I talk to people all day long about the best website platform for their current or upcoming business. It’s a question that asked me over and over again because of the confusion in the marketplace.
I get it. Everyone wants to sell their website platform. But with so much mis-information and just straight up confusion of the buyer, people may not end up with what is best for them and their situation.
I have a client I’ve spent at least six hours with talking about different types of websites and the direction she needs to take with her business.
She tells me that she wish she knew me years ago and where have I been. Well, I’ve been here talking about this for many years.
So let’s get down to it.
The Best Website Platforms and Why
The first one is Shopify.
This platform is specifically for e-commerce, which means you will have a store selling physical product or a downloadable product.
I like Shopify because it is a unique platform that everything is built into one place. You can share and run your social media campaigns out of it. You can develop a functional store very quickly without having to know a lot about coding or website development. All of the tools are built-in.
It is even SEO rich which helps you be found quickly on the Internet as long as you are doing the work you need to do.
The downside of Shopify is the cost. You are paying quite a bit each month to run your business through their platform. for many people it’s a negligible cost but that depends on how healthy your sales are and how you utilize the platform and the tools.
WordPress
The other platform I recommend the most is WordPress.
And by this I mean wordpress.org which requires your own hosting which I’ll get to you in a moment.
Now if you want e-commerce website, you absolutely can use WordPress and additional plug-ins which help you set up that e-commerce site.
Most of them are free so you’re not paying any additional fees other than maybe a few specialty items, such as integrating mailing tools or something like that.
WordPress is easy to use and there’s two different ways that you can use it, either by a builder block system, or the traditional classic version, which is what I prefer, hands down! It is so much easier to teach people how to use.
How much does it cost?
The cost of WordPress is simply the cost of your domain name and your monthly hosting which you can catch a great deal on if you buy it in bulk for a few years at a time. It is certainly cheaper than using a free site such as wordpress.com and then paying their monthly upgrade. Do the math!
There are gobs of tools that are available to help you learn WordPress and build a fabulous site. You don’t have to have a web developer help you, but it certainly would go much quicker and you can focus on other aspects of your business.
Squarespace
I’ve also heard good things about Squarespace as a whole. I have not personally used it yet, although I have heard of developers completely ripping people off by saying they have a custom website and then they develop it on Squarespace.
This I have an issue with. Plus, the extensive fees they charge. So not right!
Those are my recommendations and my thoughts. My next article I am going to talk about the free versions on the builder websites and my thoughts about using those for long term business growth.
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