Your website is the heart of your online presence. People will turn to your website to find information about your business, learn about your products or services, and contact you. So, it can make choosing a website builder for your small business a difficult decision.
That’s why we’ve created this list of the four best small business website builders with their pros and cons so you can make the best decision for your company.
This list includes:
WordPress
BigCommerce
Wix
Squarespace
Keep reading to learn more about these website builders for small businesses!
For even more digital marketing advice, sign up for the email that more than 150,000 other marketers trust: Revenue Weekly.
First on our list of the best small business website builders is WordPress. WordPress is open-source software that you can use to create your small business website. The open-source nature means you can create a site anywhere and get access to the features you need.
Pros of WordPress
When it comes to choosing a website builder for small businesses, WordPress offers a lot of pros.
Here are a few:
Flexible: Since WordPress is open source, you can build your site how you want. You aren’t restricted by the platform, making it easy for you to build a custom site for your small business.
Thousands of templates: With WordPress, there’s no shortage of template options available to your business. They offer thousands of templates you can choose from, and you can easily customize each one to meet your business’s needs.
Search engine optimization (SEO) friendly: When you build your small business website, you want a site that ranks in search engines. With WordPress, regardless of the template option you choose, your site will be SEO friendly and responsive for mobile devices.
Plugins: WordPress provides plugins for your website, which is an easy way to get everything you need. From SEO-focused plugins, like Yoast SEO, to security plugins like Jetpack, you can pick and choose what to include on your site so you can create the best experience.
Massive community: WordPress is one of the most popular website builders, so it has a massive community. As a result, you have a great resource of knowledge and support to help you troubleshoot problems or get advice with building your small business website.
Cons of WordPress
Like any small business website builder, there are drawbacks to WordPress.
Here are a few cons to using WordPress as your site builder:
You have to pay fees
One of the most significant drawbacks to WordPress is the fees you must pay to build your site. While using the software itself is free, you must pay for everything else, including:
Hosting fees
Domain name
Website design
Plugins
All these elements, which help you build your site, come at varying fees. For example, there are free plugins and templates available to make your WordPress site, but if you don’t like them or want something more advanced, you may have to pay for premium plugins or custom designs.
These fees can add up over time, making WordPress a less desirable option.
You still need some developer experience
Even though WordPress offers design templates and a drag-and-drop builder, you still need some developer experience to build your site — especially if you opt for a custom WordPress site. When you create a custom site, you need advanced design knowledge to ensure your site looks good.
Additionally, if you use plugins, you need to know what to do when two plugins aren’t compatible. You may run into this issue as you develop your site, so having some development experience can help navigate these situations — not having that experience can make this situation frustrating.
On top of that, if you don’t have development experience, you may end up with a slow site. Some WordPress templates can cause companies to have slow-loading websites. If you don’t have development experience, you may not know how to tweak the code to improve your site load time.
So, if you don’t have web development experience, you may need to invest in website maintenance services to help someone maintain your site, which comes at an additional cost.
2. BigCommerce
Cost: $29.95-$299.95+ per month
Another option for website development for small businesses is BigCommerce. This ecommerce-focused website builder is great for any small business that wants to sell its products online.
Pros of BigCommerce
Bigcommerce is a great website builder for small businesses looking to build a custom site that boosts sales.
Here are some of the benefits of using BigCommerce as your site builder:
Dozens of conversion-focused templates: If you’re focused on earning sales, building a high-converting website is necessary. With BigCommerce, you get access to dozens of templates designed to promote a seamless shopping experience and increase conversions.
Easily customizable: With BigCommerce, you can customize your site to fit your ecommerce needs. BigCommerce offers an app store that enables you to make your site uniquely yours. This customization can help you capture more qualified leads for your company.
SEO friendly: BigCommerce’s templates are all SEO friendly to ensure your site ranks well in search results. From site load time to SEO-friendly HTML elements, you’ll get everything you need to have a site that ranks in search results.
Security: Having a secure site is fundamental for earning sales for your business. When you use BigCommerce as your site builder, you’ll get things like domain names and a shared Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate.
Cons of BigCommerce
BigCommerce has a few drawbacks that you’ll want to consider when deciding on the best software for website development for small businesses:
You pay more fees for growth
One of the biggest complaints about BigCommerce is that you pay more fees as your business grows. BigCommerce breaks its plans into four tiers — each tier has a sales threshold that you cannot exceed without upgrading to the next package.
For example, if you start with a plan that’s only $29.95 per month, your maximum yearly online sales are $50,000. If you exceed that amount, BigCommerce automatically upgrades to the next tier plan — in this case, the $79.95 per month tier.
Many companies don’t like this model because it punishes them for success, making it a significant drawback to the platform.
You have limited free themes
While BigCommerce offers dozens of great themes to build your site, very few of them are free. There are only 12 free template designs, so if those don’t fit your business’s style, you’ll have to pay for a template.
Paid templates can range anywhere from $150-$300. It’s an extra fee you’ll have to pay to build your site, which can be a drawback for your business.
