Top 5 Professional Website Builders: Best Reviewed 2024

Exploring professional website builders is crucial for any aspiring digital entrepreneur or business looking to establish a robust online presence.

Shopify 

Shopify stands as a leading e-commerce platform, renowned for its robust functionality and ease of use. It’s tailored for individuals aiming to build a scalable online store, ideal for businesses of any size. 

Pros & Cons 

Pros 

• Catering to businesses of all scales
• Multi-platform selling 
• Superior design functionality
• Over 800 apps and third-party extensions
• Diverse payment options
• Round-the-clock support

Cons

• Relying more on apps for extended functionality
• High transaction fees
• Additional expenses 

Shopify’s High Features

Shopify empowers you to craft an online store that not only looks professional but also aligns perfectly with your brand’s identity. 

Select the theme

With a wide array of themes available, you can find one that suits your business niche, whether it’s fashion, electronics, or anything in between. These themes are aesthetically pleasing and optimized for a seamless user experience.

Add elements (home page, about us, header, and footer) 

Building your website’s structure is a breeze with Shopify. You can effortlessly add essential elements. Navigate to “Online Store” > “Pages” and click on “Add page.” In this section, you can provide a title and content, emphasizing the importance of clarity and descriptiveness.

For examples 

Home page

Contact page 

This step is crucial as it lays the foundation of your website, guiding your visitors through your offerings and company story.

Customize logo, images, buttons, and text 

Personalization is key to making your website stand out. Shopify enables you to customize logos, images, buttons, and text, allowing your brand’s personality to shine through. 

On the left side toolbar, click “Theme settings.” Here you can choose which elements, including logo, layout, and color….you want to customize. 

Add content to the website 

The final step is to populate your website with content. Adding engaging and informative content is vital for attracting and retaining customers. Shopify’s user-friendly interface makes it simple to upload product details, blog posts, and more, ensuring your website is visually appealing, informative, and engaging.

Successful Case Studies 

Allbird

Allbirds’ Shopify store is a seamless extension of their brand ethos, with sustainability mentioned throughout their site, aligning perfectly with their mission and attracting a dedicated customer base.  Their product range, though limited, stands out for its eco-friendly production—a factor that resonates with 80% of consumers prioritizing sustainable practices. 

Stitch Fix  

Stitch Fix’s Shopify store has become a go-to for personalized style, standing out for its simplicity and user-friendliness. The highlight of their Shopify experience is the straightforward quiz that effortlessly curates a personalized clothing box for each customer. Through a series of tailored questions and responses, the quiz captures individual style preferences and requirements, allowing Stitch Fix to improve customer satisfaction. 

Wix

Wix stands out with its user-friendly drag-and-drop editor, a diverse range of templates, and a suite of powerful tools. This makes it an ideal choice for creating anything from personal online portfolios to small business websites. 

Pros & Cons 

Pros 

• Intuitive drag-and-drop editor
• A robust selection of ecommerce tools
• Impressive features and an extensive app store
• Offering tons of flexibility 
• SEO support 
• A secure website – Wix SSL 

Cons

• Template restrictions
• Additional costs for advanced features
• Initial complexity
• Premium plan limitations

Wix’s High Features

Wix stands out with its highly intuitive and versatile platform, making it a favorite among those who value creative control and ease of use

Choose a template

Wix offers a selection of over 800 continuously updated templates, catering to a wide range of styles and industries, from modern and sleek to niche-specific designs. All templates are mobile-responsive, ensuring a seamless viewing experience on various devices.

Update text and images

Editing Text

Once you’ve chosen your template and entered the drag-and-drop editor, simply click on the text you wish to edit. You can then type directly on the page, seeing your changes in real-time. This feature enables you to update company information, product descriptions, or blog details effortlessly.

Adding and Editing Images

Changing images on Wix templates is straightforward. If an existing image doesn’t fit your brand, click on it and choose “Change Image.” This action brings up a popup where you can upload your images or select from Wix’s vast library of free photos. Once uploaded, you can resize, crop, or reposition the image to suit your design needs.

