Manufacturers increasingly want to digitize their sales- and buying processes. But what is the current maturity level of their online sales- and services capabilities? And how does it come that manufacturers act so protective in the after-sales business?
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The status of ecommerce within manufacturing
How to Use Callout Extensions in Google Ads
Callout extensions are the small sibling amongst the ad extensions.
They don’t stand out visually, tucked in with the rest of the ad text, and you can’t click them.
But while they are small, they can make your ads a lot more attractive to your potential buyers.
In this article, I’ll show you how to do that!
What Is a Callout Extension?
A callout extensions is a small piece of text that can appear together with a Google Search Ad. You can use this space to highlight unique offers, promotions, discounts, USPs as well as features and benefits of your products and store.
Because they are so simple, setting them up goes very fast. All you need is some text.
Their goal is to add relevant text to your ads that will give your searchers one more reason to click it.
You can leverage them to save up space in your ads that you can use to add more useful information.
Pro tip: Use callout extensions to highlight the USPs of your products and store. And because these USPs don’t have dedicated landing pages, it’s better to use them here instead of sitelinks.
What Do Callout Extensions Look Like?
Let’s see what a callout extension looks like in the search results:
The ad in the example above was triggered for the query “buy mobile charger”.
You can see that the store used sitelinks to do a lot of things, wish a happy new year, promote their 24/7 live chat and lists the amount of products it offers.
How to Add Callout Extensions in Google Ads
Now that you know how they work, it’s time to create callout extensions in Google Ads.
Go to the to the “Ads & extensions” menu in your Google Ads account.
Click the blue plus icon at the top of the page and select “callout extension” from the dropdown menu:
Google allows you to add between 2 to 6 callout extensions to your ads.
Unlike with some other ad extensions, the same number of callouts will show for desktop and mobile/tablet users. The character limit for each callout is limited to 25 characters for most languages.
You can create callout extensions at three levels: account, campaign, and ad group. I’ll tell you which one to pick later in the article.
At the bottom you can find the advanced options: device preference and scheduling.
With the device preference option, you can choose to give a preference for mobile devices. Note that your extension might still appear on desktop and tablet devices, no matter whether you tick the box or not.
The extension scheduling lets your extensions appear at specific times and days.
This is a good feature when you’re using callout extensions to highlight a promotion. By scheduling them, your callouts will automatically pause after your promotion ends.
How to Add Callout Extensions With the Google Ads Editor?
The Google Ads Editor is an excellent tool to make bulk changes to your campaigns.
The important word in the previous sentence is bulk. So if you only have a handful of callout extensions to create, just do it in the interface.
But for those of you who manage complex campaigns with tons of callouts to add, here is a quick guide to leveraging adding the Google Ads Editor to speed things up.
The easiest way to do so is to create callout extensions in the Shared Library and add them later to your campaigns or ad groups.
You can find the Shared Library in the dropdown menu on the left-hand side of the Google Ads Editor dashboard where you have to select “Shared callout extensions”.
When you are in there, click the plus icon and fill in the details of the form on the right to create a callout extension in the Google Ads Editor.
When you are ready, use the same dropdown menu on the left to select the campaign (for campaign-level callouts) where you want to add your callout extension.
After clicking on the campaign, use the menu on the left to select “Callout extensions” inside the “Ad extensions” menu.
Click the “Add callout extension” button, select campaign as the level, and choose the callout to add to your campaign.
When you are ready, click the blue “OK” button at the bottom of the page.
To add a callout on the ad group level instead, the process is almost identical, just select an ad group instead of a campaign.
How to Remove Callout Extensions in Google Ads?
You might want to remove one or more callout extensions from your campaigns.
To do that, head over the to “Extensions” tab in the “Ads & extensions”.
Then, select the callout extensions you’d like to remove. When you do so, a blue bar will appear with the option to Remove them.
Note that this will not actually remove the extension, it will just delete the association with that campaign or ad group.
What Is the Difference Between Account, Campaign, and Ad Group Level Callout Extensions?
I’ve mentioned earlier that you can add callout extensions on the account, campaign, or ad group level.
So which one should you pick?
