What's the deal with AI website builders?

If you're going to run a business, you have to have a website. Stop arguing, you need one. And for if you're reading this, chances are you could use an AI website builder.

Whether you’re starting a new solo business or updating an existing operation, a professional looking and functional website is the foundation of your communications and marketing strategy. But you’re not a coder or website designer, you’re an entrepreneur! So what do you do? Well, up until now you've had two main options: 

1. Hire a developer to do it for you (which can costs hundreds or thousands of $$$)
2. Try to do it yourself with old school website builders (hello 404 errors and hours lost)

Thing is, the game's moved on — which is good news for you. Because why bother with wasted time and money (or both) when you can create your site in 30 seconds with an artificial intelligence? An AI website builder can take your business idea and turn it into a fully-functional website in less than a minute. Sounds like the intelligent choice, right? Here's everything you need to know.

What is an AI-powered website builder?

When you hear the term artificial intelligence, what comes to mind? Probably either superpowered robots programmed to kill or a sad little boy at the bottom of the ocean. You know, smart computers that learn, grow, and create on their own. It should be no surprise that an AI that builds websites is neither murderous nor melancholy.

While true artificial intelligence still needs years of development before it can approach the intellectual and emotional capabilities of the human brain, the AI we have now does a great job of mimicking human ingenuity and creativity. With just a little input from you at the beginning, an AI website creator can use contextual information from the internet to build a delightful homebase for your new business. It’s almost like having a developer do it for you, except it happens in 30 seconds.

Durable’s free AI website builder incorporates technology from OpenAI, an organization whose mission is to ensure that artificial intelligence benefits humanity. In this case, it will definitely benefit your business.

How does an AI-based website builder work?

An artificial intelligence website builder takes a small amount of input from a user like you and combines it with location data, web design standards and best practices, color theory, and image databases. AI software understands the context of the data that you enter and generates appropriate styles and content for your business, including photos and text, while you stretch or sip a chai latte.

Some AI website makers use a small number of generic site templates and simply slot in the generated content, colors, and fonts. But the best AI website builder tools produce templates algorithmically, creating more natural, nuanced designs. Less like Skynet, more like DALL-E 2.

With Durable’s AI web builder the (extremely short) process starts with you entering the type of business you plan on starting—for example, a digital marketing business. The tool also detects your location, which you can change if you happen to be on vacation in Fiji or New Jersey. It then suggests a selection of potential business names for you to choose from—you can even try out our AI business name generator on its own if you’re hungry for endless name ideas.

When you’ve settled on a name, click next and then just sit back and relax. The AI goes to work on your site all by itself, and in less than a minute, it’s ready for your review. Abraca-freakin-dabra.

As tech gets more sophisticated, AI will be able to build even bigger, more creative websites for every type of business.

What do AI-generated websites include?

Artificial intelligence is still new technology so the websites that it can generate are probably best for smaller solo businesses that don’t require a ton of complexity, such as huge ecommerce sites with big catalogs or extremely unusual layouts. However, an AI website creation tool like the one from Durable produces elements such as:

• Name suggestions based on your business type
• Visual content from Unsplash, including a hero image as well as photos that accompany sections farther down the page
• Business service listings with images and descriptions
• Contact info and a form that forwards questions and requests directly to your inbox
• Embedded Google map of your business location
• Gallery of images relevant to your business
• Design styles including brand colors, fonts, and button shapes
• Text, including business description, testimonial, headline, and more, written entirely by artificial intelligence
• Site templates that organize your website and streamline the flow of information ensuring a smooth user journey

Most AI website builders can do a few or most of the above. But stronger options for AI website builders include additional "business stuff" to make running every part of your business way simpler including:

• CRM. Client Relationship Management software is the key to keeping your customers organized and happy.
• Invoicing. Bill your clients in seconds and get paid fast with automatically generated invoices that integrate with your CRM, website, and bank account.
• Custom domains. Every Durable subscription includes a custom domain, so your web address looks super professional no matter where it appears.
• AI ad writer. Write a promotion for Google Ads, Facebook, email, or Twitter in seconds by letting AI do the work for you.