3. Wix
Cost: $23-$49+ per month
Next on our list of best small business website builders is Wix.
Wix is an easy-to-use website builder that enables you to build a custom site for your small business:
Pros of Wix
Wix offers numerous great features for your company, including:
Numerous templates: Wix, like the other small business website builders, offers numerous templates to help you build the website you need. You can customize your template to fit your business’s needs.
Advanced features: Wix is a great option to build your website if you want to add additional features as you go along. You can add an online store, portfolio, or blog as your business grows and has changing needs.
Preview mobile version: The mobile version of your site is critical to online growth, as it impacts how you rank in Google and how mobile users shop on your site. Wix enables you to look at the mobile version of your site as you build it so you can optimize it for a better experience.
Cons of Wix
When looking at one of the best small business website builders, you’ll find there are drawbacks.
Here are a few cons to using Wix:
You’re stuck with the template you choose
One of the reasons you may not want to choose Wix as your website builder for small businesses is that you can’t change your template once you pick it. When you create your site, you must choose your template wisely — templates are not interchangeable.
If you decide you want a new look down the line, you won’t be able to change out your template for a new one. You’ll either have to keep the template you have or reinput all your information in the new template, which is time-consuming.
You can’t move your site
Many small businesses start off using a site builder to help them get their site up and running. Once they start to grow more, though, they’ll transfer their old site from a site builder to a self-hosted site. With Wix, though, you can’t do that.
Once you build your site on Wix, it’s there for good. Wix doesn’t offer the capability to transfer your site somewhere else. So, if you outgrow Wix in the future, you’ll have to build a new website from scratch.
4. Squarespace
Cost: $18-$40 per month
When looking at a list of the best small business website builders, you can’t leave out Squarespace. Squarespace is a great website builder for small businesses that want to create a custom and functional site.
Pros of Squarespace
Squarespace has numerous great features to offer your business, including:
It offers customizable templates: With Squarespace, you get access to dozens of templates that you can customize to fit your business’s needs. You can choose things from designer fonts to color palettes to help you build a site that matches your company’s unique style.
It offers multiple site features: If you build your site through Squarespace, you’ll get numerous features to help you create a well-rounded site. You can add an online store, integrate third-party extensions, or enable people to book services on your site.
It offers a free custom domain name for the first year: When you get an annual plan with Squarespace, you can get a custom domain name with it for free. This perk is great if you’re building a brand-new site and want to limit your costs for the first year.
It offers easy checkout options: When you do website development for small business, you want to build a site that makes it easy for customers to buy your products. Squarespace offers tools that make checkout secure and simple while also offering the ability to enable discount codes and recover sales.
Cons of Squarespace
Squarespace is a great website builder for small businesses, but there are a few drawbacks:
You can’t build an in-depth navigation bar
When you build your website, your navigation bar is a critical component of your site — it helps users find information, products, or services they need. With Squarespace, your ability to create an in-depth and organized navigation is limited.
Squarespace is meant for sites that need simple navigation and don’t require an in-depth menu hierarchy. Squarespace only enables you to have two levels of navigation.
So, if you build your site on Squarespace and use their navigation, it may look like this:
Products
Women’s Clothing
On another site builder, it could look like this:
Products
Women’s Clothing
Women’s Activewear
Yoga Pants
Sweatpants
Leggings
Tank Tops
Sneakers
If a shopper is looking for yoga pants, they’re not going to find it easily with a Squarespace navigation. On another site builder, though, you could build a more in-depth navigation to get shoppers to the products they want quicker.
If you need in-depth navigation, Squarespace may not be the option for you.
You may struggle to use it
Squarespace isn’t the most user-friendly website builder for small business owners who don’t have experience designing a site. There can be a bit of a learning curve with this site builder, which means it may take longer to develop your site.
We don't just want to tell you about the beautiful work we do.
An alternative to website builders for small business: WebFX
When you do website development for small businesses, you want to ensure you’re choosing the best website builder for your business. As you can see by this list of best small business website builders, there are tons of pros and cons to each platform.
If you find yourself feeling on the fence about some of these website builders, there’s an alternative solution: Hiring a web design company.
A web design company, like WebFX, can deliver a fully customized site that includes everything your business needs to grow online. At WebFX, we have over 20 years of experience crafting custom websites for our clients.
Our award-winning design team knows how to build a site that reflects your business’s unique style while also providing ease-of-use to make shopping a breeze. We’ll help you craft a unique website design that translates into more leads and sales for your business.
Want to build a website that has everything you need to grow online? Contact us today or call us at 888-601-5359 to speak with a strategist about our web design services!
Every chef has their favorite tool. Mine happens to be a wooden spoon I’ve had since forever. I call it “Suzie” (because I’m a weirdo). Some people actually keep their wooden spoons in the family for generations – talk about a collector’s item!
Today, I’m going to share some tips on how the tools you select as a designer can help improve your creative process, and aid you in creating work you can really stand behind.
