Google Sites is a no-cost website creation tool provided by Google, optimized for desktop and mobile devices, with easy integration features and collaboration options. It offers attractive site creation without the need for programming skills but may lack flexibility in features. External visitors can access sites without a Google Workspace account.
For those exploring options beyond Google Sites, alternatives include Wix, Weebly, Squarespace, WordPress, GoDaddy, Shopify, Editor X, and Wix XP.
Wix
An eCommerce game-changer, Wix offers a platform so flexible that it turns novices into web design pros and online sellers into market giants. It’s more than a “drag-and-drop” editor; it’s a global business enabler!
Wix Top Features
Global eCommerce tools: SEO, site analytics, multichannel sales on Amazon, eBay, Wish, Facebook, and more are within reach.
Experience 500+ designer-made templates to make your brand truly stand out.
Secure and reliable eCommerce infrastructure, capable of handling high-volume sales, up to 750 transactions per second.
Expand with dropshipping and print on demand options.
Velo
Deploy web apps rapidly with Velo, enhancing your eCommerce functions.
Wix Mobile POS
Sync online and in-person sales, all manageable via the Wix Owner app.
Wix App Market
Expand with third-party apps and integrations for scalable growing businesses.
Wix Limitations
Although Wix offers a vast range of templates, customizability could be limited.
The user-friendliness might become overwhelming for individuals seeking complex functionalities.
Wix Pricing
Wix offers a cost-effective solution with various pricing plans to suit businesses of all sizes. Specific details can be found on their site.
Wix Use Cases
Use Case 1: Global Online Store
Whether you’re managing a startup or a global sales business, Wix lets you create your online store, manage a catalog of up to 50,000 products, and handle orders, fulfillments, and shipping like a true business mogul.
Use Case 2: Brick-and-Mortar Store Going Digital
Transition smoothly with Wix’s retail solutions, syncing your online and in-person sales and managing them through the Wix Owner app. Boost your brand presence locally and globally without missing a single sale!
Use Case 3: Online Marketing Drive
Step up your online promotion game. Leverage Wix’s email marketing, Facebook ads, discount coupons, and more to entice customers and earn conversions. With Wix, your marketing drive goes from zero to a hundred real quick!
Weebly
Introducing Weebly, a user-friendly website builder that has powered more than 50 million sites globally! Despite its current 6th ranking with a 3.4 out of 5 scores, Weebly’s app store has seen an impressive 66.67% leap!
Weebly’s Top Features
Beginner-Friendly with generous free plan
SEO guides to improve your site rankings
Excellent blogging platform with a perfect 5 out of 5 score
Distinct features such as built-in image editor, parallax effects, custom fonts, video backgrounds, newsletters, and social media marketing
Selling points
Notes
eCommerce functionality
Powered by Square online. Allows selling through the free plan.
Business-Favors
Offers business-specific themes, logo maker, eCommerce, marketing tools, and analytics
Weebly’s Limitations
Limited drag-and-drop customization
Outdated template designs
Poor mobile optimization
No multilingual support
Editor tends to be restrictive and customization is limited
Weebly Pricing
Not only does it come with a generous free plan, but Weebly’s pricing options are also reasonably affordable. Nonetheless, its value may be diminished due to the lack of feature updates.
Weebly Use Cases
Use Case 1 – Blogging
Weebly shines as a blogging platform, scoring a full 5 out of 5 in this category. Thanks to its unique features like built-in image editors, custom fonts, and newsletters, you’re going to enjoy a seamless blogging experience.
Use Case 2 – Small Business
If you’re a small business owner, Weebly can be a treasure trove. With the availability of business-specific themes, logo maker, SEO guides, eCommerce functionalities, marketing tools, and analytics, you can carve a strong online presence.
Use Case 3 – Social Media Marketing
For social media marketers, Weebly can facilitate efficient marketing campaigns with its in-built social media marketing tools.
Squarespace
A power-packed platform, Squarespace is designed for tech-lovers who aim to create visually stunning, SEO optimized websites. With its neatly-curated templates and ecommerce capabilities, you’re looking at a distinguished player in the website builder space.
Squarespace Top Features
Squarespace Blueprint: The go-to tool for individualistic template designs.
Ecommerce tools: Enables creation and seamless management of unlimited products, both physical and digital.
Integrated shopping cart: Compatible with multiple payment gateways to simplify transactions.
Robust Analytic tools: Keeps you updated about visitor behavior and sales tracking.
Squarespace Commerce: An exclusive platform for turbo-charging online stores with no transaction limit.
Scheduling appointments
Opens new digital avenues for selling classes and memberships.
Squarespace Extensions
Reveals a world of advanced features, though with limited apps.
Squarespace Downsides
While Squarespace Extensions widen feature-curb, they offer limited apps.
Limited shipping carriers, affecting international shipping options.