Account-Level Callouts
The default and most convenient option to add callout extensions in Google Ads is at the account level.
In this case your callouts will appear for all Search ads in your account.
That means that if you’re running ads to multiple stores (or domains) from one account, you should stay away from this option.
Otherwise, it’s not a bad approach for your most generic callout extensions that apply across campaigns and products.
For example, adding your USPs (e.g., “fast shipping”, “24/7 live chat service”) or store-wide promotions (e.g., “10% sale for all our products”).
If you add these on the account level, I suggest to also add some on the lower levels.
Campaign-Level Callouts
Here you can add extra callouts that are relevant for the products or category that you’re advertising.
This is the one that I use most often.
Ad Group-Level Callouts
In some cases it makes sense to customize your callout extensions on the ad group level.
It takes a lot of time to tailor your callouts for single products, but in some cases it might be worth it.
8 Interesting Callout Extension Examples
In this section, I’d like to show you some examples of different uses of callout extensions for ecommerce stores.
Clarity on Shipping and Returns
Concerns about shipping and returns are the number one reason why visitors don’t buy.
So if you have good terms, it’s a no-brainer to highlight these benefits with callout extensions.
Take a look at the image above for a great example of highlighting product and delivery features with callouts.
Pro tip: if your shipping policy is a bit more complex than can be captured in 25 characters, you can do what TennisExpress.com does with the asterisk*.
Branding
You can also use callout extensions for branding.
As you can see in the above example, Adidas used callout extensions to highlight three things.
First, the sports brand included “Sweat-Wicking Technology” and “Maximum Energy Return” to emphasize important features of its running shoes.
The company also used callout extensions to offer a 15% discount for users who sign up for its newsletter.
However, what’s interesting is that Adidas included the main statements of two of the company’s marketing campaigns as callouts (“Here To Create” and “Greater Every Run”) to add some branding to its ads. I feel like these snippets of text get lost though.
USPs, Product Features and Benefits
As mentioned earlier, using callout extensions is a great way to show searchers how your products are different (better) than your competitors’.
By highlighting your USPs with callouts, you give your searchers one more reason why they should click your ad.
Manta Sleep’s ad is a great example.
While the ad copy gives us the impression that this product is unique, the company’s callouts further emphasise this.
As a plus, with the two guarantees (“100% Blackout Guaranteed” and “Guaranteed Satisfaction”) as well as the “Award Winning Design” callout, Manta builds trust between the company and its prospects.
You can also use callout extensions to showcase the most important features of your products, like in the ad above (“Genuine Italian Leather, Handmade in the USA”).
In the above example, Asus showcases the features of its product in the ad copy while creating callout extensions to stress the laptop’s benefits (“Ultraportable,” “Long Battery Life”).
Building Trust
Manta’s example in the last section provides another use-case for callout extensions: building trust and credibility. (“100% Blackout Guaranteed” & “Award Winning Design”)
Let’s take a look at a new example after searching for “best digital camera”.
The company here used the “Trusted Reviews” and “From the Experts” callouts to show that its website is a credible resource for digital camera recommendations.
Promotions and Discounts
While there is a dedicated promotion extension, it will show up less often compared to callout extensions. So adding a promotion as a callout increases visibility.
Like the store above, you can highlight a simple discount with a callout to encourage users to click your ads (“10% Off On 1st Order”).
Here is another example where the store used callout extensions (almost) exclusively for promotion, targeting prospects searching for deals and discounts.
If you need more inspiration, checkout this long list of callouts to get inspired ðŸ¤
Dynamic Callout Extensions
As part of its automated extensions, Google added dynamic callouts.
By default, Google pulls data from your website to populate these dynamic callout extensions.
This reduces the amount of work you need to do, but the big downside is that Google will decide what to put in them, something I wouldn’t trust Google to do well.
So, I usually stay away from dynamic callout extensions and use the manual version instead.
How to Disable Dynamic Callouts?
Most advertisers don’t realize that Google adds these automated ad extensions by default.
So you have to explicitly opt out to.
To do that, head over to the “Ads & extensions” menu on the left-hand side and select “Automated extensions”.
Then, click the three dots icon in the top right corner of the page and head inside “Advanced options”.