Do you know why so many chefs and cooks prefer wood over other materials? Well, it’s much the same reason many designers prefer Macs and software by Adobe: it’s the industry standard and using it makes your life easier in more ways than one.
Now before you say it, I know there are plenty of professional designers who are perfectly happy running Gimp or other non-standard software on a PC or Linux computer. And their work is just as awesome and up to par as any “Mac person’s.” But, for many designers, the benefits of having a standardized way to communicate with clients, other designers, and/or other departments outweigh the little idiosyncratic advantages of marching to your own drum.
Something else to remember – which might seem insignificant at first, but bear with me – is that you have to consider the technological “culture” into which you’ll be entering as a designer. This applies a bit more to in-house designers than freelancers, although freelancers working for a long-term client may experience the same thing.
My last in-house job was in a PC environment, and there was quite a strong anti-Mac sentiment among my peers. They “tolerated” me propping up my MacBook Pro on my desk alongside the office PC, but they definitely made their feelings clear. I thought it was funny, but a more sensitive person might have gotten their feelings hurt.
People can get mighty serious about their tools. And, as many of you out there have probably noticed, it can get ugly if you’re not careful. If you are totally in love with your tools and wouldn’t consider changing them for the world, by all means stick with them.
But if your peers or clients have a different opinion, be prepared to put up with a lot of their ranting and raving. And preaching and lecturing. And complaining and… yeah. You get the idea.
The Forest For the Trees
Nothing makes you feel like a “Real Chef” like gripping the handle of a huge, weighty, wooden spoon. It may seem a bit cliché, but I encourage you to try it the next time you’re in the kitchen. You can thank me later. Cooking enthusiasts, like designers, can get pretty hardcore about their wooden spoon choices.
Some people look for spoons that can handle stirring all the ingredients in the pot with ease. Others look for good scraping ability – the ability to remove food off the bottom of the pot so it doesn’t get stuck. And of course, you have to have a spoon you can use to taste your food while it’s cooking.
The debate on which wooden spoons handle all three of these tasks the best is endless, fierce, and sometimes a little scary. But enough about that. Consider your own tools as a designer. If you’re a pro, or aspiring to be, odds are decent that you use Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, or a combination of all three. Why do you use these programs?
Well, like I said, they are the industry standard. Being able to communicate ideas in a standard format across different people’s systems is an extremely valuable asset.
But there are other factors to consider as well. Believe it or not, some professional designers get by just fine using software that competes with Adobe on factors like price, interface preferences, and software size and speed. As powerful as a program like Photoshop or Illustrator may be, a lot of times you just don’t need all that power.
Some designers might actually be better off trimming down to something sleeker and less clunky. I’m an Adobe user myself, but, well…sometimes, for certain projects, other tools do the job just fine. I’m totally serious.
Beyond The Pale
Alternatives to Adobe software are plentiful, and they are used every day by pro designers. Some are free and open-source, others are web-based, and others may have a simpler or more familiar interface. Again, there are many reasons a designer might choose a non-standard tool, many of which may not be immediately obvious.
Web-based software might be perfect for frequent travelers, for example, while a more familiar interface might increase a designer’s speed tenfold. If you happen to be in the market for alternative software, do your research and figure out what your number one priorities are.
Now Leaving Digitopolis
But wait! Computers may be the fastest and most efficient tool to use, especially in the world of web design, but you know what? Sometimes you don’t want to be fast and efficient. Sometimes you want to let a design simmer slowly over a low fire, stirring it occasionally with your spoon until all the flavors meld together in an exploding cacophony of deliciousness.
What I mean with all the food metaphors (besides the fact that I might just be really hungry) is, perhaps you’re one of those designers who think better off the computer than on it. Computer screens are made up of billions of little glowing pixels, and staring at one for hours on end can be draining on not just your eyes, but your creativity as well. Paper and other non-digital surfaces don’t have that problem.
There are plenty of designers – yes, even web designers – who take the hand-crafted approach to assembling their work. Paper, cloth, yarn, and yes, even food, can be used as tools in your design arsenal.
Canadian designer Marian Bantjes, for example, continues to create a stir with her unique designs that feature sugar, tinfoil, fake fur, glitter, flowers, and other unconventional materials.
Choose Your Weapon
Remember, choosing the right tools, just like choosing the right wooden spoon in the kitchen, is a completely personal process. You can listen to someone else rave about the wonders of one tool versus another, but at the end of the day, it’s just a tool.
The decision is yours and yours alone, and a tool can only go so far in helping you with your working process. It can’t create the work for you, nor can it improve any weaknesses you have in terms of technical skill or design sensibility.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with eschewing the computer, even if it’s only for a little while, in favor of a more experimental approach. The great thing about experimenting is that you can take bits and pieces of the stuff that worked and add it to your regular design process to put a new spin on things.
So, if you really want to play around with paper and scissors and glue for your next project, go for it. As long as you solve the problem put in front of you by your client, it won’t matter how you got there.
Your client will most likely be impressed by your individuality and willingness to take risks, which, if you play your cards right, could lead to more challenging and higher-paying work in the future.
