Website creation is no longer the privilege of advanced programmers and web studios. It goes without saying that skilled and experienced web designers will always have complicated projects to develop, like web-based supermarkets, news portals or social networks that are quite difficult to handle without having specific niche knowledge. To develop these projects, the joint effort of designers, programmers, testers and other specialists is needed. Websites of this kind are created by professionals.
What about inexperienced users, who need a standard promo website, portfolio, landing page or a blog, for example? Do they need to hire a professional web designer and invest much money into the projects? Well, this can be done in complicated situations.
However, if you are not a brand fashion designer, BMW, Walmart or Starbucks representative etc., then you can go for individual website creation. And you will certainly avail decent result that will feature quality and professional look. How is it possible to reach the goal?
That’s simple: just use a nice website builder that is adapted to solve your task in the best way of website creation possible. You don’t need to possess web design or programming skills to create a great business or personal website nowadays. In other words, any person may become a webmaster today.
No basic HTML/CSS knowledge is needed to use a website builder. Hosting and database settings as well as safety concerns won’t pose a problem to you as well. This is because website builders come with properly adjusted hosting, automatic database creation options, a collection of responsive templates and other notable benefits. You get a full set of features required to create websites without the need to use any technical skills.
To some extent, website builders limit the freedom to edit or manage a website and fill it with specific functionality features. However, if you really wish to do that as well as to manually develop a website from scratch or cope with CMS plugins, then you wouldn’t even have started reading this article.
If you are currently looking for the best answer to the question regarding how to create a personal website without specific skills, then you have come to the right place. In this post, we are going to give the answer to this question by means of reviewing four interesting services, namely SITE123, uKit, Mobirise and Ucraft. They are a decent alternative to hiring professional web developers.
By using any of these platforms, you will get everything you need to solve your current tasks these services are adapted to. What do they include? To answer this question, let’s have a closer look at each website builder so that you could decide, which of them works best for you.
SITE123
The service is meant to create promo websites, landing pages, blogs and small online stores. It’s quite convenient to design websites of this type here and you don’t need any special knowledge to do that. That’s an ideal option for a newbie.
You can select a thematic template, its structure and set up all the required blocks (their quantity, positions, design, content). Visual editor of the service differs a bit from that of other similar website builders. All the changes are made in the sidebar settings of a certain block or a website. You won’t be able to edit it by clicking a separate block. This should be done in the sidebar menu. That’s very convenient and a newbie won’t get puzzled doing that.
You can choose a website type (a single-page or a multi-page) and its block structure (there are 13 variants to meet any taste here). Fonts, color schemes, footer and menu settings are available here as well. There is also an opportunity to activate parallax scrolling effect. All the templates, by the way, are responsive, which means that your website content will be presented to the advantage, irrespective of the screen resolutions and sizes.
You will design a website out of modules (texts, reviews, contacts, sales, restaurant, blog, music, gallery, promo etc.). You can add as many of them as needed to the required positions. Pay attention to the “Restaurant” module. SITE123 is initially made to create the menu with the descriptions. If you are a cafe or a restaurant owner, this website builder is the best choice for you. You won’t have to bother with extra tasks – there is specific functionality to meet this goal.
Each module type is represented in several variants of block combinations. There are many of them here. Taking into account an opportunity to choose website structure, this unveils numerous options for project personalization. By the way, the system comes with a rich image library, the pictures in which differ in themes. You can use them as well to avoid the need to make a Google search or use your own photos, especially if you don’t have many of them.
To sum it up, SITE123 is a quality website builder for newbies. I recommend using it to create blogs, landing pages, promo websites and portfolios.Moreover, SITE123 has a free plan to try its main functionality as long as you need,. and the cost of paid subscription is more than affordable.
uKit
This is a nice website builder to create business projects like promo websites, portfolios and landing pages. It also makes it possible to conveniently create small online stores by means of making use of the integrated widget or a well-known Ecwid plugin. This is a user-friendly and well-designed system, which attracts the attention of users by its forethought and price affordability. You will hardly find a cheaper option, believe me.
Fortunately, the cost of the service does not compromise with its quality. This is one of the best website builders, which comes with a visual editor. You can click any element or block to start editing it by changing the colors, titles, module positions, fonts, effects etc.
The system offers more than 300 thematic responsive templates that are subdivided into categories. There is an opportunity to have a full-screen preview, so, it won’t be difficult for you to make the choice.
Each design comes with quality demo content, which is a kind of a reference point for a newbie, who thinks about filling a website with quality content. You can setup your contact data, social account details, choose a domain name and a website name prior to editing a website.
uKit websites are created by means of combining versatile widgets (blocks) on website pages. These include galleries, price lists, charts, contacts, products, videos, files, online-consultants, callback forms, maps etc.
