STARTING A WEBSITE IN 2016: WHAT OPTIONS DO YOU HAVE?From Wix to Drupal and Everything in Between

2Choosing a Site-Building Platform in 2016

Table of Contents

5 STATS THAT PROVE WEBSITES ARE COOL PAGE 3

CREATING A WEBSITE PAGE 4

SITE BUILDERS PAGE 6

HOSTED PUBLISHING PLATFORMS PAGE 9

CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS PAGE 10

E-COMMERCE PLATFORMS PAGE 13

TEMPLATE MARKETS PAGE 14

WEB DESIGN STUDIOS PAGE 17

THE BOTTOM LINE PAGE 18

ABOUT TEMPLATE MONSTER PAGE 19

SOURCES PAGE 20

3Choosing a Site-Building Platform in 2016

5 Stats that Prove Websites Are CoolHave you ever thought about starting an online business? Maybe you feel like writing for the Web, or you have some awesome stuff to showcase? Or maybe, you want to promote a project, an event, or anything else? In any of these cases, a site is the best place to start.

But wait, can’t you do all of these things with social networks? After all, it’s 2016 and even your grandma is on Facebook. As a matter of fact, social networks are a big deal. Still, a website is a must-have if you’re planning to build a meaningful online presence. Here are five stats that prove this:

Do you want to be heard? 329,000,000 people read blog posts and leave 400,000 comments daily.

Want to find new customers? More than 39% of Internet users have purchased something online.

Millennials spend 82% of their shopping time online.

In average, 80% of daily visits to a blog are new. Think about this in terms of brand awareness.

It is possible for a business blog to grow big within a year. Once you write from 24 to 51 posts, your traffic will jump by up to 30%.

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5 Stats that Prove Websites Are Cool

4Choosing a Site-Building Platform in 2016

Creating a Website: What Are Your Options?

• Site Buildersusevisualeditorsanddrag-and-droptoolstohelpyoudesignwebsiteswithoutwritingasinglelineofcode.

• WordPress.comandsimilarHosted Platformsofferready-madewebsiteswhiletaking

careofhosting,updates,SEO,security,andothertasks.

• Content-Management Systems(orCMSs)areframeworksontopofwhichyoucan

installstandardorcustom-builtwebsitedesigns(akatemplatesorthemes).

• E-Commerce PlatformsdevelopproprietaryCMSs,plugins,andcloudsolutionstailored

forbusinesses.

• Template Marketsareonlineresourceswhereyoucanbuyreadymadewebsitetem-

plates.ThetwobiggestmarketplacesofthiskindareTemplateMonster(yep,that’susJ)

andThemeForest.

• Web Design Studiosenableyoutogetcustom-designedwebsitesofanytype.

Wix

WordPress

Magento

Websites are great for entrepreneurs, creative minds and virtually anyone who has something meaningful to share with the public. What’s more important, launching a website is easy. Below is a short list of the popular site-building options available for non-developers:

CreatingaWebsite:WhatAreYourOptions?

5Choosing a Site-Building Platform in 2016 CreatingaWebsite:TheBlurredLine

Creating a Website: The Blurred Line

Notethatthelinebetweensitebuilders,CMSs,hostedplatforms,andothersolutionsisablurredone.SomeplatformslikeSquarespaceorMotoCMScombinevisualeditorswithCMSs,andcompaniesbehindCMSsoftenactaspublishingplatforms(thinkWordPress.comvsWordPress.org).Besides,templatemarketsdevelopsolutionsforsitebuilders,hostedplatforms,orcontentmanagementsystems.

Still,differenttoolsofferdifferentfunctionality,andtheirusedependsonthetypeofawebsitethatyouareplanningtolaunch.Readfurthertolearnmoreabouteveryoption.

6Choosing a Site-Building Platform in 2016

Site Builders: An Overview of Three BrandsSite builders let you pick a basic readymade website and expand it with simple drag-and-drop tools. This way, you can easily add, remove, and rearrange site components or alter colors, images, and fonts. Tools of this kind cater to end-users, which means you need no coding skills at all to use a site builder.

Let’s compare three popular brands and see how site builders differ from one another.

WIX

Squarespace

With over 77 million customers and 45,000 new users joining the platform every day, Wix holds an unofficial status of a site-building juggernaut. Feature-wise, these are the things you need to take into account:

Squarespace markets itself as something more than just an ordinary site builder. The company combines a site-building tool, a CMS, and a blogging platform in a comprehensive solution with the following features:

• 500+ expandable templates and 250+ web apps that you can integrate into your site;

• you need to use a dedicated tool to edit the mobile version of your website;

• you can’t switch to a new design without having to actually rebuild the site.

• 28 templates with mobile versions available right out of the box;

• template switching supported for cover page templates;

• CSS editor for more advanced users.