So dig around in the toolbox. Try them all. See what works best for you, and what will become your own personal “wooden spoon” standard for finding solutions to design problems.
For the record, though, a heavy, olive-wood spoon with a long handle and a rounded bowl (not too large) is as close to cooking tool heaven as you can get. According to this cook, that is. Bon appétit!
Bringing you fresh colors in the admin, simpler interactions in the editor, and controls right where you need them, WordPress 5.7 lets you focus on the content you create.
Meet “Esperanza”, the first WordPress release of 2021. “Esperanza” is named in honor of Esperanza Spalding, a modern musical prodigy. Her path as a musician is varied and inspiring—learn more about her and give her music a listen!
With this new version, WordPress brings you fresh colors. The editor helps you work in a few places you couldn’t before without getting into code or hiring a pro. The controls you use most are right where you need them. Layout changes that should be simple, are even simpler to make.
Now the new editor is easier to use
Font-size adjustment in more places: now, font-size controls are right where you need them in the List and Code blocks. No more trekking to another screen to make that single change!
Reusable blocks: several enhancements make reusable blocks more stable and easier to use. And now they save automatically with the post when you click the Update button.
Inserter drag-and-drop: drag blocks and block patterns from the inserter right into your post.
You can do more without writing custom code
Full-height alignment: have you ever wanted to make a block, like the Cover block, fill the whole window? Now you can.
Buttons block: now you can choose a vertical or a horizontal layout. And you can set the width of a button to a preset percentage.
Social Icons block: now you can change the size of the icons.
A simpler default color palette
This new streamlined color palette collapses all the colors that used to be in the WordPress source code down to seven core colors and a range of 56 shades that meet the WCAG 2.0 AA recommended contrast ratio against white or black.
Find the new palette in the default WordPress Dashboard color scheme, and use it when you’re building themes, plugins, or any other components. For all the details, check out the Color Palette dev note.
From HTTP to HTTPS in a single click
Starting now, switching a site from HTTP to HTTPS is a one-click move. WordPress will automatically update database URLs when you make the switch. No more hunting and guessing!
New Robots API
The new Robots API lets you include the filter directives in the robots meta tag, and the API includes the max-image-preview: large directive by default. That means search engines can show bigger image previews, which can boost your traffic (unless the site is marked not-public).
Lazy-load your iFrames
Now it’s simple to let iframes lazy-load. By default, WordPress will add a loading="lazy" attribute to iframe tags when both width and height are specified.
Ongoing cleanup after update to jQuery 3.5.1
For years jQuery helped make things move on the screen in ways the basic tools couldn’t—but that keeps changing, and so does jQuery.
In 5.7, jQuery gets more focused and less intrusive, with fewer messages in the console.
Check the Field Guide for more!
Check out the latest version of the WordPress Field Guide. It highlights developer notes for each change you may want to be aware of. WordPress 5.7 Field Guide.
The Squad
The WordPress 5.7 release comes to you from a small and experienced release squad:
This release is the reflection of the hard work of 481 generous volunteer contributors. Collaboration occurred on nearly 250 tickets on Trac and over 950 pull requests on GitHub.
It’s an email that no on running Google Ads wants to receive: Your Account is suspended. Emails made to look like they are coming from Google are being sent in an effort to try to trick you into giving up your Google Account details. They’re phishing emails, and they can be pretty convincing.
I got one of these Google Ads account suspension emails today, and I have to admit that the email looks pretty convincing. Except that the email address it was sent to is not associated with a Google Ads account, so I knew it was a fake email. It took me a minute to discover how the sender of the emails is trying to trick the user into giving up their account details–but I finally found it. Let’s take a look at this particular email, the screen capture is above.
The email address the email comes from is “Ads@Google.com”. They have formatted it in a pretty convincing way, as well. So, it does look like it potentially came from Google. I have never received a ‘valid” “your account is suspended” email from Google, as I have never had one of my Google Ad accounts suspended. But, they do seem to give a random account number, and the “Circumventing Systems” and “submit an appeal” is, in fact a link. But they use the # symbol in those links, so it looks like a link but it doesn’t go anywhere. It’s not clickable.
The only ‘valid’ link is the “here” link, which goes to the phisher’s website, which I assume looks like Google Ads, and a place to log into a Google Account. I didn’t click the link.
So, be very wary of emails that you receive, even though they appear to be sent from a reliable source, such as Google. In this case, if you were to receive such an email. I would go directly to Ads.Google.com rather than clicking on a link in an email. Something like an account suspension is disturbing, so I can see how someone would be more concerned about the suspension and not think that it’s actually a Phishing email sent to them.
