Building a website can sound scary if you don’t have technical or design skills. But it doesn’t have to be. There are many tools that enable even the least tech-savvy among us to build solid websites without requiring any coding. In this article, we’ll introduce you to the following tools – The Bluehost Website Builder and WordPress themes.
The Bluehost Website Builder
The Bluehost Website Builder is designed with beginners in mind. It doesn’t matter what kind of site you want to make. Whether it’s a portfolio, a personal site, or a site for your local business, the Bluehost Website Builder has you covered.
Getting started with the Builder is easy and time-saving. To begin, you’ll need to choose one of the Bluehost plans. Once you are subscribed to a plan, Bluehost will automatically install WordPress and enable the Bluehost Website Builder on your site. Then all you’ll need to do is log in to your Bluehost portal and start building!
Now, let’s take a closer look at the advantages and disadvantages of using the Bluehost Website Builder.
The advantages of using the Bluehost Website Builder
Ease of use
You can breathe a sigh of relief because the Bluehost Website Builder does not require any coding or graphic design skills. So, how do you build a site then?
Straight out of the box, the Builder comes powered with over 300 templates for you to choose from. You can find a template based on the type of site you have – for your organization, a blog, a small business website, an educational website – there are plenty of options. The best thing is that the Builder can decide which template is suitable for you. All you have to do is answer a few questions about your site, and give it the input it needs to generate a base website.
Then, you can also use the pre-made templates for your pages. You’ll find templates for your home page, contact and about me pages, and more!
The beauty of those templates is that they come pre-filled with content. Someone already did the hard work and arranged all the elements where they should be. All you’ll need to do is insert your content!
Plenty of options to let your brand shine
Having templates doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to bring your personal touch to your site. The Builder contains a customizer, which lets you change the page’s layouts, fonts, and colors.
Sorting and editing the site works by simply picking and dropping elements to where you want them to be. You can also use the library of stock photos, or upload unlimited images, video, or audio files.
Seamless integration with the WordPress editor
The Bluehost Website Builder works excellently with WordPress. So, while you can take care of your site’s appearance with the Builder, you can also take full advantage of the WordPress editor for writing and creating your content. Importantly, you can switch back and forth between using the Builder and WordPress editor without breaking your design.
Are there any disadvantages?
The Bluehost Website Builder comes with plenty of customization options. But, if you have some technical skills, perhaps you’d like to have more granular control of the appearance of your site. You may want to truly customize it with options beyond those available in the Builder. So, what can you do? Well, you can use themes!
Using WordPress Themes
Themes in WordPress handle the appearance of your site. They come in all shapes and sizes, and there are many to choose from. So, let’s take a deeper look at what they can offer you.
The advantages of using themes
Plenty of options
There are thousands of free and premium WordPress themes out there. It’s a dizzying array of choices! Need help choosing a theme? Read our extensive article with useful tips on what to look for in a theme.
Endless customization
Some themes come with templates and demos, i.e., pre-made sites that you can adjust to your needs. But they also have a lot of customization options. You can play around with the style, colors, layout, typography, and much more. Themes are also incredibly flexible for people who know coding. You can turn a regular theme into a fully customized branded site with some CSS and HTML skills.
What are the disadvanges?
While your coding and graphic design skills can get you far, the themes learning curve may be too steep for a beginner. In addition, to unlock the full potential of some themes, you may need to use plugins. The more plugins you add to your site, the bigger the chance they will slow your site down, or cause other issues.
Using Bluehost Website Builder together with a theme
Now you may be wondering, can’t I have the best of both worlds and use Bluehost Website Builder together with a theme? Technically, you could. Although, generally, we advise against it.
If you decide to use a theme with the Builder, some functionalities of the Builder will be limited or turned off. Furthermore, you will only be able to edit certain parts of the site with the theme, for instance, the header and the footer.
The elements you’ve built with the Builder will only be customizable in the Builder itself. And the other way around. The edits you make to the theme, outside of the header and the footer, will only be editable in the theme customizer. That may cause you some headaches, and for that reason, we recommend you use either the Builder or a theme.
However, if you do want to use a theme other than the default Bluehost theme, here are some that we’ve tested, and ensured they work well with the Builder without causing any bugs. This is useful in several situations. For example, you can use the Builder to build a base for your website. Later on, you may want to use a theme with its customization capability to further design or add features to your site.
Astra
With over 1 million users and a rating of 4.9/5 stars, we can safely say that the Astra theme is trusted and loved by WordPress users. It is considered to be one of the fastest themes. Moreover, it is easy to use and comes with SEO-friendly features. It is also fully responsive so design will work well across different devices. Finally, you can access a huge library of templates if you install a specialized plugin.
The theme has a free and a Pro version. So, while the excellent performance is available in the free version, you’d probably need to upgrade to Pro to get the most out of it. For instance, the features that extend the possibilities of WooCommerce are only available with a paid plan.
Ocean WP
This is another popular, highly rated freemium theme. Satisfied users praise it for its speed and ease of use, especially for beginners. It also comes with templates that you can easily edit according to your needs. The features offered in the free version are already solid enough. But, of course, if you want to get more from it, you will probably need to upgrade to a paid version.
Neve
Similar to the other themes listed above, Neve is also fast, user-friendly and it comes with around 80 demos that you can use as templates for your site. However, the customization options may be limited in the free version. So, if you’ve taken the free version for a spin and you liked what it had to offer, you might need to subscribe to one of their paid plans to take full advantage of the customization options.
Generate Press
Generate press has been part of the WordPress world for around five years and managed to earn itself a rating of five stars! It’s a highly customizable theme that can be well suited for any type of website. It also comes with SEO-friendly features. This theme also has a Premium version, with even more customization options and features.
Hestia
Another one in the line of popular themes is Hestia. Besides all the features already mentioned, such as speed and responsiveness, this theme is solid for making single-page websites. Those are the websites that have all their content on a single page. Again, to get more, you’ll need the premium version of this theme.
WordPress core themes (Nineteen, Twenty, Twenty Twenty-One)
If you are overwhelmed by the choice, and on a tight budget, perhaps a good way to start exploring themes is to use one of the WordPress’s official themes. For one, WordPress themes are always completely free. Secondly, they are diligently made by a huge group of developers from all over the world, so you can rest assured of their quality.
Final thoughts
In this article, we explored the pros and cons of using the Bluehost Website Builder vs using a theme. If you are a beginner and have no coding or design skills, the Bluehost Website Builder is a solid choice. Its ease of use and its pre-filled templates will make creating a site a breeze. At the same time, it allows you plenty of options to customize your site, so you can still put your unique stamp on it.
On the other hand, if you want some more customization and you have some HTML or CSS skills, themes may be a more suitable option for you. However, in general, we recommend you use either themes or the Builder. By doing that, you’ll ensure you are taking full advantage of the features each of them offers.
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