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Florida
Fort Lauderdale
Tampa
Miami
Boca Raton
Orlando
Sarasota
Florida
Fort Lauderdale
Tampa
Miami
Boca Raton
Orlando
Sarasota
Florida
Fort Lauderdale
Tampa
Miami
Boca Raton
Orlando
Sarasota
Blog · Updated for 2026
Purpose, content, visuals and harmony still hold. In 2026, speed, accessibility and AI search sit beside them.
Purpose and real content still come first.
Accessibility is now a legal question too.
Write so people and AI search both understand you.
2026 update · October 2026
The four principles in the 2021 article still hold: a clear purpose, real content, visuals that reflect your brand, and a layout that works as one. What has changed is what Google, the law and your visitors expect around them.
Google’s Core Web Vitals score loading, layout shift and, since INP replaced FID in 2024, how fast a page reacts to every tap or click. Aim for under 200 milliseconds.
Design to WCAG 2.2. The European Accessibility Act has applied since June 2025 to many businesses selling online to EU customers, including US businesses, and ADA claims continue at home.
Many people now get answers from AI search tools that summarize and cite pages. Clear headings, plain answers and structured data help your pages get found and quoted.
Design for the small screen first, with buttons and links large enough to tap with a thumb, then scale up to the desktop.
A new website with us takes 6 to 10 weeks. See our web design service.
Original article · 2021
Published in 2021 and kept as written. See the update above for what has changed.
These days, there are so many options when it comes to creating a website for your business. We at JLB always suggest going with a professional, preferably an agency, to create a one-of-a-kind digital presence for your most important asset – your brand. If you have not solidified your brand, or don’t know where to start, contact us now! If you do have a branding, and you are ready to put it to use online, we’d like to share some web design principles you’d like to take for your website.
Stunning website design does not come easy. As with any creative discipline, web design has several rules it must abide by. Navigation, visuals, and content must all work together to achieve the perfect balance – one that is functional as well as aesthetically pleasing. Let us take a closer look at a few web design principles for 2021.
Calls To Action (CTA) are key in supporting your website’s overall goals. A website’s purpose can be providing information, presenting a company and their services, or promoting purchases.
Thoughtful website design adds purpose to your website. It is important to keep in mind who your audience is, and to study behaviors that will lead to visitor retention and continued revenue growth, whether that comes from clicking to “BUY NOW” or “LEARN MORE”.
Quality web content should be clear, useful and provide the audience with a guide on what they must do next to complete a certain action. Additionally, search engine optimization (SEO) should be considered when creating content for on-site use, so that necessary keywords are integrated without distracting the reader.
Working with real content from the beginning of the design process is a must – you will be able to spot issues and changes that need to be made, instead of continuously adjusting later. This is one of the most important web design principles of 2021.
Every design element visible on your website should communicate and reflect your brand’s identity. Illustrations, graphics, and photos are used to balance text segments and give visitors a rest from reading. These elements are also a great way to make a memorable first impression.
Visuals need to be high-quality, clear, and color-balanced, with some animated transitions added for a more interactive experience.
Every element of your website’s layout should work together in harmony. Oversized buttons and extreme contrasting colors don’t reflect professionalism. All these elements can have a detrimental effect on user experience – and that will cause your visitors to bounce, hurting your ranking with Google in the process.
Blog · Updated for 2026
Our 2021 comparison of two popular hosted store platforms, with a 2026 update on what has changed since.
Both still host, secure and upgrade your store for you.
Plans and fees have changed since 2021.
The 2026 update comes first; the 2021 article follows.
2026 update · October 2026
Both platforms are still hosted (SaaS) stores that look after servers, security and upgrades for you. The basic choice is the same as in 2021: Shopify for speed and a very large app ecosystem, BigCommerce for more features built in. Several details below no longer hold, so read the update before the original.
Its app store is far larger than in 2021, AI tools such as Sidekick help run the store, and products can be shown and bought inside AI chat assistants.
On June 1, 2026 it renamed its plans Core, Growth, Scale and Performance and lowered the yearly sales limit on each, so growing stores move up a plan sooner.
The 2021 advice is out of date. BigCommerce now charges a fee on orders that don’t go through one of its approved payment providers. Shopify still charges one unless you use Shopify Payments.
Both cover the basics. Fast pages, structured product data and clear product copy matter more now that AI search tools summarize stores, so keep add-on apps to the ones you need.