As a reminder, I highly recommend that you take advantage of Google’s Advanced Protection program, which provides a lot more account security on your Google Account, even providing a physical key that helps protect your account.
gnupg 1.5.0RC2
* Fixed build with libgpgme 1.3
* Fixed largefile support on 32-bit platforms
* Fixed tests in PECL archive
yaf 3.3.2
- Fixed Memory leak in yaf_loader
- Fixed issue #537 (segfault in macos with 4 bytes length controller name)
- Fixed issue #536 (application.bootstrap not used)
protobuf 3.15.5
New changes in 3.15.5:
* Fixed quadratic memory use in array append (#8379)
couchbase 3.1.1
PCBC-745: throw BadInputException when string cannot be used as CAS
PCBC-746: add tests for transcoding empty value
PCBC-748: fix *Option#expiry() return value in documentation stubs
datadog_trace 0.56.0
### Added
- Add randomized testing to test hundreds of different scenarios #1131
- Add configured http headers to root span #1154
- Add the possibility to freeze a regression in a specific randomized tests scenario #1153
### Changed
- Remove non php7 code from ext/php7 folder #1162
- Remove non php5 code from ext/php5 folder #1164
### Fixed
- Add missing dependency on curl extension for PHP 8 #1144 (Thanks @remicollet!)
- Fix initialization of `curl_multi_init()` for distributed tracing #1159
- Add comment to long running example for method instead of function #1149
- Fix linting + xfail a flaky test #1147
- Update links in README.md to configuration and OT docs #1069
- Fix clang-format installation after circleci image update to buster #1141
APCu 5.1.20
- Fix deadlocks when other apcu_* functions are used inside apcu_entry(). It should now be safe to use any functions inside the apcu_entry() callback.
- Fix division by zero exception in apc.php.
- Fix handling of references in PHP 8 if "default" serializer is used (which is not the default).
- Fix string reuse handling if "default" serializer is used (which is not the default).
- Check for failures when acquiring read locks to report problems earlier (write locks were already checked previously).
- Adjust tests for current PHP 8.1 development branch.
- Remove *_api.h headers. Use apc_cache.h instead of apc_cache_api.h etc.
LuaSandbox 4.0.0
- Add docbook documentation (for php.net)
- Flag optional and variadic parameters properly for PHP reflection
- Remove memory leaks in data_conversion.c
- Drop PHP5 and HHVM compatibility
- Add PHP 8 support
- Windows compilation fixes
protobuf 3.15.4
New changes in 3.15.4:
* read_property() handler is not supposed to return NULL (#8362)
WordPress is open source software, maintained by a global network of contributors. There are many examples of how WordPress has changed people’s lives for the better. In this monthly series, we share some of the amazing stories that are lesser-known.
From a natural interest in computers and fixing things as a young woman, Olga Gleckler from St Petersburg, Russia, found WordPress took her on a journey to becoming a successful female tech entrepreneur. On International Women’s Day, we share her story.
Finding your path can take longer than you expect
From the age of 15, Olga found herself under pressure to find a free place for her professional studies. She said: “I didn’t know how high or low my chances were even if I had very good marks. I could have been just the biggest fish in a small pond. But anyway, I made up my mind to go to technical school.”
On leaving school in St Petersburg with her certificate, Olga felt her knowledge of opportunities was very narrow. She had pictured being an ecologist or guide translator based on the subjects she had been taught at school. There was also an advertising boom in Russia and she began to explore this as a career avenue. She had developed her computer skills and found opportunities to practise by helping her teachers with administrative work.
Though she did not have access to any formal career advice, her journey led her into programming. She said: “The range of technical schools was not wide. I spent four years studying transistor markings, soldering and drawing PCB layouts. Programming courses using Pascal didn’t do anything useful with it.”
A lack of suitable access to English-language courses made things harder for Olga. She was determined that she would master the language later in her life. In the meantime, she left technical school with an honors degree and improved typing skills.
“I faced it was a wild, unfriendly market. I didn’t know how to recognize a genuine job offer or how to avoid the bad ones. It was difficult and I don’t know how long I would’ve looked for work without help.”
Think differently to find where you belong
Olga’s father worked in an IT company and was able to give her some advice and help with potential introductions. When she was still studying, he suggested her strong technical skills might be useful as a substitute typist. When she finished her studies, he helped her apply for a job updating a legal system on clients’ computers.
Six months later, she got a full-time job in the same service department. She liked her position and her clients. However, she was given friendly advice that without a university degree she would not be able to have any further promotions.
At this time, Olga was trying to study PHP from a book. She found it very exciting at first, but a lot of their functions did not give her explanations on how to build something useful. She found when she tried to build practical items from book reading, it did not always make sense and the solutions would often fail.
She said: “It was hard to admit a failure even to myself and it was nagging me for a long time. I had to choose something I could handle, that I was interested in and could afford. It turned out to be advertising.”
She spent most of the family’s holidays on learning sessions during the next six years. Olga recalled: “It was tricky for my husband to make me leave a computer, once I was glued to it, so he bought me my first laptop. English was still hard for me, I got high marks through just memorizing all the words in a textbook and how they should sound.”
Doubting your professional skills can happen when you are at home isolated looking after children. Keeping up your interests is important.
Olga’s life took a change after having a new baby and she spent three years doubting her professional skills and her chances of getting a good job. She tried to get back into other interests through studying, baking and drawing, but found ‘the pram was pulling me back’. She found she became very isolated and felt less able to contribute as the family was relying on her husband’s income as she tried to focus on looking forward.
