Most small business owners don’t have a lot of experience when it comes to building websites, so naturally, many don’t know where to start. This is where having a library of website design templates to choose from can really come in handy.

Website templates can give you a great starting point for building your small business website. They save you from having to come up with a basic layout and navigation, and they make it quick and easy to build a visually pleasing website for your business.

However, the downside of using a website template is that it’s a template, which means that other businesses (some of which might be your competitors!) will also be using that same template.

That’s why it’s critical that the website builder you choose offers templates that can be fully customized for your business. Everything about the template, from the colors and images to the content and layout should be customizable.

The point of using a website builder is so that you can build your own small business website that’s modern, professional and does everything you need it to — without needing the help of a developer or designer.

Suffice it to say, user-friendliness is an important quality in a website builder, and not all of them live up to expectations where user-friendliness is concerned.

With the right website builder, you shouldn’t need an advanced degree in design to build a website for your small business. But, some are more complicated than others.

The right website builder will offer intuitive tools, like a drag-and-drop editor, that make it quick and easy to update and customize your website.

You can have the best, most beautiful website in the world, but if no one sees it, does it really even matter how great your site is?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is about ensuring that your website ranks high on search engines, like Google and Bing. And, it’s important that any website builder you choose is made with SEO in mind.

Look for a website builder that has advanced SEO tools built right in. Things, like structured data, microdata and image optimization, can often feel complicated and out-of-reach for many business owners, but the right website builder will do it for you.

The right website builder will also make it easy to do basic onsite optimizations to improve your position on search engines. For example, updating page titles and meta descriptions, image tags and captions, and page content should be easy and intuitive.

More people are actively using the internet than ever before, but most of them aren’t doing so on a desktop or laptop computer. The vast majority of internet users these days are on mobile devices, like smartphones or tablets.

It’s imperative that you are able to provide a consistent experience to your website visitors across all devices, and in order to do that, you need to choose a responsive website design.

When your website is responsive, it will reconfigure itself automatically depending on the screen being used. This ensures that all users get the best possible experience, whether they’re visiting your site on a smartphone or a desktop.

Having a responsive design isn’t the only thing you need to do to ensure that your website is mobile-friendly, but it’s a key first step.

Every small business needs different things from their website.

For example, let’s say that you are a plumber. You want your website to be professional and attractive, but you don’t need anything too complicated. You need a website where your customers can learn about your business and your services, read your reviews, request a service or estimate, and contact you, but not much else.

On the other hand, if you have a local hair salon, you might need a little more. You need a website where your customers can learn about your services and stylists, see a gallery of your work, read testimonials from your happy clients, book an appointment and maybe even purchase beauty products from your online store.

Before you choose a website builder, it’s important to know what features you’ll eventually need on your website. See what’s possible by checking out other small business websites in your industry.

Look for a small business website builder that has the features you need so that you can best serve your customers.

Having the right website builder can make it quick and easy to build a great website for your small business. However, even with the best, most-intuitive tools, you sometimes need a little extra help, and when you do, you want to know that you’ll have the support you need.

A small business website builder is only as valuable as the support backing it up.

The truth is that, even with the easiest-to-use tools, building your own website can be complicated. And, that’s especially true if you’ve never done it before! It can really help to know that someone is standing by, ready to help you get it right.

Make sure that any website builder you choose offers professional support when you need it.