Are you looking for a website builder that you can use to showcase your animation work? We’ve got you covered. You’ll find all the best website building sites right here.
Website builders work wonders for freelancers, artists, bloggers, creative professionals, and more who don’t have the budget to hire someone to develop a website for them. There are many kinds of website builders, from free and paid plans to simple to complex website builders.
1) Squarespace
Squarespace is one of the best website builders for animators. It has great blog features that rival the blog champion, WordPress, as a website builder.
Squarespace’s templates are fresh and have a lot of space for visual content as well as readable typography. Their templates are compatible not only with your laptop or desktop computer but your smartphone and tablet as well.
You can easily view photo galleries and embed audio and video. Another nice thing about it is that users can add integrations such as Adobe Creative Suite, Getty Images, Google Drive, and more. Compared to other website builders, it has tons of easy-to-use features such as smart defaults and templates that don’t require you to use coding.
You can add different sections such as Headlines, Gallery, Images, Quote, Video, Text, Contact, and more when building your animation website. In each section, you can create custom backgrounds with your own colors, fonts, height, and padding.
Aside from its design, Squarespace has up-front pricing. This means that you won’t have to pay for additional features as you use it.
A downside to using it is that it’s not the fastest website builder to work with. It also offers limited integrations with third-party services.
2) Weebly
With stylish and responsive designs, people have made over 40 million websites with the help of Weebly. This website builder is perfect for use on tablets, smartphones, and desktops.
It’s a fully hosted platform, meaning you don’t need to manage or install any software. Weebly takes care of hosting your animation website and managing backend software.
It’s easy to use and has more than 60 website designs. You can add features such as photo galleries, sliders, contact forms, and more. It also has apps for iOS and Android, giving you access to website statistics, visitor engagements, and online store statistics.
It offers a free plan and several very affordable paid plans, making Weebly one of the most affordable website builders. If you need some assistance building or maintaining your site, Weebly has live chat, email support, and phone support depending on your plan.
Some cons of using Weebly are that you have limited blogging tools, basic photo editing features, and you have to upgrade your free plan in order to get more customer support.
3) Wix
Wix is the biggest website builder with 180 million users. Wix has well-designed templates that you drag-and-drop content into. You can use Wix for free and customize it to your liking.
It’s a user-friendly website that first-time website makers will find easy to use. As you use it to build your animation website, you will be able to add meta-tags and metadata to your photos and get them recognized by search engines.
It comes with many paid and free apps that are installable on your website. It has a free plan and several premium plans. It’s a fully hosted platform which means you won’t have to pay for hosting.
There are a couple of downsides to this option, though. For instance, you can’t change your template when your website is live, so make sure you love the template you choose from the start. It also has no live chat support, so you if you get stuck, you’ll have to spend some time searching for solutions
4) WordPress.com
WordPress is so widely used these days that it powers more than 38% of all websites. This kind of content is fully customizable, flexible, and can be used to make any kind of website.
It has drag-and-drop page builders such as Divi and Beaver Builder which will allow you to make your own page layouts.
Not only is it free and open-source, but it also comes with more than 55,000 plug-ins, web hosting, theme selections, and customer support.
You can add features such as contact forms, photo galleries, live chat, navigation menus, Google Analytics, and more.
Plus, you don’t have to go through any difficult processes to install or maintain it. You won’t have to worry about the software and backups since WordPress takes care of it. And, you can make a WordPress website completely for free.
However, to install custom themes or plugins, you have to upgrade to their business plan. You also have to manage your animation website, meaning you have to get familiar with how to use it and keep up with WordPress updates and create updates.
5) Duda
Duda is a user-friendly website builder with 90+ stylish templates that you can use for your animation portfolio.
It offers apps and widgets for you to personalize your animation website and make it responsive for smartphones, tablets, and desktops.
You can choose from widgets such as popups, call buttons, contact forms, menus, and more. You can even build your own widgets!
It also can be integrated with apps such as OpenTable, PayPal, Disqus, and other website personalization tools to give your animation clients and followers a better website experience.
However, it limits your creative control compared to other builders. Your website’s design will depend on the template that you choose. Nonetheless, this is a great option if you can’t afford to hire a website designer.
