused and provide information based on your niche, a niche is what you want your potential customers to know you for, so be consistent and don’t move to other areas just because you feel other niches are lucrative and are worth trying. Doing this can hurt your customer base because your potential customer will not want to relate with a random person.

How to increase traffic to your website ?
Share other related professionals contents or website that you love on your social media handles.
Implements the use of target keywords and practice basic on page SEO for your website contents.
Use graphics like infographics and the like to represent written words, doing this can make your content interesting and can result to a stand out from your competitors.
After implementing all of the seo advice then you still see a rising and falling increase in traffic, you definitely need to buckle up and set analytic to see what is working well for you, then you do more of those things

How to start a health and fitness website ?

A health and fitness website can be ranging from providing how to’s advice, nutrition advice and even health related tools.

Choose your perfect niche: A niche can help you determine what type of audience you would like to provide service to. For example it’s could be people wanting to learn how to use certain health tools and softwares, it could be does interested in losing weight or going on a diet or simply providing health advice for health complications victims like the elderly one’s, people with cancer or people with rare diseases. It all bounce back to your level of expertise.

Choose a name that should be of difference: Are you an health consultant or you just love talking about health or fitness? You definitely need a name that can help bring in target audience. A name for cancer patients from a Phd health consultants can be (Curecancer) instead of a random name like (Dr Thomas) all of this are also back to your true purpose and how you would like to present your self.

Choose your hosting provider: A hosting provider like Bluehost and siteground can help with providing a faster load time and can keep your website secure from external attackers who would like to gain unauthorized access to customer details.

Choose the right theme: A right selected theme can help you promote your website even when you are not there, so it is wise to choose a design based on what your services are and the location you intent to serve.

Other quick list are:

Brainstorn ideas on how to monetize your website be it by selling fitness guides, health medications or guides.
Establish credibility with your potential customers by updating your website with educating contents mainly like how to care for some path of the body, how to use health related devices and how to make the right purchasing decisions.
Add basic contact me or about me information on your website for easier connection with your potential customer

How to start a finance website ?

Finance niche is definitely a trending topic with lot of niche’s under it, niches like budgeting, investing and debt paying are common niche’s you can start with.

Choose our perfect niche: Your niche can be all about making money guides for young adults and men, financial empowerment’s for women or the elderly and even investments plan.

So a perfect niche can help you stand out from the so called professionals with random niche.

Choose your perfect name: The power of a perfect name when deciding to create a website for finances cannot be overlooked because you have helped create a bridge for your target audience to help pass through by proving a name that matches with there and your own purpose.

For example a name like (financetips) can tell a lot of difference compare to a random name like (growmoney).

Choose the right hosting provider: Hosting provider can not be compromised because you would want a website where all your financing tips can be hosted securely without lossing access to mny of your published strategies, Bluehost and WP engine can help you get started with inexpensive pricing plans.

Choose the right theme: There are a lot of themes and templates available for you to pick from. For example if you provide tips on how to calculate income taxes your theme is expected to be designed with calculators or other accounting related images or design.

Other quick list are:

Brainstorm ideas on how to monetize your website be it by providing investments guides, finances software or basic finances guides.
Establish credibility with your potential customers by updating your website with educating contents mainly like how to save up cost when starting a business, finances softwares and tools.
Add basic contact me or about me information on your website for easier connection with your potential customer

How to start a restaurant website?

Starting a restaurant website is a whole lot of interesting experience. Because humans can not survive with out food consumption which can be resulting to a large number of potential customer. But it is wise to decide on what particularly are you providing, owning a restaurant can give you options to select from whether a coffee shop, a baker shop or a food restaurant and many more.

Choose your perfect niche: Many restaurants owners argue with owning a perfect niche for their business, there believe they can just venture into any interest of their choice which is very wrong in business ethics and can deter there customer base.

People this days are careful of what they consume so the least there would do is to purchase from a random restaurants with out a focus niche or with no area of expertise in certain food making or other skills.

Choose your brand name: A brand name can help you stand out from other restaurants owners and can place you in a area of standard notice with your potential customer. A perfect name can be gotten from inspirations or what services you provided, let’s take for instance you make pizza as your major menu naming your restaurants (pizzaplace) can tell a lot of difference compare to (Tom Kitchen) because this second name is sounding as a generic name without focused niche.

Choose the right hosting provider: Hosting provider like Bluehost, Hostgator and WP engine can help with handling a lot of traffic that you would be getting from constant orders and inquires placed on your website.

Choose the right theme: Themes are a great requirements for designing a website that match with your business, it does not only make a your potential customers feel welcome it also embrace your business story if you can go with a theme that can speak for your business.

Let take for an instance you own a coffee shop, your theme design is meant to contain images of coffee, cofffee mugs and some short words on what coffee means to you.

Other quick list are:

Brainstorm ideas on how to monetize your website be it by providing cooking guides, a donation page and integrate payment options for accepting orders
Establish credibility with your potential customers by updating your website with educating contents mainly like recipes hacks, ingredients user guide and modern kitchen hacks
Add basic contact me or about me information on your website for easier connection with your potential customer

The post How To Create a Website For Free ( And Make Money ) appeared first on Blogging.

Best Website Builders Reviews For Small Business

Shahil Shah — Thu, 07 Apr 2022 15:50:40 +0000

You are probably a beginner wanting to create your own website or someone that wants to increase their presence online within a specified budget. And you don’t know where to start or what website builder would be the best fit for you.

You probably don’t even have much knowledge of what a website builder is and can do. Well, you’re in luck!

Because in this article, we delve into the nitty-gritty of website building. We would explore the best website builders, their features, what website builder would be the best fit for you, and so much more.

Website builders are online tools that could aid you in building your own website without any hassles. Other than the fact that using a website builder is fast and easy (I mean it bypasses all those programming languages and somewhat confusing coding symbols), it is also budget-friendly.

I have had my own share of seeking the best and most suitable website builder for me, and I understand that it can be difficult and sometimes, maybe confusing to choose one that expresses who you are, what you do, and the story you are trying to tell. Or maybe, you’re the entrepreneur trying to create an online shop or boost your online presence.

There is a pool of more than 70 different builders with different features to choose from, and we have reviewed and revealed the 20 best website builders. We would make your decision-making process faster as we are giving you information on the design features, prices and hosting services, technical support, search engine optimization, speed, and much more.

A website builder gives you a whole lot of functions in just one place, from buying your domain to hosting and designing. Using a website builder makes it easier to access all these functions for managing your site.

Choosing your website would be based on what features you want. Someone that wants to blog about their particular topic – let’s say fashion, might just require a four to five-page website. This could be different for someone that wants to create an e-commerce site and convert leads.

Furthermore, someone with little or no knowledge of programming languages such as HTML, CSS, or JavaScript may just go with the simple drag-drop tool compared to someone with experience with the listed programming languages who may use a sophisticated content management system (CMS) to create the look and feel they want. In essence, only you know what you are looking for, and this article would guide you in making this decision.

LIST OF WEBSITE BUILDERS (TOP 20)

Here is our list of the 20 best website builders you should consider using;

*Includes details on their best feature and plans

	Suitability	Free	Freemium (Free trial)	Paid (Price Range monthly)
Wix	Best design overall		–	$14-$39
Weebly	Great fit for personal portfolios and small businesses		–	$6-$25
Squarespace	For personal brand and creative	–		$12 – $40
Zyro	Modern and professional design			$1.99 – $13.99
Site123	Best for people who need a site in no time + Strong customer support		–	$10.80
Duda	Best for customizing + Multilingual feature	–		$14 – $33
Shopify	Best for an eCommerce site	–		$29 – $299
GoDaddy	Best for speed and quick creation of websites			$10 – $25
Wordpress.com	Best for Bloggers		–	$4 – $45
Jimdo	Affordable ad-free and fast website powered by AI		–	$9 – $39
Strikingly	High value for money		–	$8 – $49
DesignModo	Best for startups industries	–		$29 – $349
Ucraft	Highly functional website + inbuilt tools			$10 – $69
BigCommerce	Best for online large stores	–		$29 – $299
Webflow	For professional designers		–	$12 – $36
Hibu	For small business owners	–	–	Custom pricing
Hubspot content management system	Top website tool with Integrated CRM tools			Up to $350
Pixpa	Best for creatives and designers	–		$7 – $16
Webnode	Best for multilingual websites		–	$3.95 – $19.95
Webstarts	Great for free website			$7.16 – $19.99

We delve further into these website builders and explore their design and how functional they are. We have selected the ones that offer search engine optimization (SEO) tools and customization options.

1. WIX

Ease of Use

Wix is the most populous and largest website builder there is. With more than 100 million users across the world, Wix is simple to use and very affordable. It ranks as the best website builder overall because of its high-quality features, technical support, flexibility of design, ease of use, and value for money.

Wix has provided a platform for anyone and every one of different skill levels to create their own website without needing any coding language. With your own creativity and within your control, you can use Wix’s simple drag-and-drop tool and its other features to create something really appealing and professional.

With Wix, you can create the website of your dreams, literally!

Templates

Wix has over 500 website templates that you can choose from, depending on the niche. Their ready-to-use templates cover a wide range of industries, from templates for small businesses, and tourism, to themes for musicians, and so on. It may seem overwhelming because of the number of features, but you can easily filter your search based on your needs to hasten the search process for your desired templates. In deciding, take as much time as you need because you would be unable to change your templates once your site is live.

Wix’s templates are responsive and mobile-friendly. There are more than 100 fonts you can choose from with different color schemes to try out. Their designs are striking with advanced features, video and animation options, and scroll effects.

Features and Tools

With Wix, your creativity can flow to whatever extent. It gives you total freedom and control to create whatever you want and however, you want it. You can add pages, delete what you don’t want, drag-and-drop images, text, and so on. These options are available using WixEditor. On the other hand, is another choice tool – Wix ADI. Wix ADI – Artificial Design Intelligence doesn’t give you total control to create your website but a questionnaire where you can fill out your needs and requirements, and then they create a website for you.

WixADI creates a website for you based on your needs and preferences.

Wix also has an option for those with prior knowledge and experience with coding. Their code editor allows you to increase your website functionality and gives you even more control over your site outlook.

Wix has a variety of templates that you can select from.

Wix has a free plan that you can try out for a start and use for as long as you want, although there is a limit to the features you can access. It may not give your website that professional look you desire, but it still has some features such as search engine optimization (SEO) tools that help Google find you, a mobile editor to optimize your sites for use on mobile devices, social sharing to boost your site’s presence, and its app store to get more features for your site.

Pricing and Plans

To get the best experience of Wix, there are a total of eight premium plans starting from $14/month available. This gives you more access to templates, your own domain name, and ad-free Wix, and much more storage.

If you want a shop online, Wix also got you covered. They have a WixEcommerce option that would help you create a simple-to-use and stunning online store that lets you sell as many products as you want.

Wix is best suited for anything and everything for a personal brand, portfolios for creatives, and small businesses.

Summary

PROS

Simplistic interface with an easy-to-use drag-and-drop editor
Autosaves progress and changes made
Beginner-friendly
Strong customer and technical support

CONS

Can’t change templates once the website is live
An overwhelming number of features
Depends on apps for scalability

2. WEEBLY

Weebly is a great fit for small businesses and portfolios. It is simple to use with sophisticated features. It is especially suited for bloggers and small businesses looking to start an eCommerce store. Although it is one of the best in terms of ease of use and affordability, it has limitations with designs and freedom of customizing. With over 50 million users, Weebly is a top-rated website builder because of its variety of in-built tools and app stores.

Templates

Weebly has a strong eCommerce feature, and that’s what makes it exceptional for small businesses. It is easy-to-use and hassle-free, plus it allows you to customize your site as quickly as possible. With their stylish and appealing themes, you can create a striking personal portfolio website that suits you. Their themes are mobile-friendly, very responsive, and optimized for mobile devices.

You can easily create a website using Weebly’s easy-to-use editor.

Features and Tools

In terms of in-built features, Weebly has more advantages over Wix. Weebly gives bloggers the ability to use their drag-and-drop tool to add images, text, and content. With an impressive app store, blogging tools, and SEO tools to optimize your site for Google, which helps your site rank higher. They also provide a mobile application that can help you to monitor your website’s performance and access email marketing tools. Weebly also provides an analytics tool to provide insights on engagements and traffic on your website.

Weebly templates and designs aren’t as top-notch and vast as Wix but are stylish with more than 50 templates to select from. Unlike Wix, Weebly allows you to change your template even after your site is live. Creating a personal portfolio or blog is made easy by Weebly. It provides an inbuilt image editor, social media marketing tools, social sharing features, animation effects, and a lot of fonts.

Pricing and Plans

Weebly gives access to a free plan where you can build your website and integrate a free SSL certificate to secure your site. This free plan is one of the best website builders you can get from among the varieties of website builders available. There are also three affordable premium plans starting from $6/monthly (billed annually) that could give you the best experience of Weebly.

All paid plans allow the integration of an eCommerce store, making it very affordable for small businesses. The eCommerce features include payment platforms, coupon codes, product options, inventory systems, and shipping labels. Based on the premium plans you choose, you can also get an ad-free site and more store tools.

Although Weebly has scalable tools, SEO guides, and designs that make it well suited for small business owners, entrepreneurs, and freelancers. It can also be used by artists and bloggers. It isn’t as overwhelming as Wix because of the easy navigation it provides. Weebly also provides a platform for those with experience in coding. They can customize their site as much as possible.

Weebly is a great option if you want to create a website in a short time and integrate their eCommerce option. Although there is not so much freedom with customization because of their structured templates, the pros greatly outweigh the cons because of its simplistic design, inbuilt features, and high value for money.

Summary

PROS

Built-in app store
SEO tools and guides available
Responsive templates
Scalable

CONS

Limited control and customization
Lack of personal restore feature

3. SQUARESPACE

If you love stunning designs like me, then Squarespace is for you. Squarespace is top-notch in terms of flexible and sleek designs, and this makes it most suitable for creatives. Their features are not-so-easy to use, but with time and patience, you get an awesome experience.

Features and Tools

It is a sophisticated website builder that would serve those in the creative industry and small businesses. With a variety of stunning designs, Squarespace combines high functionality, quality, and security to access everything you need. Squarespace gives access to social sharing features, music upload and sharing features, and video backgrounds. Their designs are detailed with the freedom to combine different color schemes, fonts, and graphics for your website.

Pricing and Plans

Although Squarespace is one of those “freemium” website builders, this means that it isn’t free, but it gives an option for a free trial for 14 days to try it out before deciding whether to upgrade. There are four premium plans you can select from, and each of them provides a variety of features that can be unlocked as you upgrade your plan.

These plans range from $12 to $40 per month (billed annually). Unlike Weebly, only the highest two premium plans can grant you access to an eCommerce feature.

Templates

Squarespace’s designs are top-notch, modern, and professional. With over 60 templates, Squarespace offers strong customer support. Their templates are optimized for all devices. Their templates give the freedom of customization and flow of creativity to create that ideal website you want. They also allow you to work on multiple templates at once. Squarespace allows you to change your site’s template even after it is published.

Squarespace also offers inbuilt tools, such as eCommerce functions, SEO tools, and much more. Squarespace also provides a platform for PayPal and G-Suite integration. It allows you to edit from your phone and publish blogs, especially those with lots of high-quality images.

Squarespace does not require any prior knowledge or experience with coding but requires patience and some technical skills to better maximize its use. Its interface is easy to relate with, and its drag-and-drop editor does not work like Wix or what you would expect but uses sections to build.

Squarespace uses a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) Editor, which means that what you see on the screen is exactly what you would see when it is published. Unlike WordPress, which requires you to preview your site to know what it looks like once it is published. One of its downsides is that it requires that you save your progress immediately after every change made because it doesn’t autosave. But, it can restore posts and pages that have been deleted for up to thirty days.

Although Squarespace allows professionals with- and without- any knowledge of coding to create a professional website, it is not beginner-friendly, unlike Wix and Weebly. It requires time, patience, and a little level of technical expertise to experience it very well.

So who is Squarespace best suited for? Squarespace is best for creative – photographers, graphic designers, artists, and other designers that want to showcase their content (quality images and portfolios) online.

Summary

PROS

Allows flexibility of design
Sophisticated and sleek templates that are mobile and desktop-friendly
Best features available
Strong customer support

CONS

Not beginner-friendly
Requires time and patience for the best experience
Does not autosave
Low speed

4. ZYRO

Zyro is populous for its simplistic and fast interface. It has high functionality with unique and stunning designs to customize. Zyro would give you a lot of control to create and diversify as much as possible. This website builder is easy-to-use without any required knowledge of any coding language. You can create your website in a matter of minutes with Zyro’s powerful tools.

Templates

Zyro features more than 55 striking templates and a variety of stock images to choose from. They have templates for different industries, from hotels and hospitality and bakeries, to creative industries, startup agencies, and entrepreneurs. It doesn’t have as much customization and blogging features as you may desire, it is can still exude a professional and beautiful look for an affordable price.

Their templates are mobile-friendly and optimized for all devices. Like Wix, Zyro doesn’t allow you to switch templates once live. But it stands out because it includes a tool for logo creation and a copy generator.

Zyro is a modern website builder and best suited for small business owners seeking to increase their presence online. There is a pool of business templates that you can select from and tools such as the drag-and-drop option and AI-content generator that you can use.

Features and Tools

Using Zyro is hassle-free, and it allows you to create appealing pages and integrates an eCommerce store to showcase your products.

Zyro integrates an AI-content generator that suggests SEO friendly content based on your type of business or industry. This tool would help you create content that is optimized for SEO, rank your site higher on Google, and possibly boost lead conversions.

Zyro’s AI Content Generator creates content optimized for SEO for you.

Pricing and Plans

Zyro has both free and paid plans. Although, the free plan is a great place to start as it offers a 500MB storage space, free SSL certificate, and data transfer option monthly, it is packed with ads and has a lot of limitations. It doesn’t offer a customized domain URL.

Zyro has affordable premium plans that are budget-friendly and with advanced features. Their premium plans start from as low as $1.99 to $13.99 per month (billed yearly).

Zyro’s premium plans start from $1.99 to $13.99 per month, billed annually.

Zyro also has eCommerce packages in their top two premium plans that offer multiple eCommerce functions, discounts and coupons, inventory management, order management, and multiple payment platforms. It also offers multilingual options and social sharing features.

Zyro offers a high value for money and high functionality to create and boost website engagement quickly and without hassles. You can create optimized websites for Google and increase traffic, use analytics, showcase your products, and convert leads all in one place.

Summary

PROS

Integrates AI tools
Simplistic drag-and-drop tool
Exceptional website uptime
Includes logo creator tool

CONS

No add-ons on free account
Can’t change templates once live
Few customization options

5. SITE123

Site123 is the easiest website builder yet. It comes easy as 1-2-3 (no pun intended) with strong customer support but lacks advanced features. If you don’t have much time on your side, and you really want something simple. This is the website builder to use.

Templates

Site123 has stunning templates that are mobile-friendly and responsive. They create a template for you based on your needs and requirements. They ask you about the type of website you want and gives you a tailored site with all the right features. Take the time you need to choose your templates because just like Wix, you can’t change your templates once it’s published. What Site123 lacks in features, it makes up for in speed and productivity.

Features and Tools

This website builder is for anyone and everyone, from bloggers, freelancers, personal brands to entrepreneurs, and small business owners. Although site123 may not show up as best for blogging, it features great blogging tools such as Google Analytics, RSS feed, social sharing, and a search option. If you are looking for something much better, then you should try WordPress or Weebly.

This website builder site also features apps that can easily be integrated and an eCommerce store to sell your products, but this is only available for premium subscribers. One of the downsides of using site123 for eCommerce is the lack of any substantial financial tool – it lacks an invoicing tool and payment tracker. If you’re looking for much more in eCommerce, then you should try Shopify or BigCommerce.

Site123 is unarguably the best when it comes to customer support and help features. They literally lead you by the hands when creating your website. Although site123 allows for social media integration, it doesn’t embed live feeds from your social media accounts.

In terms of search engine optimization tools and higher Google ranking, Site123 comes through. It supports Meta description editing and custom URLs but lacks a keyword suggestion option and SEO apps. This requires that you have prior knowledge of search engine optimization.

Pricing and Plan

With over 130 domain extensions to select from, Site123 gives you access to a domain for free in the first year, after which it is billed $13 afterward. The domain extensions can be tailored towards your type of industry. Note that this domain can only work with a paid plan. If you already have a domain, you can easily connect it to the website.

Site123 also gives a free SSL certificate to secure your website 24/7 and protect your data. In terms of pricing, site123 is very generous. Although the free plan is limited and has ads, you can get access to 500MB storage, 1 GB bandwidth, and a subdomain. To use a domain, you need to upgrade to the premium package which is $10.80 per month (billed annually). This plan includes the eCommerce feature, 10 GB storage, and 5 GB bandwidth.

Site123 is simplistic and hassle-free to use. If you are looking for control and freedom to customize, you may not get it because everything is pretty much done for you. If you create a personal or small business site, and you don’t have much time and patience, then you should try Site123. You can always start with the free plan to experience it before upgrading to a premium plan.

Summary

PROS

Strong customer support and help features
Easiest website builder yet
Simplistic interface

CONS

Lack of advanced features
Can’t change templates when it has been published
Limited customization

6. DUDA

If you are looking for a sophisticated design, then Duda is the option to choose from. It has a simplistic interface that is easy to use. Duda features a drag-and-drop option that allows you to add images, text, animations, and other features easily. There is absolutely no coding skill required.

Templates

Duda features over 90 sophisticated templates that cover a variety of industries from health and wellness, design, to businesses. Duda gives you control of customization but within the limits of a provided template. Their designs exude professionalism and are mobile responsive in design. Duda allows you to preview your site before it goes live. Their designs are device-optimized. They have more than 100 fonts available and different color schemes to combine.

Duda’s original intent was to provide a platform for website designers and design agencies to create multiple websites. It integrates a widget builder that you can be used to customize the features on your site.

Pricing and Plans

The pricing plans are expensive, but it is one of those with freemium plans – they allow a free trial of 14 days for you to see if it’s a good fit for you. Their cheapest plan, which starts at $14 per month (billed annually), includes an eCommerce option for you to start selling your products from the first day.

The eCommerce tools include payment platforms like Paypal, coupon codes, shipping tools, tax calculators, product categories, and so on. Although Duda offers an A-okay eCommerce feature, to get the best out of an eCommerce, you can try out Shopify or BigCommerce.

Duda’s premium plans range from $14 to $33 per month when billed annually.

Features and Tools

Some of Duda’s features include search engine optimization tools such as Meta title and description, custom titles, and URLs. In terms of SEO, Duda is pretty basic. But if SEO is a huge priority for you, you should consider using Wix or Weebly.

Duda also features site hosting on Amazon Web Services and up to 50 websites based on your plan. You can have access to as many websites as you need. For agencies, they feature priority support via phone, email, and chat. They also integrate a client management feature and pages connected to the customer’s data.

Duda allows for multilingual capabilities. You can create websites in different languages and can improve SEO with language-based URLs. Other than these, Duda allows you to customize your content to your visitors. They can personalize your visitor’s time zone, browsing history, and location. They also trigger ads, promotional messages, and videos based on these factors, thus boosting engagement.

Other than website designers and lifestyle bloggers, Duda is also suited for businesses that want to expand their presence online beyond the borders of their countries into international shores.

Summary

PROS

Simplistic interface, and easy-to-use
Sleek and stunning designs
Variety of apps and widgets available in-house

CONS

Design customization within the limits of the template
Pricing plans are costly
Basic website features e.g. SEO tools

7. SHOPIFY

Shopify is the best website builder for an eCommerce site. With over a million business sites created, Shopify serves many industries from interior design and salons to photography and fashion designing. Shopify is best suited for anyone who has something to sell, whether you are just starting out or you have made more than a million dollars from your business.

