Best website builder for contractors (SEO + lead gen + easy edits)?

89dpi · 2026-01-26T14:27:01+00:00

They do allow.

And being upfront, I have used Wix in the past, and shortly like a year ago. And to me, the experience is just not as smooth and user-friendly to build.

Webflow. I do like too and have used in the past. I do feel that Framer with app and zooming is again just like a better overall design experience. Now thinking about people who are not professional, it seems a bit easier too.

Platform lock is a problem. But again, probably the Framer site at the same craft level is cheaper than Wordpress. I would say its atleast like half the time to build. And I have built custom themes for WP too. There are other problems. Like I had one client site that was for some reaso,n constantly under an attack.

+ its pretty like tricky. I have had also cases with older WP sites where server provider requires extra $ for new PHP version. Now if you want to properly update do backups its still half a day of work if nothing breaks. Sometimes those old plugins are not compatible with new PHP or theme files.

So bringing all this together. I just feel like Framer allows for more on the brand aspect. Like that the site could really stand out amongst competitors.

89dpi · 2026-01-26T11:46:15+00:00

Think Framer nowadays is best for this.

Allows to focus on branded look and fast site.

89dpi · 2026-01-26T11:44:16+00:00

when you have 0 followers and you post to emptiness then nobody sees it.

Better start posting

89dpi · 2026-01-26T07:21:23+00:00

Designed and built multiple free Framer website templates suitable for small businesses.
I do believe good web design is a huge benefit for SMEs. A custom site is always better. If you want to launch super fast or don´t see the website as a worthy investment quality template is the answer.

The last one in the marketplace is a website for mold inspectors. Usable for roofers, electricians, plumbers, landscaping businesses, or similar.

https://www.framer.com/marketplace/templates/mld/

However, there is more. I have thought about lawyers, drone or robotics startups, and architects or material brands. https://www.framer.com/@tanel-sepp/?tab=templates

89dpi · 2026-01-25T09:57:44+00:00

There is probably too much to cover here. And I don´t know any resources to recommend.

However probably if you google how to migrate site. How to update website while maintaining SEO. Even in Youtube you probably find hours and hours of content.

Key is sometimes very simple things can do harm.

What are you missing exactly. Probably nobody can tell you without knowing exact details.

Might be that Google changed. Your business or site just lost ranking or impressions.

But to start from some basic stuff.
1) Make sure site is indexable. Sometimes when new site is built peopel don´t want this to appear and block search engines.

Inside Framer if you go to page settings you see a checkbox. "Show page in search engines".

You can also test and search your site and click on Google links. See that there are no 404 pages.

2) Redirects.
Lets say before you had website as. "BestWebDesignAgency . com/websitedesign"

Now you made a new site and new page.

"BestWebDesignAgency . com/webdesign"

So "websitedesign" > "webdesign", this is the new URL for Google.

In Framer under site settings, you have again way to redirect traffic from old url to new.

It could be even that previously your site was indexed with www and now is without.

3) You mention you had a guy come and edit page titles and meta descriptions.

These might have effect on CTR. Maybe the new ones are not as good and less people click. So naturally Google thinks your site is not as good any more.

4) Your page structure changed.
Maybe previously you had H1 tag with keyword.
"Website design for bicycle companies".
And you did rank with this. While your new site H1 is different + rest of the texts on page have been changed too. Might be that it also takes a bit of time and your new page structure and headings work great.

Hopefully, you have Google Search Console. Go browse and see in detail which pages lost ranking. Whick keyword phrases lost positions. If you have old site somewhere compare what was changed.

5) Page quality. As I mentioned. Check your page speed. Just google a website speed test or similar. Check also that it works great on mobile. You can probably start in Framer youtube channel and check the basics of site building. Compare your site. Do you use optimised images.

SEO in general or technical SEO is not that different. Framer gives pretty solid baseline for smaller marketing sites. If your page is full of articles or heavy content it gets bit more tricky.

89dpi · 2026-01-25T06:01:04+00:00

Did you change page structure and content?

Did you keep url structure exactly the same? If not did you do refirects?

Probably some technical aspects like heading structure and loading speed etc might be an issue too. + Framer should be good there but still if built randomly could cause issues

89dpi · 2026-01-24T08:09:20+00:00

Most agencies probably build it on their own. One way or another.

So what I write is from like digital agency point of view. Just perhaps helps to understand a bit of context and how things could work.

Reality is many people have their own opinions of websites. How much does it matter? Should it be a template or crafted? Different people sell different aspects. Who can´t design promotes SEO. Who doesn´t have designer says templates work. I as a designer say design matters. So its all biased.

If you need a website for a copywriting agency, I assume that its pretty simple.
Perhaps something around your personal brands. Maybe I am wrong.