She said: “I was convinced (and saw) that not too many companies wanted a woman in the office, who with a small baby might need lots of leave.”
She finished her education when she returned to work after three years caring for her son. She secured a promotion but with changes in the company’s staffing, things were tense. She found the difficulties there had become more heightened and felt that young female colleagues were treated as ‘pieces of furniture’ by one manager. She did not want to stay in this environment and in a few months time decided to leave.
Your next chapter may be nearby
Determined to not repeat this type of experience, Olga looked at the brighter side. She said: “I wanted to be a marketer. Knowing how tricky it is to sell intangibles, I wanted a solid product to work with.”
It turned out to be more difficult to find a job outside traditional IT as a young mother. Some human resource officers advised her to remain within the technology arena.
Olga remained hopeful and continued to study hard. She had many learning experiences along the way, which she hopes others can learn from too. One was setting a low bar to employers. She said: “Companies I worked in wanted to get all publicity and sales increases achieved through deductions from my salary.” This happened once and the next time she was in this situation she asked specifically about the budget before signing up. “I was assured this would not be the case, but again I found the budget for publicity came out of my wages. It was a tough period of disappointments. So when I was offered a part-time administrative job with basic sick leave, I took it gladly as a reprieve.”
The job was far from home and involved a lot of travelling. Olga spent two to three hours a day on buses with Harry Potter audio books for company. “In these traffic jams, I started to feel English at last and loved it. It gave me a freedom no money can buy. Life was getting better.”
Though the job did not pay highly, it gave her something valuable – a working website. After her boss and the developer parted company, she was asked to maintain the site. Through some studying and reverse engineering, she discovered how it worked and it gave her an insight into how to write simple websites from scratch.
Olga’s first encounter with JavaScript wasn’t easy: “My first JavaScript calculator almost made me crazy, but I pursued it.”
Quickly she started to get small tasks from friends and relatives, usually to solve some urgent problems and started to meet popular content management systems. One of the first she met with was WordPress. There was an issue in a website theme used by a website which had been changed and not maintained. It took a whole weekend to solve, but she was determined to work it out. Back then, WordPress was ‘just a system’. She didn’t know then how much it was to become part of her life.
Olga spent the next two years in this role. As time went on, she started to feel worried and less satisfied with the work. The last straw for her was a negative statement from her boss, who was not a programmer and who hadn’t seen any of the work done on the website. She felt the approach was unfair as she had done extensive work on the site. She recalls: “I became angry, but it was exactly what I needed to move jobs.”
When Olga was job hunting, she didn’t feel she had the courage to apply for a developer’s role, despite the learning and work she had already done. So instead she started working on projects where she felt she was more like a ‘seller of box-ready websites’. It was another tough half a year for her with a lot of work, low payment and plans not turning out as she had hoped. On top of long hours, she ended up with pneumonia. She said: “I see now that I was doing a disservice to customers, websites are not a microwave meal – quick, cheap and dummy. There was no life in the sites without a lot of work which no one was willing to buy. Most of the sites I sold back then died after the first year and they never were truly alive and useful.”
You need to be brave and have courage
Olga really wanted a developer job but seeking jobs of this type was very frustrating. From the job adverts she found, it felt like most IT companies were asking for geniuses who already knew a lot of technologies and frameworks. She found this very demotivating.
She then found a job offer on a website outside the most popular job portals and it seemed like a perfect fit. They wanted someone with experience to write from scratch, understand someone else’s code and maintain it, with an ability to translate technical documentation and articles, and make simple designs for printing products. After completing a trial task, she was taken on, and enjoyed a better salary, in a calm environment with good colleagues and without the requirement for a lot of extra hours.
The advert turned out to be a direct ad from one of the sales departments in a technology company. By succeeding in the task set, Olga had bypassed the Human Resources team which she felt would not normally have considered her.
Her boss agreed to her working remotely most of the time. It solved any potential leave problems which Olga had thought may be an obstacle.
For Olga it had been 14 years since the original decision to become a programmer and it was only the beginning.
After a few years at what she describes as an ‘amazing experience’ in this workplace, Olga felt able to move on to her next challenge as a developer.
Decision-making can benefit from wider knowledge
After working with different systems Olga became sure that WordPress is the best CMS for developers and clients. But she was disappointed to find that the ease of use meant that good code was not always a priority for some of the sites she looked at.
“The biggest flaw of WordPress – it’s so easy to make things work that some may feel they don’t need to bother to do things right, but this becomes a problem later.”
In custom themes for a site, she also saw sites being made and clients left without any further support, or items hard coded when clients actually needed more control to change regularly.
Olga used to rely on examples she could easily find, documentation and search engines to improve her understanding in using WordPress. She discovered that just by searching for a specific feature or a solution, you can miss the whole picture.
She turned to online courses to get more comprehensive knowledge and then started to attend WordPress events, firstly online and then by foot, trains and planes! She discovered a worldwide community that was very much alive. She didn’t know when she started studying online materials and attending discussions that she would end up contributing herself to the Learn WordPress platform a few years later.
