Building a website as a designer is not the same as building a website for a small business or a general website. Designers need more creative freedom and more opportunities to make their websites unique. Also, most designers will want to be able to express themselves and their style through their websites. But how can they do this? With website builders that offer special tools and features for designers, of course.

Even though there are hundreds if not thousands of website builders out there, we took it upon ourselves to find which are the top 7 best ones so that you can find what you are looking for easier. Via our comparison chart below, you can find out which are our top 7 picks for the best website builders for designers, and read on to find out what each builder has to offer and how the builders compare against each other.

Check our Top 7 Best Designers’ Website Builders:

1. Squarespace – best website builder specifically designed for creatives
2. Wix Website Builder – best for complete creative freedom

How Do We Test and Rank?

The ranking of which website builders are the best from a large pool of options involves a significant amount of research and testing. If you don’t want to do it all yourself, you can take advantage of our ranking system, which our experts created to rank each website builder in the best way possible.

Our ranking system involves putting each and every builder through a series of tests and buying a plan from each of them to test out their features and services first-hand. Also, each builder is ranked based on five factors that are most important for building a designer-centric website, and each factor has its own specific percentage of importance assigned to it. The five factors include:

• Ease-of-use (15%): how easy it is to use the builder’s editor and dashboard, is the dashboard easy to navigate, is the control panel easy to navigate, does using the builder require coding skills, is the builder suitable for beginners, does the builder have a steep learning curve;
• Pricing (10%): does the builder offer a free trial, does the builder offer a free plan, is there a money-back guarantee, are the builder’s plans worth the money;
• Design Flexibility (30%): does the builder allow users to edit, change, and add whatever they want to their websites, are the templates customizable, how customizable are the templates, are the designs mobile-responsive, are there any designs available specifically for designers;
• Customization Features (25%): does the builder offer enough customization features, are the features high quality, how useful are the builder’s features;
• SEO Tools (20%): does the builder offer any SEO tools, what kind of SEO tools does the builder offer, are the SEO tools enough to help you rank up your website;

How to Choose the Best Website Builder for Designers?

When deciding which website builder will suit your needs best and allow you to create and maintain your design-centric website, there are a few factors you need to look out for and ensure that the builder offers them. Namely, it would be best if you look for a builder that offers the following features:

• Options for customization – one of the most critical features a designer can get from a website builder are different customization options. So, you should ensure that the builder you choose allows you to add a personal touch and customize your website the way you want. That way, you will be able to express your style via your website.
• Storage space – as a designer, you might want to upload high-resolution photos portraying your latest designs, and you can’t do that on a plan that offers only 1GB of storage, for example. Thus, it would be best if you look for a builder that includes plenty of storage space in its plans so that you can upload as many photos and other visual content as you want.
• A drag-and-drop builder – with a drag-and-drop builder, you will be able to easily move elements around and add whatever content you wish with a few simple clicks;
• Visual effects – look for a builder that allows you to add fun animations and visual effects so that you can make your website even more unique in the eyes of your visitors;
• High-quality templates – even if you plan to completely customize and edit your website before launching it, having a high-quality template as your base will allow you to work much faster and have a better-looking website;
• Third-party integrations – integration with third-party apps like Google Analytics for SEO or Lightroom for content is essential for any designer;
• Mobile-responsiveness – most people use their phones nowadays for everything, including browsing the internet. So, finding a builder that offers mobile-responsive design will allow you to have a great-looking and responsive website both on mobile and desktop;
• SEO tools – creating an SEO-optimized website is essential for everyone, including designers. Effective SEO tools can help your website rank higher on Google and other search engines and be seen by more people. So, make sure that your website builder of choice has a set of solid SEO tools before committing to a plan.

1. Squarespace – Best Website Builder Specifically Designed for Creatives

• Overall Score: 5.0
• Ease-of-use: 4.9
• Pricing: 4.9
• Design Flexibility: 5.0
• Customization Features: 5.0
• SEO Tools: 5.0

Squarespace is an extremely popular website builder explicitly made for creatives. That means that Squarespace is ideal for designers and those who want their designs to stand out and be the main attraction on their website. Also, Squarespace is beginner-friendly and requires no coding from users at all.

Pros:

Cons:

Squarespace is best for creating design-centric websites, and it is best known for its award-winning, high-quality templates and excellent built-in features.

Unique Features:

Built-in SEO Tools

Squarespace includes a suite of integrated features and helpful SEO guides with all of its websites and online stores. Also, it offers some advanced SEO tools that will help you optimize your website and rank even better on search engines. The tools include:

• SEO checklist – Squarespace offers a best practices checklist to all of its users, which contains tips on how to optimize your website for SEO and improve your rankings;
• Integration with Google Search Console – Google Search Console is an excellent SEO tool to have, and it shows you which keywords your visitors and customers use to find your website;
• SEO page titles and descriptions – With Squarespace, your SEO page titles and descriptions are set by default. However, you can modify them whenever you like without changing the content on your web pages;
• The ability to hide a page – With Squarespace, you can hide a page from search engines if you want to;
• Sitemaps – Your website will come with a site map using the .xml format. Thus, you won’t need to create one manually;
• Automatic markup – Squarespace will automatically markup your site’s content to help improve search engine indexing;
• SSL security;
• Clean URLs – All of your pages and collection items on your website will have static URLs that are easily indexed and read by Google and other search engines;
• Mobile optimization – All of Squarespace’s websites are mobile-friendly;
• Integration with Goole My Business;

Templates

All of Squarespace’s templates are fully customizable and mobile-responsive. Also, Squarespace offers a large number of high-quality website templates of all kinds, including templates for:

• Art & Design;
• Photography;
• Health & Beauty;
• Personal & CV;
• Fashion;
• Professional Services;
• Local Businesses;
• Community & Nonprofits;
• Food;
• Entertainment;
• Travel;
• Restaurants;
• Media & Podcasts;
• Events;
• Weddings;
• Real Estate & Properties;
• Home & Décor;
• Nature & Animals.