Wix’s image editor also allows you to add filters, change brightness and contrast, or even overlay text on images. This level of control ensures that every image on your site is perfectly tailored to convey your brand’s message.

Personalize the background

Wix offers comprehensive options for background customization. To change the background, navigate to the “Site Design” section in the editor. From here, you can select “Page Background” to choose a new image or video. 

Wix provides a rich selection of free background images and videos, or you can upload your own for a more personalized touch.

Set up a blog 

You go to Wix App Market to add Wix Blog. Then, in the Wix editor, you’ll find an option to add a blog. Wix offers different blog formats to suit your needs, whether it’s a personal blog, a collaborative space, or a members-only area.

You can create new posts directly in the editor or through your dashboard by adding images, videos, and hyperlinks to make your content more engaging.

Wix also allows for the integration of additional features into your blog. This includes adding an Instagram feed, enabling RSS for content sharing, or setting up events, enriching the user experience, and keeping your audience coming back for more.

Successful Case Studies 

Ogi Eyewear

Since 1997, Ogi Eyewear has carved a niche in the eyewear industry with its trendy designs. This Wix-powered online store is a blend of fashion-forward thinking and optical expertise, catering to the commercial eyewear market. The website is designed to captivate visitors with its use of vibrant colors and a clean, sophisticated layout. It stands out for its innovative use of animated pictures and videos, which not only showcase the products but also engage customers interactively.

Fresh Prints

Fresh Prints – a Wix store stands out with advanced filters for easy product searches and detailed design descriptions, ensuring a tailored shopping experience for its university and individual clientele. This approach has significantly contributed to their success, showcasing the effectiveness of a well-designed, user-focused online store.

Squarespace

Squarespace is highly regarded for creating professional, creative websites, especially for sectors like blogging, photography, and portfolios. It stands out with its top-quality designs and features, all offered at an affordable price, making it a prime choice for building sophisticated online platforms.

Pros & Cons 

Pros 

• Stunning templates
• Easy to use
• Excellent marketing features
• Good for selling online courses
• High-quality image management tools
• Free domain with annual plans
• Superior customer support 

Cons

• Limited customizability and integration 
• No support for Google Pay
• Manual editing process

Squarespace’s High Features

Squarespace is renowned for its stunning designs and powerful functionalities, making a perfect and stunning website. 

Choose a template

The first step in creating a Squarespace website is selecting a template. Squarespace offers an extensive range of templates, each uniquely designed to cater to different industries and styles. Whether you’re looking to build a photography site, a blog, or an e-commerce platform, there’s a template that aligns with your vision. These templates are designed with responsiveness in mind, ensuring your site looks great on all devices.

Add pages

Adding pages to your Squarespace site is intuitive. The platform allows you to build a diverse range of pages, such as product pages, contact forms, blogs, and more. 

For instance, if you want to add a blog, simply navigate to the “Pages” section, click the plus icon, and select “Blog” from the options. 

Then, you choose a layout that suits your content style, from traditional blog lists to more visual grid formats.

Edit pages

Customizing your pages on Squarespace is a straightforward yet powerful process. You can edit virtually every element on a page, including images, logos, videos, and text. 

To replace an image, click on it and select “Replace” to upload a new one or choose from Squarespace’s extensive image library. 

For text, simply click on the text box and start typing or editing. You can also embed videos by adding a video block and pasting the video URL. Furthermore, you can adjust the size, alignment, and other properties of these elements to create a cohesive and engaging page layout.

Edit design and add branding

Squarespace excels in design customization, allowing you to create a unique brand identity on your website. Under the “Design” section, you can change site-wide elements like fonts, colors, and button styles. 

The color palette can be customized using pre-set options or by entering specific hex codes for brand consistency. 

Additionally, you can add animation effects to elements, adjust spacing, and style image blocks to make your website more dynamic and visually interesting.

Add site information 

Squarespace makes it easy to add your business information, including contact details, location, and operating hours.  This information can be placed in the footer, header, or on a dedicated contact page. 

Additionally, setting up your domain name is streamlined with options to transfer an existing domain, purchase through Squarespace, or claim a free domain with an annual plan. 