Even if you don’t have products to sell, Shopify can still serve you. For example, if you provide services based on a request or an appointment. And you don’t have to worry about knowing a single word of code. Shopify uses sophisticated eCommerce tools with a simple editor that helps you create your site easily.

Templates

Shopify is beginner-friendly. Its interface is pretty easy to understand and work with.. There are just ten templates available for free. To access more themes, you have to buy them for as high as $180 each. The minimum price is $140. Each template is scalable, professional, and feature-rich. The templates are optimized for all devices.

Shopify’s templates are mobile-friendly with content that can be customized. There are a wide range of font style to choose from and color schemes to combine. The template is search engine optimized with an added navigation support. Another added feature is the availability of a multilingual option for some themes.

Shopify has a variety of templates to select from based on your industry.

Shopify is a top-notch website builder with hundreds of apps and advanced features inbuilt. They provide multiple market platforms and integrate social media sharing.

Pricing and Plans

Shopify’s plans are a little bit pricy, but you can select your desired plan based on your needs and budget. The plans start from $29 per month (billed annually) for the basic Shopify to as high as $299 per month for advanced Shopify and $79 per month for Shopify somewhere in between.

Shopify offers a free 14-day trial so that you can try out the website builder and see if it suits your needs and preferences. All plans feature a sales channel with an authentic checkout, unlimited products category, coupons and discounts, 24/7 support, more than 4,100 built-in apps, multiple payment platforms, shipping tools, POS, and much more.

One of the downsides of using Shopify is the charges placed on the transactions made. This can only be avoided by using Shopify’s in-house payment platform. Shopify payments bypass third-party payment providers like Paypal to process your store payments.

Features and Tools

Shopify has good search engine optimization and marketing tools that can help your website rank higher on Google page, this is important for you to boost traffic and possibly convert sales leads. It comes with its own analytical tool that gives you an overview of your performance. You can also use Google analytics for more information. Shopify lacks a blog-centered analytics tool, so it may not be favorable if your site is primarily about blogging.

Shopify includes a free SSL certificate to secure your website against cyber threats and reassure your customers that their sensitive information like payment details is secured.

Although it has its drawbacks, Shopify is still the best eCommerce platform yet. You can build your online store without any technical expertise required and start to showcase your products on multiple marketplaces.

Summary

PROS

Feature-rich
Multiple Marketplaces including Amazon, eBay

CONS

Charges a fee for third-party transactions
Limited themes available to select from

8. GODADDY

You probably thought that GoDaddy was just a domain registrar, get ready to be surprised. GoDaddy is not only just the world’s biggest domain registrar. It is one of the fastest website builders yet. The website builder uses AI to create an effortless website based on the information you provide.

They recently combined website building with marketing tools, to improve businesses’ online presence. Their marketing and insight tool will guide you in using data to achieve your goals.

Suitability

If you are an entrepreneur or small business owner, then GoDaddy is for you. It is the perfect solution for a fast and hassle-free website building process. But if you are looking for creative control, you might have to try another website builder because GoDaddy is limited in customization as the builder does all the work.

GoDaddy can be used by anyone from a variety of industries for blogging, business, eCommerce, or even a personal site. GoDaddy’s editor allows you to add images, audio, or video along with your blog posts. It also features an RSS feed and Google analytics tool. There are also hundreds of stock photos available with an embed function for your feeds from Youtube, Vimeo, and Soundcloud.

Templates

The over 100 templates available on GoDaddy are fair and can be customizable for your content. The templates are responsive in design and optimized for all devices.

Interestingly, GoDaddy also has an eCommerce option to showcase over 1500 products on multiple marketplaces and get additional features for $25 per month. These additional features include a search engine optimization tool that helps you rank higher on Google, a social media sharing option, and a cart recovery function.

With GoDaddy eCommerce, you can sell your products on Walmart, eBay, and Amazon. You also have access to multiple payment platforms like PayPal. It is not the best in terms of eCommerce, but it is still ideal for small business owners. But if you’re planning to expand your store, we recommend Shopify.

Pricing and Plans

The price of their domains starts at $9.99 annually, but you can save more when you pay for two years. You get the domain for $0.01 for the first year. They are pretty cheap with their premium plans. They start from as low as $10 per month (billed annually). With each upgrade, you gain access to search engine optimization tools, appointment scheduler, and sales features for the eCommerce plan. But they offer a 30-day risk-free trial that lets you check if GoDaddy is a good fit for you.

GoDaddy has a great uptime of 99.9%. This means that your website will be up and running 99.9% of the time. They automatically auto backup your site if your site gets hacked or crashes so that you do not lose any data.

If you want to create a website in minutes with a budget-friendly plan, and marketing features, GoDaddy is the perfect option for you. It may not be for you if the design is a top priority for you.

Summary

PROS

User-friendly
Fastest website builder yet
Change templates at any time

CONS

Plain designs
Lack of creative control
Basic features
No SEO tools available in the $10 plan

9. WORDPRESS.COM

You are probably very familiar with this name. It is one of the populous website builders in the world. It powers more than 30% of the internet. If you are passionate about blogging and content writing, then this builder is for you. WordPress.com is more of a platform with add-ons for website building. It differs in a lot of ways from its brother – WordPress.org, and we would be showing you the differences between them and helping you decide which of them you would prefer to use.

WordPress.org was created first and is founded on a Content Management System (CMS), and is used to create and manage websites. WordPress.com was launched later on and took some of the features of WordPress.org. Although WordPress.org has some pretty impressive features, it requires some knowledge of coding to build your website.

Features and Tools

WordPress.com has a more simplistic interface than WordPress.org. It uses a drag and drop feature almost like many other website builders to easily create a website. Editing content and design are done separately. This might seem a little overwhelming at first, but WordPress provides a guide to help you set up your site without any hassles.

WordPress.com is packed with amazing features that support blogging, such as display categories, analytics, social media sharing, RSS feed, comment section, and so much more. It also has more than 340 templates to select from for a wide range of industries. It doesn’t give much freedom of control and customization but eventually gives you a good-looking site.

WordPress.com has more than 340 templates you can choose from for your industry.

WordPress.com also has strong support and help features to guide you in building your website. They are also pretty strong on the whole Search Engine Optimization thingy. They take care of almost all the SEO nits and grits, helping you to rank higher on search engines and gain more visitors.

WordPress.com also does well on security. Their sites are encrypted with a free installed SSL certificate. They monitor suspicious activity and run firewalls and security testing. They also have a strong restore and backup option that enables you to easily restore any deleted or lost file.

Pricing and Plans

WordPress.com is one of those website builders with amazing features at a low cost. It has three paid plans starting from as low as $4 to $25 per month (billed annually). These plans give you an ad-free site with email and live chat support, customized URL, extra storage space, more themes and freedom of customization, the ability to earn from your site, and payment platforms, depending on the plans you choose to subscribe to.

They have a free plan that you can try out for a start. It features a 3GB storage space, stunning templates, and community support.

Wordpress.com can also be used by small business owners but for nothing really advanced. It has business-themed templates, includes Google analytics tools, and unlimited storage. It also includes plugins and eCommerce features. All these packages are included in their business plan, which costs $300 (billed annually). If you are looking to get more out of a business site, you may not find it with WordPress.com but with Shopify or BigCommerce.

Summary

PROS

Best for bloggers
Value for money
Feature-rich

CONS

Requires a little knowledge of code
Limited templates available
Not so easy to use at first

10. JIMDO

Jimdo combines affordability with simplicity. It has two editors that can be used for creating a simple website without having to know how to code. These editors are Jimdo Creator and Jimdo Dolphin, both of which are unique in their own way. Jimdo Dolphin uses an artificial design intelligence interface that allows Jimdo to create a website for you based on some questions on your needs or preferences. On the other hand, Jimdo Creator gives you control in adding your content, dragging, and dropping elements.

Ease of Use

Jimdo has a simplistic interface that is easy to use and navigate. It has over 100 templates with a variety of industries to select from and customize, but you may be limited in control. The drag-and-drop functionality is beginner-friendly. You can add text, images, and other elements with just a few clicks.

If you are looking to build your personal site or something for your small business. Then Jimdo is for you. It is mobile friendly and has a responsive template that you can customize your content easily. It doesn’t allow much freedom of control because of its restrictive templates. It includes business and eCommerce features that help you sell your products better and convert leads.

Jimdo can also do wonders for you if you’re looking for a blogging site. It includes great blogging features like analytics, category, RSS feed, comments section, social bookmarking. It also includes tools that would help your website rank higher. It includes SEO tools and Meta description tools.

Pricing and Plans

Jimdo Dolphin prices are pretty fair. The premium plans start from $9 to as high as $39 per month (billed annually). With the $9 START plan, you get a free domain and an ad-free site. This makes it one of the best website builder with an affordable ad-free site. With advances in each premium plan, you gain features like advanced SEO, unlimited storage space, analytics, and stock images. They also don’t do too badly with their free plan. Jimdo features help features and support via social media and email.

For Jimdo Creator, the plans start from $10 to $40 per month (billed annually). You get a little bit more creative control. They also have a plan for you if you’re looking to start an online shop that starts from $15 to $39. This gives you access to a range of features, including the basic shop features, product listing and layouts, and so much more.

Their free plan comes with a 2GB bandwidth storage and 500MB storage space that comes with a free subdomain – though you would be stuck with using jimdosite.com. Although using the premium plan promises a great experience, you can try out Jimdo’s free plan to see if it’s a good fit for you.

SUMMARY

PROS

Affordable ad-free website
Simplistic interface and drag-and-drop functionality
The free plan comes with a selling option

CONS

Restrictive template designs
Limited freedom of customization

11. STRINKINGLY

Strikingly is a sleek and easy-to-use website builder. It is beginner-friendly and has some amazing features that could meet your needs. It is affordable and has striking templates. Creating a website with Strikingly is fast, simple, and hassle-free.

Strikingly has enough templates with varying designs that are sleek, stunning, and mobile responsive. They are very easy to edit, but they don’t guarantee you much creative freedom like Wix or Weebly.

If you’re a blogger, small business owner, or freelancer, then Strikingkly is for you. Strikingly has amazing blogging features like social bookmarking, RSS feed, analytics, categories, and so on to help you set up a simple and functional blog.

Strikingly for eCommerce

Strikingly has an eCommerce feature that allows you to sell 300 products on the Pro plan and 500 products on the VIP plan, which is pretty cheap compared to most website builders. The free plan allows you to sell one product with unlimited stock. Pretty neat, right? If you want to expand your business and you’re looking for a wider range of eCommerce features, you should consider using BigCommerce or Shopify.

Strikingly is also great for a personal portfolio site. You get stylish templates and media sections add-ons. Strikingly wouldn’t give you so much creative freedom, but it would give you a high value for money and help you grow your presence online.

Features and Tools

Strikingly has strong support and help feature that would guide you in your website building process. They also allow you to integrate your social media feeds easily, but this feature comes with a paid plan. Their other features include analytics, SEO, and marketing tools for gaining traffic, tracking visitors, and converting leads.

Strikingly secures your website with an SSL certificate and even autosaves your progress and changes.

Pricing and Plan

Strikingly has a free plan and three paid plans that you can select from. The free plan has many great features that give you a good handle on what strikingly is all about. It comes with a 5GB monthly bandwidth, social media integration, a store where you can sell one product, 24/7 support, and much more.

Their paid plans range from $8 to $49 per month (billed annually), where you get more amazing features like 5 to 500 products in the store, free domains, 1 to 10GB storage space, all depending on the plan you choose.

Strikingly offers a free plan and three paid plans that start from $8 to $49 per month, when billed annually.

All of their plans come with a risk-free 14 days trial. They also allow you to save more by offering plans that can be billed monthly, every two years, three years, and five years.

SUMMARY

PROS

Beginner-friendly
High value for money
Strong customer support and help features
Creating a website is fast and hassle-free

CONS

Limited template design customization
Can only create one-page sites
Limited eCommerce tools and feature

12. DESIGNMODO

If you’re a startup industry looking for a website that combines professionalism and sleekness, then Designmodo got you covered. This website builder aids you in designing an excellent and static website and emails. Designmodo is used by big companies like Microsoft, NASA, Nike, Adobe, Yahoo, and many more.

Designmodo features three sub-products that include Designmodo Startups and Slides, which help you build your websites, and Designmodo Postcards, which help you create email newsletters.

Create a stunning website or email using Designmodo Startups, Slides, or Postcards.

Ease of Use and Templates

With over 100 templates and 200 slides to choose from, you can select based on your preference and easily customize them to your taste. They also integrate Google fonts, where you can access unlimited styles for your website. You can drag and drop elements such as contact form, popups, and so on. Their websites are optimized for all devices.

You can easily design your website without any previous knowledge or experience with code. If you have prior knowledge of code, you can change the code without much hassles and without affecting the functioning of your website.

Designmodo Slides allows you to capture and deliver your idea using beautiful layouts and a stunning presentation. You can view up to 118 examples and access 30 panels to aid you in your design process.

Capture ideas and deliver top-notch presentations using Designmodo Slides.

Designmodo Postcards, used by over 10,000 companies, is a responsive email builder used to boost creative email marketing. Using their drag and drop template builder, you can create a structure for your email, add content, and export to HubSpot or Mailchimp.

Create intuitive emails and boost your email marketing campaigns using Designmodo Postcards.

With Designmodo Startups, you can create and design a bootstrap website. Bootstrap is a popular CSS, JavaScript, and HTML framework that you can use to create a mobile-responsive site. It has a drop-and-drag functionality that allows you to design your website using over 300 pre-designed blocks.

Create a bootstrap website easily and without hassles using Designmodo Startups.

Designmodo also allows you to create and design emails. This makes it easier for your website to integrate your email marketing campaigns. There are over 100 pre-designed email templates that you can easily customize using drag-and-drop functionality.

Pricing and Plans

Designmodo also features a project management software tool, strong customer support, integrated third-party tools like MailChimp, Slack, and so on.

Designmodo comes with different plans for their products. For Designmodo slides, there is a demo plan, business plan, and agency plan starting from $0 to $29 monthly. With the paid plans, you can get access to over 200 slides and templates, support and help features, unlimited project and pages, and project management.

The Designmodo Startups comes with three plans: a free starter plan and two paid plans billed at $21 per month for the businesses and $29 per month for agencies. The features include free Figma sources, support, exports, and so much. With Designmodo’s free plan, you can gain access to all the features, demo components, free Figma sources, and support.

SUMMARY

PROS

Best for startups
Uses a WYSIWYG Editor
Strong support and help features
Freedom of creativity and customization

CONS

Can only create one-page websites at a time
Limited bandwidth storage
Requires knowledge of code to integrate MailChimp

13. UCRAFT

Ucraft is a sophisticated website builder with multiple functions. What started as a landing page builder has now become one of the top multi-functional website builders.

With over 80 pre-designed templates, Ucraft allows you to select based on your industry or niche. If you are a fashion designer, small business owner, photographer, or you are in the hotels and hospitality niche, Ucraft has something to over. Their templates are stunning and mobile-responsive, they are optimized for all devices.

With Ucraft, you can access a variety of mobile-responsive templates.

Features and Tools

They feature blogging tools, logo maker, landing page creator, SEO, and eCommerce tools. There are also more than 100 pre-designed blocks to add pages, customize the content, and add footers or call-to-action buttons, and so on. Their editor is not as simple as a most beginner-friendly website, but with patience and their helps guide, you would be able to create a pretty neat site.

With their logo creator, you can use custom icons, text, and shapes to create your logo. This is a great tool for small business owners who want to launch their new website and expand their presence online while selling their products.

Ucraft is one of those few website builders that lets you connect a domain for a free plan. Their free plan is still awesome if you just want to try out the website builder. You can access a free SSL certificate, unlimited bandwidth, add 15 pages, use Google analytics, and access 24/7 support.

Pricing and Plans

If you want something more professional and access to more features, there have three premium plans starting from as low as $10 per month (billed annually) to $69 per month (billed annually). They also have something in between, a Pro Shop plan, which costs $21 per month, billed annually. With their Pro Shop plan, you get access to all of the free plan features and more. You can try out all their premium plans for a risk-free 14 days period.

Ucraft’s has amazing eCommerce tools to help you sell your products online. You can up to 1000 products or more with advances in the membership plans and use over 50 payment methods without any transaction fee charges.

PROS

Best for multi-functional sites
Allows you to connect a domain for free
Feature-rich

CONS

Not beginner-friendly
Slow and complicated editor

14. BigCommerce

BigCommerce is a powerful eCommerce platform best for large online stores. It is sophisticated with advanced features such as SEO tools, more than 600 product options, and mobile-responsive templates.

Start selling online with BigCommerce

Ease of Use

BigCommerce is best for you if you’re a business owner looking to sell your products online and even expand rapidly. It would give you high value for money. It is extremely scalable with built-in eCommerce tools that would help boost your business. You may not finish setting up shop in minutes, but with a little patience and some technical knowledge, you can create an exceptional website. They recently added a merchandising tool – Store Design that helps you easily make edits visually and customize to your taste.

With the Store Design tool, you have freedom of control. You can change colors and move logo positions.

BigCommerce is big on features – it is the most feature-rich website builder yet. If you are a beginner and you are unfamiliar with technical jargon, then BigCommerce may not be a great experience at first unless you familiarize yourself with some technical terms.

With BigCommerce, you can select from over 100 themes based on your industry. They are pretty limited on their free themes. Their paid themes are quite pricy starting from $145 to $235. A huge plus is that BigCommerce allows you to change your templates at any time.

Features and Tools

They have top-quality built-in tools and apps for everything you might need. BigCommerce promises a hassle-free experience when selling physical products, digital goods, or services.

Unlike Shopify, BigCommerce does not charge transaction fees on payments. With over 60 payment methods to select from and set up with one click, integrate multiple currencies, and receive fast payments. Some of the payment methods include PayPal, Amazon Pay, Stripe, Apple Pay, and so on. Although these payment methods may charge their own transaction fees, BigCommerce helps you reduce these charges as you advance in its price plans.

BigCommerce gives you access to a variety of shipping features. Such as free shipping options, shipping labels, and quotes. BigCommerce automates all your shipping operations and manages all your shipping on one platform.

BigCommerce also does well on security. They have an SSL certificate that secures your websites and encrypts your data and ensures safe payments online.

They also feature an abandoned cart recovery option where you can send automated emails to customers who shop for products and abandon them in the cart at checkout.

With BigCommerce, you can boost your email marketing campaign to improve your email performance by installing a free MailChimp app. You can personalize emails, send notification emails, recommend products, and add discount coupons. You can also access metrics to monitor your performance and improve on them.

BigCommerce has over 600 apps to select from, even with their amazing built-in features. They have strong support and help features available based on your plan. You can access 24/7 chat, email, and live chat support.

Pricing and Plans

BigCommerce has four paid plans, with which advancing in each plan would give you access to more features. You can also access these plans for a risk-free 15 days period or request a demo to see how they work.

SUMMARY

PROS

Richest in built-in features compared to its competitors
Highly scalable
Advanced SEO tools
You can sell on multiple platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and so on.

CONS

Not beginner-friendly
Not so easy to use because of its advanced terminology and features

15. Webflow

If you are looking for a website that would give you freedom of customization, then Webflow is for you. It is well suited for professional web designers looking to create a website without any prior knowledge of code. It is very responsive and easy to use once you get the hang of it. They have strong help features that would guide you in your website building process.

Ease of Use and Templates

Webflow’s editor may not be as straightforward or easy, to begin with, but you can familiarize yourself with how it works. Surprisingly, it looks a lot like Photoshop, there are a variety of designs that you can choose from and customize.

Webflow has over 60 paid stunning templates design and 40 free templates that you can select from, and they cover a variety of industries or for eCommerce purposes. The paid templates range from $19 to $149. These templates are sleek and mobile responsive, they can be optimized for all your devices. You can preview the templates to see if it’s what you really want. They also have template descriptions that would tell you what type of industry its best suited for.

WebFlow provides a variety of templates that are optimized for devices

Features and Tools

When it comes to features, they are not the best on the block. They don’t have so many features, and that accessing it may be tough, and they mostly integrate third-party apps. But what else does Webflow offer? They secure your site with a free SSL certificate, and access to 100 pages, feature backup and restore options, advanced SEO tools, and integrate parallax scrolling, and animations.

Webflow also features eCommerce tools that help you sell your products online. You can sell your products on Facebook and Instagram and boost your marketing campaign. They integrate payment methods such as PayPal, Stripe, and Apple Pay, where you can easily receive payments. You also get access to automatic tax calculations.

Webflow is pretty expensive with its price plan. They have a free plan and three premium plans for the website, starting from $12 to $36 per month when paid annually. They also have three premium plans if you want to set up an online shop starting from $29 to $212 per month, billed annually.

SUMMARY

PROS

Allows freedom of control and customization
Sleek and stunning varieties of templates available

CONS

Not beginner-friendly
In terms of pricing, it is quite expensive
No strong support available

16. HIBU

Hibu is not your usual DIY website builder, you tell them what you want, and they deliver based on those needs. They are popular as a digital marketing agency that helps with SEO, email marketing, social media marketing, and so on.

If you are a small business owner looking to expand your presence online, or you just want to create a website without the hassles of creating one, then Hibu is for you. Although they don’t specialize in building eCommerce sites, you can get a professional website at an affordable cost.

Creating a website with Hibu is easy and hassle-free. Firstly, you discuss your site’s purpose, required features, and the type of website you want with the sales team. Then you would be given two quotes containing the full upfront cost and then another monthly fee for hosting, maintenance, and security.

The upfront payment range from $99 to $499 depending on the number of pages you want, features needed, and so on. You also get access to some features such as social media marketing, display ads, and so on. For the monthly fee, the prices range from $99 per month to $159 per month. This covers security, hosting, maintenance, and so on.

Once the bills are cleared, you would be directed to converse with the consultants want to know your design preferences, content type, and so on. Then, they build your website within 7 to 10 days. After that is a 7-day review period where you can make changes, amendments, and suggestions to Hibu. After this review period, the Hibu would be automatically made live if you don’t contact Hibu. You don’t have to be worried about poor customer service, their customer service is exceptional.

After all, the changes have been made and the details finalized, Hibu pretty much introduces you to your site’s dashboard so that you can manage your website.

Based on your plan choice, they can make changes on your behalf as much as possible monthly. Their website editor is also very simple and easy to use and manage. As Hibu delivers your created site, you can review for changes and sign it off, after then you are left with the task of managing it.

SUMMARY

PROS

Effortless creation of sites
Top-notch customer service
Uses modern features

CONS

Expensive up-front payment
No freedom of control and customization
Unsuitable for online shop

17. HUBSPOT CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

HubSpot Content Management System is a top-notch website builder that is well suited for marketers and sales consultants. HubSpot is famous for its depths in content marketing and all forms of sales. HubSpot CMS is pretty easy to use. It uses a simplistic interface and a strong help feature that guides you in your website building process.

Ease of Use

If you are a small business owner, content creators, marketer, or a large enterprise, looking to expand your presence online or scale your business, then HubSpot CMS is for you. HubSpot CMS allows you to add pages, create blog posts, and landing pages using pre-designed templates. You can easily use a drag-and-drop editor to create pages and designs that are mobile responsive. This means that your site is optimized for all devices.

HubSpot does not use the conventional templates, but its own language is called HubL, which is pretty easy to learn. So if you are looking to build your website in a matter of minutes, HubSpot may not be your best fit.

Features and Tools

HubSpot CMS gives you access to a variety of features such as email marketing tools, analytics, and leads engagement.

HubSpot CMS is the platform where all your content and marketing tools are all in one place. You can optimize and track your content’s performance easily to drive results. You can use the call-to-action button and forms to convert leads.

Another amazing feature of HubSpot CMS is the ability to personalize content for visitors. You can personalize your content based on their location, language, or device. This would boost user experience and enhance your website’s performance.

