With such a great URL, Website.com has what it does in its name. It’s an all-in-one website builder with domain registration. It provides you with all the tools you need to build a modern website.
As a general purpose website builder, you can use it to build any type of site, be it a personal, business, or portfolio website. It comes with the expected drag-and-drop editor so that you don’t need to code. As an added boon, you get a free domain with your paid subscription for as long as you remain a client.
Before Website.com was launched in 2012, it started out as a web hosting provider. The team behind it got to see that it was a bit difficult for the average person to create their own website. So, it launched the website builder which included hosting and domain name registration.
Since its launch, Website.com has grown to become one of the leading website builders. What makes it stand out from its competitors are its very reasonable prices and multilingual capabilities. Website.com is based in Vancouver, Canada.
- Pros and cons of Website.com
- Who is Website.com for?
- How easy is Website.com to use?
- Website.com design and themes
- How to manage your ecommerce store in Website.com?
- Website.com integrations
- What marketing and SEO tools does Website.com have?
- Membership management
- Restaurant management
- Working with images
- Domain and emails
- Payment options
- Website.com customer support
- Website.com pricing
- Is Website.com the right tool for you?
Pros and cons of Website.com
Website.com gives you everything you need to launch your website and as a hosted solution, you don’t need to deal with the techy stuff – like updates and security. Except on the free and first paid plans, plans you get custom domain email and staff accounts.
Pros
- Free forever plan
- Easy to use
- Multilingual capabilities including for non-Latin based languages such as Japanese
- Large gallery of templates
- Membership management option
- Restaurant management option
Cons
- Limited options for integrations
- No email marketing
Who is Website.com for?
Website.com is an interesting option for SMEs who want to have an online presence but don’t want to hire a web designer/developer. You can build a modern, mobile-ready website for your restaurant, clinic, or online store. You can also use it to build your personal website.
On the higher plans, you get email accounts with your custom domains so you have all you need with just one provider. This makes it easier for you and you don’t need to go to different providers losing time (or your head).
How easy is Website.com to use?
Everything is heavily guided so you shouldn’t have any difficulties using Website.com. The signup process is pretty simple. You can use your name and email or even quicker, use the one-click signup and connect to your Facebook or Google account.
For this review though, I had to agree to receive Website.com’s marketing emails before my account was created which can be a deterrent for some. But you can unsubscribe at any time.
Following industry standards, you first choose your template which you then customise with the drag-and-drop editor. It has a large range of tools which gives you excellent customisability. You find the tools in the left menu.
Still, compared to Wix, Website.com doesn’t offer (overwhelm) that many features. But the most important is that it has multilingual capabilities. You can even add non-Latin-based languages such as Chinese, Japanese, or Arabic.
Website.com uses absolute positioning. Its editor allows you to place exactly to the pixel where you want your elements such as header or footer. You can also determine to the pixel the height and width of your elements. This gives you a high degree of control, except for e pre-structured app pages (such as blog, calendar, shopping cart). For these, you can select from different layouts but you can’t add more elements.
All in all, the interface is clean and well-thought-out. You should find your way within minutes, especially if you’re coming from another website builder.
Website.com design and themes
The template gallery is literally filled with hundreds of templates. They’re all modern and mobile-ready. They’re grouped into 13 main categories that are divided again into subcategories. You don’t have access to mess with the HTML or CSS but you can still adjust the template’s color scheme, background image and color, font, and text styles.
How to manage your ecommerce store in Website.com?
You first need to enable your store in the left side menu. Then you can set up your store in a 4 steps process, though you need to be subscribed to one of Website.com’s premium plans.
Website.com doesn’t give you advanced ecommerce features like for example Magento. But it gives you everything you need to run an online store with its Store Manager. You get to list and manage your products and accept payments. Just know that digital/downloadable product is not supported.
And a good thing is that it doesn’t tack on a transaction fee on your sales.
Website.com integrations
You can connect to the leading social media networks, including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. You can also add third party elements to your pages such as Soundcloud Player or Google Maps. Since you can also add custom HTML code, you can add any service that provides you with embeddable code. Just don’t expect advanced integrations.
What marketing and SEO tools does Website.com have?
You can connect your Website.com website with your Google Analytics. Then you can use the drag-and-drop editor to tag your calls to action as events. This allows Google Analytics to track the activities of visitors on your site.
When your site is connected to Google Analytics, you can split test directly in the editor. You can track events, conversion, data, and other metrics so that you can make informed decisions for your page design.
SEO
The SEO capabilities are decent. You can edit custom meta titles and meta descriptions for all your pages. Sitemaps are automatically generated and you can connect your account to Google Analytics and Google Search Console.
Blogging
Just like with your online store, you first need to create your blog. Once that’s done, it’s very easy to write regularly a blog post. You can set the URL for your blog post, schedule when to publish, and add tags. As a built-in blogging tool, it performs well and it’s backed by data collection and analytics tools.
Form builder
It’s always a good idea to add a contact. You can add as many form fields as you want and protect the form against bots with Google Recaptcha. To view and manage the collected data, use Website.com’s form data management tool.
Membership management
On the premium plans, you can add a membership management tool to your site and make your site a membership site. Then you can password-ported a page that only members can view. Unfortunately, Website.com doesn’t have a built-in email service so that you won’t be able to send email notifications to your members.
Restaurant management
If you’re running a restaurant, Website.com is useful. It has a built-in restaurant management tool. With this, you can give your customers the option to make a reservation, show your menu, and integrate with Opentable.
Working with images
One of the ways to customise a website is to add your own images. You can even add an image gallery wot your site. You’ll see all your images in the file manager. You can edit your images, that is you can zoom, crop, rotate, and add captions.
Domain and emails
If you’re subscribed to a premium plan, you get a free domain registration for as long as you’re subscribed. If you choose the Business and eCommerce plans, you also get custom domain email accounts. And with it, you get a webmail dashboard to manage your mails, storage, tasks, calendar, automated reply, and more.
Payment options
Website.com payment options are Square, Stripe, and Paypal.
Website.com customer support
For instant answers, you can check out Website.com’s learning centre. It is grouped into topics such as designing a website or ecommerce, but unfortunately, it’s not searchable. You can reach the support team via phone, chat, or online ticketing. You can submit a ticket at any time. Live chat doesn’t specify business hours. Phone service is only available on weekdays, 09:00-18:00 (PST).
Website.com pricing
Website.com has a price category for websites and for ecommerce. Still, its pricing is highly competitive.
Is Website.com the right tool for you?
Website.com is user-friendly, yet gives you a high degree of customisability. Its pricing is very competitive and it comes with tools that’ll appeal particularly to restaurants. For even more convenience, Website.com offers a free for life domain name when you subscribe to one of its premium plans.
However, if you want advanced integration, for example, if you want to automate some tasks, that’s where Website.com falls short.
Original post here: Website.com review – easy and cheap website builder
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