Successful Case Studies 

Jone Bar-B-Q 

Jones Bar-B-Q Squarespace’s website is a testament to its rich heritage and flavorful products. Opting for a bold, red-based color palette, the site immediately evokes a sense of warmth and excitement, mirroring the fiery flavors of their sauces.

At the forefront of their website is an enticing image of their homemade sauce, accompanied by the prominent text, “SAUCE MADE WITH LOVE IN KANSAS CITY.” This sets the stage for the visitor’s journey, guiding them through a well-structured layout with a clear navigation bar and a standout call-to-action button, “Shop Sauces.” 

Supernatural 

Supernatural stands out in the culinary field with its plant-based, colorful, and fun kitchen ingredients. Their Squarespace website captures the brand’s essence perfectly. The site features a clean, no-copy, no-CTA hero section, reflecting the brand’s straightforward approach. 

The shop section is spaciously designed, featuring product thumbnails that reveal more information on hover. The product descriptions are clear and concise, and each item is accompanied by customer reviews at the bottom, providing valuable social proof and enhancing trustworthiness.

Hubspot

HubSpot‘s website builder is recognized for its seamless integration with its CRM system, making it a favorite among businesses seeking a unified platform for their website, customer management, and marketing efforts.

Pros & Cons 

Pros 

• All-in-one solution
• Marketing and sales automation
• Integrated with HubSpot tools, including CRM, live chat, automation, and email marketing 
• A wide range of excellent SEO tools 
• Multilingual sites with different languages 
• Navigation menus

Cons

• Difficult to navigate
• Rigid editor 
• Additional costs
• Lack of native ecommerce features 
• Page limits with a maximum of 50 pages
• Too many HubSpot marketing emails

Hubspot’s High Features

HubSpot offers a suite of powerful features designed for businesses seeking a comprehensive online presence, encompassing marketing, sales, and customer service solutions.

Choose a theme

HubSpot offers a diverse range of pre-designed themes, suitable for various business types and styles. These themes serve as a foundation, providing a cohesive design structure that can be customized to fit your brand. Whether you opt for a free theme or purchase a custom one, HubSpot ensures that you have a starting point that aligns with your vision.

Edit the site’s pages, settings, and structure

Once you’ve chosen a theme, the next step is to tailor your site’s pages, settings, and structure. HubSpot’s user-friendly interface allows you to add new pages easily and select appropriate templates for each, ensuring consistency across your site. 

This flexibility extends to editing content within each module, where you can adjust spacing, padding, and other properties, ensuring each page reflects your brand and message accurately.

Edit the theme, header, or footer

Customization is where HubSpot truly shines. This includes setting up universal fonts, color schemes, and even animations. The global settings ensure that changes to fonts and colors are reflected across all pages, maintaining a consistent look. 

HubSpot allows you to upload your logo, set up navigation menus, and incorporate calls-to-action in these areas, making these changes simple and effective.

Connect the domain 

Integrating a custom domain is essential for establishing a professional online presence. HubSpot guides you through connecting your domain, whether you’re transferring an existing one or setting up a new domain purchased through HubSpot. 

The process includes specifying the domain’s use (like web pages or blogs), setting the primary language, and updating DNS records with your domain registrar. HubSpot provides detailed instructions and support to ensure this step is completed successfully.

Publish the website 

After meticulously crafting your pages and customizing every aspect, publishing your website is as simple as clicking the “Publish” button. This action makes your site live on the internet, showcasing your brand to the world. 

Successful Case Studies 

Caton Technology 

Caton Technology‘s website is a prime example of leveraging HubSpot’s multi-language capabilities. Visitors can effortlessly switch between English and Chinese, making the site accessible to a broader audience.

The homepage and solutions pages are particularly noteworthy. They manage to simplify complex service offerings while simultaneously segmenting their audience. This strategic approach makes it easy for potential customers to understand how Caton’s solutions can meet their specific needs.

Pressboard

Pressboard’s website stands out with its clean design, vibrant color scheme, and focus on showcasing its content creation tools and media monitoring platform. 