Pricing and Plans

HubSpot has two premium plans to help you build a powerful website with amazing features that would help you scale your business quickly. The Professional plan costs $270 per month, billed annually. You get access to multi-language content creation and testing, local website development, SEO recommendations, landing pages, A/B testing, conversational bots, 24/7 security, up to 30 currencies, SSL certificate, and 99.99% uptime, and much more.

With their Enterprise Plan, you get access to all the features of the Professional plan and more, all for $900 per month, when paid annually. You can access serverless functions, reverse proxy support, single sign-on, up to 200 currencies, additional brand domain, and so much more.

HubSpot CMS lets you access these paid plans for a risk-free 14-day period. You can also request a demo to know if this website builder is well suited to your needs.

HubSpot Content Management System is a top-grade website builder that integrates customer relationship management (CRM) and marketing tools.

SUMMARY

PROS

Easy to use
Has advanced marketing and analytics tools to expand your online presence
Very fast in loading
Responsive templates
Strong security

CONS

Does not support eCommerce
Requires you to learn HubL
Not-so-strong support features

18. PIXPA

If you are a photographer, designer, or creator, then Pixpa is a great option for you. Pixpa is tailored towards those who want to showcase their work and expand their presence online. They are primarily tailored towards photographers and graphics designers who want to build their portfolio online, gain customers, and convert leads.

With Pixpa, the possibilities are endless. You get to create a stunning portfolio website, create blogs, and sell online, all in one place. They have a 15 days risk-free trial, where you can see if Pixpa suits your needs or not. If you are a small business owner or you work in other industries excluding the creative industries, Pixpa may not really suit your needs. I recommend you try other websites in this review.

With Pixpa, you can access a variety of stunning templates

Ease of Use and Templates

They have a simplistic interface with an easy-to-use drag-and-drop website builder to create a stunning portfolio website.

With over 35 sleek and aesthetically impressive mobile-responsive themes to select from, Pixpa gives you the freedom of customization to your taste. Pixpa allows you to switch templates at any time. The websites are optimized for all devices. They also feature a gallery section where you can share your work with clients and sell them as prints or digital downloads.

Pixpa also integrates an eCommerce option for you to set up shop online to sell physical products, digital goods, and service-based goods online.

Pricing and Plans

Pixpa has budget-friendly plans that start from as low as $7 per month, billed annually to $16 per month, billed annually. Here’s a breakdown of Pixpa’s premium plans and features;

Personal ($7 per month, billed annually): 15 pages/galleries, 200 images, connect your domain, free domain for a year, unlimited blog posts, add an online shop, sell 5 products, 1GB storage, and much more.
Expert ($10 per month, billed annually): Most of the personal plan features, + unlimited pages/galleries, unlimited images, sell 25 products, 10GB storage, and much more.
Business ($16 per month, billed annually): Most of the features of the Expert plan, 1000 products, 50GB storage, and much more.

SUMMARY

PROS

Freedom of customization
Simplistic interface with an easy-to-use editor
Value for money
Strong support and helps features

CONS

You can’t publish your site live during the trial period
You won’t be able to use the same photos in different galleries unless you reload

19. Webnode

Webnode is great in building multilingual websites because they support more than 20 languages. Webnode has a simplistic interface with an easy-to-use editor to add text, images, and other content.

Ease of Use

They also have a simple drag-and-drop function to move images and content based on your preferences. With Webnode, you can create and update your website anywhere and everywhere, using your mobile or desktop.

Webnode uses a grid system, making it easy for you to align your texts and images. They also feature pre-designed blocks and sections for adding layouts and elements like texts, embedded videos, forms, price lists, testimonials, and so on. With Webnode, you can create slideshows. They don’t feature a built-in store like Wix or Weebly.

Templates

With more than 100 templates to choose from, Webnode is prepared to make your site stand out with its stunning themes that are optimized for all devices.

Webnode also includes basic blogging tools to publish news and stories online. They have modern, and mobile-responsive templates that you can select from. The downside of this website builder is the inability to change templates once you have selected one. To change the templates, you would have to start from scratch. But their more than 40 million users don’t seem to mind.

Features and Tools

Even if it’s an online shop you want to create, Webnode features tools and options to help you sell your products online, and give your customers a great shopping experience. With Webnode eCommerce’s features, you can access Google Analytics, Google AdSense, store analytics, product variants, discounts, and much more. Their eCommerce premium plan starts from $12.90 to $22.90 per month.

Pricing and plans for Webnode’s online shop

One of Webnode’s strengths is its multilingual capabilities, which is rare for most website builders. You can easily add languages with their simplistic site. With Webnode’s strong support and helps features, you can never be in the wrong.

Webnode has a free plan that you can try out for as long as you want. You get access to reliable hosting, unlimited pages, and strong customer service. Webnode’s pricing plan is budget-friendly, you can get access to many features from $3.90 to $22.90 per month.

Pricing and Plans for Webnode’s website builder

SUMMARY

PROS

Best for multilingual websites
Mobile-responsive templates

CONS

Limited Features
Can’t switch templates once published

20. WebStarts

WebStarts is best suited for beginners and small business owners looking to build a really simple website and expand online. WebStarts has a simplistic interface with an intuitive editor that uses drag-and-drop functionality. They also have strong support and helps guide that would help you in building your website without hassles. They recently added a live chat support feature.

WebStarts is actually very customizable, but it costs more and lacks third-part apps compared to other website builders like Wix and Squarespace. But with WebStarts, you get access to unlimited slideshows and galleries features. You can also add images, texts, buttons, music, and videos, and so on.

Templates

WebStarts has more than 100 modern and stunning templates to select from and customize to your taste, covering a variety of industries from animals, weddings, travel to business, and so on. These templates are mobile responsive and easy to customize using their WYSIWYG editor (What You See Is What You Get editor). You can change fonts, styles, and color schemes.

Features and Tools

With WebStarts you can create a simple blog using basic blogging tools. It may not be so easy to add images and videos. They also feature an eCommerce option to set your shop online and sell your physical and digital goods. They use a third party checkout to process the payment on platforms like PayPal, Stripe, and so on.

WebStarts gives you access to a free plan where you lets yourself try out building your website builder to see if it’s a good fit for you. Although this plan do not feature a custom domain name, free advertising, SEO tools, and some other premium features, It features 1GB cloud storage, 1GB per month bandwidth, notification center, and live chat.

WebStarts pricing starts from as low as $7.16 per month to $19.99 per month for both the Pro Plus Plan and Business Plan respectively.

SUMMARY

PROS

Easy-to-use drag-and-drop feature
Freedom of customization
Mobile-responsive templates

CONS

You only get a mobile-optimized site when you upgrade to a premium plan.
No advanced blogging tools

You have probably read this long list wondering how to make the right decision for the website builder that suits you. You’re the only one who knows what you want, your needs, and the purpose it is tailored towards.

We have created three tips to keep in handy to make your decision-making process faster and simpler.

Purpose: Why are you creating a site? Think about what the purpose of the site is, and strike out the website builder on the list that does not fit that purpose. For example, if you are creating a blog site, your best bet is WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, or Weebly. Rather than using Shopify or Pixpa.
Budget: Think about how much you are willing to spend. Compare pricing plans and the features accessible with each plan to determine what would suit you more.
Try using free plans and a free trial to get a feel of how the remaining website builders on the list work. Check if it is easy to use, fast, and works well.

Every website builder is unique in its own way and has its own strengths. No matter what the purpose of the website is, there is a website builder for you.

So how did we arrive at this data?

We conducted in-depth research to select the top 20 website builders that you can select from based on your needs and preferences. We got a feel of what these websites had to offer and accessed website builders based on their pricing, features, ease of use, templates, and support. We also checked verified online user reviews and tested the website builder where possible.

Our criteria for picking the 20 best website builder was based on essential questions people ask when searching for the website builder that suits them.

Ease of use

The website builders should not require any need for code or other technical skills. How easy is the interface and tools to use? Some website builders use an intuitive drag-and-drop builder and editor. How long would it take to get a website up and running? Many users want the fastest and easiest way to build a website.

Pricing

We reviewed the pricing plans and the features that follow to find your best choice. We know that you are looking for something within your budget and yet rich in features. You might not always get the best at a low price. You can also use a free trial where applicable to get a feel of the website builder you eventually select. We classified each website and ticked whether they have a free plan or not, and even stated the price plan and features that come with them.

Templates

Many users want a website that is modern, stunning and gives them some freedom of control. You want to be able to create a website that is not only pleasing to the eye but the appropriate one for your industry. How easy are these templates to customize? Are they user-friendly and mobile responsive? We answered these questions in this review article.

Features

We accessed the features of each website builder to see what they can and cannot do. We looked into their reliability and tools available based on your industry or needs, for example, blogging, SEO, and eCommerce.

Support

We also wanted to check how readily available and accessible you can get help when you are stuck. We don’t expect you to know everything and go through it alone. We considered how strong the builder’s support is, their help guides, whether you get 24/7 support, email support, or live support.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why should I use a website builder?

If you have no knowledge of code, and you are looking for an easy way to get yourself a website, then a website builder is your best bet. It is a simple, hassle-free, and budget-friendly way to get a website. You get to bypass paying a web designer so much for a website that is costly and undesirable. You get the freedom to customize your website to your taste.

What is the overall cost of building a website?

Depending on the website builder you choose, you can build a website from as low as $4 to $40 per month. Most website builders come with either a free plan that you can use to create a website and publish online.

What is the best website builder to use as a beginner?

The best website builder to use as a beginner is relative. Wix, Weebly, and Site123 are pretty easy to use. You can go through our review of these websites to see if they suit you or try their free plan to get a feel of these websites.

Do I need to use any code to build my website?

Website builders are online tools that help you in building your website without any knowledge of code. You don’t need to know a single word of code to create a stunning website and publish it online.

What is the best website builder for an eCommerce site or online store?

An eCommerce site would help you create a brand for yourself beyond social media and help you sell your products on multiple market places. If you are just starting out and you want to create a small store, then you can use WixEcommerce builder to create a simple, yet modern online store using an intuitive drag-and-drop tool. If you want to create a large store, then use Shopify or BigCommerce. They are the top eCommerce builders because of their versatility and out-of-the-box functions and tools that can help you monitor and grow your business.

What is the best website builder for SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is essential to your website’s success and ranking. Every website builder offers different SEO tools. Selecting a website builder for SEO boils down to your interest and preferences. WordPress is our top choice. It is an SEO-friendly website builder used by millions of people. It allows you to use SEO plugins – Yoast and All in One SEO Pack to help you optimize your website. Wix and Weebly are also a great option for starters. They offer useful SEO tools that can help you optimize your content and boost your rankings. Although, Weebly offers little freedom of customization, unlike Wix.

What is the best website builder for photography sites?

Choosing the best website builder for your photography portfolios depends on your needs – online store features, products, storage space, budget, and so on. Our top choice is Pixpa. Pixpa is specifically tailored for photographers and other creatives. Their aesthetically pleasing templates are designed in such a way as to showcase your content and customize as much as you want. You can sell physical or digital products, grow your brand, and help you convert leads.

Alternatively, you can try out Squarespace. It is not so cheap, but it can give you a high value. They have high-quality and sleek templates that exude professionalism and are mobile-responsive.

What is the best website builder for dentists?

You can try out Wix to create a dentist website. It is easy to use and customize and provides templates that suit a variety of industries, including the healthcare industry. Jimdo is also a great option. It is very affordable and easy to use. It is not as customizable as other website builders, but you can create a free online store to sell your medical products and services.

What is the best website builder for food blogging?

The top-rated and popular website builder used for food blogging is Squarespace. It has amazing food blog templates that are aesthetically pleasing and responsive. Squarespace may not be the cheapest website builder on the block, but it gives exceptional value. Looking for a more affordable option? Then you can try Wix or Site123. They are easy to use and they offer features that would help boost engagements and traffic on your site. There are several blog templates you can customize freely to your taste.

What is the best website builder for membership sites?

When we talk about simplicity, Weebly is a great option. It is easy to use and can be used for a variety of sites, even membership sites. You can use their tools and features, including log-in forms, customizable invitation emails, and so on. Webstarts is also an affordable and multipurpose website builder that can help you create a membership site. For something more advanced, HubSpot CMS is also great for creating all types of membership sites. It is integrated with marketing, sales, and service tools you can leverage on.

What is the best website builder for real estate?

Our top website builder for real estate blog is Squarespace and Duda. Squarespace contains stunning designs that exude professionalism and has great features. They can also guide you on integrating 1DX with your website. Unlike Squarespace, Duda already has integrated IDX with its higher-tier plan. It also has really good designs with real-estate-specific templates to use. If you’re looking for something simpler, Wix is a good option. It has 16 real estate templates you can readily customize.

What is the best website builder for small businesses?

Wix is a great option for small businesses. It is simple and requires no knowledge of code. You can customize as you want and even access SEO tools that can help you optimize your content. There are various affordable price plans that you can select from based on your budget or the features you are looking for. Squarespace and GoDaddy are also very good choices. You can create a sophisticated website for your business with Squarespace’s $18/month business plan. With GoDaddy, you can get your business online quickly with their ADI feature.

What are the best free website builders that I select from?

Here is a list of our top free website builder that you can choose from and additional details on the features available.

	Storage Space	SSL certificate	Ads	Other Features
Wix	500MB			SEO Tools
Weebly	500MB			SEO Tools
Site123	500MB			Subdomain
Zyro	500MB			Monthly data transfer
WordPress.com	3GB			Community support
Jimdo	500MB		Footer disclaimer	Social media linking, contact forms, and google map
Strikingly	500MB			5GB monthly bandwidth, 1 product, and 24/7 support
Ucraft	Unlimited		Ucraft watermark	15 pages, unlimited bandwidth, and 24/7 support
Webnode	100MB		Bottom banner	1GB bandwidth, connect your domain, unlimited pages, and customer service.
Webstarts	1GB			Unlimited number of pages and live chat support

The post Best Website Builders Reviews For Small Business appeared first on Blogging.

How to Create a Wix Website From Scratch

Shahil Shah — Sat, 12 Feb 2022 11:41:17 +0000

Why Wix Website?

Wix is one of the best website builder platforms, to create a website. More than 100 million people across the globe use the Wix website builder, to build their websites. This platform has more than 45000 new sign-ups every day.

Now, you have no doubt about the popularity of Wix. It is launched in 2006 and has proved itself as the best website builder platform. Can you imagine – How it becomes possible?

It is possible since Wix has made web design very easy, quick, and just like fun for everyone.

Are you planning to build your website?

Let’s try Wix Website Builder.

In this post, we will share a step-by-step guide on how to use Wix, and how easy it is to create a website using Wix. So, if you want to create a Wix website that will have an impact on every visitor, it is totally doable. It is very easy to use Wix website builder as it comes with a drag-and-drop website editor.

Wix website builder is flexible and easy to use with its

drag-and-drop feature,
easily customizable media, and
accessibility to hundreds of apps you get.

Another important reason for the popularity of Wix is its affordability. It has saved businesses thousands of dollars on web designers. And, everyone likes the thing they have created using Wix.

Wix has an AI-powered engine that will help you do many things. You can pick a template, match your site design logo colors, and upload pictures from social media accounts. When I used it for the first time, I was surprised because it did more creative work than I expected.

And, it is not just our thinking. It is based on the testing results of various people who used Wix to make their websites.

It comes out on the top in our user research and testing as the best website builder, with the best performance in each category mentioned below:

Ease of use
Design flexibility
Features
Value for money
Help and support
Customer score

Why Wix Website?
How to Create a Wix Website
Different Ways to Create Wix Website
How to Use Wix Editor
How to Use Wix ADI
Know the Wix Dashboard
How to Use Wix FAQ
Conclusion

How to Create a Wix Website

You can create a Wix website very easily using its drag-and-drop feature. You can also customize your site according to your needs.

Different Ways to Create Wix Website

You can create a Wix website in two different ways:

Using Wix Editor
Using Wix ADI

Both the above-mentioned ways are beginner-friendly.

You have heard about Wix Editor which is the standard way to create a website. You can start making a website by choosing a template from over 500 templates. After choosing the theme, you can drag and drop different text and image elements to customize your website.

Wix editor comes up with an extensive menu option that is the best feature of the editor. The Wix editor menu is easily navigable and provides a ton of options for customizing your website.

So, you can create a beautiful website in just a couple of hours using Wix editor. It is ideal for users such as

Bloggers
Online stores
Small businesses
Restaurants
Photographers

The second Wix option for creating a website is using the Wix ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence). It is based on artificial intelligence, and it creates stunning websites automatically on your response to some questions. In this way, you can build a Wix website with little involvement on your part.

Now the question is that how does Wix ADI work?

You have to provide some basic information, such as your contact information, business type, and online presence, and it does the rest for you. You can even make small design changes, as per your need, once the site is generated.

So, on the basis of its ease of use and impressive design speeds, Wix ADI is suitable for:

Users who are less tech-savvy
Bloggers who have no free time
Business owners who are busy

With Wix ADI, you’ll get a website in a few minutes. It’s amazing but you get less flexibility and there are many restrictions. You can’t seamlessly drag and drop texts, images, apps, and videos like the Wix Editor.

But you can build a beautiful website in a simple way, using either of the tools. You can create a fully-functional, personalized site without much technical knowledge, using either Wix Editor or Wix ADI.

We’ll discuss the step-by-step methods to create a website using both methods.

How to Use Wix ADI

Wix ADI has made website designing very easy as it had never been before. You have to answer just some questions and you will get a website based on the answers to the questions you gave. There is no other easier way to create a website than using Wix ADI.

Wix ADI is for those users

who are less tech-savvy, or
who do not have the time to make a website from the scratch.

So if you are busy and other business activities, you can create a Wix website using Wix ADI, in the following easy steps:

Get started
Types of Website Selection
Add Business Features
Fill in Your Contact details
Choose Your Website Design
Select a Theme
Mobile Optimization and SEO
Choose Your Domain Name
Publish Your Website

Step 1: Get Started

First of all, sign in to your Wix account.
Click on the ‘+ Create New Site’ button, and then
‘Start with Wix ADI’.

Step 2: Types of Website Selection

Now, you are asked about the type of website you want to create. There are many options, such as consulting firms, marketing agencies, coaching professionals, and many more.

Step 3: Add Business Features

Now, you have to choose those features that you might need. You have to select the relevant boxes and click on the ‘Next’ button on the bottom right of the page. If need not have to worry if you changed your mind, or even your business model because you can edit Wix ADI at any time.

Step 4: Fill in Your Contact Details

Now, Wix ADI will ask you to fill in your contact details on your website. You should fill in as much information as you can because it allows the Wix ADI to create detailed navigation menus, headers, footers, and contact pages with ease.

For the customization of your site, you should provide accurate answers because Wix ADI uses these answers.

Moreover, you must fill the contact detail page for high-quality navigation menus, headers, and contact pages.

Step 5: Choose a Website Design

Now, it’s your turn to choose your site design from the designs provided by Wix ADI. Although the designs are pre-built, yet you can still have some input if you want. The ADI gives you the option to change text combinations and images so that you will get a sleek and unique site.

Now, the Wix ADI knows your need. And, it will take you through the design process. When you click on “Start,” some color schemes are presented to you. Select the color scheme that you want. If you want to change color schemes, later on, you can also make changes very easily. In this way, you will get a brand new suggested homepage within minutes.

Step 6: Select a Theme

Are you happy with the homepage of your website?

You can personalization of your site further by changing fonts, adding media, changing background, and adding various functions with the help of the Wix ADI assistant. Wix ADI is fast and it gives you some amount of creative control. However, the Wix ADI assistant is more restrictive than the Wix Editor.

If you are not happy with your website and want more control, you can switch to Wix Editor Mode easily. It is hard to reverse the process, so you need to save your last ADI version, to restore it.

Step 7: Mobile optimization and Search Engine Optimization

It is very easy to implement search engine optimization and mobile optimization with Wix ADI.

You can easily edit these functions by clicking on the page in the left-hand toolbar and selecting “Page SEO.”

Mobile optimization of the website using Wix ADI requires no effort. By clicking on the desktop icon on the top menu page and selecting “Mobile”, you will switch to mobile mode. You don’t have to make any changes to optimize your site as Wix ADI automatically optimizes your site for mobile. If you want to do any changes, you can do it.

Step 8: Choosing a Domain Name

Now, you have created your site using Wix ADI. Click on the “Publish” button in the upper right corner of the screen, and you will get the following page.

If you want to use a personalized domain name in the regular format of www.yoursite.com, you have to go for the paid plan. In the free plan, you’ll have to use a domain with the format www.yourname.wixsite/yoursite.

Step 9: Publish Your Website

Now your site is ready to be published. Click on ‘Preview’, present at the top of the ADI screen to have a final check. Now, click on ‘Publish’ at the top, and your site will be live.

If you want to make changes to your website, it can be done anytime using Wix ADI. Just sign in and go into your dashboard, click on “My Sites”, then “Edit” on your ADI website.

How to Use Wix Editor

You can create a website using Wix Editor. You need to go through the following steps:

1. Sign up
Template Selection
Updating Text and Images
Background Personalization
Pages Addition
Apps Addition
Setting up a Blog
Social Media Sharing
Online Store addition
Optimization for Search Engines
Mobile Optimization
Choosing a domain name
Publishing of Website

Step 1: Sign Up

If after a comparison of the top website builders, you reached the conclusion that Wix is for you, then you have already done a lot of work. You can create a website using Wix Editor Free of cost, but for extended features on your website, you have to opt for a paid plan.

There are eight pricing plans that are offered by Wix. As the pricing plan moves upward, there is the availability of more features. You can also go for a free plan, but in that plan, you can’t connect your personalized domain name and deal with on-site ads, which does not give your websites a professional look.

So, I recommend the Paid plans – these are affordable and increase business opportunities.

Pricing Plans of Wix are as follows:

Combo plan: $18 per month ($13 per month paid yearly)
Unlimited plan: $23 per month ($17 per month paid yearly)
Pro plan: $28 per month ($22 per month paid yearly)
Business Basic plan: $28 per month ($23 per month paid yearly)
Business Unlimited plan: $33 per month ($27 per month paid yearly)
VIP plan: $47 per month ($39 per month paid yearly)
Business VIP plan: $56 per month ($49 per month paid yearly)
Enterprise plan: It offers custom pricing for large businesses.

For small businesses, I recommend the combo plan. It is free from ads, comes with a personalized domain name for a year, and provides enough storage for most of the needs of the website. And, its pricing is also very reasonable.

If you are going to start an online store, the Business Unlimited plan is best suitable for you as it allows for –unlimited products. And for larger online stores, the VIP plan is best because it comes with priority customer support.

Step 2: Template Selection

To create a website, you have to select ‘Create a New Site’ from the drop-down menu in the bottom right corner of the dashboard.

When you click it, Wix will ask what type of website you want. There are many options, from online stores to personal portfolios.

Then, you will be directed to a page of relevant templates to select from. This is based on the selection of the type of website you choose. There are more than 500 templates in total, so if you don’t find the template you wanted, in your selected category, you can use the search option to find more templates.

You should be cautious while choosing your template because you cannot change it later on. So, make sure that you are happy with the template you choose. But you don’t have to worry as the flexible editing features of Wix make it very easy to spice up whatever design you do choose at any time.

Step 3: Updating Text and Images

Now, you can see a preview page of your selected template. Here, you can do the best use of simple but brilliant editing features, like the drag-and-drop design and text boxes.

First of all, you want to update your profile, blog details, or portfolio. For this, simply click on the text you want to change, and rewrite. That’s it. You can also change the font size, type, and color. It is very easy to edit text on Wix.

You can also change the image of the template. It makes Wix the best website builder because you are creating your website yourself by clicking one at a time. If you don’t like an image, click on it and switch it out for something you like. You can add a saved photo from your business, or one of Wix’s free images. You can explore many design possibilities here.