Choose “Turn off specific automated extensions”, select dynamic callouts as well as a reason for disabling them, and click the “Turn Off” button when you are ready.
How To Use Callout Extensions Effectively
From showcasing promotions to highlighting product USPs, callout extensions have numerous use-cases for ecommerce stores.
If you use them effectively, you can give your searchers one more reason to click your ads while expanding your ad real estate with more text.
To get the best results, avoid using dynamic callouts, and use the “manual” version of the ad extension on either the campaign or ad group levels.
The post How to Use Callout Extensions in Google Ads appeared first on Store Growers.
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Money20/20 Europe
Event Date(s):
22nd – 24th September 2020
Event Location:
RAI Amsterdam
Country:
Netherlands
Register with the code MP20ECN
Europe’s biggest FinTech event is back
The relationships that are built here will shape the future of money. See what will drive the industry before it hits the industry. Enjoy three days of networking-rich opportunities that bring together the most brilliant minds to deliver the next frontier of Financial Services.
From the next generation of FinTech super starts, established power houses and trailblazing start-ups from across the payments, FinTech and financial services ecosystem, everyone is here, every time.
Homepage: https://europe.money2020.com/
Booking URL:
https://europe.money2020.com/buy-a-pass
Event URL:
Organizer Name:
Money20/20 Europe and Ascential Events (Europe) Limited
Social Links:
Twitter: @money2020
Facebook: www.facebook.com/pg/Money2020
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/money2020
Hashtag: #M2020EU
Register with the code MP20ECN
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The 14 Best Free Website Builders to Use in 2020
If you’re looking to build yourself a stunning new website this year, you might find yourself spoilt for choice. The market for drag-and-drop, website software has exploded over recent years. So, finding the best free website builder for your business can seem like a tall order!
Luckily that means that there are plenty of good options out there, and many of them are free or come with a free trial. If you have time to test each and every one of the best website builders out there… we recommend doing so.
But, the chances are you're too busy, most probably planning your content and visualizing your ideal website. So to save you some time, we've compiled a list of the best free website builders out there.
Let's dive in!
Tabble of Contents
- The Best Free Website Builders
- The Best Free Website Builders for Ecommerce
- The Best Website Builders Offering Free Trials
- Pros and Cons of Choosing a Free Website Builder
- FAQ
- Conclusion
What is the Best Free Website Builder?
Let's start with Weebly.com
Weebly
Let’s start with a name you’ve probably heard of before. Weebly is one of the fastest-growing and longest-standing brands in the industry. It's continued to revise its software over the years, and now it's bigger and better than ever.
Design and Customizability
As we hinted at in the intro, Weebly's a drag and drop website builder. By this, we mean, you can select the element you want to place on the web page, and using your mouse or keypad, drag it into place. It really is that simple.
If you have a bit of coding know-how, you'll also be pleased to hear that Weebly gives you access to a CSS module. From here, you can edit the code to modify Weebly's templates to your choosing. This feature gives you extra control that many of Weebly's competitors lack.
It's also worth noting, Weebly comes with 40 mobile-friendly themes for you to choose from and customize.
Pricing
Weebly is free to use (so long as you don’t mind having a Weebly subdomain or their branding on your website).
So, it’s easy to give this platform a go to see if you like the builder.
One thing Weebly does better than some of its competitors is that it doesn’t impose a cap on the amount of content you can have on your site, even on the lowest pricing scheme.
If you want to upgrade from Weebly‘s free plan, this is what you'll have to pay:
- For $6 a month, you can connect to a custom domain.
- For $12 a month, you can access additional features, and Weebly's ads are removed from your site.
- For $29 a month, you can add an ecommerce store to your website.
Ease of Use
Weebly has an onboarding system that's incredibly easy to follow. Helpful tips appear and when you might need them. Then once you're set up and ready to go, Weebly continues to be innovative to use.
Features
Weebly has an app store that gives you access to tons of plugins that extend the functionality of your site. Another cool feature is that you can assign other editors to your website, so if you’re working in a team, you’re not limited by one access account.
The website builder offers a robust shopping cart for ecommerce and a built-in blog.
