Google Business Profile Website Alternatives

Squarespace is known for its clean, modern, and mobile-friendly templates. They have nearly 160 of them—all free, all beautiful. I think Squarespace has the best templates of any DIY website builder—\\\\look at them\\

It’s not just beauty! Squarespace has lots of features—many of which are better and more powerful than competitors. For example, Squarespace has the best template customization, blogging, scheduling software, donation system, photo galleries, restaurant menus, podcasting features, and more. Squarespace also has Squarespace Extensions, a marketplace where you can find a select few third-party extensions to add functionalities to your site.

The new Squarespace editor, Fluid Engine (launched July 2022), lets you drag and drop blocks anywhere in a section. The blocks snap to an underlying grid. It’s much more customizable than its predecessor yet equally intuitive and easy to use. You can also edit the mobile website using the same editor (just switch to mobile view when editing)

Beyond websites, Squarespace also includes marketing and business tools for managing your online presence. For example: scheduling software, email marketing, social media tools, SEO tools, memberships, and more. Having all these tools managed by Squarespace means the integrations work seamlessly.

The most powerful ecommerce website builder is \\Shopify— but Squarespace is easier to use. Squarespace’s ecommerce is a good alternative for users intimidated by Shopify and looking to build a small-mid-sized online store. \\\\Read our Squarespace vs Shopify comparison\\.

Squarespace is like the Apple of website builders—it is intuitive and thoughtfully designed. There’s a certain focus on user experience, even with the tiny things. For example, Squarespace includes a handy tool that lets users adjust the focal point of an image. Another example: Squarespace elevates the page by placing the toolbar below, ensuring you have a full view of the web page when editing.

Squarespace offers 24/7/365 email support and live chat support from Monday to Friday, 4:00 AM to 8:00 PM ET. In my experience and from people I’ve chatted with, live chat support responds almost instantly and is well-versed. I also reached out to their email support a couple of times—they responded in under 30 minutes and gave excellent, detailed answers. In fact, one of the times, they shared a screen recording of them solving a problem on my test site—which was very helpful. They also have super-quick social media support—I was looking at the \\@SquarespaceHelp Twitter replies, and they had replied to each relevant tweet in under an hour.

This shouldn’t be a point, but unfortunately, some website builders have misleading pricing (example: \\Web.com). Squarespace does not have misleading pricing. You should expect that the advertised price is the same price you’ll find on your invoice. I appreciate that.

One way to make software easy to use is to make it simple and not very customizable. That’s not Squarespace. While Squarespace is not “difficult to use”, it does have too many features to be the \\“easiest” website builder— the easiest website builder is \\Square Online which is more simple but also less powerful. You should expect a small learning curve with Squarespace— similar to learning Microsoft Word or Google Docs for the first time.

Unlike Google Business Website, there is no free Squarespace plan, only a 14-dayfree trial.

It requires some \technical understanding, but Google Sites lets you connect a custom domain name. It’s the only website builder on this list that lets you connect a custom domain!

One interesting thing is that Google Sites integrates well with other Google products like Google Calendar, Maps, Docs, Slides, Sheets, and Forms. Plus, you can restrict your website to users in your organization.

While most “free website builders” will place an ad like “Made with \[website builder]” on free websites, Google Sites doesn’t. There’s a tiny ‘i’ icon at the bottom-left that reveals the site uses Google Sites if someone clicks it.

The title says it all. There are 10-something basic templates you can use to make a lame website. Also, there are some pre-made “themes” that are basically the same layouts with different colors.

Features that are standard on other website builders are missing from Google Sites. In fact, Google Business Websites has (but soon will not have) a sort of blogging platform; Google Sites doesn’t.

Your website will be on a sites.google.com/view/website/ domain, which isn’t appealing. The current localbiz.business.site domain you probably have is much better. The good news is you can use a custom domain name with Google Sites!

Wix’s unstructured editor lets you drag and drop elements anywhere you want on a page— without constraint. You can see a \\[video explanation here](https://youtu.be/VmNvakQ9kOw?t=54). Almost no other website builder provides a drag-and-drop interface like this— every other website builder has constraints. \\\[Wix also has two other editors: Wix ADI — a very simple editor that builds your website by asking you questions (it’s sort of like a setup wizard), and Editor X — a complex editor made especially for designers and agencies]

Wix has more features than any website builder: ecommerce, forums, ticket sales, restaurant ordering, music distribution, appointment scheduling, multilingual websites, and more.