Customer support via email or Twitter might not cater to immediate assistance requirements.
Squarespace Pricing
Despite its comprehensive features, Squarespace lacks clarity on explicit pricing provisions.
Squarespace Use Cases
eCommerce Entrepreneurs
Intricate online store creation, coupled with unlimited product management, makes Squarespace a fitting choice for ecommerce entrepreneurs.
Local Retailers
With Square integration for offline inventory management and selling, Squarespace serves well for local retailers.
Blogging Enthusiasts
Squarespace’s blogging platform, boosted by social media tie-ins and Mailchimp integration, enhances digital presence for bloggers.
WordPress
Powering 40% of global websites, WordPress is a titan in the world of web design, controlling a significant 64% CMS market share. An open-source CMS, WordPress offers cost-effective solutions for both ecommerce and general web design needs.
WordPress Top Features
Domain registration, SSL, and other essentials available for $15-$50 monthly.
WooCommerce: A free, highly customizable plugin, essential for ecommerce operations.
Over 1,200 ecommerce-focused WordPress themes available for deep customization.
Multiple payment gateways supported, including Stripe, PayPal, and Amazon Pay.
Yoast SEO: A powerful plugin for optimizing SEO.
Automated updates and staging: Ensures your site is always up-to-date while minimizing downtime.
Secured high-performance DNS with SSL.
Auto-restoration
Ensures site integrity and content protection.
Uptime monitoring
Provides real-time site availability info.
Ads-free browsing experience
Assures a clean browsing experience for your visitors.
WordPress Downsides
Not primarily an ecommerce CMS.
Occasional plugin compatibility troubles.
Potentially high costs for custom design and development services.
WordPress Pricing
Pricing varies based on specific needs. Domain and other essentials range from $15-$50 monthly, while additional costs can include plug-ins (price varies), marketing services ($250-$5000 per month), and hosting ($9-$119 per month). Transaction fees from WooCommerce and PayPal are typically 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction.
WordPress Use Cases
Use case 1: Ecommerce Stores
With WooCommerce, WordPress handles ecommerce effectively, powering over 30% of online stores.
Use case 2: SEO Optimization
With Yoast SEO and built-in SEO tools, WordPress websites can secure optimal search engine rankings.
Use case 3: Small Business Websites
WordPress’s affordable and customizable nature makes it viable for small businesses aiming for a professional web presence.
GoDaddy
Presenting GoDaddy, a rapid website building platform lauded by entrepreneurs and small businesses. With a friendly interface and robust onboarding process, beginners find it an easy entry-point into the domain of eCommerce.
GoDaddy Top Features
Fastest website building with ADI for easy layout creation and product management.
Marketing suite for business growth encompassing GoDaddy Insight for insightful business actions.
E-commerce site management offering wide-range tools.
Pre-built templates and analytics for effective campaign tracking.
SEO Spotlight tool
Optimizing your site’s search visibility.
Product Integration
Sell products across multiple channels like Amazon, Etsy, Google, Instagram, Facebook.
GoDaddy Limitations
Lacks some powerful features compared to Shopify, BigCommerce.
Cost of renewal is higher after first term discount.
SEO managed for additional $4.99/mo.
GoDaddy Pricing
GoDaddy offers two distinct plans: A Commerce plan at $14.99/mo, tailored for nascent stores with fewer than 50 orders per month and a Commerce Plus plan at $29.99/mo, suited to larger orders with automated sales tax calculations. Both plans incorporate POS and GoDaddy Payments, with no additional transaction fees.
GoDaddy Use Cases
Use case 1
For beginners venturing into online business, GoDaddy’s powerful onboarding process makes the journey easy and fuss-free.
Use case 2
Small to medium businesses will find GoDaddy’s marketing suite and multi-channel integration a potent tool for growth.
Use case 3
Entrepreneurs seeking efficient inventory management can exploit GoDaddy’s ability to manage orders and keep inventory synced across multiple platforms.
Shopify
Meet Shopify, a leading name in eCommerce website design. With affordable, pre-made templates, this platform enables businesses to create sleek online stores. However, for more brand-specific designs, it requires reaching out to third-party designers or agencies.
Shopify’s Top Features
Offers a wide collection of pre-designed templates, fast-tracking your store setup
Empowers your store with unique page templates for product pages, blog pages, category pages, etc
Sporting features for user engagement and retention, including search functionality, promotion and discount tools, carousel slides, mega menus, newsletter sign-ups, related items, wishlist creation, and product reviews
Supports headless builds, allowing separation of content storage from the front-end display
Features
Description
SEO Optimization
With nearly 43% of e-commerce sales coming from search engines, Shopify acknowledges the importance of SEO and incorporates it into its core functionality.
Custom Functionality
Individual designs, functionality, and integration with ERP or CRM systems add to the uniqueness of your Shopify store.