Weebly doesn’t put a limit on your navigational structures, so you can create a multitude of web pages that visitors can access from one drop-down menu. This is great for sites handling many articles and product collections where you need to group and separate information.
But, Weebly might not be the best choice for multilingual sites, namely, because it doesn't have a function for this. There are workarounds, but Russian, Chinese, and Arabic characters aren't fully supported.
Strikingly
Strikingly has cornered a niche of the website building market by specializing in one-page websites. These have become especially popular since many users browse on mobile devices, where long scrolling sites offer the best user experience.
Design and Customizability
Strikingly offers 25 themes to choose from. These all have a contemporary feel to them and suite freelancers and startups perfectly. The designs are skewed towards product display or creating a landing page.
You modify the template by adding and editing sections that users scroll through. A little frustratingly, all custom sections have to include a header and subheader. Themes also aren’t very customizable. You can only set one color for the website, and you can’t customize its font colors, sizes, borders, or background images.
Pricing
Strikingly has a free version that provides you with 5 GB of monthly bandwidth and unlimited free sites. There's 24/7 support, and you can run a simple store featuring one product per site.
The limited plan is $8 a month. This permits you to connect a custom web domain, offers 50 GB of bandwidth a month, and lets you sell five products per site.
The pro plan is $16 a month. You can sell up to 300 products, access the Strikingly app store, embed HTML/CSS and javascript, remove Strikingly's branding, and password-protect your site.
The VIP plan costs $49 a month. This gives you access to five pro sites, a simple store where you can list up to 500 products and store 2000 contacts per month, which you can send newsletters to. You also get priority customer service and help with managing your account.
Features
Where features are concerned, Strikingly is pretty basic for what it specializes in. It's an excellent one-page website builder – everything else is somewhat limiting. You can integrate a blog, albeit not matching with your chosen template, and display and sell a few products. There's an IOS and Android app that you can use to edit your site on the go — so that's a perk!
Webflow
Webflow is a different cup of tea altogether.
It's less comparable to drag-and-drop website builders like Weebly and Wix, and more like advanced web design programs like Adobe Dreamweaver or even Photoshop, where developers can draw web page templates. As such, Webflow isn't the most beginner-friendly solution on this list.
Design and Customizability
If you can imagine your site, you can use Webflow to bring it to life. Webflow's flexible and primarily used by web designers, webmasters, and freelancers. There's no limit to what can be achieved as long as you know exactly what you’re after.
While there are templates you can drop your own text and images into, you'll miss the majority of Webflow's features if you go down this design route.
So, if you’re looking to customize a web page theme the easier way, a more conventional website builder might be a better choice for you.
That being said, Webflow still includes 40 free themes and hundreds of paid ones, ranging from $24 to $79.
Pricing
You can use Webflow for free. But, there are limitations. Similar to Weebly, you'll be stuck with Webflow's subdomain, their ad-banners, and you can't export code.
If you decide to upgrade, here are Webflow's paid-for plans:
- For $12 a month, you can connect your own web domain, process 500 form submissions, and you get a free SSL certificate.
- For $16 a month, you can process 1000 forms, 2000 CMS items, and you can add up to three content editors. You also get access to site search.
- For $36 a month, you get advanced global CDN, unlimited form submissions, full CMS API, and up to 10 content editors.
Besides this, there are also several eCommerce plans ranging from $29 to $212 and multiple programs and team plans if you’re using Webflow to handle dozens of projects in one go.
Ease of Use
Webflow isn't the website builder to use if you want to create a website in one evening and have it running the next day.
Webflow transforms visual information into clear code. So, web designers express their vision, and the code follows.
While Webflow doesn’t require any programming skills, without design principles or knowledge of how a website is built in the first place, newbies might find themselves stranded amongst all the features.
But, users with a web design background who are looking to make websites regularly might find Webflow great to use. It speaks the language of designers, so you'll be in your element!
Features
Webflow provides users with maximum customization and flexibility. While you don’t actually get to access the code, you have access to ID selectors and can manage classes and styles like you would if you were editing a CSS file.