Generally, uKit is a great service for businessmen, musicians and niche specialists. It makes it possible to present yourself and your business in the most favorable light to attract more clients. You can use the system for free, but if you need to avoid the restrictions, you’ll have to upgrade to a paid plan. The cost of it is more than affordable.
Mobirise
There is one notable feature that differentiates Mobirise from other website builders. This is the desktop software used to create websites. You can download and use it for commercial purposes absolutely for free.
Consequently, websites created in this program require hosting. Incorporated tools make it easier to setup FTP access and upload website files to the server (hosting, cloud storage) or a local server. Correspondingly, you can easily edit website code if you have the required skills and knowledge. However, this is an optional feature.
Mobirise is compatible with Windows, Mac OS and Android. The program interface is simple. What you see is the menu with all your websites, their settings and the dashboard (WYSIWYG-editor that supports drag-and-drop feature), where you will need to build website pages using the readymade blocks.
The program makes it possible to design landing pages and multi-page websites that consist of the following block types: header, footer, slider, menu, media, articles, content, reviews, price lists, social networks, maps, online forms, information. Each block is presented in several design variants you can additionally adjust to meet your needs.
Mobirise doesn’t have standard templates. What you get is several sets of blocks with similar design. All of them are responsive and the platform is well-optimized for the needs of newbies willing to create mobile websites.
Apart from that, you can get 400+ website blocks, 20,000 free hi-res images, 6,600 icons as well as Github Pages integration option to gain access to free https hosting. Websites created in Mobirise look modern, which is achieved by means of availability of special effects (parallax, block overlay etc.), Google Fonts access and outstanding template design. What matters most here is that it’s quite easy to work with these options.
The program is a great start for those users, who don’t have an idea of how websites are created. It will help newbies unveil the basics of web design. Having downloaded it, you will quickly understand the principles of creating appealing website pages without the need to use any special skills.
Ucraft
This is a very convenient and nice service that can be used by newbies willing to create promo websites, blogs and online stores. You won’t find a single line of coding here at all.
Flexible design setting options, appealing interface, integrated logo builder and designer tools, visual editor with drag-and-drop support, a nice selection of widgets and readymade blocks to solve different tasks, stunning responsive templates (the website builder offers around 40 pre-designed themes), a set of nice effects that can be added to any website elements. These are only several Ucraft benefits.
You can make sure about the features of the system by having a look at its official website, which was also created in this platform. It’s possible to develop a similar website of your own without any special effort and web design experience.
Ucraft websites are built out of widget sets (gallery, slider, buttons, menu, map, video, social bar, icons, articles, titles, countdown timer, quotes, products etc.). There are also readymade blocks (headers, footers, reviews, online forms, titles, logos etc.) here, which consist of separate elements described above. These elements are required to solve particular web design tasks.
You can change the content and design of any element by clicking it. The highlight of the platform is contrast duotone material presentation. This feature is used in the majority of Ucraft templates and makes it possible to present the content in the most attractive and impressive way, thus, focusing attention on the key aspects. It’s also possible to create multilingual websites in the system.
Ucraft offers an opportunity to grant access to the website dashboard to your team members and set up extra services (Shopify, Disqus, Google Fonts/Analytics, Hello Bar, Intercom, Hotjar). Newbies will appreciate the availability of the «Progress bar», that is, the statistics of using Ucraft options. This is a kind of a tutorial, following which you can create an appealing and functional website.
Ucraft is a great choice to create impressive portfolios and promo websites. Projects created in the system look creative and modern. The system offers a free and a paid plans. The cost of the plan is below average here, while the quality exceeds the expectations.
Bottom Line
Website builders are great tools newbies can use to create simple websites. They make it possible to build nice portfolios, blogs, impressive promo websites or small online stores to sell your products. There is, probably, no other tool that can be compared to website builders in terms of convenience and efficacy.
SITE123, uKit, Mobirise and Ucraft are the best alternatives to CMS or web studios for newbies. You will avail professional result without having specific skills, niche knowledge and expertise. Everything is quick and simple here. What I have to point out once again, though, is that website builders work well when it comes to creating standard simple websites. If you face the need to create a news portal or a web-based supermarket, however, it makes sense to find a more powerful alternative.
Each website builder described above has its own merits. I won’t try to make any of them stand out from the crowd. The best option is to test the features of each system on your own. This won’t take you longer than half an hour. You will understand which of them meets your web design needs and preferences most of all from the very first minutes. Just give it a try and watch the result.
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