Website Platforms
So you’ve decided to start a website for your creative small business. Great! That is a huge step and one that is so important for your business. If you’re curious on why to have a website a what makes a good site check out this post.
Picking a website platform can be overwhelming, with so many options out there. You could go the route of a template or hire someone to custom code/host the site. In this post I focus on three common ecommerce platforms for makers - all of which you could create and manage yourself. However, if you’d like some help with your website I am more than happy to jump in to designs and create your site.
Choosing a Website Platform
Selecting where to manage your website can be overwhelming there are so many options these days! It can feel like standing in the paint sample isle when two shades look so similar but each are slightly different — what a headache. Before even researching different ones I recommend writing a list of what you need out of your site. Will you be selling products from it? Do you want to collect emails for a newsletter? Do you need folks to be able to fill out a commissions form? Reflecting on these questions and more are important so you can get your north star when comparing platforms.
Platform Options
The following are some of the more popular ones I see and have worked on — there are many more out there. All of these platforms are low to no code and have a drag and drop editor so any one can create and manage their site with confidence.
Shopify
If you work with me and you’re already on Shopify you will hear me cheer when you tell me you’re on Shopify. This is by far my favorite platform for e-commerce, but can be more technical to manage.
Pros:
Has the most robust offerings when it comes to e-commerce — tons of apps and integrations to choose from. If you are on Faire they even have an integration to sync inventory and listings automatically.
A solid handful of free themes and thousands of paid themes to choose from to make your website uniquely yours.
Editing is a breeze with their drag and drop feature.
Sites are easily mobile friendly. You don’t have to go back and re-edit for mobile.
SEO is top notch. Shopify has the multiple fields to add tags, categories, etc on products all to boost your site’s SEO.
Has their own POS which can sync your inventory on your website to your in person selling.
Shopify makes payments easy with their built in payment systems and third party payments like PayPal.
Cons:
Shopify is one of the more expensive platforms out there but they usually have some deals for your first few months. Check out their plans here.
Adding products and managing orders is straight forward, but I think it does take a second to get use to editing the site. However once you get familiar with their editor it’s simple to change.
There isn’t email hosting built in. If you want your own email hosting service you’ll need to go elsewhere.
Squarespace
Squarespace is a solid option for your website especially if you are focused mostly on services. Heck my own website is on Squarespace.
Pros:
Drag and drop editor is very easy and intuitive to use.
Plenty of aesthetic and modern templates to choose from.
Great platform for service based companies. Easy to highlight the services.
Really easy to set up and blog to your audience.
Pricing is cheaper compared to Shopify (over $10 cheaper for Squarespace’s business plan). See plans here.
Cons:
Making changes or a re-design has to be done live or have to make website private. Can’t draft a new site.
Once you choose a template you can’t change it - so be sure to pick something you love first go around.
Squarespace is a headache when it comes to managing SEO performance. You can’t control the loading speed and I’ve seen many Squarespace sites load much slower due to Squarespace’s tech.
Hard to customize to make uniquely yours. For example, there’s different blocks that you can’t change format at all without custom code.
Not as robust for e-commerce.
Confusing UI when it comes to making site wide style changes.
Wix
Wix reminds me a lot of Squarespace in terms of usability ease, but it has some hassle when it comes to doing double the work for mobile and desktop editing.
Pros:
Wix sites are user friendly - you don’t need any technical knowledge to set up and maintain your site.
Can customize your site via your template to make the site be uniquely yours with a lot of templates to choose from.
Has over 200 app integrations to make the site work for you.
Ecommerce sites start at $29/month. See plans here.
Cons:
Limited flexibility. Like Squarespace, when you pick your template you are unable to change it. This might work fine right now but 5, 10, 15 years down the road your business will scale and the site may need to change to adjust for that.
Can’t track Google Analytics on free or combos plans, so you are missing that user data insights.
Sites have storage limits so while you may start paying less to start as you grow you may have to upgrade your plan to grab more storage.
SEO options and inputs are limited and could be better.
Load times are slow, which impacts your customers and SEO.
Conclusion
By far my vote will always go to Shopify when choosing a website platform. After working on websites this is the one I come back to time and time again for product based businesses due to it’s integrations, e-commerce, templates, and SEO power. It does take a little bit to learn the editor and where settings are hidden, but once you nail that the rest of your site will be a breeze.
If you’re already on Squarespace, Wix, or another platform no need to fret, maybe they are working for you — that’s great! I believe they totally can. If you’d like to move your site to a different platform that is something to consider at renewal or whenever the tipping point is for you.
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