Webflow doesn't have an app store. Instead, you can create all the functionalities you could possibly need. But, it does come with a few basic building blocks to make all this possible, like a trigger element management system to create popups on hover, or social media sharing.
And it does come with a worthy eCommerce engine. Here you'll find an extensive set of tools for customizing your online shopping process. Webflow also pays close attention to SEO, allowing you to assign page titles, descriptions, and meta tags, all from one window.
Jimdo
Jimdo is one of the cheapest website builders on the market, but arguably, you get what you pay for. It has mixed user reviews, so while it's the most affordable for making your site ad-free, other free website builders might still surpass this one.
But, if you’re looking for a budget version to get started with, take a look at Jimdo.
Design and Customizability
Jimdo comes with several preset templates that you can edit and drag elements into. However, while editing these templates is simple, going against them or breaking their structure in any way is a laborious process. Not to mention, sometimes, this produces problems with the flow of the site.
So, on the whole, Jimdo is best suited to newbies who are happy to plug their content into an existing layout.
Pricing
Jimdo's free plan is great for simple projects with a max of 4GB. Also, like the others, you can't connect your own domain name.
- For $7.50 a month, you get an ad-free website, but no online store.
- For $20 a month, you unlock business-level features, such as a digital store and premium support.
Overall, Jimdo’s pricing plans seem a little restricting – not many features get added for the additional $13, and the first pro plan still limits you to only 5GB of space.
Features
Jimdo has a mobile app available for Android and IOS. This app is one of the best on the market for creating a website using either a tablet or a mobile phone. So, if you’re planning to work on the go, this is a cool feature to check out.
Besides that, Jimdo is pretty similar to its competitors.
It also provides decent SEO tools, including SSL-encryption and a paid ranking coach tool, to help push you and your business further.
Even though Jimdo has a decent online store integrated into its paid version, it doesn’t have a credit card gateway available. As such, customers can only offer manual or PayPal payments, which is a significant drawback.
Jimdo also doesn’t offer integrated backups and restoration tools.
Freewebstore
As the name suggests, Freewebstore aims to provide an easy way to create an online shop. This ecommerce site builder is light on the wallet and offers tons of mobile-friendly themes to choose from.
Pricing
The free plan allows you to publish up to 30 product listings, which you can divide into product categories. You also get access to an inventory tracking tool.
Freewebstore has plenty of features for helping you manage your online store; however, if you want to run a more extensive shop or access an in-built blog and SEO tools, you might want to upgrade.
It's also worth noting: you're charged a 2% transaction fee when you make a sale.
Design and Customizability
Freewebstore offers you more than 40 free store designs to choose from.
But, compared to more advanced ecommerce platforms like Shopify or Magneto, it's not nearly as robust in terms of its customizability and design features.
Nonetheless, it has some excellent design tools, like multiple page creation, personalized logos and banners, a personal design library, and a theme editor.
Overall, as Freewebstore caters to e-commerce, the templates are more geared towards store layouts rather than general websites.
Features
As Freewebstore is an ecommerce solution, some of its features differ from the site builders we've mentioned so far, as it features plugins for social selling, shipping management, and multiple payment options, including PayPal and Stripe.
Freewebstore also offers abandoned cart recovery tools and a back-end management system for sales support. Overall, it includes a helpful toolkit for anyone who wants to get started with online selling.
Its SEO tools are also quite advanced, providing you with an integration with Google Webmaster and SEO optimization for blog posts, Facebook and twitter marketing, and conversion tracking via Google.
More tools are available via Freewebstore’s app marketplace.
Webnode
Webnode’s interface isn't the prettiest to look at, nor does it provide much in terms of ecommerce options. But if you're looking for a website builder with theme customization and drag and drop features, it’s a worthy competitor. Webnode was one of the first-ever website builders, founded back in 2008; it's since attracted over 30 million users!
Design and Customizability
Webnode offers several responsive website design templates. But, you can't tweak the HTML or CSS, so customizability beyond the theme is somewhat limited. You can change the background color of each section, but overall, other web builders are more flexible. Also, note that you can’t change your theme without losing all of your content — not cool.
Pricing
The free plan provides you with unlimited access to Webnode's web creator, which includes an unlimited page count and blog support. But, the free plan only works via a Webnode subdomain and limits you to 4GB of space.