Site Builders: An Overview of Three Brands

7Choosing a Site-Building Platform in 2016 Site Builders: An Overview of Three Brands

Weebly

Weebly is more streamlined, yet it offers fewer advanced features than its competitors. There are no newsletter templates, and Weebly’s photo editing toolkit might seem a tad limiting to some users. Other features of this site builder include:

• 24 basic responsive themes that you can alter at any point;

• site importing and exporting supported;

• the site editor lacks “undo” functionality.

8Choosing a Site-Building Platform in 2016

Site Builders: The Basic FeaturesJust like any other tech company, every site builder strives to offer something unique to its customers. Yet, tools of this type also share lots of common features. Have a look at the infographic below to learn about them.

Bottom Line

Site builders have virtually no learning curve which makes them great for small personal sites. Yet, tools of this kind start to seem limiting if you're aiming for complex, expandable functionality. Besides, they don’t give you full control over your site. For this reason, you won't find many professional websites crafted with site builders.

SITE BUILDERS

Core Features

Wix Weebly

Squarespace Jimbo

Strikingly

Easy-to-Use Editors

Visual and drag'n'droptools provide

a coding-free userexperience

• Beginner-friendly• Great for DIY-minded people• Suitable for small personal

websites

• Over-simplistic and inflexible• Restricting in terms of hosting

and site management• Suboptimal for professional projects

Online site builders typically come bundled with site

hosting and domain name registration services

You can start with a basic theme instead

of having to design your site from scratch

Domain Name & Hosting Themes

Yola

Site Builders Are:Pros Cons

Site Builders: The Basic Features

9Choosing a Site-Building Platform in 2016

Hosted Publishing Platforms: WordPress.com

The Lego-like experience that comes with visual site builders is fun, but some people find it way too minimalistic. Do you feel the same way about Wix or Weebly? If that’s the case, you should give hosted publishing platforms a try.

Hosted Publishing Platforms: WordPress.com

Chances are, you’ve heard about websites hosted at WordPress.com. This platform provides a solid foundation for your site, yet it still manages to keep things simple.

As in the case of Wix or other site builders, you also start with a readymade theme. However, the themes available at WordPress.com are better suited for larger, more complex projects:

WordPress.com Websites

Key Features

Content Sites Portfolios Company Sites E-Commerce

Hosting & DomainStats & Analytics

Updates & BackupsSecurity & Support

WeaknessesStrengths

• blogs;• news websites

• All tech details are handled for you;• Hundreds of readymade themes;• Fewer security risks

• Limited control over your site;• No third-party themes or plugins;• Limited e-commerce functionality

• designers;• photographers;• musicians;• etc

• restaurants;• beauty salons;• offline services;• etc

• small onlinestores;

• sites with addede-commercefunctionality

10Choosing a Site-Building Platform in 2016

More control:

Fewer expenses:

E-commerce:

Third-party themes and plugins:

No platform dependencies:

Content Management Systems: WordPress.orgA standalone CMS is the way to go if you aim at building a full-fledged professional website. Over 43% of all sites are CMS-based, and about 59% of them use WordPress CMS – the content management system that powers WordPress.com. That's almost 26% of the total number of the world's websites.

More importantly, only a part of WordPress sites are hosted at WordPress.com. Another option is to download a free official copy of the open-source CMS from WordPress.org and use it for a site hosted elsewhere.

In fact, some webmasters insist self-hosted WordPress is a better option, even though it implies more challenges. Here are the advantages of this approach:

you’re free to tinker with virtually any aspect of your website;

with standalone WordPress CMS, you can find cheaper hosting and domain registration options;

with WordPress.com, e-commerce is only available if you sign up for WordPress.com Business plan which costs $299 a year. There are no such limitations with self-hosted WordPress.

you can choose from thousands of third-party templates, themes, and plugins or have a custom one developed for you;

with a self-hosted website, your business doesn’t depend on the provider of the site-building solution;

Content Management Systems: WordPress.org

11Choosing a Site-Building Platform in 2016

Joomla Drupal

Being the third most popular CMS, Drupal covers 2,2% of world’s websites. There are a couple of points to consider if you compare this CMS to its competitors:

With only 2,6% of world’s websites based on Joomla, this CMS really lags behind WordPress. Still, Joomla benefits from a huge community of both users and developers. Here are the things you need to know about Joomla:

Content Management Systems: Joomla and DrupalWordPress is an undisputed leader when it comes to CMSs. Yet, it isn’t the only available option. Joomla and Drupal are the two major WordPress alternatives that thousands of webmasters use for their websites.

Content Management Systems: Joomla and Drupal

• similarly to WordPress, Joomla has

a managed platform available

at Joomla.com, along with

the standalone CMS;

• you can add new functionality

with extensions (there are over

7500 extensions available at Joomla.org);

• the general belief is that Joomla is a bit

harder to use, yet more flexible than

WordPress.

