Build a small business website on a budget
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Why should a local tradesman or small business be online?
Many customers today want to find tradespeople in their area by typing their requirements into a search engine, rather than flicking through directories or newspapers.
A website also gives your business credibility and enables you to showcase your offering. A simple and attractive website to attract new business needn’t break the bank. You can build your own with the help of one of the hosting sites listed below. This is a growing industry and you can even find comparison websites for web hosting to work out which one will best serve your business needs.
Building your own site works best if you've got some level of skill and can adapt the off-the-shelf offerings to fit your needs.
If you don't fancy going it alone, check our advice on how to get the best website for your business, where we look at what a web designer can do for you.
Three DIY website builders for small businesses
1. Squarespace (£5-£15 per month depending on package chosen).
Squarespace is a good solution for small businesses that want an attractive, minimal website with strong images and bold typography.
Unlike many other other website builders, the business templates don’t look tacky and the platform boasts 40 million high quality images for use via its partnership with Getty Images.
Other features include an analytics platform for website statistics, mobile apps to enable you to update your website on the move and a logo-builder tool to create your brand identity. Plus, there’s award-winning 24-hour support included in all of the packages.
2. Weebly (free to £16 per month depending on package chosen)
Weebly suits tradesmen and small business owners with little online experience and limited time to create their website.
The platform has a drag-and-drop interface for putting content elements such as text, images, videos, maps and forms onto templated website pages.
A number of one-page templates can help to get a website live in minutes, allowing for addition of extra pages and features when time permits.
3. Wix (£2.55 to £10.10 per month depending on package chosen)
For businesses without a visual brand identity, Wix provides a number of templates which can be edited and refined with the colours, fonts and photographs you choose. Templates in the ‘Home & Garden’ and ‘Maintenance Services’ section are especially useful for tradesmen and local businesses.
Wix has the advantage of a marketplace for useful modules and embeddable widgets, many of them free, via its Wix App Market. These include form builders, image galleries, embeddable maps, email marketing platforms and more.