- For $3.95, you can connect your own domain name.
- For $5.95, you get a professional email address, but Webnode's ads still remain on your site.
- For $11.95, you can remove the ads and create bilingual websites
- For $19.95 a month, you get up to 5GB of storage, 100 email accounts, and multilingual sites.
You might notice the jump in pricing doesn’t offer much extra in terms of features, and you can only access the removal ads three plans deep! Plus, storage doesn’t expand much more either, so for websites with large amounts of content, Webnode isn't the best value for money.
Features
Webnode comes with a useful toolkit even on their free plan. This includes the following features: opt-in forms, blogs, ecommerce, and an HTML editor. But, there's no app center for expanding functionality, which can feel limiting. However, thanks to the HTML section, you can still embed widgets with a little coding magic; of course, this requires a bit of know-how.
Regular plans also don’t come with an SSL certificate, which can deter some visitors from your site, and the only program that does include SSL is Webnode's most expensive ecommerce plan.
IMCreator
A former WIX employee founded IMCreator, but it's struggled to match the success of the popular drag-and-drop platform.
Design and Customizability
IMCreator comes with several pleasing themes and templates. Each element can be customized with a quick click, which is a nice feature many other builders don’t include. You can also tweak how your site looks on mobile devices within IMCreator's desktop editor.
There’s also the option to create a theme from scratch if you have some web design experience. However, customizing the design is made more difficult by the lack of drag-and-drop features and the little customer support on offer. And beware, you can’t change your theme after publishing it, at least without losing all of your content. You also can’t access the HTML or CSS codes.
Pricing
IMCreator is free only to students, artists, and nonprofit organizations, making this a limited choice for anyone looking for a free website creator who doesn’t fall into those categories.
For $8 a month, you can connect your own domain and enjoy unlimited bandwidth. This is a more affordable option compared to some of the others on this list.
For £350 a year, you gain access to IMCreator's pro and white label account. This is intended for web design agencies, as part of this plan, you get unlimited licenses for websites.
Features
A nice feature of IMCreator is that you can connect your own web domain at all pricing levels. You can also implement a donate button if you're running a charity website. You also get access to high-quality stock imagery, which helps speed up the design process.
But overall, the lack of app store, image editing tools, and email marketing, puts this website builder behind its competitions where features are concerned.
Ease of Use
IMCreator isn't as easy to use as Weebly, Wix, or Squarespace; it (generally) provides a more complex design experience. It's best suited to users with lots of web design experience and web designers building websites for their clients.
Some issues with the interface include the lack of a widget dashboard; you can't choose from a bar of elements and drag them in. You’re also not provided with any prompts or guides to help you through the initial onboarding process.
GoDaddy
You might know GoDaddy for its web hosting and domain names, and you wouldn’t be wrong. But alongside these services, GoDaddy also provides a website building service.
Design and Customizability
GoDaddy is somewhat limited in its design capabilities. It offers around 20 themes that cannot be modified extensively, which is fine if you’re looking to stick with a template, but pros will find this limiting. The designs are up to date and sleek, but the lack of editing capabilities is definitely a downside. There's also no access to CSS coding.
Themes are, however, mobile-friendly, and you can access a ‘mobile view; of your site via your desktop dashboard and make changes to the responsive layout.
Pricing
Unfortunately, GoDaddy doesn’t offer its website building tool for free, but you can test it during its one-month free trial.
- The Basic plan, $5.99 a month, allows you to build simple, ad-free sites.
- The Standard plan, $9.99 a month, includes the https protocol and comes with PayPal integration.
- Premium, $14.99 a month, gives you access to email marketing tools, social media integration, and optimizes the speed of your site.
And the ecommerce plan for $19.99 a month includes ecommerce features like credit card payment processors and abandoned cart recovery.
Features
Here, GoDaddy also falls behind some of the other products we've already mentioned. Its blogging and ecommerce features found in the higher pricing plans are relatively basic, and it's not brilliantly optimized for SEO due to its awkward section placements. But, there's a vast widget store, which is excellent for introducing additional functionalities to your site.
