Our Favorite: Website Platforms for Small Business Owners
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“Your website is the face of your business.” If you’ve heard that before, it’s because first impressions matter. You want to find the website platform that works best for your small business and attracts the right type of client. Don’t know which to go with? Here are our favorites for service-based business owners. For our e-commerce entrepreneurs, there’s a bonus platform at the end!
What Makes These Website Platforms the Best
As small, service-based business owners ourselves, what’s important to you is important to us.
The website platforms we recommend are thoughtfully designed with professionals in mind, featuring:
Custom themes
E-commerce capabilities
Mobile responsiveness
Third-party integration abilities
Accessible and budget-friendly subscription plans
We’ve used or worked with every suggestion we share below – Erin is a website copywriter, Chels is a designer/developer – so our favorites are on this list for a reason!
Our Favorites
Choosing the right platform to invest in can be hard. We discuss the pros and cons of the best website platforms out there for online business owners.
1. Squarespace
For those needing an all-in-one solution for a customizable website or online store, Squarespace is the perfect option. It’s ideal for copywriters, coaches, and digital marketers. We host Remote ID on Squarespace and love the design capabilities with the option to sell digital products!
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DIY-friendly with drag-and-drop sections
An auto-populating mobile design
Easy to integrate a simple shop
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Limited customizations unless you know how to write custom code
Pricey, no free plan available
Storage limitations make it difficult if you plan to have videos on your site
2. ShowIt
This website was created specifically for photographers to house massive files without sacrificing load time. ShowIt is the best platform for photographers, brand designers, and website designers specifically for this reason. It’s also perfect for any small business that wants ultimate creative freedom.
It’s worth mentioning that if you want to sign up, you can get 1 month for free doing it through here!
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Unlimited design capabilities with no coding
Completely customizable mobile site
The support team is incredibly responsive
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Time intensive since the desktop and mobile designs are built out separately from each other
Doesn’t integrate with Shopify, no e-commerce abilities
Not the most mobile-responsive
3. WordPress
WordPress is the OG website platform with some of the most powerful blogging tools. This is the most popular among enterprises, large publications, bloggers, and brick-and-mortar businesses. It’s reliable, customizable, and effective – everything you want in a website. The main challenge is the learning curve to get the most use out of the platform’s capabilities.
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Powerful blogging capabilities
Accessible, free .org sites
Highly customizable with thousands of (free and premium) themes
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Old, clunky, slow to respond
The free .org option requires you to find hosting, which comes with security risks if you don’t choose a good host
Requires plugins that need updates often
4. Shopify
Shopify is an e-commerce-only platform. While it lands on the YES list for any physical product-based businesses, small business owners should look at the other options we shared.
Do you have a product and need help setting up or optimizing your Shopify store? Directory member Zahn Brazil can help.
Is a Website Worth it for Small Business Owners?
Yes! Websites are great for individuals and freelancers using them to showcase their portfolios or small businesses and agencies marketing their services. Every business owner needs something different from a website, so we hope this blog helps you decide what’s best for you.
P.S. Don’t forget! You can get 1 month of ShowIt for free if you sign up through this link.