Step 4: Background Personalization

Using Wix editor, you can change the template background of the website you are creating. The left-hand sidebar has a ‘Background’ button. You can click on this button and change the background of your site with ease.

You can also add a video to your background and I recommend it. It will drive more traffic as videos generate more. It is expected that online videos make up more than 80% of all consumer internet traffic by 2023.

Step 5: Pages Addition

Now you have created a stunning homepage for your website. You need to add some other pages to ensure that your website has everything visitors are looking for. For example, you need to add an “About” page and a “Contact Us” page.

To add a page to your website with Wix Editor, you need to click on the “Add Page” button. You can manage the added by clicking on “Manage Pages.”

In this way, you can add pages and customize them to serve your different purposes.

Step 6: Apps Addition

Up to this point, you have a customized template for your website and also added some images and pages to your website. But, if your website still feels a little plain, you can add some excitement to your website.

To boost your website, Wix App Market offers more than 250 amazing apps, and they cover everything from booking tickets, and restaurant orders to interactive quizzes. The apps not only look great but also provide your website with the modern interface that is necessary to stay competitive.

You need not have to bother about the pricing of these Apps as they are reasonably priced.

Step 7: Setting up a Blog

You can keep your audience in the loop with a blog page that is fully integrated with your site. Click on the ‘Start Blogging’ button that is present at the bottom of the menu.

You also get a choice of blogging apps. For this, you have to search the ‘Add Apps’ button on the same menu. You get a choice of blogging apps, but I recommend Wix Blog because of its sleek appearance and ease of use.

Step 8: Social Media Sharing

You can add the social media sharing app to your site and you can manage it easily.

Click on the ‘Add Media Button’. You can share your images and video on your Facebook page, Instagram feed, etc, and share content online.

Step 9: Online Store Addition

If you are starting an online store and want your site to function as an online store, then creating a website using Wix is a good choice you have done. In fact, Wix is rated as the best website builder for small businesses and online stores.

Click on the “+” icon in the left-hand menu and you will get a list of add-ons for your site. From this list, click “Store,” and the store is added to your site. Then you should add elements like product galleries and shopping carts.

Thereafter, Wix Editor will automatically set up e-commerce functions on your website including product galleries, inventory management, and multiple payment methods. Thus, it allows you to sit back and start selling online in no time.

Thus, you can start selling products online with ease.

Step 10: Optimization for Search Engines

Wix Editor makes it very easy to work with your website’s Search Engine Optimization. On the left side of the site editor, click on “Menus and Pages”. Then, click on the ellipses button and it will present this list of the following options:

Here, you can control all of your website’s basic SEO functions. You can set keywords that you tag your page with to the site description that will show up on the Search Engine Results Pages. You can edit all these functions with ease.

Step 11: Mobile Optimization

These days, 40% of people search only on a Smartphone. So, you should make sure that the mobile version of your website looks good as it is essential for the success of any website. So, mobile optimization is a necessity of time.

Thanks to the Wix Editor, this makes mobile optimization very easy.

To start, mobile optimization using this editor, you need to hover your mouse over the desktop screen at the top of the editor. You will get the option to switch your page view to mobile. Now, click on the mobile icon and see how your site will look when viewed from a mobile phone.

Wix Editor has taken care of the mobile view of your website. It looks awesome in this format but you have the option to make changes as you want. And the changes you do in mobile view will not affect the desktop version of your site.

Step 12: Choosing a Domain Name

You have to set your domain name before it gets published. When you click on “Publish”, you’ll get the option to set your domain name.

You cannot add a regular domain name like “www.mysite.com” if you are using Wix free plan. You can add personalized domain names if you are using the paid plan of Wix.

In the free plan, your site will be in the format www.yourname.wixsite/yoursite. This is enough to run your site. But if you want a professional look, then I recommend opting for a paid plan to secure a personalized domain name.

Step 13: Publishing of Website

At this stage, your site created using Wix Editor will be all set to go live. You can preview your site throughout the editing process by clicking on the button in the top right corner.

When you get satisfied, click on the ‘Publish’ button, and your website will be live.

If you want to edit your website, Wix Editor gives you the option to do that. You can make any changes you want to do to your website.

For this, you just need to click on “Manage Site,” then “Edit Site,” and do the desired changes. After making the changes, you need to re-publish. Just click on the ‘Publish’ button at the top right corner of the Editor.

Wix Editor Summary

Are you ready to create your website using Wix Editor?

Let’s recap the steps:

Select a Plan that according to your need
Decide the kind of website you need
Select the desired template
Edit text, images, and navigation menus
Customize your website’s background
Drag and drop different elements
Add apps to your website according to your need
Do mobile optimization as well as Search Engine Optimization
Preview your site
Publish your site

I recommend Wix as it is easy to use and allows you to take control of your website editing process. Follow the above steps, and you will be ready with your own Wix website.

Know the Wix Dashboard

You will use the Wix dashboard as soon as you start to create a website. You can get the Wix dashboard whether you are building your site built with Wix Editor or Wix ADI. Once your website is live, the Wix dashboard will be the place where you can make any updates to your account. So, you should be comfortable with this page as soon as you can.

Here, I have labeled the Wix dashboard as 1, 2, and 3 according to the relevance of these sections.

Section 1 of the Wix dashboard is the analytical hub, where you can control potential site functions. In this section, you will get and control customer management tools, analytical and marketing tools, and financial tools.

In Section 2, you get the option of ‘Edit Site’ and ‘Site Actions’. Firstly, you can make more creative changes using the site editor. Secondly, by clicking on “Site Actions”, you will get various options to make changes to your website. Lastly, you can also edit your domain name and upgrade your Wix plan in this section.

Also,, to get your website online use section 3 of the dashboard. You have to go to this section to connect your domain name and publish your website and get discoverable on Google.

Wix has many features for everyone, so need to choose the options that you’d like to implement in your website.

How to Use Wix: FAQ

1. What is Wix?

Wix is a website builder. It uses a drag-and-drop editor so that you can edit your website page easily. You can create your own website even if you don’t have any technical experience.

2. How many Wix websites can I set up?

You can create an unlimited number of websites under one account. You just need to sign up once.

But, for each Paid Plan, you can create only one site.

3. How much Wix Costs?

You can opt for a Wix-free plan but it has some restrictions. Moreover, you cannot use your own personalized domain name or accept payments through your site in the free plan. For these features, you will need to upgrade your plan.

Paid Plan of Wix ranges from $14 per month to $49 per month. The Wix Combo plan is the cheapest plan that starts from $14 per month. You can enjoy more features in the higher plans.

4. Does Wix offer Hosting?

Wix offers hosting for your website. So you do not have to pay extra for hosting services. In fact, Wix manages all the updates and technical issues of hosting, so that you can relax.

5. Can we install a plugin or app on a FREE Wix website?

You can install plugins and apps on a free Wix website. Wix provides more than 250 apps that you can add to your site. You can add contact forms, comments, galleries, social media buttons, email marketing, and many more features using these apps.

6. Is the Wix website safe?

The Wix website is safe to use. Wix operates worldwide with well-established legal and privacy policies and product and payment standards. There are many amateur-run website builders, but Wix does not fall into this category. It is completely safe and maintains high standards.

7. Is the Wix website FREE?

Wix offers free as well as paid plans. But if you are using its free plan, you have to use use a Wix subdomain, such as, yourwebsite.wix.com. Wix free plan comes with limited functionality, and ads are shown on the website.

But for full functionality and using a custom domain, you have to opt for a paid plan.

8. Is the Wix website BAD?

Wix’s website is not very good in terms of SEO. But, it does not mean that Wix is a bad website. Despite the issue, it has some benefits.

You get fundamental site optimization tools, like blogs, title tags, Meta descriptions, H1, and H2.

You can customize your website’s design with Wix templates. In its paid plan, it also supports e-commerce. So, you can sell online on the Wix website.

Wix paid plans are reasonably affordable.

So, Wix is a good option for beginners.

9. How does Wix website work?

Wix provides you drag-and-drop website builder to make your websites. It offers more than 300 free as well as paid templates. Wix comes with its own web hosting as well as domain names. You can add extra functionality such as photo galleries or e-commerce using Wix apps.

10. What are the advantages of Wix?

The advantages of Wix are as follows:

It offers easy-to-use drag-and-drop features and upgraded design templates.
Wix is affordable and you are not bound to any long-term plan.
It takes care of the security of your website without compromising on speed.
Its user-friendly nature and excellent support service.

11. Does Wix own my domain name?

No, Wix does not own your domain name. You can buy your own domain name either from Wix or from any other domain host. If you buy your domain from Wix, it gets automatically connected to the Wix server. And, if you buy a domain from another domain host, you need to connect it to your Wix site.

12. Is Wix bad for SEO?

Wix offers the basic SEO options that are needed for regular websites. Additionally, Wix wouldn’t be good if you are planning to intensively blog and wants SEO-advanced features.

Moreover, Wix isn’t bad for SEO, but it is not the best alternative either. WordPress would be the better option, although it is more complicated.

13. Do web designers use Wix?

Since Wix is very easy to use, clients love Wix’s website and web designers love designing on it. They teach their clients how to update websites, add blog posts, add photos, and new pages easily without making a call to designers even for small changes.

Conclusion

In our opinion, Wix ADI is going to change the world of websites. It is the first AI-based tool that is created to design a website for you. And, it has made the creation of a website a very easy task. You can create a website by just answering a few questions, picking your favorite colors, and doing some additional simple steps.

However, it is lacking in creative control which may be frustrating. Wix ADI is not as flexible as Wix Editor. Wix editor offers smooth drag-and-drop design templates and easily editable text boxes. While both Wix tools are simple and easy to use, the Wix Editor offers more choices. You can also build more personalized sites using its premium plan and a wide choice of apps.

The post How to Create a Wix Website From Scratch appeared first on Blogging.

In-Depth Bluehost Reviews From Technical Editor

Shahil Shah — Sat, 12 Feb 2022 11:28:00 +0000

Bluehost is one of the best website hosting providers. Matt Heaton and Danny Ashworth laid the foundation of Bluehost in 2003. In 2010, Endurance International Group acquired it.

They host millions of websites across the globe. They are known for their fast, affordable, and top-notch customer service.

Bluehost is so popular because they offer a wide range of hosting types, such as shared, VPS, dedicated, WordPress, etc.

Besides web hosting services, Bluehost offers domain names, email, SEO services, social media marketing, content creation, and local business listings. These services help you to grow traffic on your website.

Bluehost caters to the needs of everyone from bloggers to e-commerce businesses and many more.

What is Bluehost?
Bluehost Hosting Plans & Pricing
Bluehost Features
Why Bluehost?
Bluehost Pros & Cons
Bluehost Performance Test
Conclusion & Recommendation
Bluehost Alternatives
Bluehost FAQ
Review by Our Community

Why Bluehost

There are thousands of hosting companies offering hosting and domain name services.

Why choose Bluehost?

Here are the reasons why Bluehost should be your choice as a web hosting provider.

1. Established Brand

Bluehost has more than a decade of experience in hosting websites. They host over 2 million websites that show the trust they have built in the market.

There are many companies offering web hosting services, and new ones are also coming into this business. But, many of them shut down without any notice and leave their clients without access to their websites. To avoid this situation, you need a trusted web hosting provider. Bluehost has established itself as a brand by building trust with its customers.

2. WordPress recommends Bluehost

WordPress is one of the platforms on which websites are created with ease. They are user-friendly and even a non-technical person can create amazing websites using their plug-ins.

About 30% of websites are created on WordPress which is a remarkable percentage. WordPress recommends Bluehost at the top list of web hosting service providers. This endorsement shows the brand value that Bluehost had made in these years.

3. Affordable Pricing

Bluehost hosting plans start from $2.95/month for their basic plan.

Even, their online stores and managed WordPress Plan cost $15.95/month and $19.95/month respectively. You can easily judge how affordable is Bluehost hosting plans.

All the above plans come with excellent 24/7 customer support.

4. Excellent Customer Support

Most other web hosting providers offer support, but they do not offer 24/7 support for all of the clients. A few of them offer 24/7 support for their premier customers who are paying high for the hosting plan.

But, Bluehost offers round-the-clock technical support for all of their clients, without any discrimination based on their hosting plan.

Having people who can walk you through solutions at any time is something you want in the company that hosts your site.

5. Easy to Use

Figuring out how to explore the universe of web hosting can be interesting and muddled. Bluehost has a very easy installation method. It is so easy that you can install WordPress on your site in no time.

It takes less than 4 minutes to install WordPress on BlueHost Web Hosting.

6. Excellent Up-time

Bluehost claims that their downtime only lasts for 15 minutes, and they have made it.

If you are not satisfied with uptime, the hosting provider allows you to cancel your hosting agreement without penalty. And the company will refund the amount on a pro-rata basis.

But, Bluehost does not promise any such thing. It shows that they are committed to maintaining uptime, which they promised. They are keeping their promise with an uptime above 99.95 percent.

You should search for a better-rated web hosting company that will make that same promise and opt for that company’s hosting service.

7. Security

Bluehost scans your website daily for viruses and malware. It also performs 24/7 network monitoring on company servers.

It also offers backup of your websites, but that is complementary and not guaranteed.

8. Unlimited Domain Hosting

While it may not be a big deal to you if you are just going to start your first website, it can mean a lot as your online presence grows and expands. You want to add other domains and websites to your portfolio without having to switch hosting companies. Bluehost offers you that freedom and you may host as many domains on the same hosting.

9. 30-day Money-back Guarantee

If the above reasons were not enough to convince you Why you choose Bluehost web hosting, maybe their money-back guarantee will do it.

Try Bluehost hosting for 30 days. If you are not satisfied with the services that they are offering, you can take your money back. In my opinion, companies willing to stand behind their product with a money-back guarantee are the ones who know that they will work for you.

Choosing a good web hosting service is very essential for your online presence. All the above-mentioned features of Bluehost make it a good choice for hosting your website.

Bluehost Hosting Plans and Pricing

Bluehost hosting offers the following hosting plans:

Shared Hosting
WordPress Hosting
Online Store Hosting
VPS Hosting
Dedicated Hosting

Shared Hosting

Shared web hosting is perfect for you if:

You are going to start your website
Your website does not have thousands of visits per day
Do you want affordable pricing

It is best for bloggers and small business owners.tinger

Bluehost shared hosting is one of the most popular hosting packages because of its low pricing plans. In shared hosting, multiple users are allowed to share space on a single server. That server is maintained by the hosting provider. Thus, the hosting cost remains low and Bluehost passes the savings on to you.

However, the drawback is that you do not get a significant resource allocation to support your website. That is the reason why shared hosting is not ideal for websites having higher traffic.

A shared hosting package can include multiple offers based on their pricing plans.

Bluehost shared hosting offers four different pricing plans. It offers basic, plus, choice plus, and pro plans.

Basic Plan

It starts from $2.95 per month if taken for 36 months. After that period, it will be renewed at $7.99 per month. In this plan, you can host a single website on the server. You will be given 50 GB SSD storage and custom themes.

It also offers a free domain for a year, a free SSL certificate, and round-the-clock customer support.

Plus Plan

It starts from $5.45 per month if taken for 36 months. After that period, it will be renewed at $10.99 per month. In addition to the free domain for a year and a free SSL certificate, you will get unlimited SSD storage. You can host unlimited websites on the server. It also offers 24/7 customer support and free Office 365 for 30 days.

Choice Plus Plan

Pricing of this plan starts from $5.45 a month if taken for 36 months. It will be renewed at the rate of $14.999 per month. In this plan, you will get free CDN, free domain privacy, and an automated backup for a year without spending an extra penny.

Pro Plan

This plan costs you $13.95 per month if purchased for 36 month period. Its renewal cost is $23.99 per month. This plan comes with free domain privacy and free automated backup for your sites. Besides, it provides you free dedicated IP and optimized CPU resources.

WordPress Hosting

Bluehost offers two types of WordPress hosting services – WordPress Hosting and Managed WordPress Hosting.

WordPress Hosting: It offers affordable hosting plans. It is easy to set up fast and secure WordPress hosting in minutes. It includes three plans – basic, plus, and choice plus. All of these plans come with automatic WordPress installation and updates. They also include a free SSL certificate and free domain name for the first year.

Basic Plan

The basic plan starts from $2.95 per month and is renewed at $8.99 per month. In this plan, you can host 1 website. It gives you 50 GB SSD storage, 5 parked domains, and 25 subdomains.

Plus Plan: It starts from $5.45 per month and is renewed at $10.99 per month. Unlimited websites can be hosted under this plan. It comes with unmetered SSD storage, unlimited parking domains, and sub-domains. You will also get 1 Microsoft 365 Mailbox – free for 30-days.

Choice Plus Plan

The cost of this plan starts at $5.45 per month and you have to pay $14.99 per month at the time of renewal. In addition to the features offered under the Plus Plan, it offers the CodeGuard Basic Backup feature.

WordPress recommends by Bluehost since 2005. Bluehost gives you all the power of WordPress along with innovative themes, plugins, and third-party integrations. These features make Bluehost one of the best places to build and manage a beautiful WordPress website.

Managed WordPress Hosting

Bluehost takes the responsibility of managing many things such as hosting infrastructure optimization, maintaining high speed, etc. It comes up with three pricing plans – Builds, Grow, and Scale.

All of these plans offer:

Lightning-fast site speed
A suite of marketing tools, and
Multi-tiered security and backups

Build Plan

This plan starts at $19.95 per month and is renewed at $29.99 per month. You can host 1 website under this plan. This plan is best for websites that have up to 50000 visitors per month. It comes with a free SSL certificate and 20 GB of web storage. It also includes daily scheduled backups, malware detection and removal, and domain privacy and protection.

Grow Plan

This plan starts at $29.95 per month and is renewed at $39.99 per month. 1 website can be hosted under this plan. This is best for websites having up to 150000 visitors per month. It offers 40 GB of web storage. In addition to the features offered under the Build Plan, you will get business review tools and Bluehost SEO tools. It offers blue sky ticket support.

Scale Plan

Its cost starts from $49.95 per month and you have to pay $59.99 per month at the time of renewal. This plan is best suited for websites having a total number of visitors up to 500000 per month. Here, you will get 80 GB of web storage. All the features offered under Grow Plan will also be offered under this plan. In addition, you will get extra features such as PayPal integration, unlimited video compression, and blue sky live chat support.

All the WordPress Hosting Plans provide:

Multi-layered catching for the best speed of the website
Auto scalability to manage traffic rise
Multi-tiered security, updates, and, advanced analytics
Social media control

Online Store Hosting Plan

Are you planning to start an online store?

If yes, Bluehost comes with two Online Store hosting plans – Standard and Premium. You can build and promote your online store along with the powerful tools of WooCommerce. You can create a safe and secure online store using Bluehost Online Store Hosting Plan.

Bluehost will help you in setting up your online store, add products, and use plug-ins.

Standard Plan

This plan starts at $15.95 per month and is renewed at the rate of $24.95 per month. You can set up your online store website as well as blog. It comes with a pre-installed store-front theme, and you can add unlimited products to your online store. It also offers one-click install payment processing and round-the-clock customer support.

Premium Plan

Their cost starts from $24.95 per month and you have to pay $39.95 per month at the time of renewal. This plan includes all the features offered under the Standard Plan. It also offers some additional features such as offers and discounts, online booking and appointment scheduling, tax management, and subscription services.

VPS Hosting

If you want powerful performance or want more control over your hosting, VPS hosting is the best hosting for you.

Bluehost VPS servers allow resources such as RAM and CPU to all VPS hosting accounts. Unlike shared hosting, you will be allocated a set of CPU and disk space according to the plan you have chosen. It allows greater stability and performance to your website.

VPS hosting is best suited to those clients whose sites require advanced-level security.

Bluehost offers three pricing plans under the VPS Hosting – Standard, Enhanced, and Ultimate.

Standard Plan

The pricing of this plan starts at $18.99 per month and you have to pay $29.99 per month at the time of renewal. This plan comes with 2 GB RAM, 2 cores, and 30 GB SSD storage. It also offers 1 TB bandwidth and 1 IP address.

Enhanced Plan

This plan starts from $29.99 per month and its renewal cost is $59.99 per month. It offers 2 cores, 4 GB RAM, and 60 GB SSD storage. It also offers 2 TB bandwidth and 2 IP addresses.

Ultimate Plan

The cost of this plan starts at $59.99 per month and its renewal cost is $119.99 per month. It comes with 4 cores and 120 GB SSD storage, 8 GB RAM, 3 TB bandwidth, and 2 IP addresses.

Dedicated Hosting

Bluehost dedicated web hosting is a good option for websites that require high performance, security, and control. You need this type of hosting only if your websites receive hundreds of thousands of visits every month.

Dedicated hosting offers

The best-performing servers
The best security for the websites
The best control of your website on the server

Bluehost offers three types of plans – Standard, Enhanced, and Premium under the dedicated hosting.

Standard Plan

This plan starts at $799.99 per month and the renewal cost is $119.99 per month. It offers 4 cores, 4 GB RAM, and 500 GB mirrored storage. It also offers 5 TB bandwidth and 3 IP addresses.

Enhanced Plan

The cost of the plan starts at $99.99 per month and its renewal cost is $159.99 per month. This plan comes with 8 GB RAM, 4 cores, and 1TB of mirrored storage. It also offers 10 TB bandwidth and 4 IP addresses.

Premium Plan

This plan starts at $119.99 per month and its renewal cost is $209.999 per month. This plan comes with 16 GB RAM, 4 cores, and 1TB of mirrored storage. It also offers 15 TB bandwidth and 5 IP addresses.

Bluehost Hosting Features

Bluehost not only provides the best hosting environment for your websites but also gives you the following additional features:

Domain Services

Most of the plans offered by Bluehost have a free domain name.

Subdomains

Bluehost also lets you create subdomain names for different pages, but the number of subdomains that you can create varies with the plan you have selected.

Bluehost domains

You can opt for a new domain from Bluehost in a very easy way. You just need to type in the domain name you want and then follow the prompts which appear on the screen.

Parked Domains

With Bluehost, you also enjoy the benefit of availing of parked domains for your website, which can be used as aliases for your website. For instance, if your primary domain name is abc.com, you can set abc.net as a parked domain and just need to redirect it to abc.com

Just like subdomains, the number of parked domains also depends on the plan that you have purchased.

Unlimited Domains

By opting for Plus, Choice Plus, and Pro shared hosting plans you can manage an unlimited number of domain names, including parked domains and subdomains.

Bluehost plans provide a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Domain Manager Tool

Bluehost gives its customers access to the company’s domain management tool, with which you can perform the actions such as purchase, track, update, manage, and transfer your domain from one interface.

The best part of Bluehost is its ease of use. This is great not only for beginners but small businesses also enjoy this platform.

Cloudflare CDN (Content Delivery Network)

The Cloudflare CDN is another feature provided by Bluehost. Cloudflare CDN is responsible to speeds up the loading time of your site.

Content delivery networks maintain a cache of your site at data centers throughout the globe. When a visitor comes to your site, the network detects the geographical location of the visitor and “serves” your website to him from the geographically closest network node.

Bluehost speed

Bluehost gives its users mind-blowing Page speed and load time. Page speed is a crucial factor for the success of any site. Bluehost is a perfect choice if you have an e-commerce platform.

Control Panel

Bluehost has a simple and user-friendly WordPress dashboard. It has a highly customizable Cpanel, with the following sections:

My Sites: In this section, you can manage your websites with your logged-in account. You can even create a new website. From here you can directly go to your WordPress admin dashboard.
Marketplace: To add features and functionality to your website, you need to go to Marketplace. Here you will find several features such as options to purchase professional services, new add-ons, themes for your WordPress site, and more.
Email & Office: This is the place from where you can access all your purchased tools. Here you also get cloud-based word processing, spreadsheet tools, and email.
Domains: From this place, you can access your domain manager. From here you can monitor the registration status of your domains, find and register new domain names, transfer domains, see a list of the domain names you own, update which domain name, set up redirection, and manage your subdomains.
Advanced: This is the place where you find all your file and database management options and email settings. You can also manage your security and monitor metrics regarding your resource use and site traffic.

