A sleek, functional, and efficient website is the cornerstone of any successful venture. Whether you’re an artist looking to create an online portfolio, or an aspiring entrepreneur trying to boost your business, a great website made using top website builders will help you stand out from the crowd and reach your target audience. 

Creating your website from scratch can seem daunting to a rookie. The overabundance of options at your fingertips can make you feel overwhelmed and discouraged. In that regard, we’ve decided to collate a detailed guide to help you create your dream website

If you’re unfamiliar with website building, there’s no shame in playing it safe by going with a website builder. They’re far more convenient and straightforward and designed to suit most of the average user’s needs. 

Site builders have evolved over the years. We’ve reached the point where even the more tech-savvy users chose to build a website using Wix or Shopify, to name a few, rather than the more conventional WordPress.

We’ll cover all the necessary steps and guide you through the process of building your website using the website builders on offer. By the end of this guide, you’ll be able to choose the right site builder for you and start creating your ideal website in no time. Let’s begin!

1. Choose a Website Builder

Website builders vary in functionality, features, and price. But they all have one thing in common: they let you concentrate on designing your website’s content and overall design. 

You’re not required to have any knowledge of programming languages, but you’ll need to choose a website builder based on your site’s purpose.

Most of them will do the job, but if you want to get the most out of your website builder, here’s a quick rundown:

Best Overall: Wix

If you’re looking for a solid, versatile, and all-encompassing website builder, Wix is your safest bet. It offers many great templates, add-on apps, and marketing widgets, but its standout feature is undoubtedly its ADI editor. 

ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence) will generate a website based on your requirements, and all you need to do is fill out a questionnaire and let the ADI editor do the rest.

Even if you decide to build a website using the basic editor, it’s still a piece of cake! The drag-and-drop interface is plain but functional nonetheless, and you’ll be able to create a website from scratch in less than 30 minutes. But speed and simplicity come at a price.

Wix isn’t the cheapest site builder by any means. Once your website is up and running, chances are you’ll have to refine the mobile version to get the desired results.

Since Wix offers a 14-day trial period, you can always give it a go and see it in action. As it stands, Wix remains an excellent choice for beginners, bar none.

Best Template Designs: Squarespace & Duda

Squarespace & Duda provide beautiful template designs to satisfy even the pickiest designers, artists, and creative bloggers. Anyone who prioritizes aesthetics should feel right at home with Squarespace. Their themes are impeccable and equally desktop and mobile friendly.

The Squarespace app for Android and iOS lets you edit your website on the go and with ease. Their customer support is available 24/7 via live agents or email, which is essential for rookie website creators.

Like Squarespace, Duda also offers elegant themes, plus various tools for personalizing your website, making it look stylish and unique. Duda’s standout feature is its ability to create multilingual websites, which is essential if you want to reach a wider audience.

Similar to Wix, both of these site builders are costly. Duda’s current choice of apps is modest, and Squarespace lacks the backup feature and restores that other builders find, meaning it’s not beginner friendly.

These builders are constantly being updated and expanded, so we expect to see these issues fixed reasonably soon.

Best Budget-friendly: Weebly, Zyro, IONOS

All three website builders are great choices if you’re on a tight budget and want to create a functional website without too many bells and whistles. They’re simple and easy to use but offer fewer customization options. You get what you pay for, plain and simple.

Best for Web Designers: Webflow

Webflow came onto the market in 2013, and since then, it has cemented itself as an excellent website builder for web designers aiming to create beautiful yet snappy websites on a whim. This website builder offers more creative freedom than competitors, providing you with a seamless visual editor and an impressive set of CMS tools.

If you’re willing to commit, you can customize every aspect of your website, including layouts, text placement, and page element designs, to name a few. You can export your site’s code and migrate to a different host anytime.

Additionally, selecting a Workspace subscription plan allows you to create two or more websites simultaneously with your team members, making it ideal for client work.

We found its lack of design templates a bit ironic considering Webflow‘s target audience, but designers might’ve found them too limiting for their taste. It’s worth noting that this is not an ideal eCommerce site builder due to the lack of standard eCommerce features like subscriptions, gift cards, offline payments, etc.

Its pricing plan requires a studious review beforehand since it varies in parts. Once you find your ideal plan, you can start creating landing pages like never before!

Best for eCommerce: Shopify

Without a doubt, Shopify rules the world of eCommerce platforms. Its user-friendly interface, vast scalability, and many apps at your disposal make it the best choice for online merchants. It’s no wonder that Shopify holds more than 30% of the USA eCommerce platform market.

Shopify boasts excellent design templates for your online store, and if you’re tech-savvy enough, you can access the source code and modify every aspect of your website. The guides provided tell you everything there is to know about the website builder, teaching you how to integrate multiple market channels (i.e., Facebook marketplace, Amazon, etc.), gift cards, check on daily/monthly reports, and much more.

Shop Pay lets customers who have already registered at a Shopify online store purchase from your website without needing to register again. The abandoned cart recovery feature will save your customers’ carts should they exit before completing the purchase. You can always contact the 24/7 customer service if you run into any trouble.

