7 Alternatives to Google Business Profile Websites (Compared)

Are you looking for alternatives to a Google Business Profile website?

Google has announced that it will start turning off all the free websites made for Google Business Profile users in March 2024. Unless you migrate to an alternative website, then visitors will see an error message when visiting your site.

In this article, we will share some of the best alternatives to Google Business Profile websites.

Alternatives to Google Business Profile Websites

Why Do You Need a Google Business Profile Website Alternative?

Creating a Google Business Profile is an easy way to make sure your business appears in local search results. It provides potential customers with your contact information, directions to your locations, and a link to your website.

Previously, Google offered to create free small business websites for Google Business Profile users that included all the information in your profile. 21.7 million business owners took them up on the offer.

However, Google announced that it is shutting down all Business Profile sites from March 2024 onward.

While your actual business profile will remain intact, the associated Google website will stop working. Until June 10, 2024, Google will redirect your website visitors to your profile, but after that, anyone trying to visit your site will see an error message.

To avoid this, you need to find a different solution for your website.

With that being said, let’s take a look at some of the best Google Business Profile website alternatives for small business websites.

1. WordPress

WordPress

WordPress is the world’s most popular website-building platform and powers over 43% of all websites on the internet. It’s easy to customize and gives you complete control over your site.

Note: Keep in mind that there are two types of WordPress. Here, we are talking about the self-hosted WordPress.org. For more details, you can see our article on the difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com.

While the WordPress software is free, there are costs involved in building a WordPress website such as a domain name and web hosting. This can be as little as a few dollars a month.

If you want your new website to be simple and minimalistic like your Business Profile site, then there are plenty of one-page WordPress themes to choose from, like the one in this screenshot.

One-Page WordPress Theme

However, you might prefer to take the opportunity to add additional important pages such as a contact page, disclaimer page, privacy policy page, terms of service, and more.

You can also add additional features to your site by installing some must-have WordPress plugins for business websites. These let you add business features to your site like contact forms, landing pages, popups, newsletters, automations, and much more.

WPForms Simple Contact Form

If you want to rank on local search results pages, then you should also install All in One SEO (AIOSEO), which is the best search engine optimization plugin on the market.

It will let you quickly add business hours, multiple location schema, and a store locator to your WordPress website. These features improve your site’s local SEO and help nearby customers find your business in the search results.

AIOSEO local business information preview

If you want help migrating your site to WordPress, then check this out: How to migrate Google Business Profile Site to WordPress.

Pros:

  • Complete control over your website
  • Add the features you need using plugins
  • Choose a theme with the look and feel you want
  • Plugins let you rank for local SEO

Cons:

  • Slight learning curve
  • You need to manage your own website

Why we chose WordPress: WordPress is used on 43% of the world’s websites and gives you access to SEO plugins that can help your business get found online. You can use WordPress to create a new website that grows with your business.

2. Wix

Wix

Wix is a popular, cloud-based website builder. It lets you easily build your website using drag-and-drop and is used by over 3.6% of all websites.

It’s a good solution if you only need a simple website like the one you already have on Google, but you may outgrow its features as your business grows.

When we created a test site on Wix, we discovered that after you choose an initial design, there is no easy way to change templates to give your site a fresh look.

Wix Drag-and-Drop Builder

While Wix doesn’t offer the same range of plugins as WordPress, it does have an online market that offers over 300 apps for adding features like booking forms, marketing, and online payments.

It also offers tools that help you optimize your website for search to attract more organic traffic.

There is a free version of Wix, but we found it quite limited in features, and it displays ads. You can also upgrade to a Pro plan to get more features, but this can become quite expensive.

Read our detailed comparison of Wix vs. WordPress for more information.

Pros:

  • Its drag-and-drop editor makes it easy to build a website quickly
  • Web hosting is included

Cons:

  • You can’t choose a different hosting provider
  • The free version is quite limited and displays ads on your website
  • Pro plans can become expensive

Why we chose Wix: Wix is a popular website builder that is a good option for people who prefer a simple business website similar to their Google Business Profiles site.

3. Web.com

Web.com

Web.com is another popular website builder for small businesses. Its affordable pricing plans make it an attractive alternative to Wix.

Like Wix, it has an easy-to-use drag-and-drop website builder and plenty of templates to choose from. That makes customizing your website design very easy.

Web.com templates

Wix’s plans include web hosting, a free domain name, a business email address, website security and backups, SEO and analytics, and other powerful website tools. They also offer affordable custom web design services separately.

Pros:

  • Easy to use drag-and-drop website builder
  • Affordable pricing
  • Pre-made website templates
  • Web hosting is included

Cons:

  • You can’t choose a different hosting provider
  • No free plan

Why we chose Web.com: Web.com is both affordable and easy to use. It’s a great Google Business Profile website alternative for business owners who are looking for a relatively simple website.

4. Squarespace

Squarespace

Squarespace is an easy-to-use premium website builder known for its great designs. Around 2.1% of all websites on the internet are built with Squarespace.

It uses a block editor for content creation similar to the Gutenberg editor in WordPress. When we tested it, we found it easy to add images, videos, and audio files. However, the editor doesn’t save your work automatically, so you will need to remember to do that yourself.

Squarespace editor

It offers customizable templates that let you get started building your site quickly. You can also add new features to your website using Squarespace extensions, though these are more limited than what is available for WordPress.

You can read our detailed comparison of Squarespace vs. WordPress.

Pros:

  • Easy to set up and use
  • Web hosting is included

Cons:

  • You can’t change to a different hosting provider
  • Costs more than shared hosting plans
  • No free plan

Why we chose Squarespace: Squarespace offers a secure hosting platform with an easy-to-use interface that lets you build a website with great design.

5. Weebly

Weebly

Weebly is a beginner-friendly website builder with loads of great designs. It’s a page builder that lets you create a website without coding skills.

You’ll find built-in support for contact forms, photo galleries, sliders, and more. Weebly also offers different free and paid applications to add additional features to your site, but the selection is more limited than with WordPress.

You can choose from dozens of website designs as a starting point for your website, and edit your content using a live page editor. You can also build and manage your website using a mobile app.