Account Security

Bluehost provides its customers a high level of security. It has the following steps to make sure that only authentic persons can use your account:

Bluehost presents a single sign-on.
It has two-factor authentication.
The custom token you generate every time you sign in.
Moreover, Bluehost supports the use of OpenPGP/GPG encryption. Due to this you can send and receive your files securely.

Site Security

Let’s Encrypt is available on Bluehost. It offers free SSL certificates which provide protection to your site.

You can enhance the security of your website by choosing a private SSL certificate. But for this, you will have to purchase a dedicated IP address from Bluehost.

For beginners, Bluehost gives all the relevant information on how SSL certificates work.

The WordPress core software is regularly updated by Bluehost. So you don’t have to bother about updating your WordPress.

However, the WordPress plug-in is not updated by Bluehost. So at this place, you will have to be a bit conscious.

Bluehost tells you about plug-in updates through messages. And now it’s your turn to update those plug-ins.

Bluehost provides SiteLock which is third-party software. It serves as a firewall and malware scanner. It removes malware from your site. If your site gets hacked, Bluehost does not offer any assistance. So you should keep a close eye on the security issues of your site as prevention is better than cure.

A paid service named WP Live service is available in WordPress which can assist you with any site problems including security. You will have to pay a monthly fee to avail of this service and can cancel it at any time. Bluehost has many how-to videos for beginners, on its YouTube channel. It also has videos related to website security.

Site Migrations

Bluehost has a demerit in that it does not provide a free website migration service.

They provide paid website migration service but the cost is very high at $149.99. At this rate, you can cover up to five websites and 20 email addresses.

PCI Compliance

Bluehost selection has a limitation in that it is not PCI Compliance, like other e-commerce platforms in this sector.

However, Bluehost provides secure payment gateways with its WooCommerce plans.

Weebly Site Builder

Bluehost has also partnered with Weebly. This enables users to build their websites very easily.

Its drag-and-drop interface allows even a beginner to create his own website. Here you get multiple pre-designed templates, where you can insert images and text as per your choice.

These templates are highly responsive and adjust automatically to smartphones, tablets, laptops, etc.

Bluehost provides a series of Weebly tutorials on its YouTube channel. So it becomes very easy for everyone to use this platform.

Email Accounts and Email Hosting

Bluehost comes with web-based email services.

Using the Basic plan, you can create up to five email accounts.

Its email services support both the IMAP and POP protocols.

SpamAssassin

The SpamAssassin feature of Bluehost protects you from spam. This is an intelligent tool that identifies which message is likely to be spam.

As you enable SpamAssassin in your control panel, you start getting the benefits of this tool, which too free of cost.

Business Email

Bluehost offers a basic plan that supports email and calendar functionality. This plan gives you 15 GB of storage for your email, and Outlook web access.

You can check this feature for 30 days as this is its trial period, after that you will have to buy it.

Customer Service and Technical Support

24/7 technical support is provided by Bluehost. You can get help via telephone, live chat, or the support ticketing center.

Self-Help Support

Bluehost has a YouTube channel where it uploads tutorial videos on various topics such as email, how to install WordPress, login management, etc.

Troubleshooting

Bluehost has stated that they provide solutions to your problem within 15 minutes. It does not give you any compensation it failed to assist you within this period. But they allow you to cancel your paid plan and receive a pro-rated refund for the time remaining on your plan.

Features for Developers

Bluehost provides easy and user-friendly developer tools and related interfaces.
Bluehost cPanel gives very simple access to advanced tools.
In addition to tools for file and image management, it also gives assistance for various types of FTP connections. Bluehost gives an easy and simple layout for its file manager.
If you choose Bluehost, you will get support for both MySQL and PostgreSQL databases. For managing your databases, you can use the pre-built wizards, or you can go for phpMyAdmin, phpPgAdmin, and Remote MySQL.
With Bluehost, you can do a lot with emails such as set up email accounts, set up autoresponders and change the amount of storage allocated to each account, forwarders, and filters. Not only this, but you can also tackle spam, manage mailing lists, and use the calendars and contacts feature.
Bluehost provides a high level of security by allowing you to set up SSH access to your account, block IP addresses, add hotlink protection, and install SSL certificates.
With the above features, it also provides some other software and advanced features. These are PHP PEAR packages, Perl modules, Cron jobs, and Apache handlers.
In shared hosting, you can manage multiple domains from one control panel but you cannot manage the server completely. On the other hand, in VPS and dedicated hosting plans, you can completely manage the server alongside the normal cPanel settings.
Bluehost operates only on Linux servers. But in India. It works with full efficiency on both Linux and Windows servers. Really this is good news for India.

Bluehost Marketing Services

Bluehost provides its users all the basic services and infrastructure which are needed for their e-commerce website. In addition to this, Bluehost also gives its customers professional marketing services which help them to bring visitors to their site.

Definitely, Bluehost gives full-fledged offers in the field of digital marketing services. The company is not limited to this only but it can also assist you in the following areas:

Bluehost has excellent search engine optimization, where you can insert appropriate keywords with suitable title tags and meta descriptions.
You also get the facility to manage local listings. This facility makes sure that you can be easily found by people around you.
With Bluehost, you get monthly content marketing. This includes Bluehost writing articles and creating content which in turn increases your search engine rankings.

Bluehost marketing services are very basic, but if you need some assistance due to your busy schedule, or you’re not familiar with the digital marketing arena, Bluehost marketing services might be a good option for you.

You can do all the things yourself and save some money as Bluehost is offering the thing that you can do on your own with some effort.

Bluehost Pros & Cons

Advantages of Bluehost Hosting

1. Bluehost is Easy to Use

It is very easy to use Bluehost hosting. First of all, you have to sign up for the account. Then, after logging in to your account, just click on the ‘next’ button a few times and WordPress gets automatically installed and ready to go.

You do not need to worry about getting it installed in the wrong folder, or drastically messing something up. You will just work on customizing your website and looking it pretty while Bluehost will take care of the backend.

Moreover, you can easily customize your website even if you don’t have any website-building experience. Bluehost offers free as well as paid themes for website building.

2. High-Performance Servers

Bluehost offers High-Performance Servers that are suitable for your needs – if you are running a large online business.

Why High-performance servers are important?

In shared hosting, you are sharing the space with other users which helps in the reduction of the cost. But, some users might use up way more resources than allocated. It means that everyone else sharing that server will experience site slowdowns. And, sometimes their sites won’t even load at all, and hence downtime of the websites increase.

Bluehost has high-performance servers and it allocates a few users per server. In addition, each user has been allocated a file count of three hundred thousand. This leads to more computing resources per user, consistent website load speed, and hence, less downtime of the website.

But, there is a catch with this high-performance server. These servers are only available with their Pro Plan, which is costlier than the shared hosting plans.

3. Fast Speed

Site speed plays an important role in a successful online business. The server response time plays a very important role in the fast loading speed of the websites.

Since Bluehost has merely 1 datacenter that is located in the USA. So, we thought that Bluehost would not do very well on the server speed test. But, the reality was not so and Bluehost responded exceptionally well.

Bluehost is one of the fastest A-ranked hosting providers with an average speed score of 153ms across the globe. So, you can be assured that no matter where your target audience resides, Bluehost will deliver!

4. Best Security Features

When we are talking about security, it does not mean features that just keep your website safe from those fiendish hackers. For us, security means – peace of mind, and keeping spam away from your brand-new email inbox.

Let’s know what is peace of mind?

You would prefer not to go through days, weeks, and months, altering and tweaking your business site to get it to look awesome and fit to rank on the first page of Google. Just to stack it up to find that somebody messed everything up and your whole site is no more.

For this, Bluehost offers their users with CodeGuard basic at $2.99 per month.

CodeGuard Basic

This is just a fancy name given by Bluehost to their daily backup service.

It is good as it monitors your website and database frequently. If there are any changes in the website or database, it will notify you, and automatically perform backups.

The basic CodeGuard version provides 1GB of storage space, daily monitoring and backup, and up to three restorations per month.

And, if you need more features, you can choose any of the higher plans of CodeGuard – Professional, Premium, and Enterprise. But, you have to pay higher prices for those plans.

SpamExperts

SpamExperts is an advanced email filter that Bluehost uses to save your website from spam attacks of spammers.

It scans incoming emails for spam, phishing, viruses, and other email-related attacks by spammers. They filter them with 99.98% accuracy and restrict these messages to reach your inbox mail.

Thus, it keeps your mailbox clean and junk-free.

SiteLock

To protect your website from external threats, Bluehost comes with a basic firewall that offers a minimal level of protection against external threats. But, if you need enhanced protection, you can get it in the form of SiteLock.

SiteLock service is offered in three tiers: Essential, Prevent, and Prevent Plus.

Essential: You will get automatic malware removal but it does nothing against DDOS attacks or any major attacks.

Prevent: It is the middle-tier security level that comes with automatic malware removal, DDoS Protection, and a 6-hour response time.

Prevent Plus: It has all the features of Prevent Plan with the added benefit of having a daily scan.

No doubt, SiteLock is a good security feature, but for this, you have to pay extra money.

5. A Buffet of Benefits

Bluehost shared hosting plans offer a buffet of benefits, and the best thing is, almost everything is unlimited. These benefits include

Unlimited websites
Unlimited SSD storage
Unmetered bandwidth
Unlimited parked domains
Unlimited subdomains

You can create and host as many sites as you want. And you need not have to worry about the number of monthly visitors to your site.

6. Quick Support

If your website needs quick attention, you need quick support from your hosting provider. And if you have to wait for the support, it will be infuriating.

Bluehost support team never disappoints you. While most of the hosting companies take 15 minutes for live chat support response, the Bluehost team responds within 5 minutes.

They also offer round-the-clock phone and e-mail support and hence you won’t have to worry about support in different time zones.

7. Freebies Offered

Some companies entice you to sign up for their service stating that they are giving freebies. They say that freebies such as free 24/7 customer support or free WordPress installation.

But that’s not the case with the Bluehost. It offers freebies that will make a difference in your bank account.

They offer a free domain name with every hosting plan for a year, even with the shared hosting plan.

Besides, you will also get and enjoy free SSL – it’s not a big deal, but every little bit definitely helps to make a difference to small businesses.

Disadvantages of Bluehost Hosting

As we know that every rose has its thorn. So, Bluehost also has some disadvantages.

1. Bluehost has only one Datacenter

Every millisecond counts when it comes to website load speed. We know that Bluehost has only one data center, which is located in the USA. They might actually perform better if they had data centers on different continents to support audiences across the globe.

They might have one of the best worldwide average speeds. But if they have data centers in different regions, the sites will load up faster for the target audiences located in those regions.

2. No Uptime Guarantee

Bluehost does not allow any uptime guarantee.

Downtime is quite harmful to any website as it may lead to a loss of potential sales or conversions. If your site has experiencing downtime, and the downtime is consistent, your site might not be listed by the search engines. It may be detrimental to your websites and ultimately to your business.

This is the reason why an uptime guarantee is important for any online store or website. This guarantee shows the hosting company is committed to keeping your site up and running. And they are willing to pay compensation to the customers if they face downtimes, below a certain level.

We agree that Bluehost’s uptime is very fantastic, but if they give an uptime guarantee, it will be an added advantage.

3. Dodgy Checkout Process

You should be extra careful while purchasing hosting from Bluehost. Upon checkout, SEO tools and Sitelock boxes are checked in that pushes the price up to about $60 a year.

These things are nice to have but since it is complementary, the toolboxes should not be checked at the time of checkout. The buyers who need these features may check the boxes and then proceed further.

Many buyers do not need those features and they might just click next and make the purchase unknowingly – thereby paying an extra amount.

So, be cautious of add-ons while purchasing Bluehost hosting plans.

Bluehost Performance Tests

Loading speed and uptime are the two most important performance metrics that you should look for. They not only affect user experience on your website, but they also affect your WordPress SEO rankings. Studies have revealed that a 1-second drop in website speed can decrease your conversion rate by 7%. And you can lose 50% of your traffic if your website is delayed by 3 seconds.

Bluehost Speed Test

Till now, you have got an idea of how important is the loading speed of the website. Speed gives the best user experience and improves the search engine rankings of your website.

I have done a comparison of Bluehost’s speed to the most popular shared hosting competitors. I used Pingdom, GTmetrix, and PageSpeedInsight to check their loading times.

Test	Loading Time (Average)
GT Matrix	2.74 s
Pingdom Test	3.32 s
Page Speed Insights (Google)	2.52 s

These tests were carried out under the same conditions (e.g. same page and content) spread out over almost 3 months.

On our test, Bluehost is not at the top when it comes to loading speed. Several hosting providers outperformed them in the tests.

If you are concerned about speed, SiteGround and Hostgator have better loading speeds.

Bluehost Uptime Test

There is no hosting service provider that provides 100% uptime. Due to technical reasons, e.g., server maintenance, your site will be down for short instances of time. Therefore, no hosting provider can guarantee 100 percent uptime practically.

Downtime is terrible as your visitors and search engines will not be able to reach your website. You should go with the hosting providers who guarantee at least 99.95% uptime.

Hosting Provider	Uptime is 2020 (Percentage)
Cloudways	100
Dreamhost	99.99
WP Engine	99.99
GreenGeeks	99.98
SiteGround	99.97
Bluehost	99.96
HostGator	99.91
GoDaddy	99.90
Hostinger	99.48

As you can see in the table, Bluehost has shown good uptime results in 2020. I am quite satisfied with the uptime performance of Bluehost.

However, you should keep in mind that they don’t offer any uptime guarantee. So, they will not be going to compensate you if the downtime increases. On the other hand, other hosting providers will compensate you if their global uptime drops below a certain level.

Some Bluehost Alternatives

WordPress is the most powerful and one of the easiest Content Management Systems to use. But, to unleash its full potential, you need a good website hosting provider. Bluehost has maintained its position as one of the most popular WordPress hosting providers and has a good reputation among first-time users.

There is no doubt that Bluehost is a popular hosting provider, but it might not be the best option for you. In this section, we will know about the top Bluehost alternatives, and why you should try them out.

1. SiteGround

SiteGround is one of the top Bluehost alternatives for all types of users. SiteGround WordPress hosting plans are affordable and reasonably priced. It is at par with most other providers when it comes to functionality.

They present their plan realistically. Their WordPress Plans do not make any promise of unlimited storage or traffic. For example, their cheapest plan – StartUp Plan – is recommended for websites having 10000 visits per month, and you can use 10 GB of space.

In terms of user ratings, SiteGround beats Bluehost. They get 3 and 4.6 out of 5, respectively.

How SiteGround is better than Bluehost

Pricing Plans:

There are three pricing plans at $6.9, $9.99, and $14.99 per month respectively.

Main Features:

SiteGround has a fast loading speed, and advanced caching techniques help in getting fast speed.
It offers a free SSL certificate
It offers automated backups and WordPress updates including plugins
SiteGround comes with security monitoring of WordPress vulnerabilities
It comes with a free Cloudflare Content Delivery Network setup
You can create staging copies of your sites with a single click under the GrowBig and GoGeek plans

When to Use SiteGround

You can use SiteGround if looking for a stable service that can handle the unique needs of your WordPress website. SiteGround offers affordable prices, fast loading speeds, excellent support service, and fantastic all-around features for WordPress users.

2. DreamHost

DreamHost is a web hosting company that guarantees a fast and secure hosting solution. WordPress also recommends DreamHost as a web hosting provider.

DreamHost provides you a control panel, using which you can manage your website with ease. It offers different scalable hosting solutions.

DreamHost provides a 100% uptime guarantee and remains true to its word.

It offers multiple security features with free SSL on all plans. It provides live chat and emails support round-the-clock.

Main Features:

It offers a free domain and privacy protection
Free SSL certificate for all the hosting plans
It offers unlimited domains hosting, unlimited storage, and unlimited bandwidth
You can install WordPress with a single click
DreamHost provides automatic backups of websites
It provides 24/7 support – through chat and emails.

Pricing Plans

Its WordPress hosting plan starts from $3.95 per month whereas VPS hosting starting cost is $13.75 per. You have to pay $169 per month for its dedicated hosting

3. WP Engine

The previous Bluehost alternatives provide hosting plans for various platforms, whereas WP Engine is all about WordPress. They are dedicated to providing the best experience for WordPress users. Its excellent customer support team is well-versed with the CMS, a robust architecture, and high-security standards.

WP Engine is better than Bluehost in terms of WordPress Optimization.

Pricing Plans:

It offers three types of pricing plans starting from $30 per month. In addition, it offers custom plans for more demanding clients.

Main Features

It provides 24/7 WordPress-centric support
It takes daily backups for your WordPress websites.
Its EverCache technology enables lightning-fast website loading speed
WP Engine comes with high-security measures, for example, multiple firewalls and regular malware scans.
Site performance data for all customers will be provided

When to use WP Engine

Considering its high prices, WP Engine should be considered by those customers who are serious about developing their WordPress projects. They need a reliable hosting platform that will help them in scaling up, and also have robust security for sensitive data.

4. HostGator

HostGator is another trustworthy web hosting company and a competitor of Bluehost. It is a leading web hosting provider that guarantees an uptime of 99.99 percent.

It also offers a free domain name for the first year. Based on the pricing it offers various packages, SEO tools, and a drag-and-drop website builder.

You can easily migrate your website from any other hosting services provider to Hostgator without bothering about the contents of your website. This might be useful if you are planning to change your web hosting service.

Main Features

It offers multiple layers of caching, CDN, low-density servers, and many more
Guaranteed uptime of 99.99%
HostGator offers you unlimited email and subdomains.
You get a free SSL certificate and a free domain name for the first year
It also offers you free advertising credit for Adwords and Bing
It comes with a 45-day money-back guarantee.

Pricing Plans:

HostGator web hosting pricing plan starts at $2.75 per month, and you have to pay $5.95 per month for its Business Plan.

5. DigitalOcean

DigitalOcean is not the first name when someone mentions WordPress hosting – and Bluehost alternatives in particular – but DigitalOcean is far ahead of Bluehost in terms of value for money.

DigitalOcean’s main focus is on providing SSD-only cloud servers for their customers. While first-time hosting users might scare away, setting up a WordPress VPS server – called a ‘droplet’ – on the platform is not so difficult.

Pricing Plans

Its pricing plans start from $5 per month and vary as per the cloud storage.

Main Features

You can deploy your custom VPS, and set up WordPress with a single click.
It provides the facility of team accounts to provide access to management resources, without sharing sensitive credentials.
All the VPS servers ‘ droplets provide the highest levels of security and performance.
It offers unique billing based on cost per hour.
DigitalOcean comes with a 99.99% uptime guarantee and refunds for any downtime.

When to use DigitalOcean

DigitalOcean offers fantastic service, but it is not for everyone. If you are comfortable with DIY solutions, DigitalOcean will be a good choice for you.

Considering all of the above things, Bluehost is a good hosting service for WordPress users. It is affordable, stable, secure, and comes with many additional features.

However, it lags behind in some qualities that are offered by its alternatives. So, you may revisit your option before choosing Bluehost for website hosting.

6. InMotion Hosting

InMotion Hosting is one of the trustworthy web hosting providers. It delivers fast performance with SSD drives, custom server caching, and the latest PHP 7 versions.

It is a very good choice for beginners and experts as its setup process does not require much effort with one-click installation. InMotion Hosting comes with free WordPress installation for WordPress users.

It offers top security features such as free SSL certificates, custom firewalls, DDoS attack protection,, hack protection, automatic updates, etc.

It assists you through a team of experts – through chat support, email, and phone support. It also offers customer support through Skype.

Main Features

InMotion Hosting offers unlimited bandwidth
It also offers a free domain for a lifetime
You can migrate your site free of cost from any hosting provider
It also offers you a free SSL certificate
You can take backups of your websites
It provides excellent website loading speed SSD, CloudLinux, and Optimum Cache technologies.
InMotion Hosting has a 90-day refund policy

Pricing Plans

The starting Plan of InMotion Hosting starts at $5.99 per month under the shared hosting plans. Its WordPress hosting plan starting cost is $6.99 per month.

7. Flywheel

Flywheel offer hosting packages for individual WordPress sites, but the bulk of their features are focused on freelancers and agencies. Their tools enable web developers and designers to work together on projects without sharing credentials.

The flywheel is better than Bluehost in terms of WordPress Optimization.

Pricing Plans:

Flywheel offers various pricing plans starting from $15 per month. It also offers custom plans for web developers, freelancers, and agencies in which 10 WordPress installs are allowed.

Main Features

It offers powerful collaboration tools for freelancers and agencies
Flywheel offers transferable billings.
It takes daily backups of your websites
You can create staging sites and save custom WordPress setups for future use.
Its support team has WordPress experts.

When to use Flywheel

Flywheel is best suitable for freelancers and agencies working with WordPress. But it also provides a stable hosting service to individual users. It comes up with a fantastic set of features and a support team that is well-versed in WordPress.

8. A2 Hosting

If you want high-quality hosting, A2 Hosting is one of the best solutions for you. Here, you can use many tools and developer-friendly services along with impressive website loading speed. It is one of the web hosting companies that offer about 100 percent uptime.

You get unlimited storage and bandwidth on all of the A2 Hosting plans. It is also known for its excellent customer support service – with its 24/7 live chat support.

A2 Hosting is suitable for all types of customers – from small businesses to large e-commerce giants

Main Features

It offers unlimited storage and bandwidth
A2 Hosting comes with a free SSL certificate
It comes with free site migration
A2 Hosting has multiple server locations
A2 hosting provides a 99.99% uptime guarantee
Excellent 24/7 live chat support

Pricing Plans

A2 Hosting pricing plans start at $2.99 per month with all the essential and advanced features that are needed for the growth of your online business.

FAQs

1. Who owns Bluehost?

Bluehost is a web hosting company. It is owned by Endurance International Group. It was established by Matt Heaton and Danny Ashworth in 2003. Additionally, it is among the 20 largest web hosts, hosting over 2 million domains. Besides web hosting services, Bluehost offers domain names, email, social media marketing, and local business listings.

2. Is Bluehost a good web host?

Bluehost is a good web host due to the following reasons:

It is reliable and has established its brand value.
You get unlimited SSD storage and can host unlimited domains on the server.
Bluehost is affordable, and its starter plan starts at $2.95 per month.
It is easy to use, and even a non-technical person can install WordPress in less than 4 minutes.
Bluehost hosting is secure and comes with many advanced security features, such as SiteLock, SpamExperts, CodeGuard Basic, etc.
Its high-performance servers and excellent uptime

3. Why is Bluehost so cheap?

Are you of the opinion that Bluehost is so cheap?

If yes, then you are partially correct, as you are looking at only the starting plan of the hosting company. It offers various pricing plans that start from $2.95 per month and go above $100 per month.

Their basic plan at $2.95 per month is designed to acquire new customers. Many users are sharing the server under this plan. It has many limitations in terms of storage, bandwidth, and security. You have to pay extra for these features.

Moreover, some web hosting providers are offering hosting services at very affordable pricing.

HostGator: It provides unlimited disk space with an uptime guarantee

Hostinger: You can host unlimited domains, and get unlimited stores but its uptime is not excellent.

So, cheap plans are made to get new customers, and hosting providers charge them extra for advanced features.

4. Is Bluehost good for beginners?

Bluehost is good for beginners as it allures them by offering the basic necessities that are required for getting a WordPress site live. Beginners, such as bloggers and small businesses can easily start their blogs as Bluehost hosting offers them:

An affordable price that starts at $2.95 per month
The free domain name for the first year
Round-the-clock customer support
Free SSL certificate

Thus, beginners can easily start their websites without pondering much over the cost.