• Drupal started as a framework that was

more difficult to implement, yet faster,

more powerful, secure, and scalable than

WordPress or Joomla;

• historically, webmasters chose Drupal

for more sophisticated and heavy-loaded

projects;

• the recently launched Drupal 8 aims

to make Drupal more beginner-

friendly.

12Choosing a Site-Building Platform in 2016

Content Management Systems: Challenges and BenefitsAs you might’ve noticed, the companies behind the world’s biggest CMSs (like WordPress and Joomla) enable their users to choose from two options:

• a readymade hosting solution,• a self-hosted website based on a free copy of a CMS.

The same is true for some smaller publishing platforms / CMSs like Ghost. The question is which option to choose. To find an answer, think about the challenges that come with self-hosted CMS-based websites.

As we’ve mentioned before, hosted publishing platforms take care of such tasks as domain registration, hosting, CMS updates, security, and backups. If you choose a self-hosted website, you’ll have to do all of these things yourself.

This might seem like a chore, but the advantages provided by self-hosted sites can actually be worth the extra work. There are practical perks like a wider choice of plugins, a chance to find more reasonably-priced hosting options, and the ability to tinker with your site’s code in case you need to. Moreover, by using third-party or custom-made designs, you can make a site that is truly yours.

Content Management Systems: Challenges and Benefits

13Choosing a Site-Building Platform in 2016

E-Commerce Platforms: a CMS AlternativeWant to start an online store? In this case, a general-purpose CMS might be... well, too general-purpose for you. Why not have a look at a Magento, PrestaShop, or other dedicated e-commerce platforms instead?

E-Commerce Platforms: a CMS Alternative

In a nutshell, most e-commerce platforms are CMSs tailored to meet the needs of entrepreneurs and e-businesses. Below is a gist of what functionality you can expect from Magento or similar platforms:

Products & Catalogues

Checkout

Customer Accounts

Marketing & Promotion

Order Management

Client Management

Payment & Pricing

Shopping Carts

Shipping

• up-sells and cross-sells;• related products;• multiple product veiw;• product images;• product reviews;• product tags;• catalog browsing

• guest checkout;• one-page checkout

• account dashboard;• wishlists;• address book;• feature-rich customer

accounts

• landing pages;• newsletter campaigns;• coupon generation and

management;• customer groups;• analytics and reporting;• multi-channel promotion

• order tracking;• re-orders creation;• order editing;• order history

• contact us forms;• orders and account

update emails;• client reviews

moderation

• Pay-Pal integration;• multi-tier priсing (for

discount programs);• multiple currencies

support;• tax and shipping

estimates;• credit cards and offline

payments

• configurable shopping carts;

• shopping cart saving

• addess management;• multiple shipping

methods

Features of E-Commerce Platforms

14Choosing a Site-Building Platform in 2016

Website Installation, Hosting, and Other Services

Added Functionality

Licensed Media Content

Industry-Centric Templates

When buying a template from some marketplaces, you can have your site installed, hosted, and even filled with content.

The extra features available via plugins come built-in with template frameworks. This way, you won’t waste time searching for a particular plugin.

Images and illustrations that you can see in template’s demos often come as part of your purchase.

Website solutions from top marketplaces cater to specific businesses and organizations: construction companies, photo studios, restaurants, pet shops, theaters, etc.

Template Markets: a Comprehensive SolutionRemember how we’ve mentioned that standalone CMSs are more difficult to use than hosted solutions? Luckily, there is always a way to make things easier for end-users. With template marketplaces, building a professional CMS-based website is easy as a pie.

Template markets offer a bunch of services and solutions that facilitate every step of website creation: from choosing a design to actually launching and maintaining the site:

What’s more important, template markets offer a great variety of website designs for CMSs, e-commerce solutions, and other platforms.

Template Markets: a Comprehensive Solution

15Choosing a Site-Building Platform in 2016

Template Markets: Things to ConsiderReadymade templates offer the convenience of a hosted platform along with the flexibility of a standalone CMS. Yet, to actually benefit from purchasing a template, you need to make sure you’re buying a high-quality product. To do this, find the answers for the following questions:

Template Markets: Things to Consider

Who Built the Template?

Some marketplaces resell the websites created by third-party party specialists while other resources employ in-house developers and designers. As a rule, the products belonging to the second group are more reliable, yet more expensive.

Is There a Well-Maintained Framework?

CMS Frameworks incorporate handy features enabling customers to alter the template’s appearance or expand its functionality. To make sure that your template will work as intended, make sure it uses an actively-maintained framework.

Is There any Kind of Post-Sale Support?

Find out if the template market uses some kind of technical support or works with a dedicated service provider. If a third-party designer submitted the theme to the marketplace, make sure you will be able to reach them in case you need any assistance.