Weebly Website Builder Interface

Weebly is particularly suitable for creating beautiful but small websites. It makes it easy to get started with a website, but you may find that over time, your needs outgrow what it offers.

There is a free plan, but it is quite limited and displays ads. Most business users will find their paid plans more suitable.

Read our detailed comparison of WordPress vs. Weebly for more details.

Pros:

  • Easy to use
  • Dozens of website designs
  • Free and paid applications add new features
  • Web hosting is included

Cons:

  • You can’t change to a different hosting provider
  • The free plan is limited and displays ads

Why we chose Weebly: Weebly is a beautiful website builder known for its simplicity. It’s most suitable for small websites such as those you typically find as Google Business Profile websites.

6. Carrd

Carrd

Carrd provides an easy way to create simple, single-page websites. It’s a great choice if you just want to recreate your Google Business website away from the Google platform.

You choose a template as a starting point, and dozens of business profile templates are included.

Carrd Template

You can then customize the template using simple tools and a drag-and-drop interface.

The free plan is all you need to create a business profile website as long as you are happy to display a little Carrd branding. There are also paid plans that remove the branding and allow you to use a custom domain.

Pros:

  • Very easy to use
  • Perfect for creating a simple single-page profile website
  • The free plan is suitable for most users

Cons:

  • Not suitable for more complex websites

Why we chose Carrd: Carrd is a simple and free way to create a single-page profile website.

7. Google Sites

Google Sites

Google Sites is the best choice if you simply want to recreate your Google Business Profile website and remain in the Google ecosystem.

You can use its block-based editor to add text, images, contact information, business hours, and more. The Google Sites template gallery also offers a handful of small business templates that will help you get started.

Google Sites Content Editor

However, after testing Google Sites, we only recommend it for the most basic websites. If you wish to customize your new website’s appearance or add new features, then you will be much better off with an alternative like WordPress.

For more details, please read our detailed comparison of WordPress vs. Google Sites.

Pros:

  • Allows you to remain in the Google ecosystem
  • Suitable for basic websites

Cons:

  • Not suitable for more complex websites

Why we chose Google Sites: Google Sites lets you create a basic website while remaining in the Google ecosystem.

What Is the Best Google Business Profile Website Alternative?

For most businesses, the best alternative to a Google Business Profile website is WordPress. This is especially true if you want to build a website that can grow with your business rather than remain a simple profile site.

You can choose from thousands of WordPress themes to create a unique look and feel for your website, including single-page themes, business themes, and corporate themes.

There are also plenty of business plugins that will add the features you need.

Besides that, you can choose a WordPress hosting plan that suits your budget. This can be as little as $1.99 per month.

However, if you want to create a simple website and avoid some of the maintenance involved in hosting your own site, then hosted website builders like Wix, Web.com, and Squarespace are also good choices. These are initially easier to set up, but they won’t grow with your business in the same way that WordPress will.

Finally, if you are looking for a free option to set up a simple business profile site, then Carrd and Google Sites will achieve that, but go no further.

FAQs About Business Profile Websites

Here are answers to the questions we’re asked most often about business profile websites.

When is Google discontinuing its Google Business Profile websites?

Google will turn off all the free websites it created for Business Profile users from March 2024.

Once Google shuts down your website, it will redirect your website visitors to your Google Business Profile until June 10, 2024.

After that date, unless you have migrated to a new website, anyone trying to visit your website will see a ‘404 not found‘ error message.

For more details on what you need to do, please see our guide on how to migrate a Google Business Profile website to WordPress.

What is a business profile website?

A business profile website is an online space where you can showcase your company’s identity, values, and offerings to potential customers and clients.

It is an online hub where you can make a good first impression and provide essential information about your business.

What should a business profile website contain?

A business profile website should clearly state your company name and describe what you do. It should also include contact information so potential clients can get in touch.

You may want to add an About Us page to share your story and mission, and a services section or landing page where you can provide more information about what you offer.

It’s also a good idea to have a clear call to action (CTA) that encourages visitors to take the next step, such as subscribing to your newsletter, asking for a quote, or browsing your portfolio.

How can you further enhance a business profile website?

You can showcase your expertise on your website by adding testimonials from happy customers or building a portfolio of your previous work.

You can also create a blog or news section to share valuable information and establish yourself as an industry expert.

Finally, you can demonstrate credibility by featuring client logos and any industry awards you have received.

Best Guides for Growing a Small Business Website

Now that you have seen the best alternatives for Google Business Profile websites, you may wish to see some other articles related to growing a small business:

We hope this tutorial helped you find the best alternatives for Google Business Profile websites. You may also want to see our guide on how to migrate from a Google Business Profile website to WordPress or our expert pick of the best social media plugins for WordPress.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post 7 Alternatives to Google Business Profile Websites (Compared) first appeared on WPBeginner.

2022’s CMS Market Share Report – Latest Trends and Usage Stats

Are you looking for the latest CMS market share trends and usage stats?

These statistics can help you better understand the CMS market so you can choose the best CMS for your needs. Or you might even learn something new about your favorite content management system.

In this CMS market share report, we’ve collected the latest trends and usage stats for all the biggest content management systems.

2022's CMS market share report - latest trends and usage stats

CMS Popularity and Market Share Report 2022

We’ve divided this CMS market share report into several different categories. Simply use the table of contents below to jump straight to the statistics or content management system you’re most interested in.

CMS Usage Statistics

CMS usage statistics
  • In 2011, around 76% of all websites were hand-coded. By 2022, this figure had fallen to around 33%.
  • Today, over 78 million websites use a content management system. That’s around 58% of all websites.
  • When we look at the top 1 million websites based on traffic, almost 900,000 use a CMS. That’s nearly 90%.
  • However, experts warn that content management systems may be less popular in the business space. This is due to the higher costs of setting up a CMS for business use and a lack of CMS knowledge among small-to-medium enterprises.

The best content management systems make it easy to manage your content and create web pages, usually without having to write any code.

While it is possible to build a website without a CMS, you would need to learn a few different programming languages such as HTML, CSS, and PHP. You might even need to hire expert developers or web design specialists.

