Useful functionality – To make a website a really useful contribution to your bottom line you’ll need all the forms, payment processing, and e-commerce capabilities to provide your customers with a full service online. Different website creators for business offer different capabilities when it comes to e-commerce. Some have plans that only let you display a few products in your online retail store, whereas others let you showcase thousands of products with multiple photos of each. You may want to choose a website builder that has an abandoned shopping cart reminder function so that shoppers who leave your site before completing their purchase will be reminded to come back. Payment processing options could include just credit cards, or may also allow for PayPal and Apple Pay. Automatic inventory management is a nice feature to take advantage of, as are sales reports.

Fast, reliable hosting – Unlike traditional hosting packages, with business website builders you get the site creation platform and hosting in one package, so you need to make sure that the site will load quickly and reliably for your visitors. Bandwidth indicates the amount of time it takes for your website to update over a period of time and storage is the amount of data that you can feature on your website. Typically, website builders offer greater amounts of storage and bandwidth with higher-priced plans. You likely only need unlimited bandwidth if you have an extremely high-traffic website.

Mobile Optimization – More and more, people are accessing the internet from their smartphones and tablets while they are on the go. They may be out and about when they decide they want a bit to eat and want to search for nearby restaurants. They could be sitting on the subway while doing a bit of online shopping, or even killing time in the waiting room at a doctor’s office by using their smartphone to research real estate agents, photographers, or someone who can take care of home services they need. Because of this, it’s crucial that your business website includes mobile optimization. If your website isn’t mobile-friendly, you’re likely to lose potential customers. Many website builders that we recommend have templates that are optimized for mobile so that you won’t have to build a second mobile website from scratch.

Security – If people are going to be entering personal information on your website, whether to schedule appointments or to pay you for a service or product, security is a must. You’ll want a website creator with SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) so that your website visitors will feel safe providing their information. SSL helps to indicate that your website is trustworthy.

Templates – One of the things that makes a website builder so easy to use is the customizable templates. You should look for a decent selection of industry-specific templates that are flexible and attractive.  While some website builders only offer a few templates and not much in the way of customization, others provide you with hundreds of templates to choose from. These templates are often divided into industry-specific categories that make it easier to find the template that will fit your needs. These categories may include restaurant, e-commerce,  real estate, healthcare, home services, beauty services, and more.

Free domain name – Most website builders offer a free domain name when you sign up to one of their plans, so you can make sure that your website address is the right match, and you won’t have to register and pay for it separately.

Marketing tools – You want tools that help you with search engine visibility and social media integration so you can get the word out to potential customers. Some, like Wix, offer email marketing templates that you can use. You’ll want to be able to add a subscription button to your business website so that visitors can sign up to receive updates from you. Often, you’ll find that website builders come with social media buttons that you can incorporate so that your readers can easily share what they find on your site. Many packages come with free advertising credits too. Integrated SEO tools are also very helpful for drawing visitors to your site, so research whether they are provided with the plan you want.