Full disclosure: currently only Durable offers that entire list, and that is growing. But, the big takeaway here? The list of things that AI website builders can do is growing rapidly. That's good news for business owners like you: sure, you might be signing up for all of the above. But since AI website builders are moving so fast, the list of AI-powered features included in your subscription is pretty much guaranteed to grow (hint hint).

Why build a website with AI?

The number one reason to use AI to build websites is that it is fast. Blazingly fast. Literally 30 seconds and you can have a site built and ready to view. If you have a lot of different ideas, you can spend a single coffee break generating dozens of websites to test concepts and see which one is going to make the biggest splash. Once you’ve made your decision, you can get your business launched on the same day. No more messing around waiting for quotes from developers or spending weeks or months trying to learn to code.

Or, if you’ve got an old clunky website for an existing business, you’ve probably wondered what it would look like with updated design. You can find out in 30 actual, real-time seconds with Durable. You don’t have to commit to it, you don’t have to sign a contract, and you don’t have to write any HTML or CSS yourself. A warning though: when you see your business with a fresh new face, it’s going to be tough to go back to that old GeoCities site.

Best practices for using an AI site builder

AI website creation doesn’t come with a lot of tips and tricks because the AI does almost all the work. But there are a few easy things you can do to make sure your new site is as attractive as you are.

1. Spend a short time reviewing the text on your new site, adding details where appropriate, since the AI can’t possibly know every detail that makes your business special.
2. Swap out stock images for photos of your facility, vehicle, job sites, and you, if you have them. If not, don’t worry about it.
3. Add contact information such as your phone number, email address, social media handles, business address, etc.
4. If there are specific links to information that you’d like your customers to have, you can easily add them wherever appropriate. For example links to your suppliers.
5. For businesses that already have an established look and feel, you can customize your site to include brand colors and fonts.

None of these require special design or coding skills and Durable makes it easy to get it done fast.

Who should use AI website builders?

In a word: everyone! Okay maybe not everyone. Control freaks with coding and design skills might get stressed watching an artificial intelligence do their jobs for them. But if your needs fall into any of these categories, AI is probably for you.

• Small service businesses. Services like Durable were obviously created with small businesses in mind, so an AI website builder is perfectly suited to small service entrepreneurs and solo operators, 
• Analog businesses. Believe it or not, there are existing businesses that are not yet online. An AI website builder can get a traditional business on the web fast, without the usual costs and delays.
• Pre-launch startups. Need to test a brand concept? Don’t invest a ton of time and resources into a website that you might not use. Try an AI website builder instead.
• Events. If you’re hosting an event and you need an event info website in a hurry, look no further than an AI website builder.
• Landing pages. If you have a website but want to build a landing page to promote a specific product or service, an AI website builder can get it done without disrupting your existing site.
• A home for your brand. Looking for a place to unify all your online identities? An AI-built website is a great home for your links to social media, photo albums, playlists, portfolios, and more. 

So, are AI website builders worth it in 2023?

If you factor in how much time it takes to learn to code, understand design best practices, and then build a website from scratch, yeah, of course AI website builders are worth it! Even if you only pay yourself minimum wage, you’re still looking at hours and hours of work to create a website from the ground up. An AI website builder like Durable can do all the heavy lifting in 30 seconds for just nine bucks. That’s incredible value, and it lets you get back to doing what you’re best at, like landscaping, or digital marketing, or photography, or gutter cleaning, or all kinds of other service businesses. 

Prepare to launch—today

Thanks to the power of artificial intelligence, you can build a beautiful website in less time than it took to read this post (unless you’re JFK). There’s no reason to fear or even budget for website creation anymore, since AI makes it easy, fast, and amazingly free. This is usually where we’d say you can get started on your website with Durable, but the AI website builder is so fast and requires so little work on your part, we’d like to update that: let Durable build you a website right now.