Without a CMS, you would need to write code every time you wanted to update your site. You might also have to deal with common errors if you make a mistake in the code.

With that being said, it’s not surprising that so many websites already use a CMS. In the future, we expect to see the number of hand-coded sites continue to fall, as more and more people realize the benefits of a good CMS.

CMS Market Share

CMS usage stats and market share
  • Throughout 2021, North America held a dominant share of the global CMS market, with Europe holding the second largest share.
  • Experts predict that North America’s share will continue to grow throughout the 2022-2028 time period.
  • When compared to other regions, it is estimated that Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa will contribute the least to the global market throughout 2022-2028.
  • According to experts, the government, life science, medical and health, retail, consumer goods, and defense sectors all contribute “significantly” to the size of the CMS market.
  • In 2021, enterprise web content management dominated the CMS sector, although the healthcare sector did acquire a “significant” share of the CMS market.
  • Experts predict that the Asia Pacific region will see the highest compound annual growth rate (CAGR) throughout 2022-2028. CAGR is the average rate that an investment grows or shrinks over a period of time.
  • According to experts, the CMS market in the Asia Pacific region is currently experiencing growth due to more small and medium-sized businesses adopting content management systems.

North America may continue to dominate the CMS market, but experts predict that the Asia Pacific region will get the highest return on investment out of all the regions.

This suggests the Asia Pacific market will play a much larger role in the CMS space, moving forward.

Content Management System Market Value

The CMS market value
  • The global CMS market was valued at approximately $35,903 million in 2018.
  • By 2021, the global CMS market was worth around $17.5 billion.
  • The CMS sector is predicted to hit $25.5 billion by 2028.
  • Experts predict that the CMS market will have a compound annual growth rate of roughly 6.5% between 2022 and 2028.

No matter whether you’re starting a blog, running a global eCommerce business, or making a small business website, the right CMS can help you succeed.

With 58% of all websites now using a CMS, it’s easy to see why this is a billion-dollar industry that shows no signs of slowing down.

WordPress Market Share

WordPress is the most popular CMS
  • WordPress has the biggest CMS market share.
  • Out of all the websites that use a known CMS, 45% of those sites use WordPress.
  • In 2022, WordPress has a 64.2% share of the global CMS market.
  • It is estimated there are 34,896,678 live WordPress websites.
  • There are over three million, five hundred thousand WordPress blogs and websites in the US alone.
  • When we look at the top 1 million sites based on traffic, 28.7% of those sites use WordPress open-source software.
  • 29.65% of the top 100 thousand websites use WordPress, and 29.41% of the top 10 thousand sites run on WordPress.
  • The WordPress CMS market share has grown from 55.3%-64.2% between 2011 and 2022, which is an 8.9% increase.

WordPress is the world’s most popular CMS, and that seems unlikely to change anytime soon.

The figures show that the number of hand-coded websites has decreased every year since 2011. At the same time, the number of WordPress websites has increased every single year. This suggests that WordPress is a popular choice among first-time CMS users.

This makes sense, as WordPress is one of the most user-friendly content management systems. WordPress is also one of the most flexible and customizable CMS platforms, and you can even download it for free from WordPress.org.

No matter whether you want to start a personal blog, an online store, or a multilingual website, you’ll have no problems finding the perfect WordPress theme and plugins. You can think of plugins as modules or apps that extend the core CMS.

WordPress is also optimized for search engines and gives you easy access to specialist SEO tools such as AIOSEO. All of this explains why WordPress has such a big user base.

Since WordPress is an open-source CMS, you can use it with a huge range of different WordPress hosting providers. Again, this makes WordPress a flexible CMS that appeals to lots of different people and businesses.

However, although WordPress has a far bigger market share than any other CMS, the content management system space is huge.

Even a 1% market share still translates to millions of websites. With that in mind, many of the content management systems in this report are still big players on the CMS market, even if they can’t compete with the sheer number of WordPress websites.

For more information, please see our ultimate guide on how to create a WordPress website.

eCommerce CMS Platforms Market Share

The WooCommerce eCommerce WordPress plugin
  • When you look at the top 1 million eCommerce sites, 2.67% of them use WooCommerce, a popular WordPress plugin.
  • 3.84% of the top 100 thousand websites use WooCommerce, and 3.82% of the top 10 thousand sites use WooCommerce.
  • Out of the top 1 million eCommerce sites, Shopify is the second most widely used CMS at 2.05%.
  • Meanwhile, 0.85% of those sites use Magento, and 0.49% use OpenCart.

It may not be a standalone CMS, but the statistics show that a significant number of online stores use WordPress and WooCommerce to create a CMS with eCommerce functionality. For this reason, we’re including WooCommerce in our CMS market share report.

According to the data, eCommerce sites that get the most traffic are more likely to use WooCommerce, although Shopify is a close second favorite among the top online stores.

Shopify is a fully hosted platform so you don’t need to worry about performance, which could explain why Shopify is used by 2.05% of high-traffic eCommerce sites.

Similarly, there is no shortage of managed WordPress hosting providers who can fine-tune your WooCommerce store and make sure it provides the best possible customer experience.

If you choose WordPress and WooCommerce as your eCommerce CMS, then you’ll also have access to lots of WooCommerce plugins that can extend and optimize the platform.

Since WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin, you can also follow our ultimate guide on how to boost WordPress speed and performance.

With their managed hosting and high performance, both Shopify and WooCommerce have a lot to offer online store owners and entrepreneurs. For a more detailed look at these two platforms, please see our Shopify vs WooCommerce comparison.

Wix Market Share

Wix is the CMS with the second biggest market share
  • Out of all the websites that use a known CMS, around 10% of those sites use Wix. This makes Wix one of the most popular content management systems.
  • Wix is used by around 7 million websites.
  • In the United States, 991,860 websites use Wix.
  • Despite holding a 10% share of the global CMS market, Wix only powers 0.56% of the top 1 million websites.
  • 0.69% of the top 100 thousand websites use Wix, and 0.98% of the top 10 thousand sites use Wix.