Wix offers more themes than most website builders—though the quality is inconsistent. But if that’s not enough, you can also create your own theme from scratch — Wix’s unstructured editor means you can make significant changes to your Wix template.

Wix has an app store and a huge selection of 500+ widgets and plugins to add to your website or ecommerce.

Wix includes several small business and marketing tools for managing online presence: CRM, social posts, SEO, email marketing, live chat, and more.

Unlike the top two on this list, Wix has a free plan. And it is the most featureful \\[free website builder](https://www.sitebuilderreport.com/free-website-builders) plan. However, there are quite a few limitations regarding bandwidth, ads, storage, etc.

Complaints about Wix websites loading slowly and performing poorly were common just a few years ago. Over the last couple of years, Wix has managed to remove a lot of bloat from users’ websites, which has led to a significant increase in performance—\\[more than half](https://lookerstudio.google.com/s/nghFrH6NHts) of Wix websites now pass the Core Web Vitals test.

Notice what I did here? Wix’s drag-and-drop editor is listed as both a Pro and a Con. Here’s why: while the unstructured editor gives users freedom, it also introduces bugs and workarounds that can get very frustrating. This is a complicated issue, so I’d suggest you read my \\[Wix review](https://www.sitebuilderreport.com/wix-review#the-editor) or look at the videos \\[comparing the Wix editor to the Squarespace editor](https://www.sitebuilderreport.com/wix-vs-squarespace#the-editor) to learn more.

This is a question of tradeoffs. Wix isn’t as difficult to use as Shopify and WordPress, but you should still expect learning Wix to take some time. There are easier website builders out there— but those website builders don’t have as much functionality and freedom as Wix.

A portion of your bandwidth is used up every time a visitor comes to your website. Wix’s cheapest plan (Combo, priced at $16/month for an annual subscription) puts a 2 GB limit on your monthly bandwidth—which is unfortunate. You shouldn’t have to worry about bandwidth in 2024, and every other website builder on this list includes unlimited bandwidth. To put how much 2 GB bandwidth is in perspective, assume Scott Snyder (whose story we featured in the Squarespace section) makes the same 5 MB+ homepage with Wix’s Combo plan. It’d mean the website will reach the bandwidth limit if 400 visitors load the homepage.

If you want better features, you may need to pay more than competitors offering equivalent features. For example, Squarespace’s $16/month plan includes unlimited bandwidth; you’ll need to get the $22/month Wix Unlimited plan for the same. Similarly, Squarespace charges $4/month to send 500 emails through its email marketing platform; Wix’s email marketing tool costs $10/month for 500 emails.

Most website builders lock up critical features like ecommerce on free plans in hopes that it drives users to upgrade. Not Square. Square includes curbside pickup, Apple Pay, digital products, Instagram shops, gift cards, and a shipping calculator in the free plan. Plus, unlimited products.

Square Online is what I’d recommend to anyone who doesn’t feel tech-savvy. It’s among the \[top easiest website builders](https://www.sitebuilderreport.com/easiest-website-builders). (Demo video below)

Unlike other website builders, Square includes customer support (including phone support!) on free plans.

Square’s name.square.site domain looks good and easy to remember, unlike many other website builders’ free domain names. \*\*Note\*\*: No half-decent website builder allows a custom domain name on a free plan; all have some version of their branding in the free domain name.

Square Online pages are built by adding pre-designed sections. You can toggle individual elements on and off but can’t add additional elements.

Square Online isn’t the most comprehensive website builder. You can make a simple website or store with it (for free), but it doesn’t have many advanced features. For example, you can add a blog with its Stories feature, but it is basic to the point that you can’t even properly format the body text of your stories.

Carrd is much cheaper than competitors. Plans with custom domains and no ads start at $19 per year. \\Wix and \\Squarespace start at $192 per year (i.e., 10x the price!).

Carrd’s themes and features are just for creating one-page websites— there’s a sense of purpose in the interface. You can use other website builders to build one-page websites, but it never feels as intuitive as Carrd.

I do find Carrd has a bit of a learning curve if you want more control over design than just using the default blocks. For example, you’ll need to wrap your head around concepts like containers and CSS classes. This isn’t intuitive for users who don’t understand HTML and CSS.