All in all, Squarespace is an excellent website builder for designers that offers both stunning, designer-centric templates and practical SEO tools for your website. If you want to learn more about Squarespace, you can do so by reading our expert review on the builder.

2. Wix – Best for Complete Creative Freedom

• Overall Score: 4.9
• Ease-of-use: 5.0
• Pricing: 4.9
• Design Flexibility: 4.9
• Customization Features: 5.0
• SEO Tools: 4.9

Wix was founded in 2006, and since then, it has helped create and maintain the websites of more than 200 million users! It is one of the most popular website builders out there, and with good reason. Not only is it beginner-friendly, but it also offers more than 800 designer-made templates you can choose from for your website. Also, it offers excellent SEO features that will help you rank your website and be seen.

Pros:

Cons:

Wix is best known for its vast collection of designer-made templates and its powerful built-in features and tools. It also allows users to edit and add all kinds of elements, making it ideal for those seeking a higher level of creative freedom.

Unique Features:

Wix SEO Wiz

With Wix’s SEO Wiz, you will be able to get a personalized SEO plan by answering a few questions about your website, location, and keywords. Also, you can learn a lot about SEO and how to optimize your site for its with the Wix SEO Wiz. Namely, you can learn about:

• SEO Basics – including what SEO is, why does it matter, and how to interpret search results;
• Setting up your site – where Wix teaches you how to determine what your website is for, how to achieve your business goals with your website, and who to analyze your competition;
• Building your site – including what site structure is, why site structure is important, what you need to consider when creating a web page, creating core content, and more;
• Publishing your site – including how to track your goals, what local SEO is, and more.

Also, with Wix’s SEO Wiz, you will get the following SEO features:

• Page titles are available for all of your website pages;
• Meta descriptions for all of your website pages;
• The ability to customize the URLs on all of your website pages;
• The ability to add headings (from H1 to H6);
• Editable image alt tags;
• 301 redirects;
• SSL encryption in all of its plans;
• Search engine instructions that are available for web pages;
• Integration with Google Search Console;
• Personalized SEO Setup checklist;
• Integration with Google Analytics;
• An automatic Google indexing feature.

Templates

With Wix, you will be able to choose from more than 800 designer-made templates, including templates for:

• All kinds of businesses and services;
• Online stores for clothing, jewelry, electronics, home & décor, sports apparel, and many more;
• Design templates – including templates for architecture, art & illustration, branding, fashion design, graphic design, and web design;
• Photography templates;
• Music templates;
• Creative arts like performing arts, literary arts, and visual arts;
• Education templates;
• Templates for all kinds of events;
• Templates for blogs, including personal blogs, blogs about food & travel, news & business blogs, and more.

Overall, Wix is a powerful website builder suitable for small businesses and designers who want to have a lot of creative freedom over their websites. If you want to learn more about Wix, you can do so by reading our expert review on the builder.

Steps for Creating the Perfect Website for Designers

Of course, creating a website does not only involve choosing the right website builder. Sure, choosing a website builder is one of the most important steps in your website-building journey, but there are a few other steps you need to complete to create the perfect website. So, once you’ve chosen the right website builder for you, the following things you need to do are:

• Determine the purpose of your website – if you have a clear idea of what you want your website to do, the whole website-creation process will be significantly easier for you. So, you should ask yourself what you want to do with your website – do you want to showcase your skills, promote events, sell products or services, connect with customers, etc.
• Design your site – once you know what kind of website you want to build, you can focus on its design. For example, if you want to sell something, then you should design a website that focuses on selling products. On the other hand, if you want to showcase your talent and style, you should design a website that puts your photos first.
• Add content – the next step in your website-creation process is adding content. Here you can add photos, videos, articles, animations, and whatever else you want.
• Launch your website – once you have designed your website and added the content that you want, your website is ready to launch!

What Should a Designers’ Website Include?

A website should be designed in a way that each page grabs the attention of visitors in an instant. So, one thing that each designers’ website should include is eye-catching slogans coupled with fun animations. However, it would be best if you were careful not to overdo it with the animations, as they can start annoying visitors quickly.

Another thing you can include on your website is a sleek navigation menu. Your website should be easy to navigate through, and the menu should be accessible on every page. Also, the menu should contain all the pages you have on your website. A few other things you can add to your website to boost its interactiveness and ensure that it will catch and keep visitors’ attention are scrolling texts and flash intros.

Now let’s see which pages a designers’ website should include. Of course, everyone can add whatever they want to their websites and include all kinds of pages, but there are a few elementary ones that every website should have. Those pages include:

• A “Home” Page – the home page is the first page your visitors will see when they open your website, so make sure you add your branding and a fun slogan or sentence which describes what you do and what visitors can find on your website;
• An “About” Page – in the about page, you should add a short description of yourself, your business, and maybe your employees. Make sure to keep it short, as no one is going to read a full biography about you or your business;
• A “Contact” Page – on this page, you should include a phone number, email address, and the locations of your offices;
  
• A “Designs” Page – since you are a designer, you should have a separate page where people can see your designs and your style.

Summary

Designers have some great options available to them for building a website without knowing how to code. All of the website builders we mentioned in this article are some of the best on the market for designers, so it all comes down to what you need from your website builder when you choose one out of the ten.

So, you can use our recommendation system to decide which one out of the ten website builders you like best and choose the right one for you in a matter of minutes. Thus, you won’t have to do hours of research and look for users who have used each website builder to see what their experiences were and how they liked the builder.