When we compare Wix’s market share to its closest competitor, we get interesting results.

Out of the top 1 million sites, 28.7% of those websites use WordPress but only 0.56% use Wix. This suggests that Wix appeals to small sites and businesses that get less traffic, rather than high-traffic websites.

By comparison, high-traffic websites are much more likely to use WordPress.

For a more detailed comparison, please see our complete guide to Wix vs. WordPress – which one is better?

Squarespace Market Share

The Squarespace CMS
  • Looking at the websites with a known CMS, around 3.71% of those sites use the Squarespace CMS.
  • Around 2,896,221 live websites use Squarespace.
  • 0.69% of the top 1 million sites use Squarespace.
  • 1.36% of the top 100 thousand websites use Squarespace, while 3.16% of the top 10 thousand sites use this popular hosted platform.
  • Squarespace’s CMS market share has grown from 0.2%-3.0% between 2011 and 2022, which is a 2.8% increase in 10 years.

Similar to Wix, Squarespace is much more popular among sites that have less traffic, compared to sites that get lots of visitors.

This makes sense, as Squarespace is best known for its ready-made templates and ease of use, which makes it a great platform for first-time website owners and smaller businesses.

Squarespace also has some limits that may be less appealing to larger businesses. For example, Squarespace only has a few integrations with third-party services. This can be a problem for big companies that want to use lots of different software and services with their content management system.

All of this may explain why we see larger organizations opt for flexible platforms such as WordPress, while smaller sites tend to choose hosted platforms like Squarespace or Wix.

For more information on this topic, you can see our guide on Square vs. WordPress – which one is better?

GoDaddy Market Share

The GoDaddy website builder
  • 2.24% of all websites with a known CMS, use the GoDaddy website builder.
  • It is estimated that 1,750,645 live websites are GoDaddy sites.
  • When we look at the top 1 million sites, 0.02% of those sites use GoDaddy.
  • 0.02% of the top 100 thousand websites use GoDaddy, while 0.03% of the top 10 thousand sites are built with GoDaddy.

Our market share stats show that very few high-traffic websites use GoDaddy, which reflects the audience that GoDaddy seems to be targeting.

GoDaddy’s website builder is a simple and easy tool that lets you create a professional looking website without any special design or development skills. It comes with ready-made blocks and layouts, which are perfect for anyone who is looking to create a website, fast.

However, GoDaddy is not as feature rich or flexible as some of the other content management systems and builders on our list. This could explain why it’s only used by 0.02% of the top 1 million websites.

If you’re looking to move away from GoDaddy, then you can see our expert pick of the best GoDaddy alternatives.

Joomla CMS Market Share

The Joomla CMS
  • 1.72% of all websites with a known CMS, use Joomla.
  • It is estimated that 1,325,993 live websites use Joomla.
  • When we look at the top 1 million sites based on traffic, 1.34% of those sites use the Joomla CMS.
  • 2.04% of the top 100 thousand websites run on Joomla, while 1.89% of the top 10 thousand sites rely on Joomla as their CMS.
  • Joomla’s CMS market share has reduced from 10.9% to 2.5% between 2011-2022. That’s a 8.4% decrease in 10 years.

Joomla still has a significant user base, but the growing popularity of user-friendly platforms such as WordPress and Shopify have affected its market share.

Many shared hosting providers offer one-click install packages for Joomla. However, the Joomla control panel isn’t as straightforward as other systems, with lots of different menus and settings that you can use to customize your site. This means that Joomla has a steep learning curve.

By default, Joomla also doesn’t allow users to install extensions and templates from the control panel, which can make it difficult for first-time users to find helpful addons.

This is a powerful platform with a loyal fanbase, but with so many user-friendly alternatives we may see Joomla’s market share continue to decline.

To learn more, please see our guide to WordPress vs. Joomla Vs. Drupal.

Weebly Market Share

The Weebly content management system
  • 1.28% of all websites that use a known CMS use Weebly.
  • It is estimated that 991,368 live websites run on Weebly.
  • When we look at the top 1 million sites based on traffic, 0.09% of those sites use the Weebly CMS.
  • 0.17% of the top 100 thousand websites are built using Weebly, while 0.31% of the top 10 thousand sites use Weebly.

Weebly is a fully hosted platform that has everything beginners need to build a website, including ready-made templates. a built-in contact form, professionally-designed sliders, and photo galleries.

It’s an easy-to-use platform, which explains why Weebly has a user base of over 991,000 websites.

However, as a fully hosted platform you’re locked into the functionality that Weebly provides. You can’t hire a developer or designer to add new features to a Weebly website, which might be why so few high-traffic websites use Weebly.

For more details, please see our guide on WordPress vs. Weebly – which is better?

Drupal CMS Market Share

The Drupal CMS
  • 0.71% of all websites whose CMS is known, use Drupal.
  • It is estimated that 555,754 live websites use Drupal.
  • When we look at the top 1 million sites based on traffic, 2.93% of those sites are built using Drupal.
  • 6.82% of the top 100 thousand websites use Drupal, compared to 10.46% of the top 10 thousand sites.
  • Drupal’s CMS market share has reduced from 6.1%-1.8% between 2011 and 2022. That’s a 4.3% decrease in 10 years.

The CMS statistics show that Drupal has a smaller overall market share compared to other content management systems on our list. Despite this, Drupal is used by a much larger percentage of high-traffic sites.

By comparison, Wix has a much larger overall market share (10%) but is used by a much lower percentage of the top 1 million websites (0.56%).

Drupal may not be the most popular CMS platform, but it’s a powerful software with lots of support resources. It also has a reputation as a very secure CMS.

While smaller websites, first-time site owners, and bloggers are choosing user-friendly platforms, the figures show that Drupal still has a loyal following among high-traffic websites.

For more information, please see our guide on WordPress vs. Joomla Vs. Drupal – which one is better?

