The Best Website Technology & Builder For Entrepreneurs

November 1, 2023

“In 2023 I started my journey to find the best web-tech for my Internet business.”

I had 20-years of experience working in corporate, university, & NFP marketing roles using a variety of CMS websites – & it was a mission filtering out the endless options!

I compared hosted sites, e.g. WordPress.com, HubSpot, Shopify, & Wix, with self-hosted sites, e.g. WordPress.org, Drupal, WooCommerce, & other technologies on sites visited.

I noticed a WordPress system that combined Brick’s theme & builder with frameworks for CSS styling (ACSS) & pre-built sections & components (Frames) – by Kevin Geary.

“My goal was to find an affordable web-tech that could enable customisation & an automated marketing system.”

Lean about personal branding A Guide To Personal Branding For Entrepreneurs.

Choosing Web-Marketing Tech

“I wanted to ensure my pages were fast & not burdened with excessive HTML code – which you can get from the popular builders.”

I liked WordPress (self-hosted), HubSpot, & Braze, having worked on these technologies before, & I found them all to be high-quality with professional features & well supported.

HubSpot is global all-in-one marketing solution with website, blog, email marketing, automation, & CRM – a professional choice for AU $20K+ budgets.

Braze is another global system I used for automated marketing for new supporter journeys, & cross-channel campaigns via email, SMS, IAMs, & Push – if AU $20K+ budget.

I had also updated HTML sites with Adobe Dreamweaver, & updated CMS sites using WordPress, HubSpot, WooCommerce, Squiz Matrix, & Drupal.

I checked a few Elementor sites, which were performing poorly on Google’s CWVs – after speed tests, & watching Kevin Geary explain how Elementor outputs excessive code.

Google’s requirement on page loading speed for their page experience score (CWVs) & ranking – was a big reason to find a clean code builder.

Fortunately, WordPress is an affordable fast website technology with over 60% of CMS sites globally, it’s perfect for entrepreneurs to build Internet businesses.

A self-hosted WP solution made sense to me – as the core platform is robust & customisable – & a small budget (AU $2K) can deliver a quality site (if self-building).

Choosing WP Theme & Builder

“Website hosting & CDN both play key roles in page loading speed, in addition to your site theme & how it’s built with clean code.”

My next step was deciding on the WordPress theme & builder that would provide parent & child themes, a professional dashboard, & output clean code to Semantic Web Standards.

I found speed tests involving different WordPress themes, e.g. Astra, Hello-Elementor, GeneratePress, Elegant-Divi, OceanWP, & others – e.g. Astra & GeneratePress did well.

You can find more information on WordPress performance reviews from people like Tom Dupuis from Online Media Masters, or from HubSpot’s WordPress reviews.

Plus other factors like the optimisations you make to your site settings for delaying assets, images, & scripts, e.g. Lazy Loading elements, also affect loading speed.

GeneratePress was a good option, & when combined with GenerateBlocks builder you could import full sites or patterns for pages – but it did not offer unstyled wireframes.

If you’re fine with templates, & you don’t need structural changes, then GeneratePress & GenerateBlocks could be a solution – but you’ll be restyling against DRY principles.

Alternatively if you want to customise, & not work backwards restyling – a better solution is to find a builder which enables importing unstyled wireframes (sections & components).

The WordPress builders that could do this at the time were Bricks, Cwicly, & Oxygen.

After watching videos from Kevin Geary & Grant Ambrose – I chose Bricks builder & theme, with frameworks for styling (ACSS) & structuring (Frames).

The Fantastic Four System

“WordPress, Bricks, ACSS, & Frames when combined together make building high-performance websites possible for everyday people.“

I called this the “Fantastic Four” system, as it provides the flexibility to build custom pages using pre-built & unstyled sections & components, for DRY development.

The custom templates you create in Bricks & the unstyled sections & components imported from Frames, enable DRY development using Bricks builder.

