Creating a tutoring website: 5 recommended website builders

Every serious tutor will surely want to have his/her own webpage out there on the internet, because it speaks volumes about his/her resolve and professionalism. You can pay a small fortune in exchange for a sleek and taut looking creation by an upscale IT design firm, or you can get your hands a little dirty by setting things up yourself for a nominal fee (which mainly goes to purchasing and maintaining a custom domain name). For the latter option, we suggest 5 different reputable website builders which we believe will make you sufficiently satisfied at the end of the day when your baby goes live. And yes, we are assuming you are 95% to a full 100% allergic to HMTL, CSS and JavaScript. So basically you will be largely dealing with simple WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You get) editors.


1. Wordpress


If you have never heard of Wordpress in your life, you probably don't hail from Earth. Indisputably the most popular blogging platform, you can sign up for an account absolutely free. Hundreds of free themes are made readily available to tantalize your design palate, not to mention a whole universe of plugins which you can choose from to enhance your site's functionality. Document files (.pdf, .docx, .xls, etc) and image files (.png, .gif, .jpg, etc) can be hosted for free, so if you wish to share pictures and written stuff, Wordpress is your buddy.


Those pursuing Wordpress's paid plans shall be accorded a complimentary custom domain name (which means your website URL will therefore reside uniquely at, say, www.mytutoringsite.com instead of a subdomain like www.mytutoringsite.wordpress.com) for a year, as well as given free rein to go under the hood to tinker with the site's source code. Btw, not forgetting this too enables the removal of them annoying, irrelevant ads which pop up ever so frequently. Additionally, both premium- and business-tier plans also grant access to a complete suite of premium themes which you can take your pick from if you yearn for a higher degree of design sophistication.


Do note though there is a completely separate entity called Wordpress.org which is not associated with the above - you are required to purchase a hosting plan first before you can install the actual blogging software. It is equally well-loved, so go for this if it floats your boat.


2. Blogger


It's so simple to use, even your grandma can probably roll out her own gardening blog with minimal issues. Signing up for a Blogger account is completely free, and your site will be named as part of the blogspot subdomain (eg mytutoringsite.blogspot.com) . The user interface is very intuitive, as you will be experimenting with block editors which pretty much emulate the general site outlook. You can also easily fashion widgets to doll up your website. The downside is that you can only upload image and video files to Blogger (these btw shall be automatically saved in an accompanying media manager for easy retrieval), so you will have to seek out other file hosting sites which can accommodate your .docx and .pdf stuff.


Unlike Wordpress, you need not pay a single cent to obtain control over the template's HTML chassis. You can overhaul things here to generate a totally new skin for your site, though ensure you save your work constantly throughout the modification process.


One used to be able to register a custom domain directly through Blogger for an extremely cheap 10 USD a year, however this is no longer the case. Still, a desired URL can be bought through third party domain name sellers like GoDaddy, Cloudflare and eNom (Note though you will have to personally adjust DNS records, CName, A Records and other various settings via the registrar control panel to have this point properly to your Blogger site).

3. Squarespace


Although Squarespace offers a very limited number of design templates, many of them scream elegantly minimalistic cum uber stylish. The website creation experience is silky and seamlessly delightful, even superior to that of Wordpress and Blogger in our opinion.


A 14-day free trial period is provided for the individual to explore its offerings (during which any site created will not be published on the internet), after which he/she must sign up for a paid plan (all plans include a free custom domain for the first year) if he/she wishes to proceed further. Should you endeavour to own e-mail address(es) associated with your chosen domain name (eg abc@mytutoringsite.com) administered through Google Workspace, additional costs shall be incurred.


Did we forget to mention you can also set up a virtual storefront complete with payment systems which can be easily integrated within your Squarespace website? Tutors with e-books and learning materials to sell will certainly embrace this feature.


4. Wix


Wix has gotten its content management system (CMS) so very right - it offers crisp controls and navigation is a breeze. On top of that, it boasts one of the largest collection of writing fonts and even allows you to separately configure the site outlook as displayed on mobile devices (resizing, relocation and hiding of elements). Rolling out fanciful animations, installing slideshows and embedding glossy social media icons on web pages involve just a few simple clicks of the mouse.


If there is anything we don't like, it's that everytime you hit the publish button, a screen will pop out nagging at you to sign up for a paid plan with them. Plus at times the editor takes longer than usual to load properly, thus giving rise to a site building experience that feels less silky than it should.


5. Carrd


Tutors wanting a no-frills, yet nevertheless elegant single-pager that touts his/her teaching portfolio would find Carrd a godsend. The user interfafce is highly intuitive, so going from zero to launching the site live could take as little as 30 minutes.


Do be cognizant that while you can publish for free to a Carrd-branded URL (eg mytutoringsite.carrd.co), there are various restrictions in place, such as a cap on the number of elements permitted for the building process, no custom code injections or mounting of contact form(s) allowed whatsoever, and so on and so forth. Then again, existing paid plans offered are extremely dirt cheap, starting from just 9 USD/year, thus rendering the decision to upgrade a total no-brainer.


Are you ready to begin building your very first website?