Shopify Market Share

The Shopify hosted eCommerce platform
  • Shopify has a 6.2% share of the CMS market.
  • Impressively, Shopify’s market share has risen from just 3.4% in 2020 to 6.6% in 2022. That’s an increase of 3.2% in just two years.
  • It is estimated that 3,834,405 live websites use Shopify.
  • Shopify is used by 2.05% of the top 1 million eCommerce websites.
  • 2.62% of the top 100 thousand websites use Shopify, while 3.99% of the top 10 thousand sites are Shopify websites.
  • During the fourth quarter of 2020, Shopify reported earnings of $977.7 million, which was a 94% increase compared to the same period in 2019.
  • In 2020, Shopify reported a 53% year-over-year increase in subscription revenue.

Shopify had a sudden spike in popularity between 2020-2022, which saw its market share rise by 3.4% in just two years.

Many experts say this is due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With physical shops closed around the world, many businesses needed an easy way to sell their products online during this time.

As an all-in-one fully hosted eCommerce platform, Shopify is a user-friendly choice for anyone who wants to launch an online store, fast. Shopify comes with full inventory management, unlimited products, powerful analytics, marketing tools, and lots of designs, all in one product.

However, Shopify forces you to use its Shopify Payment platform. If you prefer to use your own payment processing solution, then Shopify charges an extra 2% transaction fee which is very high compared to other eCommerce solutions.

With that in mind, we may see Shopify’s growth slow as store owners start to look for more affordable Shopify alternatives. For example, you might move from Shopify to WooCommerce.

CMS Predictions for 2022 and Beyond

CMS predications and trends
  • Experts predict that artificial intelligence and machine learning will be big trends in the CMS space.
  • In particular, they see an increasing demand for image recognition, voice recognition and transcription, natural language understanding and natural language processing in content management systems.
  • Studies predict that personalized technologies will be another must-have feature among CMS users.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning promise to make all kinds of tasks easier and more efficient.

The world of content management systems is no exception, and it will be interesting to see how these platforms use advanced technologies in the future.

Sources: BuiltWith Trends, W3Techs, Zion Market Research, Facts and Factors, Statistica, Shopify, BuiltWith Knowledge Base.

We hope this CMS market share report helped you learn all about the latest trends and usage stats. You may also want to see our research on top marketing statistics as well as latest web design trends and stats.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post 2022’s CMS Market Share Report – Latest Trends and Usage Stats first appeared on WPBeginner.

7 Best Shopify Alternatives in 2020 (Cheaper and More Powerful)

Are you comparing Shopify alternatives to weigh their pros and cons?

You might have thought about using Shopify to create an online store. While it’s a popular option, it may not be the best fit for your eCommerce business.

In this article, we’ll compare the best Shopify alternatives along with their pros and cons, so you can choose the best platform to build an online store.

Shopify alternatives to consider for your online store

Is Shopify the Right Choice for Your Online Store?

Shopify is an all-in-one eCommerce platform. It handles all the technical details that goes into running an online store, like hosting, domain name, maintenance, software updates, and more.

This makes Shopify a popular choice among business owners.

However, it doesn’t offer the same flexibility and freedoms that many other top eCommerce platforms offer. It is also more expensive than many alternatives on the market with their basic plan starting from $29/month.

That being said, let’s take a look at some of the best Shopify alternatives with the pros and cons of each option.

1. WooCommerce

The WooCommerce website

WooCommerce is the most popular eCommerce platform in the world, and it is also our top pick for creating any type of online store.

It is beginner-friendly and incredibly easy to use. WooCommerce comes with hundreds of professionally designed website templates, and many of them are available for free.

You can also add any new feature to your eCommerce store using WooCommerce extensions (many of them are free as well).

There is also a ton of free online help and WooCommerce tutorials which makes it easier for you to learn and grow your online eCommerce business.

There are also more payment gateways extensions for WooCommerce available than any other platform. WooCommerce is used globally, so you will be able to integrate payment gateways supported in your targeted regions.

You will need to pay for web hosting and a domain to run WooCommerce. There are lots of options for WooCommerce hosting, but our top recommendation is Bluehost.

They are offering our readers a fantastic deal where you get a free domain name, free SSL certification, and hosting for $2.75/month:

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Price:

WooCommerce plugin itself is free.

However, you will need to pay the usual costs of running a WordPress website. This includes web hosting, your domain name, and any paid plugins you want to use for your online store.

2. MemberPress

The MemberPress website

MemberPress is our top pick for creating a membership site. It’s a great option if you want to offer digital content to customers. It lets you take subscription payments, or just charge one-time fee for digital downloads.

MemberPress is easy to set up, and you can use it to protect premium content on your site in lots of different ways.

For instance, it’s easy to protect all pages with a specific parent page, so only registered users can see them. MemberPress also lets you ‘drip’ content so that members don’t receive it all at once.

You can even set up different payment levels if you want to sell several different memberships or online products.

MemberPress integrates with lots of other tools such as popular email marketing services, live chat software, etc. It also has built-in support for PayPal and Stripe payments.

Price:

MemberPress costs from $129/year for the basic plan when you use our MemberPress coupon code.

3. BigCommerce

The BigCommerce website

BigCommerce is a fully hosted all-in-one eCommerce platform. The hosting, SEO, payment features, and more are all provided for you by BigCommerce. You don’t need to set anything up separately.

There’s also a BigCommerce WordPress plugin that lets you run a full BigCommerce store on your WordPress website. You can login to BigCommerce to manage your store and use WordPress to add / edit website content as normal.

There are hundreds of third-party apps and integrations that can be added onto BigCommerce. They have both free and paid apps available in their app marketplace. This gives you plenty of ways to add features like product popups with OptinMonster, cart abandonment, and more to your store as your business grows.

BigCommerce is a particularly good option if you’re not very confident with technology. The support team is available 24/7, and you can get phone, live chat, and email support. BigCommerce will handle things like backups, updates, and security for your store.

Price:

BigCommerce costs from $29.95/month. If you make more than $50,000 in sales per year, then you’ll need to upgrade to a more expensive plan.

4. Easy Digital Downloads

The Easy Digital Downloads website

Easy Digital Downloads lets you sell virtual (downloadable) products from your WordPress site. It’s specifically designed for selling digital products, so it’s not a good alternative to Shopify if you sell physical goods.