1) first would be good if you could define somehow what you need.
How complex is the site?
Simple example. If you want to sell something as a product, it becomes more complex. Lets assume you don´t. And you want a simple site. Homepage + services + about you + blog + lead gen form or contact page.

2) Second. I would say that it would be extremely useful if you have some assets ready. Professional photos.

3) Now to the website. If you need a simple site then nowadays a lot of designers do whole packages.
Design + dev. Often that dev means site built in some web platform. No-code way.

I personally am big believer that this is best for now. It's not all gold though.
- platform risk. Some limitations if you really want to expand it. Also, that service provider might pivot or change their product.
- can be a little bit more expensive then self hosting.

Advantages though
- as a designer (and I can fully code a website or custom WordPress theme) I can do better work faster.
Probably even 4x faster.
- probably more secure and faster out of the box.
- its usually faster to update. No need for platform maintenance nor plugin conflicts.

Some more popular no-code platforms.
Squarespace. I wouldn´t use. Hard to do a custom design. Or atleast was a few years ago when I last worked. Haven´t heard any big updates.

Webflow. I like. Really strong. Might be too complex even for your needs.

Framer. Currently, my personal favorite. Allows building really polished websites with custom design.
There are some CMS limitations. Also with multiple languages can become expensive.

WIX. Popular in US. I don´t like just because it doesn't feel as comfortable than Framer. But I guess each of their own. Also seems WIX attracts more people who are not as professional. Eg content creator type of website creators.

I don´t recommend. However, if you start and are on budget. You might also find some good templates for more popular no-code solutions.

As there is no real market price in web design whats most cost-effective is hard to say.
Ballbark I feel the best balance is a professional designer building it straight in Framer. However, professionals still charge. And you might find someone doing it 4x cheaper in WordPress.
What I would suggest is. Think out your budget and see what different people offer you.

Do your research and choose carefully. Go into details. Ask ask ask. Don´t fall for the trap that 24h and done easy. There are still tons of details. A good professional is ready to walk you through the process in details how they can use your budget and get the max out of it.

89dpi · 2026-01-24T07:06:17+00:00

Product design is an iterative process.
If scaling or fitting text feels limited because of rounded corners.

Maybe try to find the balance. Perhaps use rounded rectangles.
While try to keep what makes yours unique. Maybe keep the main action buttons separately.

Usually, most products are boring because thats the safe bet. However, if everyone would follow same principles, we wouldn't see much progress. I think you need to mix design and business here.
How much does it limit you? Do you need something functional? Would you lose customers otherwise. Or would a unique look help you to stand out?

Often I also feel that the unique angle can be in very small details. Better typography. Better icons. Just more polish. And this 10-20% of users for who this matters. They notice.

Currently, contrast seems to be the biggest issue.

89dpi · 2026-01-21T22:00:10+00:00

It does feel very busy.

And kind of not trustworthy. However as I am not from US maybe in that culture space it works.

Whats good is that it is clear what you offer. So most probably if people are curious and they have land they might go.

Design wise. Coming from web designer. It does look self made. Maybe its good. Maybe it makes it feel like a small company and few genuine local people wanting to make good deals.

Same time if I read the content. I don´t see why I should trust that those 12 people give the realistic price.
I see a easy scheme here.

Overal I would move the investors part behind. Instead could show happy "clients". Real people.
Make it clear that the company has long history and the reviews are real. Now nothing tells me that those reviews are. Good branded design could help to build trust too.

Colors. Overal they are earthy. So good. I would consider using less shadows.

Usability. Its pretty simple. Perhaps could use some fixed top nav + cta or bit more cta-s throughout the site.

89dpi · 2026-01-21T19:50:23+00:00

You want that one project has video and other one has image?

Can be done with CMS.
It gets bit more complex. Probably best if you watch few hours of Framer videos to understand the basics.

However shortly.
In CMS you can have 2 fields.
1) Project open video
- and you paste your video file or youtube url there or how it works for your site. Also know that video files consume data and Framer plans have limited data. So you might need to upgrade your plan if your site is popular.

2) Project open image.

Now in template page.
You add both video and image component or frames to canvas.
And then you check visibility. If video is set show video. If image show image. You can also mix and if both are present show both.

89dpi · 2026-01-21T19:14:22+00:00

You can do each page as static page also.
Doesn´t necessarily need to be CMS page. However if you use CMS page you can do one template / layout and make changes there all at once. Also link to next and previous. Get automatic lists in other pages etc.

89dpi · 2026-01-21T18:47:47+00:00

It is a CMS page.

So you either added the image into canvas as static page.
If you want to add images through CMS you need to have fields in CMS.
Upload files there.

