WEBSITE & E-COMMERCE TOOLS

🌐 Website and e-commerce tools help small-business owners build a website, create an online store, accept payments, sell products or services, manage orders, register domains and improve the customer experience.

You do not need every tool below. Choose according to what you are building: a simple business website, blog, online store, service website or digital-product business.

🏪 ONLINE STORE BUILDERS

Shopify — Great for building a dedicated online store for physical products, digital products and growing e-commerce businesses.
WooCommerce — Great for adding extensive e-commerce capabilities to a WordPress website.
BigCommerce — Great for growing e-commerce businesses needing more advanced selling capabilities.
Square Online — Great for businesses that sell both online and in person.
Ecwid — Great for adding e-commerce capabilities to an existing website or creating a straightforward online store.
Big Cartel — Great for artists, makers and independent sellers with smaller product collections.

🖥️ WEBSITE BUILDERS

Wix — Great for beginners creating business websites, service websites and online stores.
Squarespace — Great for professional-looking websites, portfolios, services and commerce.
WordPress.org — Great for content-heavy websites, blogs, directories and highly customizable business websites.
Webflow — Great for businesses and designers wanting extensive control over website design.
Framer — Great for creating modern business and marketing websites.
Carrd — Great for simple one-page websites and landing pages.

🌐 DOMAIN NAMES

A domain is your website address, such as:

yourbusiness.com

Popular domain services include:

Namecheap — Great for registering and managing domain names.
GoDaddy — Offers domains and other website services for businesses.
Cloudflare Registrar — Useful for domain registration alongside Cloudflare's broader web infrastructure services.
Squarespace Domains — Another option for registering and managing domain names.

🏠 WEBSITE HOSTING

Some website builders include hosting. WordPress and other self-hosted websites may require separate hosting.

Hostinger — Great for small businesses looking for website and WordPress hosting options.
SiteGround — Great for WordPress and small-business website hosting.
DreamHost — Offers website and WordPress hosting.
WP Engine — Great for businesses looking for managed WordPress hosting.

💳 ONLINE PAYMENT PROCESSING

Stripe — Great for accepting online payments, subscriptions and other digital transactions.
PayPal for Business — Great for providing customers with a familiar online payment option.
Square — Great for accepting payments online and in person.
Shopify Payments — Built into Shopify for eligible merchants wanting integrated payment processing.

💻 DIGITAL-PRODUCT SELLING TOOLS

Payhip — Great for selling printables, ebooks, templates, courses and other digital products.
Gumroad — Great for creators selling downloadable products directly to an audience.
Sellfy — Great for creators selling digital products and other eligible products through their own storefront.
Lemon Squeezy — Great for software and digital-product businesses needing payments, subscriptions and merchant-of-record services.
Ko-fi — Great for creators combining digital products with memberships, commissions and supporter contributions.

📅 APPOINTMENT & SERVICE BOOKING

Businesses can also use their websites to sell appointments and services.

Calendly — Great for allowing customers to schedule consultations and appointments.
Acuity Scheduling — Great for service businesses needing online appointment scheduling.
Square Appointments — Great for service businesses combining appointments with payments.
SimplyBook.me — Great for businesses that need a dedicated online booking system.

📧 EMAIL CAPTURE & MARKETING

A website should give interested visitors a way to stay connected.

Mailchimp — Great for email lists, newsletters and marketing campaigns.
Klaviyo — Great for e-commerce email and SMS marketing.
MailerLite — Great for newsletters, forms, landing pages and email automation.
Kit — Great for creators building an email audience around content and products.
Brevo — Great for email marketing, automation and customer communications.

📝 FORMS & CONTACT FORMS

Jotform — Great for contact forms, applications, order forms and questionnaires.
Typeform — Great for interactive website forms and surveys.
Tally — Great for straightforward online forms.
Google Forms — Great for basic forms, surveys and information collection.