The Easy Digital Downloads plugin automatically protects your files. You can restrict how many times a customer can download a file. You can also let the download link expire after a set period of time. These methods prevent customers from sharing their purchased files with other people.

Easy Digital Downloads works well even if you have multiple digital products to sell. There’s a built-in shopping cart system where customers can buy several products at once. It’s also easy to make a customer account page, so that people can easily view all the products they’ve bought.

As with any WordPress plugin, you’ll need a domain name and WordPress hosting in order to use Easy Digital Downloads. It’s not a standalone solution.

There’s lots of help available through the support forums, videos, and tutorials. If you pay for the premium version, you’ll get priority support through email.

Price:

Easy Digital Downloads itself is free. There are a number of extensions available, some also free and some paid. Pricing plans start from $99/year, and these give access to email support and certain extensions.

5. Constant Contact Website Builder

The Constant Contact Website Builder website

Constant Contact is best known as an email marketing service, but the company also has a beginner-friendly website builder. You can use this to quickly and easily create an online store.

The built-in eCommerce functionality in the Constant Contact website builder lets you easily choose a layout, add products, and set up payments. There are also features that let you create a logo and analyze your website traffic.

You can try out Constant Contact’s website builder completely free of charge. Once it’s time to launch your site, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.

The drag and drop interface makes this website builder really easy to use. There are over 550,000 free professional quality images to pick from for your site too.

Constant Contact also includes 24/7 support through phone and live chat, so it’s easy to get help if you need it.

Price:

Constant Contact’s website builder costs just $10/month. There’s a 30-day money-back guarantee, too.

6. Magento

The Magento website

Magento is an open source eCommerce platform, just like WordPress is an open source website builder platform.

You can use the community edition of Magento with any web host that supports it. We recommend SiteGround’s Magento hosting for this.

There’s also Magento Commerce, which is a paid platform. This includes lots of features and support, but you need to ask for an enterprise quote to get pricing.

Magento has a healthy extensions ecosystem that lets you add new functionality. Many of these are free, but a lot of them are premium extensions.

Magento is a powerful platform with lots of flexibility, but it can be tricky to get started with if you’re a beginner. It’s a good fit if you’re running a business and have developers on hand, or if you want to hire a developer to set things up.

Price:

The open source version of Magento is free. However, you’ll need to pay for web hosting that’s powerful enough to run a fully featured online store.

7. Weebly

The Weebly website

Weebly is an all-in-one website builder and eCommerce platform, so you don’t need to buy hosting separately. It comes with dozens of website designs that you can edit using drag and drop tools.

Weebly lets you easily create an online store. Their platform gives you the ability to sell digital items as well as physical ones. There are also options for selling services and taking donations.

With Weebly, you also get extra features like a mobile app to manage your store, automated abandoned cart emails, and more.

There are over 300 Weebly apps that you can add to your site to give it new features. Many of these are free, but some cost extra.

However, Weebly doesn’t have the full range of customization options that other eCommerce platforms like WooCommerce can offer.

Price:

Weebly’s business plan is $25/month. This removes the 3% transaction fee that Weebly would otherwise charge on all your sales.

There’s also a free version of Weebly, but this doesn’t include eCommerce tools.

Which is the Best Shopify Alternative for Your Online Store?

For most people, WooCommerce is the best Shopify alternative. It’s easy to use, and fairly quick to get started with. Best of all, it has lots of flexibility since WooCommerce offers the largest extension ecosystem and pre-made template library.

MemberPress is a great option if you want to offer digital products or online courses that people subscribe to. It’s easy to use and again offers lots of power and flexibility.

BigCommerce is another good alternative that offers the similar feature set as Shopify without the restriction of specific payment gateways or extra fees.

We hope this article helped you learn about the best Shopify alternatives to create an online store. You might also like our list of proven and easy to start online business ideas.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post 7 Best Shopify Alternatives in 2020 (Cheaper and More Powerful) appeared first on WPBeginner.

Wix vs WordPress – Which One is Better? (Pros and Cons)

Are you trying to decide between Wix vs WordPress to build your website? While WordPress is the most popular website builder in the world, it is not the only option.

After seeing TV commercials for Wix, some of our users asked us to do a detailed comparison of Wix vs WordPress to find out which is the better choice.

In this article, we will compare Wix vs WordPress and highlight the pros and cons. Our hope is that with this Wix review and comparison, you’ll be able to decide which platform is right for your needs.

Comparing Wix vs WordPress

Note: This article compares Wix vs Self Hosted WordPress.org NOT WordPress.com. See the difference between self-hosted WordPress.org vs WordPress.com sites.

We have broken down this comparison into 7 categories:

Let’s see how Wix and WordPress stack up into each of these categories.

1. Pricing and Costs

The cost of website building is an important factor when choosing your site builder platform. The total costs of developing and maintaining your site will entirely depend on your needs. Our goal is to make sure that you can do whatever you need within your budget.

Let’s compare the pricing of Wix and WordPress to find out which one gives you more bang for the buck.

Wix Pricing Comparison:

Wix offers a basic website builder for free. However, there are two major downsides to it.

First, it adds Wix branded advertisements on the top and bottom of your website. Second, you cannot use a custom domain name for your site, so your website address will be: username.wix.com/sitename

Apart from that, the basic plan does not offer necessary add-ons such as Google Analytics, Favicons, eCommerce, etc. To remove ads and get additional features from their apps market, you’ll have to upgrade to one of the premium plans they offer.

Each Wix premium plan has different storage and bandwidth limitations. You can pay monthly or choose a yearly plan.

Wix Pricing Plan

The best value plans on Wix is the Unlimited plan ($12.50 / month).

If you need eCommerce and business features, then you need to select a Business & Ecommerce plan.

Wix eCommerce and business plans

Pricing for small business website and eCommerce plans start from $17 / month.

Regardless of which plan you choose, this cost does not include any apps that you later choose to buy from the Wix app market to use on your website.

WordPress Pricing Comparison:

The WordPress software is open source, and it is available for free for anyone to use.

We often get asked about why is WordPress free and what’s the catch?

Well, the biggest catch is that you need your own domain name and web hosting to install it.

