Ask David! Question: I need an easy website builder that doesn’t require coding and has a WYSIWYG editor. Which is the easiest one?
Short Answer: It’s UltimateWB – and there’s more to “easy” than just being able to see your website while you build it.
But what makes one WYSIWYG website builder easier to use than another?
It comes down to what you can actually do in the editor – and how much work you have to do outside of it.
What Does WYSIWYG Mean?
For those who are wondering, WYSIWYG stands for “What You See Is What You Get.”
Instead of creating a webpage by writing HTML and CSS from scratch, you work with a visual editor. You can add and format content, insert images, create links, and build the page while seeing the result as you work.
That makes website building much more accessible if you don’t want to hand-code every page.
But a good WYSIWYG editor should do more than let you type text and insert pictures.
It should give you enough control to build the website you actually want – without forcing you to write code for every little change.
What Makes a WYSIWYG Website Builder Easy to Use?
There are several things I would look at.
1. A Visual Page Editor
The first requirement is obvious: you should be able to build and edit your pages visually.
UltimateWB’s built-in Page Editor lets you add and format content, insert images and links, and work with the content of your pages without having to write the underlying HTML yourself.
You can upload photos directly from the page you’re working on, from the left side of your WYSIWYG page editor, and insert them where you want them on the page. And when you’re ready to optimize the images, click on the Create WebP images and use “picture” tag button at the top of the WYSIWYG page editor. It converts all of the images on the page to WebP with one click and automatically updates the page code to use the WebP versions while keeping the original images as fallbacks using the <picture> tag. If for some reason you want to undo the image conversion, just click on the top Remove WebP images and revert to “img src” button.
You can also use formatting tools and page sections to organize and structure your content.
And if you want more control, you aren’t locked out of the code. You can work with HTML and CSS when you need to.
That combination is important even if you’re a beginner and not a coder – you just don’t know now what you might need later.
Read: How to Choose a Website Builder That Works for Both Beginners and Developers?
2. Easy Page Layout and Formatting
A WYSIWYG editor shouldn’t force you to create every page from scratch.
UltimateWB lets you choose page formats and work with sections such as headers, footers, side sections, and other page areas.
You can also reformat pages later rather than having to rebuild them. That’s a very different approach from Wix, where redesigning a website can mean starting over: The Wix Redesign Trap: Why Starting Over Is Their Business Model, Not Yours
You can use divs to create responsive content sections without having to write the HTML yourself.
That gives you much more flexibility than simply choosing a template and filling in predefined boxes.
3. A Styles Manager
Another important part of an easy website editor is being able to change the look of your website without having to edit CSS manually.
UltimateWB’s Styles Manager lets you customize things such as fonts, colors, sizing, backgrounds, margins, padding, and other styling.
The software generates the CSS for you, but you can also add your own CSS when you want to.
This makes it possible to make site-wide design changes without having to go through every page individually.
4. Templates and Reusable Sections
Starting with a blank page isn’t always the easiest way to build a website.
UltimateWB includes a built-in Templates Generator app that lets you start with pre-built sections and customize them for your website.
You can also create reusable sections and insert them into multiple pages. When you need to change that shared content later, you can update it rather than editing every page separately. Read more on this feature and compare to other website builders in: How to Update the Same Website Content on Multiple Pages at Once
That’s the kind of feature that makes a website easier to manage as it grows.
5. Responsive Design
A page can look great on your computer and still be a mess on a phone.
That’s why responsive design needs to be part of the website-building process, not something you have to deal with separately after you’ve finished designing the page.
UltimateWB supports fluid layouts and includes a Responsive App that can reformat content for different screen sizes. Read more on how to use it: How to create your own responsive website without any coding!
You can build the page visually while also creating a layout that works across laptops, tablets, and smartphones.
6. Built-In Website Tools
There’s another part of “easy” that is easy to overlook.
What happens when your website needs more than pages?
If you need a contact form, photo gallery, members area, online store, forum, listings directory, classifieds, or other functionality, having those tools built into the website builder can make the job much easier.
UltimateWB includes built-in functionality for e-commerce, memberships, forums, blogs, forms and surveys, listings, classifieds, photo galleries, articles, file uploads, events, and more.
You don’t have to start with a basic page editor and then keep adding separate plugins just to turn your website into the type of site you actually want.
Easy to Build Doesn’t Have to Mean Limited
This is an important distinction.
Some website builders make it easy to get started by limiting what you can change.
That’s one definition of “easy”: fewer choices and fewer things to configure.
But there is another kind of easy – having the tools you need available without having to work around the software.
With UltimateWB, you can build your website visually, use built-in tools to handle common website functionality, customize the design, and work directly with HTML, CSS, and your own code when you need to.
So you don’t have to choose between an easy website builder and one that gives you control.
So, What Is the Easiest WYSIWYG Website Builder?
For me, the answer is UltimateWB.
It gives you a visual WYSIWYG environment for building and managing your website, but it doesn’t stop there. You also get flexible page formatting, a Styles Manager, responsive design tools, reusable sections, built-in website functionality, and the ability to work directly with HTML and CSS when you want to. That’s why both beginners and developers choose UltimateWB.
And because UltimateWB is downloadable website-building software, you can choose where you host your website.
So the easiest WYSIWYG website builder isn’t simply the one that lets you see what you’re doing.
It’s the one that makes it easy to build the website you actually want – and keeps it manageable as your website grows.
Looking for an easy website builder that features WYSIWYG? Learn more about UltimateWB! We also offer web design packages if you would like your website designed and built for you.
Got a techy/website question? Whether it’s about UltimateWB or another website builder, web hosting, or other aspects of websites, just send in your question in the “Ask David!” form. We will email you when the answer is posted on the UltimateWB “Ask David!” section.