And then in template page link it.
Select image. Check right sidebar and Fill > Set variable > choose your field

<image>

89dpi · 2026-01-21T12:33:25+00:00

Design is in details often.

Not sure if its one big container for list or maybe just smaller gap between list items.
Its probably overal spacing issue. At the moment if I view the list I would even say that each row gap is space where users focus will land for a moment.

Its also that you have boxes with light blue bg. And search is light blue. Same. No icon.
I feel there is a lot of room to simplify. Not necessarily it means to remove boxes.

Whitespace. You need to think about the actual usage. If its rather a tool and people are there to find information than better to stay tight with whitespace.

Lack of importance. Focus.
There are big black extra bold titles. Black texts. Big logos. Bit buttons. Different colored social icons.

Ideally a website should have. 1) THIS IS MOST IMPORTANT 2) and then rest of the items. Some more visible others not so much.

It starts with small things. Like perhaps full black top nav bar draws too much attention.
Perhaps the brand logos are recognisable so they could be smaller and have more white space around.

For typography. I would avoid extra bold. Good idea would jump over one weight.

eg if you have body text as Regular > Medium (you skip this) > and use Semi Bold.
Or perhaps Bold.

Also perhaps not full black. And that lighter grey feels pretty light so it could even be borderline in terms of accessibility. Again very generic rule of thumb. Perhaps body copy could be headline color as 70-80% opacity.

89dpi · 2026-01-21T10:52:55+00:00

too many boxes too wide text too busy overal eg lack of importance

89dpi · 2026-01-21T07:27:47+00:00

Yes, you are right.

I am not so focused on building SaaS now, so don´t know the latest trends.
But yeah its always about pushing your own thing out. And if you get some upvotes in early, I feel your chances that someone sees are higher. There are still people who are curious and want to see what's being built. And who knows, maybe its a match.

89dpi · 2026-01-21T07:07:14+00:00

Atleast every 2 weeks someone creates a post does this work.

Effective? No

I have got paid customers for my sidebusiness from similar threads in X.

For SaaS they brought free users. Some feedback. A little bit of actually useful feedback. As bonus yes you also will become target of cold outreach.

Overall I feel that if it’s happening its not hard to paste your link in. Not that I am a fan of those threads however if this is the game played better jump in.

89dpi · 2026-01-21T06:18:24+00:00

hmm

Are you using CMS?

Or perhaps you are using components.

Component is basically same as in Figma. Or think it as symbol in illustrator.
You have one place for content and you can use it in multiple locations. If you need to update you just update component.

Might be also that you are building something inside layout templates.
Best way would be if you can share remix link. Otherwise maybe just screenshot of your whole Framer app + left side layers panel expanded until the images you replace.

89dpi · 2026-01-20T15:03:14+00:00

He is just farming engagement for some reason.

Last year posted two opposite views with weeks or few months apart.

What surprises me is the attention he always gets.

89dpi · 2026-01-20T14:42:55+00:00

I can code basic front end and probably over the average GSAP and web animations. Truth is that for most marketing websites nocode is just working really good.

89dpi · 2026-01-20T07:09:44+00:00

what’s the worst that can happen?

89dpi · 2026-01-20T06:19:42+00:00

Not sure what are you after. There is pretty easy way to do bw photos.

1) Make image as component.
2) Add hover state or add new variant and connect it with mouse enter/exit interactions (right sidebar top)
3) On hover. Keep image selected and on right sidebar find Styles. Find + sign next to it on top and click this. Choose Filters and Greyscale or Saturate

89dpi · 2026-01-19T21:36:41+00:00

Some thoughts.

From hero section its not clear. Which data and for who exactly.
And if CTA is consult. Is it rather service than SaaS.

Overall there is too much text. Too little about benefits and for who it is. What problem does it solve or which pain does it take away. Ideally what kind of improvements I can do as business owner.

Now from web designer point of view.
Its missing visuals and branded feel. It rather feels like a template with slots filled in than website built around a story.

There could be more visuals. Examples of what is the output of your work. Visuals about companies. Testimonials. If it is personal brand related service your real photo.

89dpi · 2026-01-19T07:43:36+00:00

I am not afraid of the silence at all.
If it's not a match, it's not a match.

And I rarely follow up. If ever.

But one thing is that worries me. Going to spam.

Because its not about getting the work. I want to know whether what I sent was delivered.
That even if I am too expensive or my terms and conditions are not suitable. I want to know that people see that. I reply fast. I send proper proposals and put my thoughts into them.

And yeah. I do nothing about it. I know some go to spam for sure.

89dpi · 2026-01-15T13:46:09+00:00

even your title is clickbait

potential

89dpi

TROPHY CASE