There are several WordPress hosting providers that you can choose from. See our guide on how to choose the best WordPress hosting company.

Depending on your budget, you can start with a basic plan with a WordPress hosting provider like Bluehost that will cost you $2.75 per month and includes a free custom domain name.

Bluehost WordPress hosting

If your budget permits, then you can use a managed WordPress hosting provider like WP Engine which costs $29 per month.

The cost of a WordPress site will increase if you decide to use premium WordPress themes or plugins (similar to apps in WordPress).

However, there are thousands of free WordPress themes and plugins available that you can use to reduce costs. You can add any feature to your WordPress site using a plugin without upgrading your hosting plan.

For more information, see our guide on how much does it cost to build a WordPress website.

WordPress comes with full support for eCommerce out of the box. You can install the WooCommerce plugin to create an online store on your website. Just like WordPress, WooCommerce itself is free and opensource.

For more information, see our article on how much it costs to build an eCommerce website.

Conclusion:

WordPress beats Wix with flexible plans available from a variety of web hosting companies. The cost depends on how much resources you use, and you are free to use your WordPress website in any way you want.

2. Ease of Use

Most beginners choose Wix or WordPress because they don’t want to hire a website designer. Both Wix and WordPress allow you to create websites without learning to code.

Let’s take a look which one of them is easier to use for beginners with no coding experience.

Wix:

Wix comes with powerful and easy to use tools to build your own website. It offers a simple drag and drop interface where you can select any element on your site and start editing it in a WYSIWYG interface.

Wix Editor

You can drag and drop items anywhere on your site, rearrange things on your pages, write content, and add media in a user-friendly environment. Many beginners would find this feature a blessing as it saves them from dealing with code.

WordPress:

WordPress comes with an incredibly powerful WordPress block editor that allows you to edit your pages with a live preview.

This allows you to create visually stunning layouts by adding blocks. There are blocks for all common elements like text, headings, buttons, background images, galleries, and more.

WordPress editor

WordPress also gives you access to thousands of themes (website templates) to use on your site. Each of them is also fully-customizable using the live theme customizer.

WordPress customizer

Need even more code-free ways to edit your website visually? WordPress has some of the most intuitive drag and drop page builder plugins. These drag-and-drop editor provide you even more tools to create professional-looking websites without writing code.

For example you can use a page builder like SeedProd or Divi that lets you build completely custom websites without writing any code.

SeedProd Page Builder

All of these options give a lot more choices and tools to edit your website.

Conclusion:

There is a tie when it comes to ease of use between Wix and WordPress. Both offer easy code-free ways to write content, make pages, and manage business and eCommerce websites.

Wix does a great job with their editor interface, but it lacks advanced capabilities. WordPress offers ease of use that can be extended with a little bit of a learning curve which is great in the long run.

3. Design and Layout

Your site’s design and layout play an important role in your success. Every site owner needs a web design that’s not only good-looking but also user-friendly and makes their brand stand-out.

Wix:

Wix comes with more than 900+ pre-made templates to choose from. All Wix designs are fully responsive and written in HTML5. Using the built-in tools, you can further tweak your site design, change the layout, and rearrange items as you see fit.

Wix website templates

There are designs available for every kind of site. Templates are divided into categories like business, eCommerce, hobbies, arts & crafts, personal, etc.

One big disadvantage is that once you have selected a template, you cannot change it. You can modify it and customize it as much as you want using only the built-in tools, but you cannot switch to another template.

WordPress:

There are thousands of free and paid themes available for WordPress. Free themes come with limited support, but they also go through a strict review process. Paid themes generally offer more features and come with premium support options.

WordPress themes

WordPress themes range from small personal sites to full-fledged eCommerce sites. Most themes come with built-in customization options of their own. You can also use one of the many styling plugins to further style or customize your WordPress themes.

Users can download free themes from WordPess.org directory. For paid themes, there are several WordPress theme shops like Astra, StudioPress, Themify, CSSIgniter, and more. See our list of the best commercial WordPress theme shops.

Furthermore, you can hire a developer or learn to create a completely custom theme for your company.

There are also plugins like SeedProd, a landing page builder plugin that allows you to quickly deploy a website, a sales page, product page, or even a coming soon page regardless of which theme you are using.

More importantly, you can change your WordPress theme anytime you want and use a different theme. This allows your website design to grow and evolve with your business.

Conclusion:

WordPress has a much larger range of themes and design layouts than Wix. WordPress users can also easily switch themes or customize them as much as they want without any restrictions.

4. Plugins and Apps

Plugins and apps are like third-party extensions that you can use with your platform to add more features.

Wix calls them apps, and in the WordPress ecosystem, they are called plugins.

Let’s compare apps and plugins available on both platforms and what you can do with them.

Wix:

Wix comes with nearly 200+ apps that you can add to your site. These apps offer a wide range of features like adding contact forms, gallery, comments, social media buttons, email marketing and so on.

Wix App Marketplace

Many of the apps are free or have a lite version. Other apps require monthly payments and vary in prices. Even though there is a limited collection of apps, they cover the most commonly requested features by site owners.

WordPress:

At the time of writing this article, there are more than 58,000+ free plugins available in the WordPress.org plugin directory alone. Not to mention, premium plugins available on other marketplaces.

WordPress plugins

The saying goes: if you can think of a feature, there’s probably a WordPress plugin that makes it happen.

Whether you want to create a contact form, install Google Analytics, build a membership website, or sell online courses, there’s a plugin for that.

You can do just about anything you like with WordPress. There are plenty of plugins both free and paid which you can use to build the website of your dreams.

Conclusion:

WordPress easily beats Wix in this area as well. Even though Wix’s app library is growing, it is still limited in comparison to the huge choice available to WordPress users.

5. Wix vs WordPress – Which one is better for blogging?

Many users are looking for an easier platform to start blogging. Wix and WordPress both can be used to create blogs. Let’s take a look at which one does it better.

Blogging with Wix

Wix allows you to easily add a blog section to your website. It has all the basic blogging features you’ll commonly use. For example, categories and tags, photos and videos, archives, etc.