You should also keep in mind that it has very basic SEO tools. This means that you’ll have to put more effort into making your website rank higher on search results.
6) Webflow
If you’re looking for a website that doesn’t box your creativity and that you can customize to make your animation website look more appealing, Webflow is the best website for you.
Webflow is a three-in-one advanced web design tool, CMS, and hosting platform. It’s suitable for designers, entrepreneurs, and creative professionals like you to create websites that can be easily viewed on different devices.
It has a Designer tool that allows you to do front-end coding without requiring you to really code, as long as you somewhat understand how website design works. You should know about concepts like hierarchy, box model, absolute and relative positions, and floating.
What’s unique about Webflow is that you can integrate Webflow’s CMS into the Designer tool which allows you to make both custom and repeatable content.
A con of using Webflow is that you can’t change your website template once you have chosen one. Also, building a design from scratch isn’t that easy and may take up too much time.
7) GoDaddy
GoDaddy is a well-made website hosting company that focuses on building a website quickly. Small businesses, individuals, and blogs can maximize their use out of this website builder.
GoDaddy has over 20 themes that you can choose from to use to build your animation website. After choosing a theme, you can get a basic layout where you can add or remove layout sections.
You can’t drag and drop sections, but you’re free to move the parts around. You can use the blog features such as images, videos, audio, and comments.
It has easy-to-customize templates as well as a GoDaddy Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI). ADI creates a unique website for you by asking you a few questions about the purpose of your website. It’s a good website to use if you’re not that tech-savvy and if you want to quickly create a website.
If you get stuck while creating your website, fear not. GoDaddy offers 24/7 phone and live chat support as well as free hosting and industry-standard free SSL certificate to secure your website.
If you’re not sure yet about using it as your website builder, you can test out the platform for free for 30 days. Take note that as you use it for free, it won’t give you access to all the features the website builder offers.
Take note that there are multiple upsells as you signup on the platform and not everything can be edited on the website builder editor.
8) Format
Format has over a hundred fully-responsive themes that look good on all devices. Every theme has presets to change the menu style and color of your background.
It uses drag-and-drop tools to make your animation website building process easier and quicker.
It also can be synced with Adobe Lightroom through a plug-in.
A downside to using Format is that you will need some knowledge in relation to coding. However, if you are code-fluent, then you will have an easy time customizing code and built-in tools to create your website.
9) Adobe Portfolio
Adobe Portfolio is a free add-on to the Creative Cloud suite made by Adobe. If you have a Creative Cloud then you won’t have to pay to use the service.
It allows you to make your free animation website in just a matter of minutes, even if you’re not familiar with CSS or HTML.
By using Adobe Portfolio, you can have access to thousands of great Adobe fonts and use themes optimized for any device. It can also be synced with your Adobe Lightroom and Behance with just a click of a mouse.
It has easy-to-customize themes and can be used to make a gallery for photography, videos, artworks, etc. Your site will include a collection and contact page by default and from there, you can modify your website as you wish.
It may not have many customization and layout options like other website builders, but it makes making your website simple and fun.
10) Fabrik
Fabrik is the best website builder for any kind of artist. Whether you’re a filmmaker, designer, or animator, you’ll love this site It has hundreds of great themes that you can use and optimize for all devices. You can switch themes anytime without having your projects and galleries affected.
It also gives you full control over how creative you want to get with your website. You can pick your colors, fonts, and layouts that you think will suit your needs.
You can also integrate your videos and images into your portfolio, which will help you stand out from other creatives. You can even integrate Vimeo, SoundCloud, YouTube, and more into your website All these features do come with a price,though. The service isn’t free, but you can try a 14-day free trial.
In Closing
Choosing the right website builder for your animation website can be challenging and time-consuming. Every website building option comes at a different price with various features, levels of ease of use, widgets, and apps.
Before you make a decision, carefully read the features of these website builders and see if they match your budget and the kind of website that you would like to create.
If you’re still not sure which website builder to choose, we suggest that you use a trial or free plan first before jumping into using a paid plan.
After trying out the websites, choose a website builder that you believe will best suit your needs.
If you want to learn more about the business of animation and other animation tips, we’ve got you covered. Get your copy of our free marketing handbook and join our free masterclass.