Frames provides a Utility-First CSS Framework for styling directly in the HTML, & it’s built on ACSS & single source BEM (Block Element Modifier) utility classes, variables, & tokens.

Single source elements & utility classes enable website scalability & maintainability, & DRY development practice provides efficiency.

With global styles & utility classes you can change a single source element, & all duplicated instances update on your site – like changing a heading style, without editing each page.

You install WordPress & Bricks parent & child themes on your local PC (LocalWP by WP Engine), or a staging server, then install Bricks builder, ACSS, & Frames.

When you first install WordPress, it’s like you have the rolling chassis of a car with a good engine, but without any accessories, interior features or paint work!

The plugins you install become the tools, accessories, & interior features.

I use Postmark, Admin Cols., ACF, WP Migration, HappyFiles Pro, MB Custom Post Types, Perfmatters, RankMathSEOPro, WP Rocket, ShortPixel, WPCodePro, & WSFormPro.

The styling comes from ACSS, which enables the colour scheme for your website.

Using WP, Bricks, ACSS & Frames

“Connecting Bricks to Frames library in builder settings is easy for importing unstyled wireframes.”

Create a Home page shell in WP dashboard, connect Bricks builder to Frames, open the page in Bricks, & import the sections & components you want from Frames library.

It’s that easy to customise your web page with the pre-built wireframes from Frames.

On my Home page, I selected Hero Section Foxtrot for ‘above-the-fold’, then Feature Section Delta with four feature cards for main services, & Feature Grid Delta with four feature cards for other services.

While researching WordPress best practice, I came across Kevin Geary, who is one of the sharpest web developers & educators who cares about helping the industry.

Kevin’s tutorials inspired me to do his Website Building 101 Course – which I highly recommend for anyone who wants to build websites to Semantic Web standards.

If you could spend two hours per day, or one day per week building your website & future Internet business, wouldn’t that be a good investment?

I’m a marketing guy & Adobe CC enthusiast. I can read HTML code, but I’m not a code writer, & I didn’t have to write any HTML, PHP, or CSS code on my website.

My site building involved – open Bricks page, import a section from Frames, duplicate elements using icon clicks, or reposition them with drag & drop, & save.

Done With Basic Computer Skills

“All my website coding & heavy lifting was handled by Bricks Builder, ACSS, & Frames.”

The beauty of the “Fantastic Four” system is you can access a large wireframe library (Frames) to fully customise your web pages, posts & CPTs using a powerful dashboard (Bricks builder) & leading technology.

Anyone who can read & use a computer for word processing is capable of using the “Fantastic Four” system to make a professional responsive website.

It takes the same time & effort to learn a popular builder like Elementor or Divi, as it does to learn a professional builder like Bricks which is intuitive to use from the driver’s seat.

You may as well focus on the professional builder & get a website built to Semantic Standards, that loads fast, & improves your visitor’s page experience.

If you’re able to learn by watching videos, & you can teach yourself to enjoy the journey banking little wins – then you have what it takes to self-build a WP website.

The best website technology & builder is going to help you achieve your goal faster.

Become An Entrepreneur

“Behind every successful entrepreneur is a bad former manager or boss.” Codie Sanchez

Imagine how nice it will feel when you have launched your new website & Internet business – leaving the toxic workplace for good!

If you have a little voice inside your head that says, “I’m meant for more than this,” or “I can create better outcomes,” then consider becoming an Internet entrepreneur.

Don’t fight the voice, elevate it with intention, & motivate yourself towards a better future!

“You may not realise you have skills & passions & the ability to serve people from your lived & work experiences.” Dean Graziosi

Become obsessed, find a role model, do the work, & keep going when it gets hard!

If you want to start from Basecamp Two, ask about my WP Blueprint Skeleton sites, made with the best website technology & builder. Request my HPWCQ for more information.

Learn about Websites, download my High-Performance Website Checklist Quiz.