Keep in mind that Shopify offers pricing plans with big online stores in mind. We’re hoping that Shopify will embed the multilingual store setup into the builder rather than needing to buy a separate app. 

Judging by how often it is being improved and updated, we’re confident it’s right around the corner.

Honorable Mentions:

BigCommerce – excellent SEO options and no extra transaction fees make it a solid eCommerce builder.

GoDaddy – ADI, lots of templates, metrics, and marketing options, but lackluster SEO

Jimdo – a solid budget website builder for blogs and small businesses

Webnode – another excellent multilingual website builder with a free plan but pretty basic options and features

2. Choose a Pricing Plan

Website builders offer a wide range of plans with varying sets of features. Just because a plan is the most expensive one on offer doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll need to use all the tools and features it entails. Similarly, a pricier website builder isn’t necessarily a better one.

Any basic plan will suffice if you want to build a portfolio website. However, if you’re aiming for more functionality, you’ll have to break the bank. Generally, the cheapest plans start at around 6-8$, while more expensive ones go up to 45-50$ per month.

As we mentioned earlier, your best bet is to start a trial plan and take a look at everything your website builder of choice has to offer. When in doubt, start with the cheapest plan and scale up!

3. Choose a Domain Name

Your domain name is the equivalent of your website’s ad board: if you get it right, you’ll have people flocking to your landing page in no time. You can register your domain at domain.com, Google Domains, or register.com, to name a few. 

Alternately, you can do this via a website builder, since most of them offer domain registration for free, or via There are a few ground rules to follow if you want to get the most out of your domain:

Make it short and catchy – We know, easier said than done, right? Puns that are relevant to your website’s purpose are well-proven hooks. At the very least, your domain name shouldn’t be long and convoluted, so make it compact and roll off the tongue.

Don’t use numbers – Numbers make domain names look generic and amateurish – avoid them at all costs!

Check domain availability – Domain checkers like instantdomainsearch.com and namechk.com can show you whether your desired domain name is available. If someone has already claimed it before you, you can always try contacting them and offer to buy it from them.

4. Choose a Design Template

Content and SEO will bring traffic, but beautiful themes are what separates the wheat from the chaff. It’s no coincidence that people spend thousands of dollars on web designers to make their websites stand out from the rest. 

Luckily, most of the templates that website builders offer look professional and polished without needing to burn a hole in your pocket!

Website builders often let you scroll through templates based on your website’s purpose. For example, the fitness category caters to online gym stores, fitness centers, and websites in the same vein, while the blog category suits content-focused pages better.

You’re free to experiment with various templates until you find the one that suits you best. If you’re using a famous website builder like Wix or Squarespace, try to find a template that isn’t used as often. That way, you’ll catch the visitors’ attention more easily.

5. Customize the Design

This one is all up to you. Place and resize buttons, change fonts and color palettes, link social media, you name it – you can change it! Templates provide an excellent framework and serve as guidelines. That way, they make it easier for you to see which styles will work best.

If you’re unsure of your artistic talent, website builders such as Wix and GoDaddy offer ADI generation. Just fill out a questionnaire and have your ideal website created in no time.

6. Upload your Content

Now that you’ve prepared your canvas, it’s time to paint! Copy, images, and interlinks are the backbone of your website, and tools like SEMRush or Ahrefs will help you perform SEO actions on your website and push your website further up the search results.

Regardless of its purpose, a good website must contain:

A Good CTA (Call to Action) – Write a short, active, and straightforward CTA without beating around the bush. Simple as that

An About Us Page – Tell visitors about you or your company engagingly. Visuals, short stories, and puns are welcome.

Internal & External Links – Internal links improve engagement and give better access to other content on your website, while external links improve your domain authority. Both are equally important!

Videos & Images – Though some website builders offer free images, websites such as Pixabay, Pexels, or Unsplash offer royalty-free photos to use on your website. Short, concise videos improve your SEO by making the audience stay longer on your website, thereby decreasing drop-off rates.

Well-written Copy – Solid, optimized copy should be at your website’s core. The previously mentioned SEO tools can help you find the right keywords to include in your copy. They can also improve readability and give tips and tricks to enhance your website’s SEO.

7. Test Your Website

Well done, you’ve created your very own website. Now let’s take it for a spin! Most website builders allow you to preview your website, but we recommend you test everything yourself. Here are the key things to focus on:

Website Load Speed – Tools such as PageSpeed Insights will analyze and give you a performance score while also giving tips on improving your website load speeds if necessary.

Desktop / Mobile Button Functionality – Pretty self-explanatory. Moving on!

Spelling and Grammar – Apps such as Grammarly and Hemingway Editor are handy tools to help keep your content grammatically and punctually correct. Grammarly Premium even offers plagiarism checking and style guides to better connect with your target audience

8. Publish Your Website

And there we have it! Following these steps, you should now have a fast and fully functional website. Make sure to update your content regularly and occasionally refresh your website’s design. That way, you’ll be able to stay competitive and keep your website relevant.

We hope you find this guide helpful on your journey to creating a website that suits your every need. It’s a matter of trial and error. Chances are you won’t get the ideal results on your first try. Eventually, with persistence and effort, you’ll find your feet and exceed your expectations. Good luck!