5. Is Bluehost the best for WordPress?

Bluehost is the best for WordPress as Bluehost comes with a WordPress-focused hosting service. It offers WordPress Hosting and is optimized for WordPress sites and comes with several add-ons.

Bluehost offers two types of WordPress hosting – Shared WordPress Hosting and Managed WordPress Hosting

Shared WordPress Hosting: The basic shared WordPress hosting plan starts at $2.95 per month. It comes with 50 GB SSD storage, and you get 5 parked domains and 25 subdomains. In higher-tier plans, you will get unmetered SSD storage, unlimited parking domains, and sub-domains.

Managed WordPress Hosting: Managed WordPress hosting plan starts from $19.95 per month. It offers a free SSL certificate and 20 GB of web storage. You can also take daily backups, malware detection and removal, and domain privacy and protection under this plan. Its higher-tier plans offer extra features. So, we can say Bluehost Managed WordPress hosting is the best plan for WordPress Sites.

6. How much does Bluehost cost?

There are six different types of hosting offered by Bluehost. Every type offers multiple plans with varying prices and features. Here is a quick look at the cheapest plans prices and renewal prices for every hosting type:

Shared Hosting: Its Basic Plan starts at $2.95 per month if purchased for 36 months. Its renewal cost is $7.99 per month.

Shared WordPress Hosting: Its starter plan is named Basic Plan. It costs $2.95 per month if taken for 36 months, and its renewal cost is $8.99 per month.

Managed WordPress Hosting: Its starting plan is named ‘Build’ and you have to pay $19.95 per month if purchased for 36 months. You have to pay $29.99 per month at the time of renewal.

Online Store Hosting: Starting Price of the Standard plan is $15.95 per month, and its renewal cost is $24.95 per month.

VPS Hosting: The Standard Plan costs $18.99 per month if taken for 366 months. You have to pay $29.99 per month at the time of renewal.

Dedicated Hosting: Dedicated hosting plan starts at $79.99 per month, and its renewal cost is $119.99 per month

All the plans of Bluehost come with a 30-day money-back guarantee. It also offers additional discounts from time to time.

7. Which is Bluehost’s cheapest hosting plan?

Bluehost shared hosting plans are the cheapest plans of Bluehost. They range from $2.95 per month to $13.95 per month. There are four pricing plans under the Bluehost shared hosting plan.

Basic Plan: It is the cheapest plan and its cost starts from $2.95 per month if taken for 36 months. Its renewal cost is $7.99 per month.

Plus Plan: Its starting price is $5.45 per month. You have to pay $10.99 per month for its renewal.

Choice Plus Plan: Its pricing starts from $5.45 per month, and it will be renewed at the rate of $14.999 per month.

Pro Plan: It costs you $13.95 per month if you take it for 36 months. Its renewal cost is $23.99 per month.

8. What control panel Bluehost has?

The Control panel is the command center where you can access your accounts and manage your domains.

All BlueHost accounts come with the industry-leading control panel. It is well-organized and so you can easily manage your web hosting account and websites. The customized c panel of Bluehost also includes additional features such as backups, security, themes, etc. to make it easier for you to manage WordPress websites.

Bluehost c panel has the following core features:

C panel will fulfill your entire web hosting needs, whether you are a beginner or an expert.
If you have more than one website on your hosting, you can add and manage all kinds of websites using the cPanel.
You can easily switch from different web hosting companies to Bluehost hosting, and you can manage your account without any difficulty.
Bluehost c panel comes with the simple scripts add-on – from where clients can access various applications such as WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Zen Cart, and many more.
cPanel has regular updates, with a user guide on their website which is accessible to all the users.

9. Is it easy to upgrade or downgrade Bluehost?

Yes, you can always upgrade or downgrade your plan easily. It can be done at any time from your Bluehost dashboard or you can make a call to customer support for the necessary changes.

First of all, log in to your dashboard and switch to Manual Renewal, then click the Upgrade button. You will see upgrades, downgrades, and renewal options will be listed. If you are unable to do desired changes, please contact the Billing Department at 888-401-4678 to cancel the service before renewal.

However, it would be advised that you pick the right plan from the starting day as when you upgrade the hosting plan, you will not get the discounted pricing.

10. What are Bluehost name servers?

To host your website and/or manage your domain at Bluehost, you need to use its name servers.

ns1.bluehost.com
ns2.bluehost.com

Alternatively, you can use the name server’s IP address:

162.88.60.37
162.88.61.37

You must update your name servers with the domain’s current registrar i.e., the company your domain is registered with. If your domain is registered here, check out Modifying Name Servers for step-by-step instructions. Else, you should contact your domain’s current registrar for assistance.

You should keep in mind; your new DNS settings will begin to propagate as soon as you save your changes. Each ISP takes a different time to update, usually taking 24 to 72 hours to complete worldwide. In the meantime, your emails will not work, and your web traffic will be directed to either of the name servers – the old or the new one – and it depends on the visitor’s ISP.

11. Can you register domain names with Bluehost?

Yes, you can register domain names with Bluehost.

Your website visitors will not have a memorable way to get to your website without a domain name. And there will not be a website to go to without a hosting account.

Bluehost offers both domain names and hosting to make it easy to manage your domains, websites, and emails— all in one place.

In a Bluehost account, you can register new domain names and transfer domains that are already owned by you.

12. Can you automatically install WordPress on Bluehost?

Bluehost has totally revamped its web hosting and made it WordPress oriented. Days are gone when you had to create your blog manually. Nowadays, WordPress is automatically installed and set up on Bluehost hosting.

If you have purchased hosting and the domain name from Bluehost, it will automatically install WordPress for you. You have nothing to do, just wait for a few minutes and get WordPress installed automatically on your Bluehost hosting.

In case automatic installation does not begin or is not completed, login to your Bluehost Dashboard and then click on login to WordPress inside the Bluehost dashboard.

13. Does Bluehost provide a money-back guarantee?

Yes, Bluehost provides a 30-day hosting money-back guarantee.

The discounted price is for the first purchase only and plans are renewed at the regular price. Customer satisfaction is the top priority of Bluehost and they are confident about their services. And, if you feel that hosting does not sufficiently meet your needs, you can cancel your plan within 30 days of your purchase, and refunds are allowed as follows.

If you cancel your plan within 30 days of your purchase, you receive a full refund on your hosting service only. There is a money-back guarantee on add-on products, such as domains, security features, etc.
If you cancel your plan within 30 days and your plan includes a free domain, then Bluehost will deduct a non-refundable domain fee of $15.99 from your refund. This ensures that you won’t lose your domain name. You may transfer your domain to another registrar at your convenience.
Bluehost does not give any refunds for cancellations that take place after 30 days.

14. Will Bluehost back up my website automatically?

Yes, Bluehost takes an automatic backup of your account.

Site Backup and Restore facility helps in protecting account files, databases, and email accounts from getting lost. Restoring files is simple, easy, and quick. Bluehost takes backups of the website automatically on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. You can download a copy of your entire site for safekeeping.

The free version allows users to take a backup of the data, but users cannot restore databases.

The Pro version give allows users to restore any files or databases they need. Users can restore either all databases or a specific database.

15. How is Bluehost support?

Bluehost support is offered by their in-house, expert team. They are always ready to help you by answering your questions and queries whether it is related to purchase or technical issues. Thus, they also help you in growing your presence online.

You can reach out to the expert support team of Bluehost 24/7 on Chat. They also provide phone support between 10 am to 10 pm.

16. What control panel does Bluehost provide?

Bluehost provides cPanel on all of its plans. On shared plans, you can manage multiple domains from a single control panel. On VPS and dedicated hosting plans, Bluehost provides the cPanel – using which you can manage the server in addition to your normal cPanel settings.

17. Does Bluehost provide domain privacy?

Yes, Bluehost provides a domain privacy option.

You get an option to hide your personal information from the WHOIS database. The database includes information on who is the owner of the given domain. You get this option in the marketplace section of your control panel – and from there you can add this to your account. You have to pay extra for domain privacy but the price is not so expensive.

18. Where is the data center of Bluehost?

The data center of Bluehost is located in Provo, Utah. It is owned and managed by Bluehost. They have built their own servers and installed their own proprietary Linux kernel. Their system administrators and developers constantly maintain and upgrade this infrastructure.

Conclusion and Recommendation

If you are looking for a hosting service with a low price and good performance, you can go with DreamHost or A2 Hosting. Their performance is similar to that of Bluehost and that’s too at a lower cost.

SiteGround is slightly better than Bluehost as it offers extra features such as e.g. more backup options, better customer support, etc. SiteGround hosting is best for WordPress site owners as it empowers them with a built-in caching plugin, speed optimization option, and many more.

Bluehost’s first-year pricing is remarkably cheap but before opting for it on a pricing basis, you should consider the renewal prices.

Bluehost is not the best hosting provider but you can opt for it. If you want a hosting service that provides unmetered storage and unlimited bandwidth, Bluehost could be a suitable option for you.

It is clear from the speed test that their website loading speed is not the best. However, the uptime shown by Bluehost is above 99.95% which is considered good. Their uptime result is similar to that of the top hosting providers like SiteGround and WPEngine.

Bluehost is an affordable web hosting services provider that fulfills the needs of many users.

Bluehost Review by Our Community

Community Review 1

In my opinion, overall service is OK. I use Bluehost for my writing blog. I use their WordPress hosting service and I am satisfied with the service, although their support is not great.

Community Review 2

Bluehost has a very nice list of features, such as ‘Unlimited Bandwidth” at a very low cost, but what I don’t like about Bluehost is their poor customer service – some of their staff keep turning rude at some moments!

Community Review 3

Bluehost was a good hosting provider earlier, but the situation has changed now. I get irritated by the low quality of service, and the lack of knowledge of the support staff. Their hosting is indeed cheaper, but their service qualities are very pathetic. So, I don’t suggest going with Bluehost.

Community Review 4

I have been using BlueHost for 3 years and I had mixed experiences – good and bad.

BlueHost Pros

1. Low hosting price,

2. Free domain name for a year

3. No hidden charges

4. Easy-to-use user interface.

Bluehost Cons

1. Page load speed not consistent

2. Its customer support is not excellent. Sometimes, it takes a long time to solve minor issues

Community Review 5

I don’t like Bluehost due to many reasons. I am unable to connect to FTP despite creating many accounts or even after changing the password. Their customer support is not good and they take a long time to solve your issues. There is just one positive thing – it’s low pricing.

The post In-Depth Bluehost Reviews From Technical Editor appeared first on Blogging.

Best Ecommerce Platforms For Small Business & Start ups

Shahil Shah — Thu, 13 Jan 2022 04:39:05 +0000

What is Ecommerce?

E-commerce or electronic commerce means buying or selling of products or services over the internet.

Ecommerce can have various forms depending on transactional relationships between businesses and consumers.

Business to Consumer (B2C): Selling of goods and services by Business to Consumer (e.g. you buy trousers from an online retailer)
Business to Business (B2B): Selling of goods and services by a Business to another Business (e.g. A business sells software for another business to use)
Consumer to Consumer (C2C): Selling of goods and services by a Consumer to another Consumer (e.g. You sell your old TV on eBay to another consumer).

Why Ecommerce?

The history of e-commerce starts with the first online sale in August 1994 when a man sold a CD by the band Sting to his friend through his website NetMarket. A recent study shows that over half of the American population prefers online shopping. Nowadays, Ecommerce has become part of our lives and a $4.2 trillion global e-commerce sale is projected by.

You must have decided to start your e-commerce store. But choosing the best e-commerce platform is not easy as there are hundreds of different options.

I am making this decision easier by revealing the best e-commerce platforms so that you can find a suitable solution for your e-commerce store.

What can these e-commerce solutions do for you?

In earlier days, it was not easy to create online stores and sell online. But nowadays website builders and top e-commerce platforms make it relatively easy. For instance, you won’t need coding experience to manage your e-commerce store.

But how do these e-commerce platforms simplify your life to run these online stores?

Launch your e-commerce store without programming knowledge
Online processing of orders and payments
Easy management of tax and shipping needs
Strong reporting systems to track inventory and order
Multi-channel sales integration e.g. Amazon, eBay, Social media integration

It does not mean that you won’t need to work hard to create a successful online store. But these tools let you focus on increasing sales of your business, as you will be free of work like uploading products to your store or updating plugins and extensions.

Review of Ecommerce Platform

Our review is based on our practical experience. Our assessment of every platform is based on

Price
Features
Security
Performance

4-Step Process to Assess Various Ecommerce Platforms

1. Signing in with Each Ecommerce Platform

For an accurate assessment, we have signed up all the e-commerce platforms, but not a 14-days trial. We have chosen their cheapest plan (basic plan). It ensures enough data and time to compare it against other e-commerce platforms.

We have chosen the basic plan to maintain consistency among all the e-commerce platforms.

2. Reviewing Features of Ecommerce Platforms

Our review of the features of e-commerce platforms is based on

Price
Ease of use
Product page customization
Inventory management
Marketing tools
Payment options
SSL certificate

3. Assessing Customer Support

Customer support is a crucial component of any e-commerce platform review.

We want customer support 24/7, whenever you need it.

Our assessment of customer support is based on the two most important criteria; the response time is taken to resolve your query and the accuracy of customer support answers.

4. Assessing Performance

We have taken these factors while considering the performance of various e-commerce platforms.

Our own practical experience
Our customers’ reviews of the online store, we have created using the e-commerce platforms.

Why Trust Our Reviews?

These reviews are done by our expert team members having more than 12 years of experience.

Our team members have work experience with SaaS companies in the e-commerce sector.

We are working with some big e-commerce brands.

We have experience of setting up online stores for different types of businesses such as small businesses, drop shipping, etc.

Best Available Ecommerce Platforms
Free Ecommerce Platforms
Ecommerce Platforms for SEO
Ecommerce Platforms for Small Business
Best Ecommerce Platform for Local Brick and Mortar Business
Ecommerce Platforms for Dropshipping
Ecommerce Platforms for Large Business
Benefits of Using Ecommerce Platforms
Costs of Best Ecommerce Platforms
Criteria for Choosing the Best Ecommerce Platforms
Design Considerations for Best Ecommerce Platforms
Frequently Asked Questions About the Best Ecommerce Platforms
Conclusion and Recommendation

Best Available Ecommerce Platforms

Best e-commerce platforms should be user-friendly. It should have updated software tools for selling products online. Every e-commerce platform is not suitable for every business. Each of them has a specific set of software that makes it specific for a particular business. So, you should choose the best available e-commerce platforms as per the size and need of your business.

The chosen e-commerce platform should have features like adding details of products, payment gateways, offering coupons and discounts, and updating the inventory automatically. The software should be robust so that it can manage shipping and fulfillment. This will enable you to focus on running your business and taking it to a new height.

The online platform which you have chosen provides users easy access to the products they want. Remember, internet users, want everything to be done instantly as they have a very short attention span. If the chosen platform has the above features it helps in getting high conversion rates.

In this article, we’ll provide details of the best available e-commerce platforms in. You can choose as per your needs and requirements.

But, if you are in a hurry, let me give you a quick overview of the best e-commerce platform mentioned in this article.

Quick Overview

BigCommerce and Shopify are the best e-commerce solutions for big businesses. You can create large online stores easily using these platforms.

WooCommerce is best suited for websites that are built on the WordPress Platform and need an online selling option. It also appeals to big projects too, but it may require some technical knowledge. However, it makes it possible to create multilingual stores.

Wix, Squarespace, and Weebly are good e-commerce solutions if you want to create small and simple online stores. These tools are fitted with many options for content marketing creation such as product pages, email marketing tools, etc. So, these tools may be suitable for you if your strategy is based on this.

Weebly is best suited for small businesses with low budgets. Its online store includes all-in-one solutions, even free ones.

List of Best E-commerce Platforms

1. Wix

Best e-commerce Platform for Small Businesses, Online Stores, and Artists ($22/month)

Wix is a fast-growing website builder and is well known over the last few years. It allows users to upgrade to full e-commerce functionality for $22 per month.

Firstly, it provides hundreds of designer-made templates and beautiful product galleries. Secondly, it also provides promotions and gift cards, easy order management, and shipping. Thirdly, it is the biggest website builder hosting more than 160 million websites. Lastly, it automatically optimizes your online store on mobile, including iPhones and Android devices.

Firstly, you can also customize the look of your mobile e-commerce site with its online store builder tool. You don’t need to know programming and coding. Secondly, you can create a stunning website with Wix without having in-depth knowledge of HTML and CSS.

Lastly, if you have a particular design in mind, you just need a quick way to build it. Also, you don’t have to bother about security, updates, etc. which is lacking in WordPress.

Steps To Create An Online Store

Sign up for free or login to your account
Select a template from the Online Store category
Edit the text and type your business name
Click on “My Store” and “Manage Your Store”
Add products to your store which you have created
Select “Business Setup” to add Payments, Shipping, and Store Settings
Publish your site and connect to your own domain

Finally, Wix offers a secure checkout, multiple payment options, and solutions, discounts and coupons, 24/7 customer support, global tax provisioning, and shipping, which will help you sell more.

Pros

Hundreds of free, amazing themes
Drag and drop website builder
Automation of marketing tools

Cons

Poor SEO
Weak integration with Amazon

2. BigCommerce

The Best Ecommerce Platform for Large Businesses ($29.95 per month)

BigCommerce is the best e-commerce platform for large businesses.

It was founded in 2009 in Sydney (Australia), and since then it is always among the top choices when it comes to creating an online store. From time to time, it has upgraded itself to fulfill the demand of its merchants. It is a solution that is fully focused on e-commerce, powering around 100,000 online stores. Over 500 people all over the world are using BigCommerce and making a handsome profit.

Here you can create a store that fulfills your business needs with the design tools, features, and support to get you up and running. I recommend the BigCommerce e-commerce platform. It has best-in-class SEO features, multiple payment gateways, 24/7 support, and advanced product options, and can scale with your e-commerce business.

BigCommerce is a robust all-in-one e-commerce platform providing everything you need to start your online store. It actually has more native features which make it easy for you to manage sales across multiple channels.

It is a very good e-commerce platform in terms of uptime, loading speed, security, and other performance metrics. They offer unique features for B2B stores, wholesale shops, and WordPress users. If the user is not familiar with coding, then also he can customize his online shop by using the templates available.

Here’s what typically happens

A small business owner decides to get into e-commerce and chooses a platform like Shopify because of its name recognition and easy integration. After 6-12 months, when their business grows, they pay extra for apps and add-on features to help their e-commerce business to grow.

After some time, they hit a growth ceiling. They may realize that they are paying hundreds of dollars every month for apps, but SEO is lacking, or they’re outgrowing their platform. So, I recommend you to kick start your business with the best available option which is indeed BigCommerce.

BigCommerce Home Page

They are the most open SaaS e-commerce platform on the market including open source and zero transaction fees.

Two types of plans

(i) BigCommerce – For enterprise offering

(ii) BigCommerce Essentials – For small businesses

Both plans are built to scale with your business growth.

They are a good option for small businesses because of their features and built-in functionality. But it requires better learning when compared to Wix.

They work equally well when comes to enterprise brands looking for a comparatively cheap platform and move to software as a service (SaaS).

Ford, Toyota, Skullcandy, and others in the Fortune 1000 trust BigCommerce and are easily making over $100 million in annual sales without hiccups.

Plans to choose

I recommend BigCommerce for medium to large businesses and you can get started with a 15-day free trial. Their basic plan enables you to get a branded online store and domain name with the facility to sell on Amazon, eBay, and social media like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. The various plans offered by BigCommerce are given below:

Standard plan— $29.95 per month
Plus plan— $79.95 per month
Pro plan— $249.95 per month

You can save 10% off on Plus and Pro plans with an annual contract.

Each plan comes with added features and benefits. When you use BigCommerce’s pricing, your stores will automatically be upgraded to a new plan if they reach certain sales milestones in a year.

The 12-month sales limits

Standard plan — Up to $50,000
Plus plan — Up to $150,000
Pro plan — Up to $400,000

So for example, if you sign up for the Standard plan, you’ll automatically be switched to the Plus plan if you surpass $50,000 within the last 12 months.

Pros

Very flexible and scalable.
It excels with multi-channel selling.
Robust SEO performance.
It has fantastic theme designs.
It comes with a comprehensive abandoned cart feature.

Cons

Slow loading speeds.
It is expensive for high-volume stores.
It does not provide cart abandonment for an entry-level plan.
No one-click selling feature.

Try out BigCommerce

3. Shopify

Excellent Ecommerce Software for Your Online Needs (Plan starts from $29/month)

Shopify is one of the best e-commerce platforms for selling business. If you plan to start dropshipping business and rely on Facebook Ads or Instagram marketing, Shopify is the best choice.

Shopify has over 1 million merchants and is the most successful online store builder. It helped its merchants to sell over $180 billion.

Continuous innovation is going on at Shopify all the time and they launch new features and explore new opportunities. It is helpful in the improvement of the platform and makes it user-friendly. The Shopify platform allows businesses to customize the source code and adapt it to their needs.

Shopify was launched in 2004 and is a Canadian multinational company. It becomes the fastest-growing Saas company in no time. Tobias Lütke, Daniel Weinand, and Scott Lake were dissatisfied with the existing online selling products on the market. They developed their own e-commerce product using the web application framework Ruby on Rails, built Snowdevil’s online store, and launched it after two months of development

According to GoogleTrends, Shopify is the most popular e-commerce platform. It bags the number 1 position among various e-commerce platforms. It has bagged a 30% market share in countries like the USA, United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada.

Shopify Pricing Plans

Shopify plan starts from $29 and goes up to $299. It offers its own custom pricing for the enterprise Shopify Plus platform.

All plans include free SSL, unlimited products, inventory management, multilingual support, easy buy buttons, discount codes, abandoned cart recovery, marketing features, and 24/7 support.

A 14-day free trial is also available. You can create your online store and test yourself.

Why Use Shopify?

When you think of e-commerce, your mind straightforward goes to Shopify. One of the reasons Shopify gained popularity is because of its easy integration.

Even the most inexperienced users can set up an online store with relative ease.

It is easy to design a good-looking website and add products using Shopify. But, it doesn’t mean that you will be successful just because you have an online store. You also need to market your business.

Shopify is a good e-commerce platform but it has also some drawbacks.

First, it has a poor SEO feature. The URL structure locks into its format; you cannot change sections of it. There are many unstructured URLs in Shopify sites well beyond the pages, products, collections, and slug restrictions.

Second, they have fewer product options than Wix and BigCommerce. Shopify is limited to only 100 product variants which is not enough if you have a lot of different product combinations. For example, if you are selling t-shirts, and have different sizes and colors, you cannot add all of them to your online store.

Apart from the above limitations, Shopify is a reliable e-commerce platform that works well for small businesses.

Pros

Fast load time
very easy to set up
Online support of certified partners
Selling on a click
Multiple channels and social media selling integration
Many free and paid themes with varied designs

Cons

Poor SEO feature
Cannot customize the checkout process
Apps can be added up but it is costly
Need a developer for advanced features

Try out Shopify’s 14-day free trial for any of its plans

4. WooCommerce

E-commerce Platform for WordPress (Free + Paid Plugin)

WooCommerce is an e-commerce plugin, as opposed to an all-in-one e-commerce platform. It is a simple open-source e-commerce plugin for WordPress launched in 2011. WooCommerce is the best single platform to run e-commerce and affiliate sites together.

WooCommerce is the world’s most popular e-commerce solution with nearly 75 million downloads. Nearly 25% of all online stores across are powered by WooCommerce which has become one of the most popular e-commerce solutions in the market today.

Any website running on WordPress can be turned into an e-commerce store, using WooCommerce. You can download and install WooCommerce to your WordPress site free of charge. It is just as simple as installing any other WordPress plugin. But you should have your domain, hosting, and WordPress account already set up.

However, for advanced functionality similar to other e-commerce platforms discussed here, you have to add paid extensions. You can customize your online store by adding 300+ extensions from the WooCommerce Store.

