10 Reasons to Use a Website Builder to Build Your Website
When it comes to launching a website, there are a few routes you can take. You could hire a professional designer. You could use a content management system (CMS) like WordPress. If you’re really brave, you might even want to go it alone and build your own website from code. Alternatively, you could harness the power of an intuitive website builder. In this article, we’ll zoom in on the website builder option to offer ten reasons why it might be the right choice for you. 1 ➤ No technical knowledge necessary Website builders like 123 Reg’s Website Builder are designed for complete novices. You don’t need to be familiar with code or computer programming language to use one. Using the user-friendly interface, you piece your site together step by step like a really easy jigsaw puzzle. You can choose a template, tweak the layout, add images, populate your site with content and more, without any tech training. 2 ➤ It’s incredibly affordable If you’re on a tight budget, like many start-up entrepreneurs, there’s a good chance you won’t be able to afford to hire a professional web designer. Website builder plans start at less than £6 a month. 3 ➤ You can set up a website in a couple of hours Website builders make it so simple to design a website that you can get one live in a matter of hours. Ecommerce stores will take a little longer, as you’ll have to add all your products to your site, but it’s possible to get a professional-looking homepage, about us page, portfolio and blog up and running in a couple of hours. 4 ➤ You don’t need to be an artist or have design skills The first stage of launching a website with 123 Reg’s Website Builder is choosing a template for your website. There are dozens of templates to choose one, each one designed with a specific industry or set of industries in mind. Setting up a restaurant or catering business? There are templates for that. Starting a beauty brand? There are templates for that, too. Each one has been designed by a professional with an eye for what looks good online. 5 ➤ Get optimised for search engines In order to show up at a decent place in the search engine results pages, websites need to be ‘optimised’. We call this practice ‘search engine optimisation’. SEO as it’s usually referred to, is a complex subject. SEO professionals train for months, sometimes years. Fortunately, 123 Reg’s Business, Business Plus and Online Store Website Builder plans come with an SEO tool. This tool will help you add ‘keywords’ to your site that are personalised to your business. If you’ve never heard of keywords before, they’re like little sirens that shout out to Google to tell it that your site relates to a specific topic or search query. Once Google realises your site fits a certain search category, it will start displaying your website in the search engine results pages. Of course, it’s much more complicated than this, but all you really need to know is that the SEO tools in a website builder will help people find your site. 6 ➤ Become an authority with your own blog Blogging is a great marketing tool. It can help you drive traffic to your website, it can help you build bonds with customers, and it can help you stand out as an expert in your field, to name a few of its benefits. 123 Reg’s Website Builder allows you to add a beautifully designed blog to your website and make that blog accessible from your homepage navigation bar. The blogging tool lets you effortlessly add words to each blog entry, add a header image, add images to the body copy, and play around with layout by tweaking heading and subheading styles, fonts and more. 7 ➤ You get a domain name included on yearly and long-term plans You can’t launch a website without a domain name aka a web address. It’s how visitors find and access your site. However, domain names can be costly – one of the most expensive in the world sold for more than $872 million. With 123 Reg you get a domain name for free when you sign up for a yearly or longer term plan. Of course, we’re not giving away million-pound domains here, but you can choose from thousands of non-premium options to find a web address that best suits your business, such as yourbusinessname.co.uk for example. 8 ➤ You get an email included It’s important for businesses of all sizes to have a professional email address. It makes you look genuine, credible and trustworthy. A professional email address is one that mirrors your domain name and therefore your business’s name like yourname@yourbusiness.co.uk or info@yourbusinessname.co.uk. These professional email addresses stand in stark contrast to addresses like yourbusinessname@yahoo.com and so on. 9 ➤ Your website will be mobile friendly Statistics suggest that more than 55% of website traffic now comes from mobile phone users. So, it’s important that your website is mobile-friendly – this means that it’s easy to view on a mobile phone screen. For example, words don’t disappear off the edge of the screen and images don’t hop around when viewed. All of the templates available through 123 Reg’s Website Builder are mobile-friendly, meaning your website will look as good when viewed on a mobile as it will when viewed on a desktop or tablet. 10 ➤ You can develop an omnichannel experience Consumers are increasingly omnichannel, meaning they consume their information, do their research, and buy their products from a range of sources – from bricks and mortar stores to websites to social media pages. 123 Reg’s Website Builder allows you to effortlessly add social media buttons to your website, so your visitors can hop between mediums as they like. Want to find out more? Discover the full list of Website Builder inclusions and the range of tiers available on our product pages.
The easy website builder: Adding Social Media widgets to your site
When I’m a fan of a website, whether it’s an online clothing shop, a travel agency or a restaurant, I usually become a fan on Facebook or follow them on Twitter. I think that’s what we all do so we can engage with them and to ensure we don’t miss any of their offers. Everything is moving toward social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and many others so it’s only normal to add them to your site to let your visitors and customers know where they can find you online. When you’re building your site, whether it’s a personal site, an e-shop or a presentation site, integrating widgets into your site is very important. Let’s look at a few reasons why you need to add 3rd party widgets to your site and how easy you can do that. Help your customers find you Whether you’re a lawyer or you own a shop or run a coffee shop, people need to know where they can find you. Adding a Google Maps widget on your site is the easiest way to give them directions, rather than writing your address in plain text. People are looking for directions from a specific location and with Google Maps they can see exactly what route to take to get to you. For instance, last week I was looking up directions to a hotel in Berlin that I booked for this month. As I’ve never been to Berlin before, I was having trouble finding their address based on the limited directions offered on their site. No step-by-step instructions from the airport, just an address. When you add a Google widget on your site, it makes it easier for your customers to find you as they can see exactly how they can get to your location. When you’re building your site with the easy website builder from 123-reg, you simply need to drag’n’drop the Google Maps widget on to your template and add a line of code from Google Maps to show you location. Engage openly and ask for feedback Most every company in the world is using Facebook, Twitter and many more social networks to interact with their customers and to also attract new customers. You can also use these networks to ask for feedback from your customers and encourage them to share their opinions on the products or services that you’re selling. It’s the easiest way to communicate with your clients and find out first-hand what they think about your products and what you can do to improve them. Your customers’ testimonials are seen as recommendations and that’s why so many companies or brands have included social networks into their marketing strategies. With our easy website builder, you can add these widgets to your site by simply draggin’n’dropping them from the Social tab on the left menu onto your template. Find out where your customers are spending their time online and add widgets for those social networks on your site so they know where to find you online. Show how your product works YouTube is such an amazing tool to grow your business. There are so many things you can do with it to connect with customers, promote your products, share your knowledge and show off your expertise. You can upload videos, testimonials from your customers to add to your credibility, promote events, share a tour of your office and many more. So, why not also add a YouTube widget on your site? If you’re a fan of Flickr, you can also add a Flickr widget to your site so your visitors can see your photos directly on your site, without having to visit your Flickr account. Add pictures of your office, your team or show how your product works. You can do all this and more with our easy website maker. Not only can you build a new website from scratch with little to no programming skills, but you can also create a more engaging experience for your visitors. We’re offering a 14-days free trials so you can see for yourself how easy it is to build a great website that you visitors will come to love. What other widgets are you using on your site?