Wix has made a name for itself due to its ease of use and abundance of design-related features. This is no wonder as the platform comes as one of the best all-in-one DIY web design solutions that works equally well for personal and business projects.
However, some users still crave for more options in terms of creating online projects for customers. They do not want to be dependent on the initial developer, which looks 100% natural.
Having your own exclusive website builder like Wix seems to have more potential especially if you create sites for customers. This is an advantage in itself as it gives you more opportunities in terms of website design and customization.
Choosing Your Path: Building from Scratch vs. White Label Solutions
If you are right about to set up a platform like Wix, you can choose one of two options:
- The first one is to develop the needed software yourself.
- The second way is to benefit from flexible White Label solutions delivered by some big names from the web industry.
While the first path requires in-depth coding and programming knowledge, the second one seems to be a simpler and faster way, especially for non-technicians.
However, it still makes sense to focus on the first option (DIY approach) as it still remains quite popular with the prevailing amount of users.
Building from Scratch: The DIY Approach
Creating a website building platform like Wix from scratch undoubtedly requires meticulous planning as there are multiple issues to keep in mind. Here they go:
Defining Your Vision and Goals
The process starts with a clear vision and goals definition. Take your time to determine the niche or the target audience for your website builder and decide if it will cater to personal, business, or eCommerce needs. You also need to understand your unique selling points – something that will make your platform stand out from the crowd. These may include ease of use, affordability or customization options.
Assembling Your Development Team and Picking Technology Stack
To bring your vision to life, you’ll need a proficient development team that should include web developers, UI/UX designers and quality assurance experts. Selecting the right technology stack is crucial as well. This involves options related to programming languages, databases, frameworks and hosting infrastructure. A typical stack for a website builder includes technologies like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, MySQL and cloud-based services for scalability and reliability.
User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) Design
The next thing to focus on is to create an intuitive and visually appealing UX and UI. Your platform’s ease of use will have a direct impact on its popularity. While UX design is more about user navigation convenience and overall expertise, UI design ensures a consistent website look.
Creating a Content Management System (CMS)
Professional Content Management System (CMS) is the basis for successful website development. It makes it possible to easily create, edit and manage the entire website content. The system should also be capable of handling different types of media like text, images, videos, media files and other elements.
Incorporating Responsive Design
Responsive design is imperative as well. Make sure that websites created on your platform will provide seamless adaptability to various devices and screen sizes. This means that your website templates and components should be responsive (see our responsive website builders rating).
Adding Essential Features
Along with responsive web design approach, UI/UX design options and handy CMS, a trusted website builder like Wix should also offer a variety of other features. These refer to website templates, drag-and-drop builders, eCommerce/blogging capabilities, SEO tools and analytics.
Testing and Quality Assurance
Before launching your new platform, it is a must to test and quality assure it. Take your time to complete all types of testing, including unity, integration and user testing. This is needed to detect and fix the potential problems.
Deployment and Hosting
Once you’ve built a robust and thoroughly tested platform, it’s time to deploy and host it. Select a reliable hosting solution that can handle the potential traffic and usage requirements. Configure servers, databases and content delivery networks to ensure optimal performance and speed. Do not forget about security measures such as encryption, firewalls and regular security audits to safeguard user data and protect against potential cyber threats.
Exploring White Label Website Builders
Have you made up your mind to use White Label website builders? Well, this also makes sense. The key benefit here is that you do not actually have to reinvent the wheel. White Label platforms deliver a full-cycle ready-to-use website building solution with already integrated assets, technologies, etc. Let’s focus on this option now.
Understanding White Label Solutions
Let’s say, someone has already produced a service or a product that you may want to promote. The idea of White Labeling is to let other people put their own brand name on that product or service and use it at a fixed fee.
In reference to website builders, you are allowed to use a website builder with your own logo and brand name for commercial and other purposes with no need to develop the software yourself. As a result, you save money and get all the necessary assets in the pack.
Advantages of White Label Website Builders
Some may think that using third-party technologies is hardly the best idea when promoting their own brand. Well, that depends on numerous factors. White Labels are generally more cost-effective. In addition, users will appreciate some of the following advantages:
- Expert Work. Users get full access to expert solutions and technologies with no need to develop their own. Popular website builders with White Label offers have proved their efficiency when creating new projects from scratch with a rich feature set and extra perks. Are you able to create something better than that?
