Building a website for a business or personal use is an important step in reaching your audience, but also a lot of work. Many people have tremendous ideas of what they want to put online, how they want it to look, but often they are limited by a tight budget, lack of time or knowledge to start with something big.
Website builders are meant to give you the tools to build your website even when you are not yet versed in web design or coding. But, as you evolve and learn a thing or two, website builders become too limited in terms of design and function.
Well, some of them have responded to this need and are allowing you to add custom code and personalise your website a bit more.
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What Are Website Builders?
Website building tools make creating a website super easy, allowing the user to just put their page together by dragging and dropping, using templates, and selecting pre-established color schemes. The website builder does the rest: the hosting, maintenance, enabling easy email marketing integrations, even creating mobile-friendly versions of the websites.
Another way to create a personal or business website is to use a CMS (content management system), which allows you to edit and create a website handling its frontend, while the CMS takes over the coding and programming behind.
Free website builders are fantastic for taking the first steps when you don’t know how to code. Small businesses like online stores and individuals often use these services when they can’t hire a web designer.
Why Would You Want to Add Your Own Code?
Even if website templates provided by website creator tools are functional, sometimes site owners need a bit more personalisation. A lot of website builders have integrated third-party apps and extensions that add more features to the existing templates, like connecting to social media, adding payment gates, integrations with search engines, widgets, and so on.
Usually, there is an app store that includes all these extensions and apps, but some website builders allow you to include custom code on your website.
Custom code can be used to change design aspects, integrate other applications, add pop-ups, traffic trackers, SEO tools, and so on.
What Website Builders Let You Code?
Here are some examples of website builders and CMSs that let you integrate custom code in your website:
- WordPress is one of the best-known platforms for creating websites. It provides web hosting, third party and own widgets, extensions, etc. It can be totally free if you don’t need your own domain, or you can get a free trial for a better version.
- GoDaddy is a place where you can purchase domains and build a website. It allows you to include custom code, so GoDaddy websites can go from simple to more intricate.
- SITE123 allows you to build your website A-to-Z without coding, but also to include custom code if needed. The free version provides plenty of functionality and design, and the paid plan starts at $7.80 per month, extending what you can do with your site.
These are just a few of the website builders that allow you to integrate custom code. Usually, they don’t let you interfere with the site’s structure or technical details too much. Some of them have extensive app and plugin stores where you can find plenty of third-party extensions.
You will have to be aware, though, that your website’s performance can be affected by a combination of too many add-ons and limited server space, so make sure you always check your website’s performance when you add custom code and extensions.
Need Help with Your Website?
We at Australian Internet Advertising are not only experts in building websites from scratch, but we are also familiar with website builders and CMS platforms. We know our coding and can implement custom features into your website, making it really unique.