Site123
Site123’s approach is to ask you a few questions about your requirements; then, they create a template for you based on your answers. It's ideal for people who need a site up and running as fast as they can say, one, two, three.
Design and Customizability
Site123 comes with mobile and tablet responsive templates, but you can’t change your template once your website goes live. There isn’t too much creative freedom or flexibility.
Pricing
As website builders go, Site123 isn't the cheapest. Besides its free plan that comes with 500MB of storage and 1GB of bandwidth, it offers a single paid plan that unlocks all Site123's remaining features.
This pro plan for $12.80 a month enables you to connect your own web domain (you'll get a free domain for one year), use up to 10 GB of storage at 5 GB bandwidth, get access to an ecommerce store, and remove all of Site123's advertising.
Site123 is very transparently priced, so you don’t need to worry about missing out on features that might have come with more expensive plans, which is often the case with other site builders.
Features
Site123 websites come with SSL certificates and a function to autosave and restore your site. There are basic ecommerce and blogging functionalities, but nothing as advanced as the builders catering to these requirements precisely. Overall the toolset is a little limited. While they work great for simple personal websites, more complex sites might find themselves too restricted.
Customer Support and Ease of Use
Site123 offers brilliant customer support, primarily via its live chat feature. It's one of the most uncomplicated site builders out there and provides an easy-to-use app market.
Webstarts
This website builder includes an excellent image editing tool, but at the cost of a slightly more complicated interface. Let’s take a look at Webstarts to see if it fits your needs…
Pricing
Webstarts doesn’t offer a money-back guarantee, but there's a free plan for you to try.
Besides that, here's its pricing structure:
- Pro, for $9.78 a month, you get unlimited pages, 100 contacts, five galleries, 5GB of storage, ad removal, live chat, and a notification center.
- The Pro Plus plan for $14.32 allows for a custom domain name, unlimited galleries, $250 in advertising, mobile optimization, an HTML editor, and 10GB of cloud storage.
- Business at $39.98 a month offers $500 in advertising, five business email addresses, unlimited contacts, 40GB of cloud storage, and access to an online store.
Ease of Use and Customer Support
One of Webstarts‘ pros is its excellent customer support system. However, the learning curve that comes with Webstarts is rather steep. With so many buttons and toolbars at your disposal and without a simple drag-and-drop interface, Webstart's dashboard may seem daunting for newbies.
After a day or so, you might get the hang of it if you’re tech-savvy, but for someone looking for an intuitive and user-friendly experience, this isn't the web builder for you.
Features
Webstarts has a great quality image editor. You can choose from stock photos, take a picture with your webcam, or integrate images from your Facebook account. The image editing is done via Aviary and allows you to adjust the lighting, add effects and filters, and even remove blemishes.
Overall, its features aren’t the most robust, and it lacks more in-depth customization options. For example, you can’t format the text in your blog posts. Plus, SEO (search engine optimization) tools only come in at the highest price point.
Yes, Webstarts gets the job done for most basic sites, but it isn't as advanced as some of the other web builders out there.
WordPress.com
WordPress.com isn't what usually springs to mind when people think of WordPress. Unlike wordpress.org, which is an open-source software you can build websites on, wordpress.com is a more generic website builder boasting easier to use features. On the whole, WordPress.com is one of your best options if you’re looking to start a blog (for free).
Design and Customizability
WordPress.com comes with plenty of themes, both free and paid. The WordPress community is so active that there certainly isn't a lack of themes and apps to choose from.
Themes can’t be previewed before you choose them, making it a bit more challenging to sift through the designs on offer. Also, WordPress.com isn't a drag and drop builder, and instead uses forms to determine the look of the content. However, via WP-Admin, you have way more control of the look of your site in comparison to other systems (so long as you know how to code).
Pricing
If you want to upgrade from WordPress's free plan, here are its paid-for packages, please note these prices are billed annually:
- For $4.00 a month, you can connect a custom domain name, enjoy the removal of all WordPress advertisements, high-quality email and live chat support, as well as over 100 free themes to choose from.
- For $8.00 a month, you get access to more advanced design tools, CSS editing, lots of space for audio and video storage, and the ability to monetize your site with ads. You also get unlimited access to WordPress's premium themes.