16Choosing a Site-Building Platform in 2016

Template Markets: Stealing a TemplateIt might be a tad surprising to see this kind of info here, but the option is worth mentioning. You see, just like any other digital product, templates are subject to online piracy. This means you can download an unauthorized copy of a template from torrenting sites or other sources.

Now, you probably know that attitudes towards piracy differ. That’s why we’re not going to tell you that stealing digital content is a bad thing (even though we believe it is). However, there are a couple of practical drawbacks that you need to consider before deciding to use a stolen template for a serious project:

Missing Support Incomplete Solutions Obsolete Products

Installation and hosting services can be critical for novice site owners. It goes without saying that stolen templates get no support from official providers.

The solutions available from torrenting sites may lack essential content or code. In this case, the effort of down-loading them is worthless.

Template markets strive to keep their product range up to date. When down-loading a template, you’re missing out on the latest, future-proof updates.

Template Markets: Stealing a Template

17Choosing a Site-Building Platform in 2016

Web Design Studios: the EssentialsHaving something custom-designed for you sounds like a pleasant thing. So if you’re ready to pay extra, ordering a website from a web design studio may actually prove worthwhile. If you choose this route, be sure to pay attention to a couple of factors:

Web Design Studios: the Essentials

NILA

N360º

FOR BEGINNERSWEB DESIGN

12345

Portfolio Custom CMSs and Platforms

This may seem like an obvious thing to say, but newbies often neglect it. When looking at a studio's portfolio, compare it to standard CMS themes, the products from template markets, and the industry leaders’ websites. This way you will get a deeper insight into the quality of the end-product.

Some developers offer proprietary CMSs or website platforms to their clients. While this may sound like a good idea, chances are the cons will outnumber the pros. For instance, a non-standard platform may turn into a prob-lem if you decide to switch to another provid-er. For this reason, sticking to a well-support-ed platform is a much better option.

18Choosing a Site-Building Platform in 2016

Site Building Solutions: The Bottom LineSo which option should you choose? To sum everything up, have a look at the choice matrix below:

I Wanna Start a Website, NowWhat?

To Showcase My Business

(or non-profit)

To MakeMoney

For personal use

To Post Stuff Online Are you going

to sell stuff?

What For?

Is this a serious project?

You want to actually build

the site, don't you?

Are you ready to pay

above the market rate?

Are you a risky type?

Is professional

design among your top

priorities?

Will you maintain the site

yourself? (Or have someone

do it)

Try Wordpress.com

(or similar platforms)

What you're looking for is a CMS or an E-Commerce platform + a

Custom Theme

Try a WYSIWYG site builder!

Hire a web designer

(or a studio)

What about stealing

a theme?

Nah...

Kinda...Not really

Not really

Nope

Nope

No

Yes

No, I wont

Yes

Yes, it is

Sure!

Aye!

Site Building Solutions: The Bottom Line

19Choosing a Site-Building Platform in 2016

About TemplateMonster

Congrats on making your first step toward starting your own website! Now that you’ve learned about the best site-building options, you probably wonder what makes a truly great website. If you’re aiming at professional design and robust architecture, TemplateMonster’s online store is the best place to start searching for your website solution!

TemplateMonster is the biggest online supermarket of readymade websites. Our team has been crafting websites since 2002, and we have unrivalled expertise in tailoring out products to our customers’ needs. With TemplateMonster, you can have your website installed, hosted, customized, and filled with content. Choose from 26,000 top-notch designs and get your site set up in no time.

About Template Monster

Eli DavisCopywriter at TemplateMonster

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Sources

Images

• A Small Business Owner's Guide to Building an Internet Presence (Forbes)

• Wix vs Squarespace – Which is Better for You? (websitebuilderexpert.com)

• Weebly (pcmag.com)

• WordPress.com and WordPress.org (wordpress.com)

• The $64,000 Question: WordPress.com or WordPress.org? (dailypost.wordpress.com)

• Blogging is an expression of your ideas, you can blog, but look for a better platform(goaprism.com)

• DigitaL, Social & Mobile Worldwide in 2015 (wearesocial.com)

• Why 2015 Might Be Your Best Year for Internet Marketing (blog.kissmetrics.com)

• 13 Blogging Statistics That Show Why You Should Blog (rightmixmarketing.com)

• How Long Does It Truly Take For A Business Blog To Grow Big? (thesaleslion.com)

• How Blogging Can Increase Your Lead Generation by 67% (trafficgenerationcafe.com)

• Wix.com

• Wix.com (wikipedia.org)

• Historical yearly trends in the usage of content management systems for websites(w3techs.com)

• Wordpress.org

• Wordpress.org vs Wordpress.com: a Definitive Guide for 2015 (wpmudev.org)

• Ghost(Pro) vs Self-hosting (ghost.org)

• Magento Features List

• Freepik.com

• Vecteezy.com