Website Builder Guide’s Editorial Code

A lot of time and effort goes into ensuring we deliver you information that is both accurate and balanced, and we have a number of processes in place to keep it this way:

1. Experience With Builders

We never review a website builder or ecommerce platform without first using it ourselves. Like, never. We actually don’t even understand how you could!

2. Impartial Reviews

We think it’s incredibly important to report on website builders and services fairly and without bias. That’s why we always champion editorial independence in our work – sharing the good, the bad, and the ugly for all platforms, no matter their size, popularity, or how well they’ve ranked in our research. Even our top recommendations have cons that are worth discussing. We want to provide you with all of the information you need to make the right decision for you.

3. Expert Research Process

We’ve worked closely with our Lead Researcher, Natasha Willett, to develop a fair and quantitative process for evaluating and ranking the products we review – and we stick to it. All of the top website builders and ecommerce platforms go through our full research process.

Natasha started with Website Builder Guide five years ago, bringing expert credentials – a BSc, Ma, and MMRS – to the team. She’s also a member of the Market Research Society. Since then, she’s clocked over 9,600 hours of product research and testing, allowing our writers to share top recommendations with you.

4. User Testing

An important part of this research process is user testing. While we love to get hands-on experience with the builders ourselves, we think it’s important to hear from real users. To start, we give a group of people with mixed technical ability an hour to build a website for a fictitious business using a builder. We then check in with them to see how they found the experience, and how likely they would be to recommend that builder to others. That way, each product isn’t just rated on how good we find it – it’s about how good people like you find it. We always want to paint the full picture. 

5. Quality Control

Ahead of publishing, each article written for the site is checked multiple times to ensure it is both generally accurate, and reflective of our research findings. Our writers work closely with the research team and our sub-editor to bring you high-quality content.

6. Regular Updates

But the story doesn’t end when an article is published. The online world is a fast-moving one, and we check for updates every month across the entire site. As products develop, we amend the content and ratings on our site accordingly. That said, if you ever spot something that seems incorrect, please leave us a comment and we’ll get it fixed!

7. How We Make Money

We do make some money (or “affiliate commission”) if you sign up to certain products after visiting our site, but we will always represent a product fairly  – “cons” and all. Make no mistake: we are very selective about who we work with, regularly turning down partnerships with companies whose products we just can’t get behind. Our commercial relationships will not impact Website Builder Guide’s editorial integrity.

Most of the products we write about come with either a free trial, a free plan, or a money-back guarantee. Simply put, if you’re not happy to commit to a product after trying it out, we won’t make a cent. It really is in our best interest to only recommend products and services we can genuinely vouch for, and that’s exactly what we do. 

And, any affiliate commission we do earn comes directly out of the pocket of the company behind the product. It never costs you, our readers, a penny more than if you’d signed up independently – and that’s the way we like it. Companies have a dedicated budget for affiliate marketing, just as if they’d set aside money for any advertising campaign. 

You can read more about how we make money on our Disclosure page.

8. AI Policy

We want to bring you well-researched, detailed, and digestible content when it comes to our lists, reviews, and guides. For this reason, we don’t use generative AI tools to create content. You can rest assured that all of our content is produced by expert writers and reviewed by human editors. We don’t publish any content with AI-generated text or edits, and we avoid using any images or videos created by AI technology.

If we’re writing an article about AI and need to demonstrate its uses, then we may use an example of AI-generated text – this will be clearly flagged in the copy.

9. Feedback From Readers

Our ultimate goal is to provide readers with everything they need to get started and grow online. That’s why we care so much about hearing from you and eagerly welcome comments on our pages. These are reviewed weekly. This way, we can make sure we’re publishing the content that matters the most to you.

But the proof is in the pudding. We may put a lot of time, effort, and expertise into each and every article on Website Builder Guide – but how do we know that we’re getting it right?

• In 2022, nearly 4 million people came to our site in search of help, advice, and recommendations for building and hosting their websites. 
• We regularly send our own friends and family to our site for advice. From Hannah’s stepsister starting a wedding supplier business, to Lucy’s mom looking to sell her handmade soap online, we send people we know to Website Builder Guide with confidence, knowing they’ll find all the information they need.
• How do we know we’re on the right track? You tell us we are! We’re overwhelmed by the number of people who comment on our articles telling us how helpful they’ve found them, and how they’re now successfully online as a result. Please, keep them coming – they really make our day!

“I have found all of your reviews to be clear, insightful and helpful; they are amongst the most useful that I have read. Please keep up the good work!” – Stephen

So now you know more about our editorial code and how we deliver content to readers, but let’s meet the team! At Website Builder Guide, we’re passionate about helping users get online and thrive in the digital space. Our team has years of experience in the industry, led fearlessly by our Managing Editor, Lucile Michaut, and Content Manager, Lucy Carney.

You can learn more about our writers here:

• Senior Writer – Emma Ryan
• Senior Writer – Sam Jagger

We also rely on the editing support of our Sub-Editor, Lloyd Mackenzie, and the expert knowledge of our in-house Lead Researcher, Natasha Willett, to bring you accurate and high-quality content.

You can read all about the team and Website Builder Guide’s mission on our About Us page.