We build stores on Shopify, Shopify Plus, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Magento, Ecwid and OpenCart, and a new website takes 6 to 10 weeks. See our web design service.
Original article · 2021
Published in 2021 and kept as written. Prices, fees and app counts are from 2021; see the update above for what has changed.
Both Shopify and BigCommerce are powerful SaaS eCommerce platforms that enable you to launch online stores quickly and without requiring advanced web development skills. SaaS or “Software as a Service” platforms have a huge advantage over regular websites: online sellers are not required to maintain their content themselves – the SaaS platform will host their website for them, in exchange for a monthly fee. If you are an online merchant looking for a new home for your online business, it’s a good idea to go read up on our Shopify VS BigCommerce comparison.
Both Shopify and BigCommerce offer the best in terms of support, including server maintenance, running upgrades and solving tech issues effectively, so that leaves the question: Shopify or BigCommerce? What sets them apart?
Shopify is one of the most popular SaaS e-commerce platforms on the market today, with over 1.75 million stores running it worldwide. Shopify allows you to build custom online stores according to your niche, sell products, manage orders and inventory and of course, accept payments. It’s also one of the quickest and easiest ways to start an online store due to the fact that it’s very user friendly and offers plenty of tools and integration options. Just like all SaaS ecommerce platforms, Shopify runs on a monthly subscription basis.
BigCommerce allows online merchants to create and customize their online store, manage payments, shipping, products and orders. BigCommerce is one of Shopify’s biggest competitors, both in terms of reliability as well as user friendliness. BigCommerce offers plenty of ready-to-use templates suitable for a variety of online stores and websites. As with Shopify, BigCommerce uses a monthly subscription plan, with three different core plans and an Enterprise solution for larger stores.
One of the most important factors you should consider when using an ecommerce website builder is the recurring monthly cost of a plan. Additional costs such as transaction fees and credit card fees should also be taken into consideration when choosing a platform. Let’s take a closer look at the average Shopify VS BigCommerce cost.
Both Shopify and Bigcommerce offer three different pricing plans, according to your needs. Shopify’s plans range from $29 a month for the basic plan to $299 a month for the advanced one, while BigCommerce’s plans range from $29.95 a month for the basic plan to $299.95 a month. Shopify also offers a $9 a month Lite version, but it doesn’t offer the functionality of a full-fledged online store.
It’s also important to note that both of these platforms offer discounts up to 10% if you pay annually instead of monthly. Now let’s take a look at the Shopify VS BigCommerce cost of transactions and associated credit card fees.
Transaction fees represent a percentage of revenue that you pay to the e-commerce platform from each sale you make. BigCommerce has zero transaction fees on any of its plans, while Shopify charges between 0.5% and 2%, depending on the monthly plan you are under. If you want to avoid Shopify’s transaction fees, you can use Shopify Payments, instead of a third party payment processor such as PayPal.
Credit card fees represent a percentage of revenue that you pay to a third party payment processor, whenever you make a sale. There are plenty of payment processors to choose from, with Shopify offering over 100 integrations and BigCommerce over 65.
Some payment processors recommended by BigCommerce or Shopify come with special rates. Shopify recommends the Shopify Payments option, while BigCommerce recommends PayPal. Both payment processors charge fees of 2.9% + 30 cents per transaction, but Shopify’s standard and advanced plans have reduced fees of 2.6% + 30 cents and 2.4% + 30 cents, respectively.
Shopify VS BigCommerce SEO features are plenty on both platforms. Shopify allows users to add and modify meta titles and descrpitons, generate sitemap.xml and robots.txt files, add keywords, and prevent duplicate content with canonical redirects. BigCommerce also offers these search engine optimization features on all of their plans. The only difference is that with Shopify, for more advanced SEO features such as adding schema markups, you will have to install a third-party app such as Shopify Reviews or Yotpo. That being said, adding too many additional apps or plugins can slow your website down and increase its total loading time.
While using a website builder to build your online store is generally the fastest solution, it doesn’t mean that it’s easy. Ecommerce is highly competitive, especially in 2021, so if you want to run a successful online business you need to stand out. This includes graphics, page elements placement, development tweaks, content and more importantly, search engine optimization.
It’s always good to have Shopify web development company by your side to tackle all the hick-ups that appear along the road from concept to successful online store. JLB USA is a BigCommerce & Shopify web development company with over 10 years of experience as a complete solution agency. Contact us using the form below.