WordCamps and contributor days became a big part of her life. From her early days attending events and starting out contributing to WordPress, she is an active member of the WordPress.org Global Marketing and Polyglots Teams, and supported the recent WordPress release. She is just beginning her first WordCamp organiser experience, joining WordCamp Europe 2021 on the Contribute Team.
Olga said: “Through the wider WordPress community, I knew not only where to look but also whom to ask. Most importantly, I found allies who don’t think I’m going crazy by speaking with delight about work, and with whom I share a passion and fondness for WordPress. This is what matters.
“Now, after more than seven years of full time development, I am still enjoying endless learning, frequent discoveries, mistakes and an impassioned wish to do better.”
This and a desire to help others use WordPress.org is part of Olga’s continued contribution to its Support and Marketing Teams, and led her to be involved in the Release Marketing questions and answers in 2020.
There is no chequered flag on the way
The road to freedom and becoming her own boss has not been easy for Olga. It is the path that got her where she is today, and she continues to find joy in it. She retains the lessons she’s learned and is always hungry to learn more.
“I travelled through a very uneven path, with a lot of obstacles and noise, but for me it’s like a kaleidoscope where a little turn presents a new picture, a new “ah-ha” moment, new excitement after seemingly pointless efforts.”
She added: “When in doubt I remind myself about David Ogilvy (generally considered the Founding Father of the modern advertising industry) who tried a lot of things before he struck gold with advertising, and maybe that’s why he did.”
Finally, she learned not only to keep a good spirit and try different things, but also to dare as you move forward.
This post is based on an article originally published on HeroPress.com, a community initiative created by Topher DeRosia. It highlights people in the WordPress community who have overcome barriers and whose stories would otherwise go unheard.
Growth is among the most desirable goals for any web design business. Whether you’re a freelancer or an agency, it’s likely that you’ll want to become bigger and more profitable over time.
It takes a lot of planning and hard work to get there. And your business will continue to evolve all the while. Things such as pricing, workflow and ideal projects will change along with you.
One thing you may not expect with that growth is the continued pull of your legacy clients. Those who you’ve worked with for years and have long been a part of your journey.
For these folks, you’re not necessarily that big-time web designer. To them, you’re a trusted source of information and maybe even like a member of the family. You’re the person they call on year after year.
While that’s a great thing, it may also feel as though you’re stuck between the future and your past. These longtime clients may still expect things to work the way they always have, even if it doesn’t fit with your current business model.
So, how can you keep old friends happy while forging ahead? Here are some tips to help you manage.
The Web Designer Toolbox
Unlimited Downloads: 1,000,000+ Web Templates, Themes, Plugins, Design Assets, and much more!
The first challenge is to look at what role a particular client plays in your business. For example, are they considered vital? If they left today, would your revenue suffer?
You might also think in terms of the services you provide them. Are they using a content management system (CMS) that you specialize in? Is their website outdated and difficult to maintain?
If the client in question fits seamlessly with what you’re doing, awesome! But even if they don’t, take a moment and consider what it would take for the relationship to change in a mutually-beneficial way.
Sometimes, this is the perfect segue into a redesign or some other shift in services. It brings your client in line with your preferred practices and may spark a renewed energy. This is also a great way to bring in some extra money.
A client/designer relationship can often stagnate simply because there’s not enough communication. This can quickly change with a little initiative on your part.
Of course, not everyone will take you up on the offer. But it can’t hurt to ask.
Adjust the Rules Where Necessary
The way you worked even a few years ago may be vastly different than today. For example, maybe you weren’t quite as busy back then. Thus, a client could email or call anytime with a request. Now, you’re so swamped that you have implemented a ticket system. If only everyone was on board.
These types of changes can be difficult for clients to grasp. Not because they necessarily want to be troublemakers. Rather, they’re likely so used to working with you in a certain way that policy changes don’t show up on their radar. They pick up the phone because that’s what they’ve always done.
For designers, the problem is that you end up different rules for different people. Maybe your most profitable client uses the ticket system, but the smallest insists on taking up more of your time. That’s not really fair to anyone.
Here’s where some gentle reminders can make a positive impact. The hope is that, once a client uses your new process a time or two, they’ll be comfortable enough to keep on doing so.
If they still don’t get the hint, well, you’ll have to make a decision. Is it worth a battle or do you just live with it? Only you can answer for certain.
Stick to Your Current Pricing Structure
The longer you have been in business, the more likely it is that your pricing structure will have changed. This will have the biggest impact on longtime clients, as they’ve gone through those different phases with you.
What? You haven’t raised prices on them? It’s understandable. Sometimes we allow clients to stick with older pricing as a way to say “thank you”. Or perhaps we don’t want to deal with the anticipated blowback for doing so.
Except in very special circumstances, it’s a bad idea to provide deep discounts or failing to raise rates accordingly. It’s not only tough on your bank account, but it can be mentally frustrating as well. You’ll likely dread any work from a client who is paying half or three-quarters the rate of all the rest.