- Refined and Tested Platform. Popular website builders have been tested by millions of users worldwide. It means no fine-tuning process is necessary. You will not need to modify existing features, as they already meet users’ requirements.
- Cost-Effective Solution. White labeling lets you save money, as there is no need to hire a custom development team. The option is available at a nominal fee. Using it is the same as having your own in-house developer.
- Brand Promotion. Launching a new project from scratch is a challenging task, as you need to market and promote it. One will hardly guarantee success. White Labeling offers well-established platforms that make it easier to increase recognition.
As a result, you get an ultimate pressure-off solution instead of outsourcing or writing the code for new software yourself. Moreover, you may choose the website building way with regard to your coding background, business goals and special requirements.
Key Players in the White Label Website Builder Market
Actually, the choice of trusted White Label website builders is not that extensive. Not all of them possess the required set of features, tools and customization options needed to set up and run website building platforms like Wix. We have picked two best solutions that will come up to the majority of user requirements.
Duda: A Closer Look
| Product Name: | Duda |
| Official Website: | duda.co |
| Complexity: | Easy |
| Founded: | 2009 |
| Headquarters: | United States |
| Free Plan: | Free 14-day trial |
| White Label Cost: | from $19/mo |
Duda – is your own branded website builder, which offers an extensive choice of design customization and website management options provided out-of-the-box. The system works quite well for first-timers yet it also has much to offer to web design pros. It allows starting various types of responsive websites like personal and business projects, blogs, portfolios, landing pages and even small/medium online stores.
As a drag-and-drop website builder, Duda shares a number of its features with Wix. The platform comes with multilingual support, high end design personalization tools, built-in eCommerce and blogging engines and powerful integrations available in stock.
When used as a White Label solution, the software allows adding your brand identity to the client login screen and dashboard, website builder and preview tools, integrated themes etc. Users get access to multiple platform features, like on-the-go editing, email communications, promotion tools and more. Currently, the White Label solution is available to Agencies, SaaS platforms as hosts:
- Duda for Agencies. The White Label solution creates a powerful foundation for successful web design business development. Agencies can benefit from the option, getting access to multiple brand boosting terms and features, such as an advanced editor for quick website launch, intuitive website management tools, superior support, guidance and resources, integrated SEO, SSL and hosting, high end SEO tools, in-platform upsell opportunities etc.
- Duda for SaaS Platforms. By embedding a powerful Duda White Label solution into your web design platform, you get a fully rebranded software to provide the target audience with a seamless web design experience. Their projects will be automatically synced with content using Duda’s custom widgets, APIs, Dynamic Pages etc.
- Duda for Hosts. The platform allows providing high end design solutions integrated with your hosting and domain services. You can expand your offerings, increase revenue, and improve user satisfaction rate. With Duda API, you get an opportunity to create seamless upsell packages sold under your brand.
Duda White Label cost: Duda White Label solution is currently available for its three plans – Team, Agency and custom. The cost starts at $19/mo when billed annually and goes up to $499/mo and higher.
Duda vs Squarespace Comparison
Duda and Wix Head-to-Head Comparison
Site.pro – A Comprehensive Review
| Product Name: | Site.pro |
| Official Website: | site.pro |
| Complexity: | Easy |
| Founded: | 2003 |
| Headquarters: | Lithuania |
| Free Plan: | Yes |
| White Label Cost: | from $48.00/mo |
Site.pro – is a simple builder for hosting solutions, which is user-friendly, logically-structured and understandable to all users, irrespective of their coding background. The software works best for hosting companies, affiliates, website owners and franchisors across the globe. The platform is compatible with multiple hosting panels and can make any product unique and professional.
Being the all-in-one web design solution, Site.pro can be used to start website building platforms like Wix. It comes with integrated hosting/domain options, custom logo builder, removable logo in the footer badge, eCommerce engine, fully customizable templates, integrated user statistics, editable plugins and other related features.
Site.pro offers multiple advantages to hosting customers. Along with the above mentioned privileges, these include an opportunity to use eCommerce options, multilanguage support, availability of extra plugins, website import option, responsive designs, extensive customization options. The software also allows using its White Label Marketing Kit to increase your sales. The Kit lets you check your builderisation level to make sure the project will rank high among the competitors.