Blogging with Wix

Comments on Wix blogs are slow and not as easy to manage as WordPress. Many users end up installing third-party commenting systems like Facebook or Disqus both of them require users to create accounts.

It also lacks several features like backdating posts, creating private posts, and more.

The writing interface for blog posts is not the same as the Wix website builder. Instead, it uses a plain text editor which is very limited in terms of formatting options.

Blogging with WordPress

WordPress started out as a blogging platform and evolved into a full-blown website builder. Today it powers nearly 40% of all websites.

It has all the blogging features you’ll need like a native commenting system and all other advanced features that are missing from Wix.

Editing blog posts in WordPress

It comes with the powerful Gutenberg block editor which allows you to create beautiful layouts for your blog posts.

Most importantly, you can extend your blog using plugins and add any feature that you can think of.

Conclusion

WordPress totally outshines Wix as a blogging platform. Wix blogs are too basic and lack several important features. If you are thinking about starting a blog, then Wix doesn’t even come close to WordPress.

6. Wix vs WordPress Ecommerce Comparison

Selling things online is another important feature that most beginners look for. Let’s see how WordPress and Wix compare in eCommerce.

Wix:

Wix offers eCommerce with their paid plans. This means users with the free plan cannot run their eCommerce store on Wix without upgrading to a paid plan.

Wix eCommerce

With the Wix Stores, you can accept payments using their own native payments system or use third-party apps to connect different payment gateways including PayPal, Authorize.net, and more.

If you choose to use Wix Payments, then they charge 2.9% of the transaction amount + 0.30 USD for the US region. As you sell more products, this processing fee becomes a substantial amount.

There are a few third-party apps that you can use to help promote your store and sell things online. The overall features of the eCommerce platform are limited too.

WordPress:

WordPress makes it super easy to create your online store using WooCommerce, which is the most popular eCommerce platform in the world.

WooCommerce

There are also plenty of other eCommerce plugins available for WordPress that you can use to sell physical or digital goods, services, events, subscriptions, and more.

WordPress is also the best platform to sell digital subscriptions using MemberPress. It allows you to sell online courses, pay per view content, and membership plans for your online community.

Most eCommerce plugins for WordPress even have their own dedicated themes and add-on plugins. See our list of best WooCommerce themes for some excellent examples.

Conclusion:

If you want to build a proper online store and be ready for growth, then WordPress + WooCommerce offers much more flexibility, freedom, and choices when compared to Wix.

7. Data Portability Options in Wix vs WordPress

Data portability allows you the freedom to move your content away when you need it. Let’s take a look at how Wix and WordPress help you move your content and use it elsewhere.

Data portability options in Wix

Wix comes with very limited options to move your content to another platform. You can only export your blog posts in XML format. You’ll have to manually download your pages, images, videos, and other content.

According to Wix documentation, all your content is hosted exclusively on Wix’s servers and cannot be exported elsewhere.

This makes it a bit difficult to move your content to another platform if needed. However, you can still transfer a Wix site. See our article, on how to switch from Wix to WordPress for more details.

Data portability options in WordPress

WordPress is a proper content management system and makes it extremely easy to export your content. It comes with a one-click exporter that allows you to download your content in XML format.

Exporting your WordPress site

Since it is a self-hosted platform, you can also create complete WordPress backups, download your media files, and even manually export your WordPress database.

You can then easily move your WordPress site to a new host if you are not satisfied with your current WordPress hosting company.

Conclusion:

WordPress is a lot better when it comes to downloading and moving your data. Wix, on the other hand, makes it quite difficult to move your content away.

Final Verdict: Wix vs WordPress – Which One is Better?

WordPress is far superior to Wix as a web publishing platform for any kind of website. While Wix offers an easy-to-use website builder, you can accomplish a lot more with WordPress over the long run.

See our guide on how to make a website using WordPress for step by step instructions.

Frequently Asked Questions – Wix vs WordPress

Do you still have a few questions? Here are some of the most commonly asked questions users asked us when deciding between Wix vs WordPress.

1. Which one is cheaper Wix vs WordPress?

Wix has free plans with their own branded domain name and advertisements. Their paid plans allow you to remove the branding and use your own domain name and they start at $4.50 per month with very limited storage and features. Your costs increase if you want to upgrade to more feature rich plans.

On the other hand, WordPress just needs hosting and domain name. For instance, you can get started with Bluehost for $2.75 per month with a free domain name and SSL certificate. Considering that it also gives you flexibility to add any feature you want to your website, WordPress becomes a lot cheaper in the long run.

2. Can I transfer my domain away from Wix?

Yes, you can transfer your domain away from Wix. However, Wix makes it a bit difficult to transfer your website files and content. For more details, see our article on how to transfer a website from Wix to WordPress.

3. What are Pros and Cons of using Wix?

For a quick comparison, here are some of the advantages and disadvantages of using Wix over WordPress.

Pros:

  • You don’t need to install software or manage updates on Wix
  • It offers a simpler and easy to use interface to edit websites
  • Wix is a hosted solution so you don’t need to worry about backups and security

Cons:

  • Wix is more expensive than WordPress in the long run
  • It is very limited in terms of functionality when compared to WordPress
  • It has fewer design choices and third-party integrations
  • The eCommerce and business features are no where close to what other platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce offer

4. Which platform offers more storage and bandwidth?

Most WordPress hosting companies offer unlimited storage and bandwidth. Compared to Wix, which limits the storage space based on the plan you choose. For instance, their basic plan gives users just 500 MB storage, 1 GB bandwidth, and no video hours.

5. Which one is better for SEO Wix vs WordPress

WordPress is better for SEO as you can use SEO plugins and tools, which you can use to do things like adding open graph meta tags, advanced XML sitemaps, On-site SEO analysis, and more.

We recommend using All in One SEO (AIOSEO) plugin to improve your WordPress ranking.

Wix offers some search engine optimization features built into their platform. This allows you to perform basic SEO for your website.

We hope this article helped you compare Wix vs WordPress and learn their pros and cons. You may also want to see our article on easy to start online business ideas and how to increase your website traffic without spending too much money.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

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