While most of us acknowledge the importance of online presence it is sad to note that only half of small businesses have websites. According to the statistics revealed by Yodle, most SMB owners use information technology for accounting operations, booking and scheduling, customer relationship management, point of sales system etc. but more than 52% owners do not have any website, neither do they use social media.
One of the reasons why small business are still not making use of the online platform is because of the apprehension that going online means spending huge bucks and investing on developers, managers etc. But does this mean small business should never think of going online, especially when more and more people are relying on the Internet for information? Absolutely not, this is where small businesses need to know about do-it-yourself website builders. DIY website builders are great to use and which helps you develop a basic website within hours. While some DIY website builders charge a nominal price, most others are free. Using a DIY tool, you can design, publish and host your website easily. Most of these builders have the “What You See Is What You Get” (WYSIWYG) features, making the entire process simpler. Let’s take a look at six DIY tools that have been made for small businesses and that are creating waves this year.
IM Creator – There are four words to describe IM Creator – simple (because you don’t need to be a programmer), elegant (has an outstanding collection of templates designed by professionals), effective (because websites are easy to create, update, maintain and promote) and affordable (it is easy to connect to your domain). The year 2014 has been especially good for IM Creator as it has grabbed the attention of many small business and already about 3 million websites have been built using this. IM Creator makes your website SEO ready, helping you optimize content. The DIY builder also has a vast repository of templates that can easily be customized on a need basis. The modular design allows you to build your website bit by bit. In such a way, you can update your website according to the changing needs of your business.
Wix – Wix is primarily a Flash website builder. Wix allows you to drag and drop items as you wish. Wix is especially good for businesses which want a more visual website rather than one with more content. There are more than 100 templates on Wix spread over 70 categories. Though it is built on Flash, Wix doesn’t harm search engine optimization since today search engines are more receptive to websites built on Flash. If you still are unsure about Wix, know that about 46 million users worldwide are dependent on this tool!
DoodleKit – DoodleKit is quite impressive because it comes with many templates and a WYSIWYG editor. The DIY tool is good for editing and also helps you put items and photos wherever you want. You can make up to five pages on the free version of DoodleKit along with a blog. You can also use the paid-version of the tool, which while being adorable, comes with a host of facilities. Things are pretty simple with DoodleKit and you can follow the step-by-step instructions to build your website in five minutes!
Weebly – Weebly has an interesting interface that is quite striking. The interface makes it easy to locate all the tools at one glance allowing you to control the design of your website. The DIY tool also has a drag and drop feature making customization easy. You can create an online store using Weebly and hence you get everything from a shopping cart to shipping and inventory management tool here. Currently more than 20 million websites have already been built using Weebly.
Moonfruit – Moonfruit has been in the business for a long time, since 2000. What started as a flash-based builder has today moved to using HTML5 technology. Needless to say, Moonfruit is extremely easy to use and comes with more than 60 fully customized design templates. You can easily create a unique website using the ‘Drag n Drop’ editor. One of the key features of Moonfruit is that it has an in-built graphic imaging software which is great for image-based websites.
Jimdo – As one of the easiest website builders, Jimdo has something to offer for everyone. Whether you are a photographer or an artist or have started your own business, Jimdo lets you build the website on your choice within minutes. It also has a good ecommerce feature using which you can build basic online stores. Being easily customizable, Jimdo can also be used for creating mobile-friendly websites. It is SEO friendly allowing you to optimize the site for search engines.
It is time to give a new dimension to your business by going online. The six DIY tools mentioned here are easy and come with the promise of offering more than you expected.