Site.pro White Label cost: the platform abounds in white Label plans intended for hosting providers. There is a free subscription and 10 premium plans here. The cost of premium subscriptions starts at $48.00/mo and goes up to $595.00/mo.
Post-Launch Strategies
Now that you are done with your website builder set up, you have to ponder over the next step – the post-launch strategy. This is a must, if you wish to withstand niche competition. A good strategy should encompass such issues as user growth and retention, scaling and development as well as the ways to stay competitive in the modern market.
User Growth and Retention
The fact that you have created a website building platforms like Wix does not mean that you should stop on this stage. There are many similar systems out there, so, the very first thing to focus on is continuous marketing. The best options here are to invest in digital marketing, content creation and SEO to boost your software visibility. Leveraging social media, email marketing and partnerships to expand your target audience reach is crucial as well.
The next issue is to focus on an efficient onboarding process. It should be easy for users to understand and use your website builder. To simplify the task, provide tutorials, guides and customer support to help them get started quickly.
You software users should have an opportunity to provide feedback and suggestions to enhance user experience. Likewise, they would certainly benefit from having access to user engagement features within your website builder. These may include blog content, forums, a community hub etc.
Scaling and Future Development
Your newly-created website builder will also require scaling and ongoing development to become popular with the target audience. Listed below are the major issues to focus on.
- Scalability: As the number of your software subscribers grows, you should ensure that your infrastructure will be able to handle the increased load. Scalability is a crucial factor in maintaining a smooth user experience. You should be ready to upgrade your resources and servers when there is such a need.
- Future Development: Staying competitive means taking care of your platform development. While user needs and industry trends may change over time, you should be prepared to introduce new features and tools to keep your platform relevant.
- Mobile Accessibility and API Integration: These two factors also matter a lot when it comes to scalability. Your platform has to be mobile ready and optimized for mobile devices, while third-party developers should have an opportunity to introduce plugins and integrations for your website builder.
Staying Competitive in the Website Builder Market
Niche competition is what triggers the need for any software to keep upgrading on a regular basis. To stay competitive in the niche, you should undertake the following measures:
- Conduct market analysis – Always keep an eye on your niche competitors to analyze their pros and cons as well as to monitor the emerging web design trends and technologies.
- Develop the right pricing strategy – Your pricing approach is crucial, when it comes to comparing website builders and staying competitive. It makes sense to offer several pricing tiers and packages to your subscribers to cover their needs.
- Offer customer support options – Exceptional customer support is what sets you apart among the competitors. Make sure your support team is responsive and knowledgeable. Quick problem resolution and friendly interactions always create a good impression on users.
- Take care of security – It is important for a platform to provide utmost security and reliability. Data breaches or vulnerabilities may result in a loss of users and reputation damage, while maximum confidentiality protection contributes to a higher user satisfaction rate.
- Focus on the target audience – Always put your subscribers in the center of your strategy. To do this, you should understand their needs, expectations and pain points. To be able to offer the best services, take into account user feedback and preferences.
Final Thoughts and Recommendations
As you see, creating a website builder like Wix has nothing in common with tough coding or programming. All you need is to focus on three major stages, each of which has a notable impact on the result.
To start with, you have to define the software goals and the range of services you want to provide. You won’t go without a professional web development team and technology stack. UX and UI design solutions along with a properly created CMS will lay the foundation for correct content presentation and user engagement rate. Finally, you have to make sure your website builder is responsive and full-featured enough to stay in demand with users. As soon as you check these issues and test your platform, you may proceed to its further deployment and hosting.
Secondly, you should focus on picking a matching software that should ideally come with a suitable White Label solution. In this respect, Duda and Site.pro are those systems that are worth your attention most. Duda comes with drag-and-drop editing options that let you start a fully branded website with no coding required, while Site.pro proves to be a perfect choice for hosting providers.
Finally, you should remember that the process of starting a website building platform does not stop on the set up stage. Post-launch strategies are important as well. Take care of user growth and reputation, website builder scaling and development and, of course, various ways to stay competitive in the web design niche.
To sum that all up, opting for ready-made platforms is cheaper and faster. You get a full set of assets, technologies, software, and support to resolve various issues instead of being left on your own with endless pieces of code and without the foggiest idea what to start with. However, there are still multiple issues to take care of on the preparation and post-launch stages. Hopefully, this article provides enough information on how to handle them effectively.
