The Best Website Builder
“Foundational & specific-needs features are relatively equal prerequisites.”
The best website builder should satisfy your publishing requirements, targeted audience, and financial objectives. Let's explore some of the key features, user/visitor interactivity, and payment limitations you must consider when choosing the right technology for you and/or your company/organization.
Features
All-inclusive, all-in-one, and multi-purpose website builders (essentially representing a platform that could tailor to any individual, brand, or industry) are our preference for one simple reason; change. A business, for example, cycles through many changes over time. It might start off as a sole proprietorship — eventually becoming a large enterprise. What begins as a single-product offering can span into an array of goods & services tailoring to the same market, or even expanding into other markets. Targeted user demographics have the potential to change as well. Hence, why it’s increasingly important to be fluid online, and, more specifically, in your publishing efforts. Well-rounded site creation & content management platforms can help in this regard.
Below is a list of basic features your website builder will ideally include, natively:
A browser-based & mobile-optimized site designer (taking into account your logo/title, header[s], menu/navigation bar/links, headings, general content [eg: articles, images, videos, audios, data graphs, etc], responsive sidebars [if applicable], landing pages (and other special pages), footer[s], and section-wide layouts)
Page management and content creation tools (not limited to blogging [i.e., blog posts])
Image galleries (able to be displayed in various formats [eg: slideshow, stacked, mosaic, etc])
File management (for uploading/hosting, organizing, and optionally re-using images, videos, audios, text documents, etc)
Form maker (for contact forms, mailing list [i.e., newsletter] forms, and other lead-gen [i.e., lead-generation] forms)
SEO & other built-in marketing tools
User Engagement & Interactivity
A website can have its most valuable content displayed in a few different ways. It can be gated (i.e., password-protected, more specifically requiring login credentials) as in the case of paid (or free) membership sites. Alternatively, it can be public-facing (or, in other words, publicly available); this means that anyone could view the entire site. It could also serve as a direct marketing channel, requesting visitors to opt-in in order to receive regular emails with product offers in exchange for an ebook, podcast series, video course, and/or other desirable content associated with the site’s theme.
The selected method should be in line with the publisher’s character (if an individual) or company culture, overall ethics, and, naturally, the projected return on investment (i.e., R.O.I.). Only the publisher, therefore, can determine whether a website builder provides what they need to get the results they’re after. That being said, the majority of general-use platforms (sometimes referred to as content management systems [or CMS/CMSs for short]), include membership functionality as part of their feature lineup; the same goes for an email marketing system (and, very often, the two are interconnected).
Getting Paid
Income is the lifeline of virtually every website, and yet it’s often overlooked when a person or establishment chooses what they believe to be the best website builder. A list of necessary applications based on common income models follows:
Nothing for affiliates (also referred to as affiliates-in-sales and, sometimes, associates); simply embed your affiliate program’s unique tracking link/identifier (i.e., an original URL associated with your affiliate account) into a prominent and/or relevant area of your site, and you’ll be good to go
Similarly, network marketers (i.e., MLM practitioners), don’t need any special site features… because payment processing isn’t required (since the merchant [i.e., head company] takes care of it for all representatives)
Physical product vendors (such as retailers & distributors), even if they’re not the manufacturers, will need e-commerce functionality combined with either a (direct) payment gateway or an indirect payment processor; many all-in-one website builders include both for your convenience, however, you'll need to sign up to each separately (given the fact that fees are incurred from these independent entities)
Service sellers (such as consultants) and individuals/organizations opting for the acceptance of donations will need these specific features in their e-commerce mix; keep in mind that not all website builders that allow for the selling of services and/or receiving of donations have recurring payment capabilities
Digital content (otherwise known as digital goods or e-goods) vendors need e-commerce functionality similar to that of physical product vendors, albeit with appropriate delivery solutions; depending on the product, this can be a file emailed to the customer directly following their purchase, a download link (including a downloadable file) similarly displayed following purchase, a login-required paywall such as a membership site (or members/subscribers-only area) including subscription content, etc
Conclusion
To summarize, foundational & specific-needs features are relatively equal prerequisites in creating a website effective at maximizing marketing efforts and, naturally, conversion rates. The best website builder, therefore, relies heavily on what it’s used for along with what the publisher is interested in getting out of it. An obvious conclusion, but a vitally important one nonetheless.