"The internet is like a wave: you either learn to swim on it or you sink." - Bill Gates
Once we lived in the countryside, then in cities and now on the net. If you can't be found on the net, then you don't exist? Maybe you want to, then congratulations.
Not being findable because you don't know the necessary tools no longer applies today. Learn to create websites yourself and build your own platform.
There is no such thing as the best website builder. Nowadays there are many builders with shorter or longer learning curves. Here you will find the best builder for every requirement:
- For fast and uncomplicated implementation: Pagecloud
- Create any website professionally: Webflow
- As part of a software suite: Zoho Sites
Business, for which the net is not the main area of activity, such as smaller shops, restaurants, sole proprietorships, or hairdressers, I recommend a simple and straightforward website builder with integrated hosting. You will want to make changes to your website, whether it's to change the weekly menu, add a team member, write a new blog post, or showcase part of the assortment online.
Contrary to popular belief, open source is not the cheapest solution. Almost everyone intends to customize the look of their website, but not everyone wants to deal with JavaScript for that. Also, hosting, security, backups, updating plug-ins, and all the other activities that go along with setting up an open-source website are becoming increasingly redundant in the age of cloud computing. Although I use and know quite a few of these tools, I do not recommend them for the reasons mentioned above. In my selection, I have placed particular emphasis on Ease of use, performance, security, SEO, and support in the form of instructions or manuals. Of the cloud solutions, mainly Wix, Squarespace, and Pagecloud are relevant for this market segment.
In the criteria listed above, I prefer Pagecloud. The integration options and the designer could be more extensive to a certain extent. But this would probably go hand in hand with an increase in complexity. Continue reading if you are more interested in a more professional tool.
There is a lot of professional designers, consultants, or marketing managers, who want to create professional websites for clients (external or internal). For this, they don't want to spend a lot of money on a developer or agency. They want a tool that reproduces the advanced features of design tools like Photoshop or InDesign.
The difference is obvious: the tools listed under step 1 are simple. Anyone can use them to create a website for themselves or someone else (with limited customization). Webflow, on the other hand, is a professional tool aimed at existing and becoming professionals, helping them to create any website they want. This is without writing a line of code. Often Wix and Squarespace claim this as well. However, it seems to me that in this area Webflow is one step ahead. Wix and Squarespace seem to be somewhere in between, in my opinion still in no man's land. The possibilities of the Webflow Designer are endless, the integration possibilities are extensive, the performance and SEO are the best and the Webflow University has all kinds of courses. Above all, Webflow has a Killer function: Cloning of websites. When I'm not building applications, I work with Webflow.
Companies that do not have particularly high requirements for their web presence, but need system support for many backend processes and procedures should examine the possibilities of integrated website builders. In a modular software suite, the possibilities of a single module are certainly not top, but you do not have to evaluate additional systems for CRM, marketing, or social separately. In addition, you get everything from a single source, you save yourself the risks of possible integrations. This has advantages and disadvantages.
I enjoyed watching Hubspot's informative and well-done courses. I had more trouble with the Trailblazer account at Salesforce. Hubspot is very extensive, but Salesforce is a monster. The salespeople at these groups get in touch often and help with all kinds of questions. On the licensing model, I realized, this is not for me. If you are willing to pay at least $500.00 a month in licensing fees for each user, you are probably in the wrong place. Take my guide to create concepts and specifications and make a request for a proposal. Whether you will then still end up with these two providers I doubt. Do you still want a suite that can do everything and doesn't cost much? Take a look at Zoho. There you will find a good website builder, CRM, marketing automation, and much more for a bargain price.
Companies that want to provide advanced functionalities on a web platform and agencies that want to build applications for clients. If you want to build special forms with logic and subsequent company-specific processes, you need a tool that can do more than just build websites. Take Airbnb or Twitter as an example. These are websites, but even with the professional web builder Webflow you won't be able to build something like that. Because you want to collect data, change it according to predefined rules and pass it on to different endpoints.
Until recently, low-code tools were the only way for companies to build such applications without large developer resources. Caspio is a platform that I know of, with which you can build web applications without programming. The possibilities are enormous, but so are the necessary skills and effort. Currently, however, a number of new start-ups are springing up that offer tools with which, like Webflow , you can build applications in record time without writing a line of code. I must admit that I am not too well versed in this area. Based on the criteria outlined above (performance, security, possibilities, support), I chose two; Array and Caspio. With Array, you can create all kinds of forms, define the workflow behind them and have corresponding output generated in the form of documents or reports . If you want to build a website analogous to Airbnb, Caspio is probably the platform with the highest potential. Let me know on Twitter if you have managed it.
Caspio: The No-Code Platform for Business Applications