The website exudes confidence in its product, with clear calls-to-action guiding users to experience the product firsthand or explore customer success stories. An interesting feature is the success stories section, which includes a filter system allowing visitors to search by topic, industry, publisher, or advertiser.

Weebly 

Weebly offers a solution for those looking to build a website with ease, especially appealing to beginners with its free plan and step-by-step guidance. 

Pros & Cons 

Pros 

• Solid site speeds
• High design flexibility with different themes 
• Free plan available 
• SEO guidance 
• Simple and easy to use 
• Bonus extras

Cons

• Limited customization and blogging tools 
• Poor mobile optimization 
• Outdated designs

Weebly’s High Features

Weebly is recognized for its simplicity and user-friendly interface, making it a great choice for beginners and small businesses. 

Select a theme

Weebly provides a diverse selection of themes, each designed to cater to different styles and purposes – from sleek professional layouts to more creative and artistic designs. You can preview various themes to see how they align with your vision before making a selection. 

Choose the domain

Weebly simplifies this process by prompting you to select a domain name during setup. You have two primary options: opt for a free Weebly subdomain (which includes “.weebly.com” in the URL) or purchase a custom domain directly through Weebly for a more professional appearance. 

Custom domains typically range in price but offer the advantage of a unique and memorable web address.

Customize the site

The platform allows you to modify text boxes simply by clicking and typing. Backgrounds can be changed by selecting the “Edit Background” option, where you can upload your images or choose from Weebly’s library. 

Adding new elements to your site is effortless with the Element Menu. This feature enables you to drag and drop various elements, like text, images, videos, and buttons, onto your website. 

However, keep in mind that customization is somewhat limited due to the row-based structure of Weebly’s templates.

Add apps

Enhancing your website’s functionality is easy with Weebly’s App Center, which boasts over 300 apps. These range from SEO tools to social media integrations, allowing you to add advanced features to your site. Many apps are free, while others require a paid plan. Installing an app is as simple as selecting it from the App Center and following the prompts to integrate it into your website.

Publish your site

Once you’re satisfied with your website, publishing it is just a click away. Weebly’s platform ensures that your site goes live on the internet instantly. After publishing, you can return to the editor at any time to make updates or changes. 

Successful Case Studies 

BioLite 

BioLite, a company with a strong humanitarian mission, brilliantly uses its online presence to highlight both its products and its impact. The website immediately grabs attention with its slogan, “Gear That Brings Energy Everywhere,” resonating with its target audience focused on sustainable and humanitarian solutions.

What sets BioLite apart is the captivating presentation of its products. The images on their site are so well-rendered they appear almost 3D, with some even capturing the effect of being wet from rain.

Additionally, BioLite’s website design incorporates clever nuances in its navigation bar, such as small black-and-white cartoon drawings beside each product title, adding a unique and engaging visual element to the browsing experience.

Pop Chart  

Pop Chart Lab’s Shopify store is a perfect blend of vintage charm and modern organization.

The store is smartly organized into various categories, catering to different browsing preferences. With sub-categories ranging from “NYC” to “Kids” to “Hip Hop” to “Wine,” the website makes it easy for customers to navigate through its extensive collection of prints. The inclusion of a carousel displaying top prints and sections like “wholesale,” “gift guides,” and “scratch-off” collections adds to the site’s functionality, helping customers find exactly what they need.

What Criteria Are Used to Select the Best Professional Website Builder?

Choosing the best professional website builder involves evaluating various factors to ensure the platform meets your specific needs and goals. Here are key criteria to consider:

• Ease of Use
• Design Flexibility
• E-commerce Capabilities, such as payment processing, inventory management, and sales channels.
• Built-in SEO features.
• Mobile Responsiveness
• Integration Options, like CRM, email marketing, and social media.
• Cost-Effectiveness.
• Customer Support.
• Fast Loading Times Speed.

By considering these criteria, you can make an informed decision on which website builder will best serve your needs, both now and as your online presence grows.

Bottom Line

Choosing the right professional website builder is a decision that can significantly impact your online presence and business growth. Whether you prioritize design, functionality, ease of use, or integration with marketing tools, there’s a builder that fits your needs. 

Professional Website Builders: FAQs