Accelerator Programme
A service by Eastside Co, this programme allow merchants to launch stores on their framework in under 4 weeks.
Shopify Downsides
Limited uniqueness in the aesthetics of free templates
Doesn’t offer custom website design services
Costs increase with custom designs and additional functionalities
Shopify Pricing
Shopify website cost includes a monthly subscription ($29.99-$299.99), theme/template costs, custom Shopify website design costs, and additional functionality development costs. The price for full store design can range between $5,000 and $20,000. Some extensive projects may touch the $100,000+ mark.
Shopify Use Cases
Use case 1: SMEs looking for a robust eCommerce solution
Boost your small or medium business with a powerful and easy to use Shopify website. The platform offers affordable pre-designed templates perfect for SMEs.
Use Case 2: Enterprises needing a custom-built eCommerce store
Leverage Shopify’s comprehensive customization options and scalability to build a unique, large-scale eCommerce store. Although more expensive, it’s worth the investment for brand-specific aesthetics and functionality.
Use Case 3: Brands requiring a quick-launch eCommerce solution
Launch your online store in less than four weeks with the Accelerator Programme by Eastside Co. Perfect for brands that need to speed up their time to market.
Editor X
Borne out of the Wix stable in 2020, Editor X comes across as a robust creation platform earmarked for designers, and web professionals. With a superior Trustpilot rating of 4.6/5 and focussing on the needs of entrepreneurs for building a potent online presence, Editor X stands out in its class.
Editor X Top Features
Output-ready customisable website enhanced by responsive design
Easy-to-operate drag-and-drop tool
Variety of design templates
Unique collaboration feature enables teamwork on projects
Powerful coding, debugging options that support multiple languages
Diverse eCommerce solutions covering integrated payment processing and online store creation.
Enhances growth with superior business solutions like invoicing and lead generation
Unique Feature
Collects valuable User Generated Content
Recent Update
Advanced functionality for restaurants
Strength
Marketing and SEO capabilities
Security Assurance
Compliant with international privacy laws, SSL-certified
Editor X Limitations
Transitioning to Wix Studio
Limited number of design templates
Editor X Use Cases
Use case 1
Editor X serves as a practical tool for web professionals seeking to extend their creative capabilities with a structured and manageable development environment.
Use case 2
Entrepreneurs looking to establish a functional online presence will find Editor X’s user-friendliness ideal for their needs.
Use case 3
Restaurant owners can leverage the new advanced functionality feature to facilitate online reservations, subscriptions, and package sales.
Wix XP
Born in the entrepreneurial ecosystem of Israel in 2006, Wix XP has since grown into a global entity. With a worldwide presence and an impressive user count of 220 million, Wix XP is a frontrunner in the domain of web design and eCommerce.
Wix XP Top Features
Secure Data Transfer: With HTTPS and SSL protocols, Wix XP keeps your site and visitor information secure, while promoting better SEO.
Pre-existing SSL Certificate: Wix XP doesn’t require users to obtain an SSL certificate separately, providing it by default.
Easy-to-use CMS Platform: Perfect for beginners, Wix XP hosts a user-friendly CMS platform with a myriad of templates and step-by-step guides for setup.
Effective Social Media Integration: Wix XP comes with inbuilt social media marketing and blogging components that are perfect for small businesses.
Drag-and-drop Functionality: With easy page selection and designing, Wix XP makes web design intuitive.
Feature
Description
Wix App Market
Access to a variety of apps/plugins.
Wix’s “freemium” policy
Upgrade the basic free plan for a cost as per your needs.
Integration with Salesforce
Contrary to the misconception, you can integrate your organization’s Salesforce data.
Wix XP Limitations
Browser Compatibility issues: Older browsers may not support the security standards of SSL.
No Content Migration: Wix keeps content tied to the platform hindering operation migration.
Limited Bandwidth and Storage: Even on the more expensive Wix plans, storage and bandwidth are limited.
Robust Functionality: Wix’s “App Store” could offer more robust functionality for professional website developers.
Wix XP Pricing
The cost of Wix XP ranges from the Combo plan at $16/month to VIP at $45/month. The free offering comes with a Wix-branded domain name and hosts ads.
Wix XP Use Cases
Use Case 1 – Small Businesses
Small business owners can leverage this platform’s simplicity, affordability, and the excellent suite of marketing tools to promote their products or services efficiently.
Use Case 2 – Bloggers
A platform offering numerous templates with a user-friendly CMS and secure protocols, Wix XP is an ideal choice for bloggers to voice their ideas online.
Use Case 3 – Non-Technical Personnel
For end-users with limited technical skills, Wix’s drag-and-drop functionality simplifies the website design process, allowing anyone to create visually appealing and functional websites effortlessly.
Hannah Stewart
Content writer @ Aircada, tech enthusiast, metaverse explorer, and coffee addict. Weaving stories in digital realms.
