Website 101: Your platform

Photo by Etienne Girardet on Unsplash

Now that you have your domain (see last week’s article if you missed it), you need to choose a platform for your new website.

This week we will consider all-in-one web platforms, which combine web hosting and website creation in one place. These subscription services make it much easier to get a new site up and running, especially if you’re a beginner.

Squarespace, Wix, Weebly - the big hitters

There are a lot of all-in-one website platforms. I was going to do a detailed breakdown of all their specific features, but the fact is that as time has gone by, they have become quite similar to each other.

You can set up a free trial on all of these systems, and check them out for yourself. None of them have free plans, but the monthly cost for the lowest tier will be under $20. You could get web hosting for much less, but you would have to set up everything yourself, which is intimidating for beginners.

They all have tons of templates to start with, and various incarnations of drag-and-drop editors that are manageable with a bit of practice. You add your own text and images, and you’re off to the races.

They all will ask you some questions in the beginning to understand what sort of site you want to build, then show you choices and templates based on that information.

Personally of these three I prefer Squarespace, because the interface is less cluttered and while they have fewer templates than the others, those templates are much higher quality.

Advantages of these platforms

• You can use them without knowing anything about web design.

• They are a one-stop-shop – sign up and you get hosting, web designs and even add-ons like ecommerce if you decide to go that route in the future.

• There’s a lot of tutorials and trainings online to get you up to speed.

Disadvantages of these platforms

• They all cost money if you want to actually launch a site.

• It’s difficult or impossible to move your data (text, images etc.) that you painstakingly created to another platform in the future.

• The interfaces can be complex for beginners.

The alternative: WordPress.com

WordPress.com is the commercial version of the open-source web platform WordPress, which has been around for decades now. You could always get low-cost web hosting and easily install WordPress there, for free. (That has its own pitfalls, though.)

WordPress.com offers a hosted version of WordPress, making it more like the all-in-one platforms we’ve already discussed. There is more of a learning curve with WordPress than with the other platforms. But it’s also been around the longest by far, so there are tons of resources for learning it and getting your questions answered. And they have worked to make the setup and editing processes more beginner-friendly.

Another advantage of WordPress.com is that although they have lots of paid tiers, you can also launch a site (at yoursitename.wordpress.com) for free. That’s a great way to get your feet wet.

The biggest advantage, though, is that you can easily export your website and start it up somewhere else in the future. You “own” your WordPress data in a way that you don’t with the other platforms. That’s super important in the ever-changing world of the web.

Just like how I encouraged you to own your domain, I want you to own your data, too.

Compare that to something like LinkedIn. LinkedIn can be quite useful. But it’s a closed system that is owned and controlled by someone else. It could go dark tomorrow. (Twitter seems to be in its death throes right now.) On the internet, you want to be in control of as much of your own information as you can.

Going with WordPress.com as your first step on the web is a step in that direction.

Try them for yourself

I’m not trying to discourage you from using Wix or Squarespace. You might find that you click with those systems well, and the cost could absolutely be worth it. I would recommend you check out their sites, and sign up for a free trial if they sound interesting. As always, I’m here to answer questions if you have them.

But after going back in and testing these platforms as research for this article, I still keep coming back to WordPress.com as the best place to get started.

Hearing from you

Have you tried staking your claim on the web? Have these articles inspired you? Let me know by replying to this email or leaving a comment.

See you next week.