💬 WEBSITE CHAT & CUSTOMER SUPPORT

Tidio — Great for adding live chat and customer communication tools to a website.
Intercom — Great for more advanced customer messaging and support.
Zendesk — Great for businesses needing a more complete customer-support system.
Freshdesk — Great for organizing customer questions and support tickets.

⭐ REVIEWS & SOCIAL PROOF

Customer reviews can help prospective customers understand other people's experiences with a business or product.

Judge.me — Great for collecting and displaying product reviews, particularly for e-commerce stores.
Yotpo — Offers review, loyalty and other e-commerce retention tools.
Trustpilot — Provides business review and reputation-management tools.
Google Business Profile — Important for eligible businesses wanting a presence in Google Search and Maps and customer reviews.

🔍 WEBSITE SEO TOOLS

Google Search Console — Great for understanding how your website appears and performs in Google Search.
Google Trends — Useful for researching search interest and topic trends.
Semrush — Great for deeper keyword, competitor and SEO research.
Ahrefs — Great for SEO, keyword, backlink and competitor research.
Rank Math — Popular SEO software for WordPress websites.
Yoast SEO — Popular SEO software for WordPress and supported platforms.

📊 WEBSITE ANALYTICS

Google Analytics — Great for understanding website traffic and visitor behavior.
Microsoft Clarity — Great for understanding how visitors interact with website pages through behavioral analytics.
Google Search Console — Great for monitoring Google Search performance.
Hotjar — Great for behavioral analytics and understanding website-user experiences.

⚡ WEBSITE SPEED & PERFORMANCE

Google PageSpeed Insights — Great for checking website performance and Core Web Vitals information.
GTmetrix — Useful for analyzing website loading and performance.
Cloudflare — Provides website performance, network and security services.

🔐 WEBSITE SECURITY & BACKUPS

Cloudflare — Provides website security and performance services.
Sucuri — Great for website security and malware-related services.
Wordfence — Popular security solution for WordPress websites.
UpdraftPlus — Popular WordPress backup and restoration solution.

📜 WEBSITE POLICIES & COMPLIANCE TOOLS

Termly — Useful for businesses creating website policies and consent-management solutions.
TermsFeed — Provides generators for common website and business policies.
iubenda — Provides privacy, cookie and compliance-related website tools.

These tools can assist with documents and compliance workflows, but they do not replace professional legal advice when a business needs it.

🛍️ MARKETPLACES TO CONNECT WITH YOUR WEBSITE

Your website does not have to operate alone.

Depending on the business, it may also sell through:

Amazon • Etsy • eBay • Walmart Marketplace • Facebook & Instagram • TikTok Shop • Faire

The website can remain the home of the brand, while marketplaces provide additional places where customers may discover products.

⭐ GOOD STARTING CHOICES

First online store? → Shopify or Square Online
Content/blog website? → WordPress
Simple business website? → Wix or Squarespace
WordPress store? → WooCommerce
Digital products? → Payhip, Gumroad or Shopify
Service business? → Wix/Squarespace + Calendly
Domain name? → Namecheap or Cloudflare Registrar
Payments? → Stripe, Square or PayPal
Email list? → MailerLite, Mailchimp or Kit
E-commerce email? → Klaviyo
Website analytics? → Google Analytics + Search Console
Website performance? → PageSpeed Insights
Website policies? → Termly, TermsFeed or iubenda

💡 SIMPLE WEBSITE TOOLKIT FOR A BEGINNER

A beginner does not need dozens of website apps.

A simple online business could start with:

Website/Store → Shopify, Wix, Squarespace or WordPress
Domain → Your own .com domain
Payments → Stripe, Square or PayPal
Email → MailerLite, Mailchimp or Kit
Analytics → Google Analytics
Google Search → Search Console
Contact Form → Built-in website form or Jotform

Then add reviews, live chat, advanced SEO, automation and other tools only when the business needs them.