The website gets slowed down after the installation of the WooCommerce plugin and extensions. This is its major drawback.

In spite of the above drawbacks, there are reasons that so many people use WooCommerce.

First, it is highly customizable and you can customize it as per your need. Since it is an open-source plugin, a large community of WooCommerce developers adds new functionality very easily as per the need of the online business.

As WooCommerce runs via WordPress, the customization for your online store is virtually limitless. You will only have to add features that you want to use. So, you won’t need to worry about anything cluttering your dashboard.

Second, in terms of SEO, WordPress is the best platform. With highly customizable SEO and the ability to have more control over the search results, WooCommerce is a preferred extension of the WordPress platform.

We can install BigCommerce and WordPress plugins on the WordPress site. But WooCommerce is much faster as it is a “headless commerce” solution that works via an API.

You can easily integrate payment gateways, social media, email marketing, subscription tools, 1-click selling, shipping, and store management features. Many of these extensions are free, but others are priced up to $200 per extension.

Pros

Very good SEO performance
Easy integration with social media
1-click selling

Cons

Slow loading speed
Lots of extensions needed

In general, if you have a WordPress site and want to add e-commerce functionality for free, you should try WooCommerce.

5. Square Online

For Retailers and Local Businesses Planning to Start Online (Free – $72/month)

Square Online is an e-commerce platform of Square, the popular POS system.

It helps retailers to move their businesses online.

It is a robust standalone e-commerce platform but has great options also for retailers and local businesses such as curbside pickup and local delivery.

How to create an online presence with Square Online:

Create a website using pre-made templates, add pages with page editors, and add your store details.
Add products to the added store.
You can launch your store for free. You have to pay 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction only.
For more advanced features, you can select from various paid plans.

Square online has a very easy setup and a flexible option made for retailers and local businesses looking to move online easily and quickly.

You can sell directly from social media accounts and then expand to a full online store when you are ready.

Another plus point of Square Online is its secure online payments and the ability for customers to pay via Google Pay and Apple Pay.

Some Unique features for small businesses :

Online ordering of products for online stores
Online bookings of services through Square Appointments
Various tools for online stores
Donations can also be accepted on nonprofit websites

Square Online Pricing

Free plan, which includes unlimited products, SEO tools, an SSL certificate, integration with Instagram, inventory sync with Square POS, pickup and on-demand delivery, gift cards and coupons, and many more. You have to pay only 2.9% + $0.30 transaction fee per transaction. One drawback of the plan is that you cannot use your own domain name.

Paid plans

Professional ($12/month): It includes a custom domain name free for one year and no Square branding.

Performance ($26/month): It has features such as the recovery of lost sales with abandoned cart emails, on-site customer reviews, and fulfillment of orders through discounted shipping labels.

Premium ($72/month): This plan has the lowest transaction fees, the highest discounts on shopping rates, and a real-time shipping rate calculator.

You can upgrade to one of the above plans as and when your online business grows. If you are going to start your online store to sell online, I recommend you to start with the Free or Professional Plan, scale up your business and select the higher-tier plans as per your need.

In general, Square Online is a good choice if you are an offline retailer or local business looking to move your business online.

Pros

Very good SEO performance
Easy integration with social media
1-click selling

Cons

Slow loading speed
Lots of extensions needed

6. Zyro

Ecommerce Platform Best for Multi-Channel Sales ($12.99/month)

Zyro is a popular website builder. It released its long-awaited Zyro e-commerce platform early.

Its new online store builder is a complete e-commerce platform and it comprises all of the great features developed over the years as a website builder.

Some features

First, it is simple and easy to use. You can set up your online store with the drag-and-drop feature of the platform. You need not require coding knowledge and start selling products through your online store in minutes. Its drag-and-drop website builder feature allows you to create the perfect online store and customize it to fit your brand. It is very responsive, so you will be able to see your changes in real time.

Second, it enables online stores to sell products across multiple channels including Amazon, Facebook, and Instagram.

Third, it provides everything you need to run an online store such as inventory management, more than 50 payment options, discount coupons and vouchers, shipping and tax management, email messages and notifications, and free hosting.

Fourth, it has an AI tool. Using this tool, the AI Writer generates text for your website in no time. It means you need not have to worry about creating compelling copy yourself.

As Zyro e-commerce is a new platform, many advanced features are still in the development stage. At present, it has 70 e-commerce themes to choose from. And their team is working to increase the number of themes to 150 soon. Good for a new platform!

You can use any Zyro template for your online store. You just need to go to the elements section in the editor and “add e-shop functionality.”

Zyro Ecommerce Pricing

Paid plans

Zyro offers very competitive pricing. You can get up to 85% off if you sign up for a 3-year term. It has added two new e-commerce plans: Ecommerce (most popular) and Ecommerce +.

Ecommerce Plan: $22.99/month (or $8.99/month for a 3-year term). This Plan provides a free domain for a year.

Ecommerce + Plan: $29.99/month (or $13.99/month for a 3-year term). This plan adds features like recovery of lost sales with abandoned cart emails, multi-channel sales, and multi-lingual stores.

In general, you can try Zyro, if you want a simple-to-use, multi-channel e-commerce platform. You can start with a free plan to test, then upgrade to an e-commerce plan or e-commerce + plan as per your need.

Pros

Simple and easy to use
Multiple channel inclusion
In-built AI tool

Cons

Advanced features are still in the development stage
No free trial

7. Squarespace

Best Drag-and-Drop Ecommerce Platform ($26/month)

Squarespace is one of the best website builders in the drag-and-drop category.

Squarespace was built by a NewYork based builder. It was launched in the market in 2003. Since then, millions have not only created their websites, but also online stores. Squarespace occupies a 5% market share in the US.

Squarespace is a successful name when talking about website builders. In fact, it is a renowned name. They are continually increasing their online store capabilities and today they are one of the top e-commerce platforms. They come with sleek templates and design capabilities. You can build a beautiful website with Squarespace. You can very easily create many templates on your website and switch between them as and when you wish.

They come with a drag-and-drop feature, which makes them a famous choice. For a print-on-demand e-commerce business, they are the best recommendation.

It allows you to install Printul and ShipBob from the app section as it has full integration with ShipStation.

Squarespace has dozens of e-commerce benefits. You can sell unlimited products and manage your subscriptions. It also provides flexible product variants. Here you can sell both physical and digital products. It has mobile-optimized checkouts and you can add gift cards also. You also get abandoned cart recovery. This list goes on and on.

Plans

It comes with four main pricing plans. Two are website builder monthly plans and two are online store monthly plans.

The Personal plan does not provide any e-commerce capabilities. For selling your products, you should opt for the Business plan. But here you have to pay an additional 3% transaction fee to Squarespace, and still, you won’t get all of the useful e-commerce features. This is a drawback to this plan.

It has a fully integrated e-commerce platform built into every plan except for the entry-level plan.

Below mentioned two plans come with a set of features that include no transaction fees, checkouts on your own domain, e-commerce analytics, social media selling, POS, and other features that you expect for an e-commerce shop.

Personal Plan: It costs $12/month.
Business Plan: It costs $18/month.

By using the additional two plans, you can launch gift cards, abandoned cart recovery, subscriptions, and a few other higher-level features. The only you need to do is to complete the sign-up process and get enrolled in the Advanced Commerce plan.

Basic (Online Store): It costs $26/month.
Advanced (Online Store): It costs $40/month.

In addition to this, it also provides 24/7 support and a 14-day free trial to test out its features. By using Squarespace, one who has minimal technical knowledge can also create a website very easily.

But Squarespace has certain drawbacks and needs to improve itself in certain areas of service. It straightway impacts the SEO and site speed, which is one of the main ingredients for running a successful e-commerce platform.

Squarespace’s biggest limitations are its payment processors and third-party apps. They only support Stripe and Paypal accounts. You can integrate with very few third-party apps.

Pros

You can set up your online store easily
Very good for simple stores
Beautiful design
SEO friendly platform
You can also sell products on your blogs by adding a ‘buy button.
It has a POS system to sell in-person

Cons

Not useful for a dropshipping business
No integration of email marketing automation
Amazon integration is not available
No app store for more features and functionalities
No automation of store taxes
Charging of extra transaction fees in the lower plans

8. 3dcart

Best E-commerce Platform for Small Business Sites ($26.10/month)

3dcart was built in 2001 and since then more than 22,000 e-commerce platforms have been running their business using it. However, 3dcart is a great option to consider for those who have built online stores in the past. They can take the advantage of the capabilities that 3dcart possesses.

Unlimited storage and no transaction fees make 3dcart a popular choice. You can also use its POS. In addition to these, it also supports multi-channel selling.

In order to use 3dcart, you should have a basic knowledge of coding and development to customize your themes and templates because it is devoid of a drag-and-drop builder.

3dcart is one of the fastest-growing e-commerce platforms with robust SEO features, 50 free themes, and 100 plus payment options.

3dcart Features

They have recently upgraded with new shipping settings and promotional tools. Now you can display all of your orders, shipping, and rates on your checkout page instead of displaying just one at a time. Then rates are automatically updated when a buyer checks out with their credit card or PayPal account.

Advanced Promotion Manager enables you to choose multiple Customer Groups to offer a promotion at once. This is an excellent option for B2B brands that want to target both consumers and retailers with an online shopping cart.

The SEO features are strong and because of this they are touted as “the best e-commerce platform for SEO”. Here you can create custom URLs, dynamic meta-tags, link titles, and many more.

3dcart has well-developed security features and is 100% PCI compliant. It has a built-in Facebook store which gives you the facility to sell even outside your e-commerce platform.

3dcart is the most suitable choice for you if you have a small business that needs strong SEO, marketing tools, and e-commerce functionality without the need for advanced enterprise features. The strong feature of this platform is its Built-in SEO tools.

Overall Score

In spite of being an old platform, 3dcart is not as famous as BigCommerce and Shopify. It is due to many reasons. It is not for beginners, the builder is also not very visually appealing, the templates are obsolete, customizing the store consumes a lot of time except for experienced users because there’s no drag-and-drop functionality, etc.

One of the strongest points of 3dcart is its shipping. It provides advanced shipping solutions with no API requirement.

3dcart comes with a wide range of plans, ranging from $19 per month for a Startup Store up to $114.50 per month for a Pro Store plan. It provides a free trial for 15 days and 30 days money-back guarantee. All plans have the domain registration, no transaction fees, unlimited bandwidth, 200+ payment gateways, Web hosting, a Facebook store, a built-in blog, Integrations with third-party online marketplaces, API access, free domain for one year, and 24X7 technical support.

Conclusion: Let me conclude this topic about 3dcart with its pros and cons.

Pros

Better blog feature than other SaaS e-commerce
Supports all the integrations you would need
Great business user management tools (email, QuickBooks, inventory, etc.)

Cons

Templates are outdated
Negative feedback on customer support
Potential issues upgrading
Not for beginners
Admin dashboard for managing the site is not user-friendly

Try out 3dcart 15-day free trial

9. ShopBase

Best Ecommerce Platform for White-Label, Print-on-Demand, and Dropshipping Business ($19/month)

ShopBase is a great tool for you to perform dropshipping business and if you are looking to white-label your products.

It offers highly customizable, mobile-optimized storefronts which are developed by its design team. Every page has its own unique settings, and you can also edit the HTML and CSS of every page.

ShopBase works largely as a cross-border channel. It is built for users planning to start dropshipping, white labels, and print-on-demand products from a single dashboard.

It helps you to rebrand products from your supplier with your logo and make them seem like they are shipped from your store.

ShopBase uses such a technique that gives your products a refined look and builds your customers’ brand loyalty.

It is also useful for print-on-demand businesses. ShopBase, through an app extension, is best known for the personalization of print-on-demand products such as hoodies, T-shirts, sweatshirts, leggings, etc.

ShopBase also provides a packaging solution that broadens the drop shippers’ order fulfillment success rate.

Just like other e-commerce platforms for drop shipping, ShopBase also lets you enjoy a 14-day free trial package once you complete the sign-up process. Even, a beginner can create an online store in a few minutes.

Some of the key features

Web hosting with unlimited bandwidth
Inclusion of SSL certificate with every plan
99.99% uptime and 24/7 downtime monitoring
Powerful online store builder with free and well-designed store templates
Very fast site loading speed (3x faster than any other e-commerce platform)
Easy migration to ShopBase tool, it is free to migrate from another e-commerce platform like WooCommerce or Shopify to ShopBase.
Product sourcing and fulfillment services for a dropshipping business
Automatic optimization of your product pages and checkout page to increase conversions

Few limitations

First, you can integrate ShopBase with only a few Apps as compared to other e-commerce platforms.
Second, ShopBase is suitable only for white-label businesses, drop shipping, and print-on-demand businesses. If you are planning to another online store, it is not for you.

ShopBase Pricing

You can create your online store using ShopBase at a starting price of $19/month. Its Basic Plan provides everything you need to start and run your online store and make your first sale.

ShopBase is the best choice for you, if you are planning to start dropshipping, a white-label or print-on-demand business.

Pros

Very fast loading speed
Auto-optimization of product pages and checkout page
Product sourcing and fulfillment services

Cons

Limited app integration
Suitable only for a white-label business, dropshipping, and print-on-demand business.

Try out ShopBase 14-day free plan

10. PrestaShop

Open-Source Platform with Developer Community (Free)

PrestaShop is a freemium cloud-hosted e-commerce platform written in PHP with support for MySQL databases. Founded in 2007, it’s trusted by over 300,000 merchants and offered in 75 different languages.

This free version comes with many benefits which you will not get on any of the free platforms. The main benefits which you can avail yourself are listed below:

Tons of Apps Available
Strong SEO feature
Flexible and Free
Slower Load Times (Very fast loading speed)

For the free downloadable version, you need to pay for web hosting, an SSL certificate, and other modules to complete your store. Also, if you are not user-friendly with HTML, CSS, or PHP, you’ll have to pay a developer.

PrestaShop Homepage

To get started with PrestaShop, you need to download their software and you get a pre-installed site that is hosted by IONOS. It comes with easy installation, a coding environment, daily backups, and 24/7 technical support.

Here you have access to the 14 day free trial. There are ten free themes available in the admin. You should have little knowledge of HTML and CSS as the theme customizer doesn’t have a drag-and-drop functionality.

PrestaShop is a big community that includes over 1 million community members, 1,000 contributors, and 250+ agencies. Community members are free to ask questions in forums and meet other members at meetups. Contributors maintain and optimize the open-source code. With its 250+ agencies, it is always ready to help build e-commerce sites.

Benefits

You can choose your own domain name.
Customization of the design of your store is easily available.
You can easily add products to your catalog.
You can configure your payment methods.

In addition to the above benefits, they also provide an Add-ons Marketplace with over 5,000 free and paid modules, themes, and other services.

These add-ons developed by PrestaShop include SEO tools, wishlists, newsletter sign-ups, and more. Now it is up to your business demand, how much you need to spend.

Presently, they provide 33 free add-ons for basic integrations like PayPal checkout, Mail chimp email marketing, Google Ads, review add-ons, etc.

But if you want to sell on Amazon, you need to buy their Amazon Marketplace add-on for $229.99.

Pros

Multiple apps integration available
Robust SEO feature
Its open-source nature
Its a big and ready-to-help community

Cons

Slower than the other e-commerce builders
Limited integration of marketing automation
Developer skills needed to work with this platform
No multichannel functionalities on the hosted version

11. Ecwid

Best Online Store Builder for Existing Websites ($35/month).

Ruslan Fazlyev, in 2009, co-founder of X-Cart, launched Ecwid for small business owners. It allowed them to sell their products and services online. Since then it has grown rapidly and presently over 1 million merchants have chosen Ecwid for their e-commerce store.

Ecwid Ecommerce Platform

Ecwid is one of the best and one of most popular e-commerce platforms available. It has a customer base of 1.6 million small businesses. G2 Crowd awarded it as the “fastest e-commerce implementation platform”.

If you are ready with a website and want to add a new store or shopping capabilities, Ecwid is the best choice for you. It provides a platform that is simple and easy to use.

Its flexibility enables you to sell on a number of sites such as Amazon, eBay, Instagram, Facebook, etc.

Ecwid Social Media Integration

You can have an easy reach to an enormous number of buyers throughout the world on different platforms just by using a single dashboard.

Ecwid has an in-built integration with some of the famous platforms like Drupal, Joomla, and WordPress Business. If you have your website on one of these platforms, then Ecwid is the best ever option for you to get started with your work.

This platform has well-developed customizable features, which enable you to display your products on all the devices the customers use. Targeting the customers becomes an easy task as you can highlight the brand elements like logos, colors, and messages.

Creating, managing, and tracking all your advertisements become very easy when you choose Ecwid. Making your business advertisements for Google or social media platform like Facebook is also very easy on this platform.

Ecwid has integration with more than 50 payment gateways such as First Data, PayPal, Square, Stripe, WePay, and more via an in-built functionality with the best POS systems. This makes payment an easy process.

In addition to this, Ecwid ensures end-to-end data encryption with secure customer and merchant payment details. Ecwid has been certified as ‘PCI DSS validated Level 1 Service Provider’.

Features that make Ecwid better than others include saving favorite products, Inventory tracking, Smart shipping calculations, Automatic updates, a Comprehensive customer address book, Managing product options, and an Easy checkout process.

Let’s talk about Ecwid limitations. It provides service only in one language i.e. English. It also does not provide any support over the telephone. However, with its free plan and diverse pricing schemes, it overcomes its limitations. By using the free plan of Ecwid, you can sell up to ten physical items in a month.

Plans

1. The Venture plan allows you to sell 100 physical or digital items for $12.50 per month.

2. The Business plan allows you to sell 2,500 items for $29.17 per month.

3. The Unlimited plan for $82.50 per month, allows you to sell an unlimited number of items.

Get started with the entry-level plan and as your need grows, you can upgrade to a better plan at any time.

Ecwid serves as an alternate platform for WordPress users, due to its great benefits and specialization of sales from multiple marketplaces.

Ecwid is compatible with many platforms. You can turn any of your websites into an e-commerce platform with Ecwid.

Pros

Well-developed customizable features
Multiple payment gateways integration
Advanced security features

Cons

Support only English language
No phone support

Try out Ecwid and create an online store.

12. Volusion

Best User-Friendly Ecommerce Platform ($29/month)

Volusion was founded in 1999 and launched in 2002 by a then 16-year-old boy named Kevin Sproles. It acted as a pioneer in e-commerce business. Over 180,000 websites have used this platform to sell their products online for more than 20 years. Volusion stores have made a revenue of more than $28 billion.

The Ecommerce Platform

Volusion is a versatile e-commerce platform that has a lot of functionality and a new Content Builder, which acts as a challenger for the Elementor WordPress plugin in ease of use. Moreover, Volusion provides a platform where you can easily create your store, sell your products, and grow your business.

If you have a platform where you offer a lot of products, this will be your best-ever choice.

High-quality customer service is offered by Volusion. The quality and level of support depending upon the plan you choose.

Plans

Personal — $29 per month- It provides unlimited products, online support, and zero transaction fees. But it does not provide telephonic support.
Professional — $79 per month
Business / Startup — $299 per month

Professional and Startup plans provide more in-house support. Volusion sites have an in-house SEO and marketing team that can help with digital marketing and getting visibility on search engines.

Business Plan also provides quick web design fixes, SEO optimizations, or other assistance to improve website performance.

Volusion provides a 14-day free trial with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Overall it is unbeatable in providing great customer service.

There are different shipping rates for the plan you choose. You can choose higher tier plans to avail of better discounts.

Your plan gets automatically upgraded if you achieve certain sales milestones.

Volusion too has its limitations. Lots of its themes appear outdated when compared to other e-commerce platforms. Volusion is also devoid of built-in blogging capabilities, so you need to use WordPress or another CMS for that feature. This platform is only meant for online stores selling physical products. It does not support digital downloads.

Pros

Easy to set up
High-quality customer support
Robust SEO

Cons

Slow loading speed
Only sell physical products, digital products cannot be downloaded and sold.

Try out Volution 14-day free trial

13. Weebly

Best Ecommerce Platform for Small Businesses (Up to $38/month)

Weebly is a classic website builder. It is founded in 2006 and at present, it has nearly 700,000 paid subscribers. Weebly has a market share of approx 12% in the website builder space.

In 2018, the giant e-commerce company Square acquired Weebly for a whopping $365 million.

This platform is best suited for new small businesses that don’t need an advanced web presence.

Weebly’s free plan uses a simple widget-based site builder that operates in the web browser. It is a drag-and-drop website builder, and it automatically generates a mobile version of each website.

The built-in email marketing automation feature is a plus point of Weebly. If you had to purchase any other website builder and an email marketing service separately, you might pay an extra $5-20 per month.

Another plus point is its product options. Firstly, you can manage hundreds of products, manage, and track inventory. Secondly, you can also boost the buying behavior of customers by showing the remaining number of products (such as Only 2 Left!). Thirdly, you can fully integrate Weebly’s e-commerce module with other pages of your website (e.g. your blog). It is available in 15 languages.

Weebly Pricing Plans

Weebly has three price plans: Pro, Business, and Business Plus. Although all of them support e-commerce, the higher tier plans (Business and Business Plus) are better suited for e-commerce businesses. This is because the Pro Plan lacks many relevant e-commerce features like custom shopping, inventory management, and discounts and coupons.

Their e-commerce functionality begins with their $25/month Business Plan, which also provides a free domain.

Weebly is not as robust as other e-commerce platforms like Shopify or 3dcart. However, if you are running a small business and need a simple website and want to add some e-commerce functionality, Weebly will serve your purpose.

Pros

Stunning low-cost and free designs
Powerful email marketing tools
Simple and easy-to-use dashboard
Free mobile app for every website
Complete value for money

Cons

Charges additional transaction fee
Lacking SEO feature
Very basic inventory management

14. PinnacleCart

All-in-one Online Store Solution ($79.95/month).

PinnacleCart is an e-commerce platform providing an all-in-one solution for online stores. It is built keeping in mind the user experience and conversion rate optimization.

It has a robust SEO feature that helps in indexing your site on search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

Firstly, you can syndicate your products and services to shopping platforms such as Amazon, eBay, etc. thereby increasing your product visibility. Secondly, you can place your products on other websites or blogs using ‘Buy Buttons’ and users can purchase your items from those pages.

Thirdly, you can do dynamic product listings using the enhanced product tools of PinnacleCart. These listings dynamically create unlimited categories and product attributes, showcase different images, and manage inventories.

These features work well for digital products and services.

PinnacleCart has a number of integrations with other software tools. Its control panel allows you to manage every aspect of your online business in one place and you can quickly connect to apps like Quickbooks, Avalara, Shipwire, and many more through their Apps Center.

PinnacleCart Pricing

PinnacleCart has three pricing plans – Standard, Advanced, and Enterprise. The Pricing of the plans starts from $79.95/month.

The $79.95 Startup Plan includes zero transaction fees, unlimited products, and 5 admin accounts. It also has a one-page checkout, real-time shipping quotes, Google Shopping, product syndication, and a shared SSL.

The $199.95/month Advanced Plan adds additional benefits like unlimited admin accounts, a dedicated SSL, unlimited disk space and bandwidth, and priority support.

If you want to host your e-commerce site on your own server, you can purchase a perpetual license of PinnacleCart for $1,495 per domain. It includes all the features in the advanced plan, one year of access to upgrades, one year of technical support, and 20% off additional license purchases.

In general, PinnacleCart is a robust all-in-one e-commerce platform that is built with user experience and conversion rate optimization in mind.

PinnacleCart is a good choice for you if you are planning to create an online store and dynamically add products and easily sync your products with other platforms like Facebook, Amazon, and eBay.

Pros

Multi-lingual
Robust SEO
Great user experience

Cons

Costlier than other e-commerce platforms

Try out PinnacleCart with a free trial.