This isn’t your client’s fault. They’re simply paying what you’re charging them. It’s ultimately up to you to ensure that everyone’s paying the current rate across the board.
In the end, this will help you maintain a healthy relationship. You’ll feel like you’re being compensated fairly and that your hard work is appreciated. And clients are usually willing to pay that extra premium for someone they can trust.
Should You Bring Longtime Clients Along for the Ride?
The reality is that, as your business changes, not every existing client is going to be a perfect fit for where you are right now. To paraphrase an old saying: you can’t fit a square peg into a round hole.
That’s why it’s important to look at each client’s status within your portfolio. It’s an opportunity to figure out which relationships are working, along with those that aren’t. From there, you can try and make improvements where possible.
Ultimately, some clients may not come along for the ride. That’s OK – it’s part of the natural evolution of a business.
Then again, you might be surprised at how flexible some clients are. With a little communication, they could be with you now and well into the future.
What is a UX designer? And what is UX design? Jaci from the Interactive team will answer those questions and more in this video.
Transcript: Imagine you walk by a store and a very cool display catches your eye. You go inside, only to discover that the store is impossible to navigate. You’re not sure in which direction you can walk, there are racks blocking the aisles, and, for some reason, the cash register is in the bathroom.
And it’s broken.
I’m guessing if this store actually existed, it would close pretty quickly because it creates a poor experience for its customers.
Similar to a chaotic store, careless web design can end up hurting your business. If your website doesn’t look great, is difficult to navigate, or doesn’t work the way it should, people will go elsewhere.
This is where I tell you that you can prevent people from leaving your site. In this video, I’m going to go over how you can create a website with user experience (UX) in mind. I’ll cover:
UX design is a principle of good web design that focuses on how to create a website that works well for users.
The end goal of UX design is that you’ll have a great product that looks nice, is structured well, functions properly, and keeps people coming back.
I guess that’s more than one goal…
In addition, good UX can help your website show up in search engines. If your site works well, you’ll likely be able to keep people on it longer. If people don’t quickly return to the search engine results, this is a signal that your site offers something valuable.
Your website may be pretty on the outside, but if it’s difficult to navigate when you look a little closer, your designer was not focused on UX.
People don’t only access your website from a desktop computer. In fact, there’s a chance you’re watching this video from your phone. Am I right?
Tablets, smartphones, laptops, desktops…people have plenty of options when they’re surfing the web. If your website doesn’t respond to different devices, it’s bound to lose traffic to competing websites that do adapt.
So if your website gets cut off on tablets, or is significantly slower on mobile, it’s time to make adjustments. Your UX designer can handle that.
Usability
Think of usability as getting your site visitors from point A to point B with little to no issues.
Say you have a short paragraph of text on your website encouraging people to contact you, and you’ve linked to a page with a contact form within the text of that paragraph.
With usability in mind, it may be better to have your contact form directly below that paragraph or add a noticeable button that directs people to your contact page.
While you may think it’s common sense for people to click the link in the text, another person may miss that link or get confused and wander aimlessly through your pages.
Your UX designer should throw all assumptions out the window when updating your website.
Navigation
If people can’t find what they need on your website, they’re going to get frustrated. Frustrated site visitors likely won’t become customers.
A UX designer will organize the structure of your website so that it’s as simple as possible for people to find their way across your site.
You may notice that many websites have a large navigation menu at the top of every page so people can hop to different sections. This is a great way to keep your site organized and keep people from losing their way.
Design
It’s not 2005 anymore. Websites need to look good.
Let me ask you this. If you landed on a website that looked like it was made when dial-up was considered groundbreaking, would you trust it?
Good design can help communicate your brand and can help people feel more comfortable navigating your content. A UX designer will keep this in mind when working on your website.
You don’t want your design to be too distracting, but you want it to be eye-catching enough that people want to stay on your site.
We’re almost done here, but I just want to talk about one more thing related to UX design: user interface (UI) design.
93% of customers are
extremely satisfed
with their digital marketing results
"WebFX has consistently driven more customers to my business year over year. It continues to climb. I'm very happy!”
As I mentioned, UX is a way of designing that incorporates people’s needs and behaviors.
UI, on the other hand, is just a portion of UX.
I can best explain this using a smartphone.
So when you use your phone, you interact with the interface. Things like apps, a search bar, and the design of the home screen all make up the UI.
The UX includes the interface, but it doesn’t stop there. Things like the phone’s physical design, the home button (or not), the power button, and the headphone jack (or not) can all be considered part of the UX.
So both UI and UX are important, but UX is a more all-inclusive term for things that users interact with.
Either way, UX design is incredibly important for your website. If you don’t think your website creates a good experience for visitors, it may be time to partner with a UX designer.
Our team of designers knows how to create websites that people love, so don’t hesitate to contact our team by phone, or through webfx.com.
Before you watch the next viral video, subscribe to our YouTube channel and Revenue Weekly, our email newsletter, for the latest in digital marketing.
