Creating a personal or business website has been made simpler over the years thanks to the rising number of platforms that are dedicated to the tasks of building and hosting sites simply and affordably.
This has made web design much more accessible, but with myriad platforms on offer, which one is the best to fit your needs?
Tumblr
Google’s blogging platform is well suited to showcasing creative content and offers a quick, easy way to launch your online presence. It also enjoys a thriving international audience of users and visitors.
The downside is that there is not much room for altering Tumblr sites so to make them stand out from the crowd, meaning it is a lot more rigid than other platforms.
WordPress
One of the world’s most successful and widely-used platforms, it works just as well for businesses as it does for individuals. It is free to use in its basic form and gives you access to a host of plugins to handle everything from e-commerce to SEO.
Optimising your use of WordPress will require time and effort. Alternatively, you could work with a company like http://www.rycomarketing.co.uk/web-design.html, which provides competitive web design in Belfast, to harness the true power of this platform without having to learn a whole new skill set in the process.
Squarespace
Any regular listeners to popular podcasts will have heard Squarespace being advertised as the latest and greatest platform for building websites. From the point of view of aesthetics, it is arguably the best option on the market, with hundreds of themes and customisation options that all look thoroughly professional and downright beautiful in many cases.
Using a free trial is a good idea as Squarespace positions itself as a premium site creation tool rather than one with entirely free strata like Tumblr and WordPress.
A similar experience to Squarespace is offered by competing platforms Weebly and Wix, so it is a good idea to experiment and find which one is the best fit.
Remember that mobile optimisation is important because most people now browse via their smartphone rather than on a desktop or laptop PC.
The good news is that all of the top platforms can cope with creating sites that work across all devices, so you will not miss out on this important audience.