15. Sellfy

Best for Bloggers and Creators ($19/month)

Sellfy is a cloud-based robust e-commerce platform that allows you to sell digital products, physical goods, and subscriptions – all from one place. Originally, it was a cloud-based e-commerce solution enabling digital content creators to sell their digital products online. Such digital creators like writers, illustrators, designers, musicians, etc. sell digital products like eBooks, videos, music, and courses through this platform.

But now they offer a complete e-commerce platform with all features necessary to sell physical products also.

Sellfy has a user-friendly dashboard and users can set up a customizable Sellfy storefront to display their digital products in a few minutes. They can add product widgets or embed “Buy Now” buttons to their own website or blog.

You won’t need to install multiple apps for your e-commerce site since Sellfy provides tools for payment gateways, discount coupons, email marketing, upselling features to increase your sales, and more.

It is best for creators, bloggers, and small businesses looking to sell their digital products, subscriptions, and physical goods on their website, via buy buttons, and on their social media profiles. Sellfy storefront has individual product pages, which enable users to showcase their products from different angles with multiple images and previews. It can integrate your website and product pages with your Instagram page, Soundcloud, Vimeo, or YouTube channel, with buy now buttons.

Key features

You can easily add your logo, change colors, etc. due to its easy customization feature.
It allows you to add your own custom domain.
You can choose any language you want for your store.
Easy integration of payment gateways like PayPal and Stripe
It provides in-depth analytics to track best-performing products, analyze traffic channels, and more.
Extensive integrations with more than 1000 tools
PCI-DSS compliance

Sellfy Pricing Plans:

It comes with a 14-day free trial period
Starter Plan: costs $19/month
Business Plan: $39/month
Premium Plan: $89/month

Firstly, you can sell your products online, embed “buy now” buttons, add shopping carts, integrate multiple payment options, and have powerful analytics in all the plans. Secondly, you need not have to pay any additional transaction fees. Thirdly, you get email credits and upselling features, as priority customer support in the Business, and the Premium Plans.

The Premium Plan also offers migration services to switch from a different provider.

Pros

Easy customization
Multi-lingual
Integration with multiple payment gateways

Cons

Charges additional transaction fee

16. nopCommerce

Open-Source Ecommerce Platform based on Microsoft’s ASP.NET (free)

nopCommerce is a popular open-source e-commerce platform based on Microsoft’s ASP.NET Core framework and MSSQL server 2012 or higher.

It was officially launched in the year 2008 for small and medium-sized businesses. Builtwith.com report says that nearly 40000 online stores are using nopCommerce platforms. Some of the major brands such as Volvo, Puma, Reebok, DHC skincare, Columbia, Medindia, and Speedo use this platform for their online businesses.

Microsoft’s ASP.NET technology, native optimization, and just-in-time compilation increase performance for large websites.

You can download, install, and use nopCommerce free of charge. The community forum of nopCommerce provides free support. There is an optional fee for premium support services, white labeling, and partnership programs.

nopCommerce has more than a thousand plugins and themes. It is available in multiple languages, currently more than 30.

This platform is free, with no transaction fees or monthly fees.

nopCommerce admin panel allows you to upload unlimited products, manage multiple stores and vendors, calculate shipping rates, and use its in-built marketing tools.

This platform is best for developers, small businesses, and enterprises with complex business needs.

But there is a limitation. Unlike other website builders like Shopify, and Wix, you’ll need a developer well-versed in JavaScript, HTML, and CSS to develop a responsive and robust e-commerce site.

It is not very hard to learn this technology, but tougher for small business owners who want a simple online store that can be created quickly using the drag-and-drop feature of the website builder.

You can try nopCommerce if you are searching for a free platform for your fully-customized website.

Pros

Open source platform
Thousands of plug-ins and themes
No transaction fees or monthly fees

Cons

Well-versed developer with knowledge of JavaScript, HTML, and CSS needed

Tabular Comparison for of all e-commerce platforms

S. No.	Name of Ecommerce Platforms	Strength	Shortcoming	Base Price
1.	Wix	1. Hundreds of free, amazing themes 2. Drag and drop website builder 3. Automation of marketing tools	1. Poor SEO 2. Weak integration with Amazon	From $22/month with a 14-day trial
2.	BigCommerce	1. Flexible and Scalable 2. Robust SEO feature 3. Drag and drop website builder	1. Costly for high volume stores 2. No 1-click selling	From $29.95/month with a 15-day trial
3.	Shopify	1. Superfast loading speed 2. Very easy setup 3. 1-click selling	1. Poor SEO 2. Checkout not customizable	From $29/month with a 14-day trial
4.	WooCommerce	1. Very good SEO performance 2. Easy integration with social media 3. 1-click selling	1. Slow loading speed 2. Lots of extensions needed	Free
5.	Square Online	1. Very easy setup 2. Inbuilt marketing tools 3. Direct selling from social media accounts	1. Limited scope for customization 2. Forced to use Square gateway to avoid transaction fees	Free
6.	Zyro	1. Simple and easy to use 2. Multiple channel inclusion 3. In-built AI tool	1. Advanced features still under development stage 2. No free trial	From $12.99/month
7.	Squarespace	1. Very easy setup 2. Beautiful Template Designs 3. Very good for simple stores	1. Limited app integration 2. Limited payment gateways	From $26/month with a free trial
8.	3dcart	1. Better blog feature than other SaaS e-commerce 2. Support multiple integrations 3. Great business management tools	1. Outdated templates 2. Poor customer support	From $26.10/month with a 15-day free trial
9.	ShopBase	1. Very fast loading speed 2. Auto-optimization of product pages and checkout page 3. Product sourcing and fulfillment services	1. Limited app integration 2. suitable only for a white-label business, dropshipping	From 19/month with a 14-day free trial
10.	PrestaShop	1. Free and flexible 2. Robust SEO 3. Hundreds of apps are available	1. Slow loading speed 2. Limited integration of marketing automation	Free
11.	Ecwid	1. Well-developed customizable features 2. Multiple payment gateway integrations 3. Advanced security features	1. Support only the English language 2. No phone support	From 35/month
12.	Volusion	1. Easy to set up 2. High-quality customer support 3. Robust SEO	1. Slow loading speed 2. Only sell physical products	From 29/month with 14-day free
13.	Weebly	1. Stunning free designs 2. Simple and easy to use 3. Powerful email marketing tools	1. Poor SEO 2. Additional transaction fee	From $12/month with a free trial
14.	PinnacleCart	1. Multi-lingual 2. Robust SEO 3. Great user experience	1. Costlier than other e-commerce platforms	From $79.95/month
15.	Sellfy	1. Easy customization 2. Multi-lingual 3. Integration with multiple payment gateways	1. Charges additional transaction fee	From $19/month with a free trial
16.	nopCommerce	1. Open source platform 2. Thousands of plug-ins and themes 3. No transaction fees or monthly fees	1. Well-versed developer with knowledge of JavaScript, HTML, and CSS needed	Free

Best Free Ecommerce Platforms

Are you planning to build your e-commerce website and looking for the best free e-commerce platform?

Ecommerce platforms used to cost a huge amount in earlier times. It kept away many small businesses from creating an online stores. But nowadays, there are many readily available free or open-source e-commerce platforms.

To be very true, there is no 100 % free e-commerce platform that will fulfill all your needs. There are some limitations in every open-source e-commerce platform.

I would recommend you go with a paid option over a free one because a small fee will save you precious time and you can focus on running your business.

In this article, we’ll provide details of the best free e-commerce platforms from which you can choose as per your needs.

Best Ecommerce Platforms for SEO

Why is SEO so Important for Ecommerce Platforms?

95% of all internet activity starts with a search. It means you’re going to have a hard time running an online store if users are unable to discover your website through Google.

Here comes the importance of e-commerce SEO. Today, most of e-commerce platforms are packed with a variety of features that will be helpful in optimizing your e-commerce store. But SEO involves a lot of factors – including site speed, URL structure, page titles/content, and HTTPS – you will have to find the platform that does well with all of them.

Best Ecommerce Platforms for Small Business

Are you running Small Business?

If you are running a small business and want to set up an online store without draining your bank account, you are in the right place. We have done research based on what the small businesses are looking for?

Pricing, creative control, or sales features?

In the case of B2B e-commerce platforms, you need a software solution that is easily manageable by multiple users and reduces the time to complete orders.

List of the best e-commerce platforms for small businesses:

1. Wix

Wix is the best platform for small businesses because of its beautiful templates and easy-to-use software tool. From its simple dashboard, even a beginner can manage everything without any knowledge of complex coding.

2. Shopify

Shopify is one of the best e-commerce platforms for small businesses. Any small business owner can create and manage his online store, without any issue, on Shopify. Its tool provides automation in shipping and tax rates which saves business owners time. They can utilize that time in growing their business.

3. 3dcart

3dcart is also a good e-commerce platform for small businesses because of its easy-to-use nature and good SEO features. Small businesses will get benefit from the clean URL structure leading to a hike in sell conversion rate. It will lead to the growth of the business.

Best Ecommerce Platform for Local Brick and Mortar Business

Most local brick and mortars businesses only need a basic simple store. If you’re a local bakery looking to accept payments on your website, you won’t need so many features on your e-commerce platform. Here, you can ignore marketing automation or multichannel integration because you won’t need it.

Don’t get into the lurch of greedy developers. So, you clearly tell your developers what features and payment gateway you need in your online store. You don’t need an abandoned shopping cart recovery feature in this business.

We recommend the following platforms for this business.

Shopify
Wix
Weebly

Best Ecommerce Platform for Dropshipping

What is Dropshipping?

Dropshipping is a type of business in which you need not be required to keep the stocks of the product. Here, you sell the product and pass on the sales order to the wholesaler, who then ships the order to the customer.

You are not in control of many things such as product quality and returns might be a hurdle in the dropshipping business. The dropshipping software which you use must easily integrate with wholesalers, proper inventory management, and automated shipping tools.

The last thing you want not to happen is for someone to order a product on your site that’s out of stock with your wholesaler.

Features Considered

We have considered the following features while recommending the best e-commerce platforms for dropshipping.

Its ability to sync with the supplier’s inventory
Support of dropshipping plugins
Automating through various plugins and apps
Tracking of order and inventory management in automation
Free or paid dropshipping integration

On the basis of the above features, we recommend the following platforms for a dropshipping business.

Wix
Shopify
BigCommerce

Best Ecommerce Platform for Large Businesses

If you are the owner of a large business and run your e-commerce store, you want complete control and server autonomy. In that case, you need a dedicated server or VPS server from a web hosting company and set up your e-commerce business. In such a case, an e-commerce platform like Shopify will suffice.

And, if your store is set up without bothering about web hosting technicalities, then a platform like BigCommerce could suffice.

Here, your orders are in hundreds and thousands. So you’ll need an e-commerce platform that gives you enough flexibility to connect software. In addition, you also need seamless integration of warehouse management and other inventory management systems.

We recommend the following platforms for large businesses.

BigCommerce
Shopify

Benefits of Using Ecommerce Platforms

The statement by Bill Gates “If your business is not online, your business will run out of business.” turned out to be prophetic.

The e-commerce market is now massive and is expanding with every passing day.

According to a recent study, over half of the US population prefers to shop online.

If you want to grow your business, your online presence is a must. If you are looking for increasing your customer base, you need an attractive and engaging website.

Benefits of e-commerce for businesses and customers

1. No Geographical Limitations

If you have an offline or physical store, you are limited by the geographical area where you can provide service. Setting up multiple outlets in different areas is an expensive affair. So, it is very difficult for small traders and businesses to set up multiple stores.

But with an online store, there is no geographical limitation and the whole world becomes your market. Even, small traders and businesses can set up their e-commerce stores at a nominal cost of around $30-50.

2. Acquisition of New Customers

Offline stores are driven by branding and relationships. Besides these two, online stores are also driven by traffic from search engines. Users sometimes follow a link in search engine results and land on an e-commerce website that they have never heard of. This is an additional way of acquisition of customers through online stores.

3. Lower Costs

Lowered costs are one of the most tangible positives of e-commerce. Lower online costs are due to :

Cost-effective advertising and marketing
The automation of checkout, billing, payments, inventory management, and other operational processes lowering the number of employees
No need for a prominent physical location

A part of those lowered costs might be passed on to customers within the sort of discounted prices.

4. Reduced Travel Time and Cost

Customers need not have to travel long distances to reach their preferred physical store. They can reach the online store, with just a few clicks of a mouse.

5. Remain Open 24/7

Online store timings are 24/7, the whole year. E-commerce stores remain open all the time throughout the year. The “Always open” store is more convenient from customers’ viewpoint. And for the merchant’s point of view, this increases the number of orders they receive.

How much do e-commerce Platforms Cost?

This is an important question, as every one of us will not have a big budget to spend on e-commerce tools. Here, I’ll give an idea of the cost you have to bear for these e-commerce platforms.

BigCommerce, Shopify, and Volusion Pricing plans start from about $29.95 a month. If you need more advanced features, such as advanced reports, email marketing tools, etc. you’ll have to upgrade to a higher plan at around $79 a month.

Consider the following things :

Shopify collects extra-transaction fees if you don’t use their payment methods.
BigCommerce has set a limit on the sales you can process with each plan. If you cross the limits, you will be forced to upgrade your plan.
Volusion has set a product limit you can sell with each plan. It also has a yearly threshold sales limit.
CMSs like WooCommerce and PrestaShop seem to be free as they are open-source solutions. However, you will need a hosting service that will cost nearly $20 a month. You may have to pay for templates or plugins as per your needs. And above all, if you don’t have programming knowledge, you have to hire a website developer which will be expensive, as they charge on an hourly basis.
You can create your online store a bit cheaper using e-commerce platforms like Wix, Squarespace, and Weebly. They cost around $10-20 a month. However, Squarespace will charge extra transaction fees (3%) on its lower plans.
And if you already have a website, Ecwid is the cheapest alternative, starting at $12.50 a month for a functional online store where you can sell up to 100 products. They have also a free plan with certain limitations in which you can sell 10 products only.

Criteria for Choosing the Best Ecommerce Platforms

Go through each platform’s performance based on the following metrics.

1. Ease of Use

The first-time online seller should be able to launch and run a store on their own without hiring a developer.

On the basis of ease of use metrics, Shopify and BigCommerce are similar. You won’t need to be the master of web development and there is a ton of support available on both platforms. Wix and 3dcart are not far behind and come close to Shopify and BigCommerce.

Wix is not the best e-commerce platform and WooCommerce is the best for beginners and startups in terms of costs and optimization.

In this category, we recommend the following e-commerce platforms.

BigCommerce
Shopify
WooCommerce

2. SEO

SEO is crucial for any online business. You’re going to have a tough time running an e-commerce store if users cannot discover your website through a search engine. Many platforms have great SEO in-built tools to boost your website. But all the e-commerce platforms with SEO tools are have not the same result. Some are better than others.

We have tested the best e-commerce platforms for SEO on the basis of page load time, mobile optimization, SEO tools, and average organic traffic of top online stores using these platforms.

In our study, WooCommerce is the best for SEO.

On the basis of our study, we recommend staying away from Shopify if SEO is your top priority. It still needs lots of improvement. On a scale of 1 to 5, we give WooCommerce 5, whereas Shopify gets only 2.5 whereas the median is 3.7.

3. Load Time

Load time is an indicator of how fast your site is. It is the measure of how long it takes a page (or pages) on your site to fully load.

A slow site is a killer in the e-commerce business. Potential customers run away from slow sites.

In online business, speed is money. Each second you gain in website loading speed translates directly into sales gained. A one-second improvement in load time equals to 7% increase in sales conversions.

According to research, most consumers want sites to load in 3 seconds or less. But for the top 500 e-commerce stores, the median load time for sites is 10 seconds.

The platform you use makes a big difference. WooCommerce sites load in 3.4 seconds, while 3dcart sites load in under 3 seconds. The average Magento site loads in 5 seconds.

If you are running an online store on a self-hosted platform, you can optimize it for speed. You can speed up the page loading speed, but that takes time, effort, and cost. But, most self-hosted sites don’t bother. The average load time of Magento sites is 5 seconds. You cannot collect any credit card payments with that slow site.

In this category, we recommend the following platforms.

WooCommerce
3dCart

Design Considerations for Best Ecommerce Platforms

Your website should give customers a rich and smooth experience that entices customers to visit your site. Not only do they visit your website, but also stay there and buy products from your online store.

Here, the design of your store plays a crucial role. The complicated design of the website slows the loading speed of the page. This results in going all out of online stores. The design you choose should be with aim to gain potential customers. The same also goes for the navigation, and checkout process.

You should keep in mind the following points while designing your e-commerce platform.

Customization
Theme Selection
E-commerce Mobile Performance
. Mobile User Experience

Frequently Asked Questions About the Best Ecommerce Platforms

1. How can I make my e-commerce website optimized for mobile and multiple displays?

It is the need of time that e-commerce websites should be optimized for mobile and
multiple displays because, by 2021, more than 54% of e-commerce sales will be done through mobile.

You can optimize your e-commerce website for mobile and multiple displays by adopting the following tips.

(i) Keep your website lighter and faster for mobile.

Google offers many tools to help optimize the speed of your site.

(ii) Get your website searchable on your mobile device.

In addition to great keyword and SEO, you can use the rich snippets tool. It provides your customer more information, and it will take up more of the small mobile screen, potentially edging a competitor out of view.

(iii) Optimization of User Experience / User interface (UX/UI)

Your website should have a responsive design. This means your website’s content gets automatically resized according to the user’s device which is great because it’s consistent for all devices.

It is frustrating for a mobile user to deal with a site that’s not optimized for their device. Your website’s user interface should be quick, fluid, and simple so that users should be able to navigate your site in a few swipes and clicks.

(iv) The quick and easy checkout process

Make the checkout process short and easy, and only ask for the relevant information. Your website should provide a one-click checkout button in the cart for the users so that they can do transactions without hassle.

2. I want to include my own backend coding (like in PHP), Can WordPress or any other site builders allow me to do that?

Yes, you can add custom PHP code to your WordPress site. Step by step guide to installing your PHP code is given below :

Install the Insert PHP Code Snippet plugin and then activate it.
Set up your code snippet by clicking the “XYZ PHP Code” function.
Click on the “Add New PHP Code Snippet” button.
Input a Tracking Name for the snippet and input the PHP code.
Click on the “Create” button at the bottom.

Now, you will see a shortcode created for the PHP code snippet. You can copy and paste this code into any area of WordPress that allows the use of shortcodes.

3. Which e-commerce platform is best for a simple one-product e-commerce website?

There are many businesses just selling one product. So, they need an e-commerce platform that is best for a simple one-product e-commerce website.

We have done a detailed review based on the features like costs, transaction fees, ease of use, customization, and app integrations.

The best e-commerce platforms

1. WooCommerce

WordPress and WooCommerce is the most flexible platform regarding design out of all the other e-commerce platforms. It will be the best choice if you are looking for high customization. It supports 25+ payment gateways, a quick checkout process, pre-orders, and reviews with no monthly fees.

2. Shopify

Shopify is one of the most popular e-commerce platforms for a simple one-product e-commerce website. It is easy to set up an e-commerce website using Shopify. It also offers in addition to built-in SEO features like titles, tags, meta descriptions, and reviews.

3. Wix

Wix was initially a website builder, but now it offers features for building online stores. With the in-built drag-and-drop website builder, this is one of the best options for beginners.

4. How to bring traffic to your e-commerce website?

You can bring traffic to your e-commerce website by adopting the following tips.

(i) By Linking the Instagram account

Instagram is an excellent social media channel to showcase your products and is becoming popular with its wide reach. So, you should set up Instagram shopping by connecting your product catalog to Instagram and driving traffic to your e-commerce website.

(ii) By Writing Guest Posts

Guest posts are helpful in building trust and brand awareness. They also drive a bunch of referral traffic to your e-commerce store.

(iii) By the Addition of Structured Data

You need to focus more on user experience for better SEO. Structured data add extra snippets of information to your search results. Information such as stock levels, price, and star ratings is helpful to users. It makes your results more clickable and therefore brings more organic traffic to your e-commerce website.

(iv) By Performing Competitor Research

You can find valuable traffic sources that send visitors to competitor sites by performing competitor research. You can discover what works for your industry and utilize it for driving traffic to your e-commerce website.

(v) By Sharing Content via Email

More than 80% of marketing professionals consider email as the most effective marketing channel for sharing content with prospective customers. The number of email accounts is three times more than that of Facebook and Twitter combined together.

People are more likely to see your content via email than social media channels. So, email is certainly a powerful tool for bringing more traffic to your e-commerce website.

5. Is Ecommerce Costly?

It is not costly to start e-commerce but is challenging to be highly successful. You don’t require much money to establish an e-commerce store. You just need a website and a list of products or services you want to sell. Alternatively, you can use dropshipping suppliers to outsource the inventory and shipping processes.

6. Which Ecommerce Platform Can Be Set Up Easily?

You can easily build a website, add products, and market your business online using e-commerce website builders. However, some e-commerce platforms are easier to use than others. Some of the simplest and easiest e-commerce platforms based on usability and simplicity are Shopify, Wix, and BigCommerce.

7. Why should I create an Ecommerce Website if I Can sell on Facebook?

Yes, you can sell products and services on Facebook Marketplace even without a website. You can add product information, including product names, descriptions, prices, photos, etc. on the Facebook page but you cannot customize them as per your choice.

8. Can I sell Online for Free?

If you don’t want to spend money on the e-commerce platform, there are certain ways to sell products and services online for free. Some of these are Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, eBid, etc.

Conclusion and Recommendation

Best Recommended Ecommerce Platforms

There’s no perfect e-commerce platform, but still, I am here with a list of top choices.

Choosing the best e-commerce platform is based on your needs. We are going to recommend you consider a few as front-runners.

BigComerce is the best overall platform for any business model and has excellent performance for SEO.
WooCommerce has similar features and apps and is catching up with market leaders like Shopify. It is perfect for white-label e-commerce sites. It is awesome for affiliate marketing. And it is the best option if you want to run both a white label and affiliate marketing sites together.
Shopify is the best e-commerce platform for dropshipping including print-on-demand business.
Wix is our recommendation if you are going to start your first online store. If you are running a local bakery that takes a few online orders, we recommend Wix over Squarespace or Weebly. Wix has come a long way in a few years and is best for small stores.

Many e-commerce platforms are doing a great job of creating an online store. Each platform has distinct features. Some platforms are suitable for small businesses, some for large businesses, some for drop shipping, and others for white-label marketing. You should choose the e-commerce platform as per your business need keeping in mind the pros and cons of the platform.

Final Words

Unlike managing an offline store, online store management requires additional effort. Business owners and managers have to understand the technicality of selling, inventory, and sales management on the internet.

You should outline a plan before investing money in an e-commerce platform. Besides the creation of an e-commerce platform, you need to fulfill some other tasks to start selling. You need knowledge of digital marketing and SEO so that your store gets noticed.

How to build an e-commerce store is one thing but selling products or services from the online store is another thing. So, work accordingly and be ready to get the fruits from the e-commerce website.

The post Best Ecommerce Platforms For Small Business & Start ups appeared first on Blogging.

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WEB HOSTING

What is Managed WordPress

The best-managed WordPress hosting provider

1. DreamHost / DreamPress

Pricing plans from $2.95 a month

Essential features provided by Dreamhost/Dreampress:

Pros:

Cons:

Features:

Pricing Plans:

Shared Starter

Shared Unlimited

2. Pressable

Pricing plans from $25 a month

Essential features provided by pressable

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Cons

Features:

Pressable Pricing plans:

PERSONAL

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Pricing Plan from $2.99 a month

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Some Other important features:

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SITE – STARTING AT $24.46 USD monthly

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UNLIMITED – STARTING AT $75.48 USD monthly

4. Wp engine

Pricing plans from $22/mo

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Pros:

Cons:

Features:

Pricing plans:

STARTUP

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SCALE

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Essential Features:

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STARTER

PRO

BUSINESS 1

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