In today’s digital world, having an online presence is an essential part of growing a business and understanding how to create a website is one of the many skills that are extremely useful for entrepreneurs. As of late, I’ve been looking into website creation and trying to understand the mechanisms that are a part of the process and a while back we decided as a team to challenge ourselves to create and improve a website for an existing company. The challenge will be lasting for a week and the goal is to design a functioning website by the deadline. The main goal from a studying standpoint for this challenge was to develop our hard skills as entrepreneurs. By understanding website design, we will be able to reach a wider audience for our projects and push them forward.

There were three different methods of website design that each member was able to choose from: using website builders, figuring out the use of WordPress, or trying out coding from scratch. I decided to try out website builders since I have little experience in website creation, and I wanted to focus on the designing portion to make the website visually appealing.

There are multiple different options when it comes to website builders, but Wix, Squarespace and WordPress seem to be the most popular ones. Now the question is how to make the right choice considering the parameters of this challenge? Which one would be the best choice for this occasion? After doing some research on the topic, I decided against WordPress, since it has a much steeper learning curve compared to Wix and Squarespace and it would steer the focus away from the visual designing aspect of website creation. After that conclusion, I investigated the core features of both popular website builder and here’s what I found:

Wix

• Ease of use: Wix is extremely beginner friendly, and it’s known for being an excellent drag-and-drop website builder that requires minimal technical experience.
• Template variety: Wix has over 800 free templates that are ready to use. They are fully customizable, therefore giving you the freedom to create a unique design.
• Free plan: Wix offers a free plan which can be useful for beginners to try out the builder to see if it suits their needs. However, the free plan obviously has some drawbacks and limitations, such as ads and a Wix-branded domain.
• App market: Wix allows the use of extra features through an app market, which will be useful when adding additional features to your website.

Squarespace

• All-in-one solution: Squarespace offers hosting, domain registration, and design tools all bundled up, making the process simple and straightforward.
• Design quality: Squarespace is best known for its elegant and professionally designed templates. It’s a terrific choice if you’re looking to prioritize visual aesthetics.
• Mobile responsiveness: The templates of Squarespace are designed to be mobile responsive, meaning that there’s little to no excess editing required for the website to look sharp on a mobile device.
• Pricing: Squarespace doesn’t offer a traditional free plan, but it does provide a 14-day free trial period to test the platform.

It seems that both Wix and Squarespace offer intuitive interfaces and they have their own strengths and weaknesses when it comes to their comparison. Ultimately, they will both be useful platforms for beginners, and it comes down to personal preference. If you’re looking to prioritize design and want a visually stunning website like me, then perhaps Squarespace might be something worthwhile to look into. Wix however, does have the upside of offering a free and perhaps a more extensive plan. In conclusion, I feel it will be worthwhile to give both platforms a fair trial run and see which one would feel more comfortable for you specifically. The “better” choice will show itself through experimentation and experience.

Sources:

Benjamins, S. (n.d.). Wix vs Squarespace: 8 Crucial Differences To Know In 2023. https://www.sitebuilderreport.com/wix-vs-squarespace

Metics Media. (2023, February 23). BEST Website Builder 2023 (My TOP Recommendation) [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pvi_metetxk

Santrel Media. (2022, December 21). Top 5 Website builders 2023 [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fWxJkhRKgk