- For $24 a month, you can use custom plugins and themes, get access to Google Analytics to support, and unlimited storage.
Features
WordPress.com has an extensive app market and a thriving community, so it doesn't lack in features. It inherits WordPress.org's amazing blogging features, making it the market leader when it comes to setting up blogging websites.
WordPress.com is a compromise between a website builder and the original WordPress open-source software. If you're a blogger that already boasts a bit of WordPress know-how, it's ideal. But, for anyone else, it might be a steep learning curve. You'll need a considerable amount of WordPress knowledge to unlock its full potential. It may also not be the best fit if you only need straightforward features for a basic website.
Ease of Use
As WordPress doesn't have a drag-and-drop interface, it's harder to use than some of the other website builders we've already mentioned.
The Best Free Website Builders for Ecommerce
Now we've introduced a wide selection of free website builders, here are our two top picks for ecommerce website builders.
Square Online Store
Pricing
Square Online Store provides you with all the easy-to-use tools you need to start selling online quickly. With just the cost of payment processing on their free plan (2.9% + 0.30$ on each sale), it's certainly an affordable option.
But, if you need added functionality on top of what the free version offers, their paid-for plans range from $12 a month to $79 a month. These all include unlimited storage, and you can add a custom domain.
Design and Customizability
Square offers a great set of templates that look modern and fresh. You can change your theme at any time via the store editor, and every design is responsive.
Ease of Use
Square offers a great user experience. It only takes a few minutes to set up your site, and you can integrate Square with other website builders like Weebly and BigCommerce.
But, outside of the company’s own support center, it can be hard to find materials online. So, if you run into a new problem, you're on your own.
Features
Square Online Store comes with all the expected ecommerce functionality on its premium plans, allowing for categorizing your items, managing your inventory, and selling online.
However, online shopping is limited to customers purchasing in the US for delivery to U.S addresses. For anyone outside of the States, the shopping cart won’t be visible.
There are a few awkward ways square online handles ecommerce features.
Although there are a few feature limitations, for example, you can only set shipping costs at a flat rate for the entire site – that means customers might face shipping costs for small items even if they're residing in the same state as you. Or, you could offer free shipping and run at a loss on some products — either way, these shipping settings are far from ideal.
But, all in all, Square offers an excellent toolset for ecommerce. It's easy to use and very cheap to get started with.
Ecwid
Ecwid is a freemium store-plugin that can be used to add an ecommerce store to an existing website.
Pricing
Their basic plan is free, but their Venture plan IS $12.50 a month. This provides a pretty robust set of features, suitable enough for most small stores. You can add up to 100 items and access plenty of payment gateways and shipping companies.
You unlock more perks for $29.17 a month with their business plan. You can use product variations and filters and integrations with eBay and other online marketplaces.
Ease of Use
Ecwid couldn’t be easier to install. As it comes as a plugin rather than a freestanding site builder, its interface is focused on getting your store up and running ASAP. Ecwid’s onboarding process is also easy to follow.
Features
Ecwid allows you to add HTML code, so you have the option of customizing and adding features as you need them. You also get access to an online cart and a user rating tool. You can even sell digital goods as well as physical ones and set up a customer login area.
Not to mention, you can also integrate with several dropshipping suppliers. The inventory management features are also useful and can be set up to notify you if an item is running low.
The Best Free Website Builder for Free Trials
Some of the market-leading website builders don’t offer free plans but still provide a free trial worth giving a shot. Squarespace and Wix, certainly fall into this category. These web builders resemble Weebly in terms of their interface and structure but offer more extensive features.
Squarespace
Squarespace is another tried and tested giant in the web building industry. It boasts millions of users and is generally well-reviewed. So, it's no wonder it can afford to be a premium service.
Design and Customizability
Squarespace has an easy-to-use drag-and-drop editor and offers 60 high-quality templates. Their designs are intended to show off visuals, making it great for artists and photographers wanting to showcase their work. You can also switch templates at any point, even after your site goes live.
Pricing
Squarespace offers a 14-day trial. Beyond that, here’s what their paid plans look like:
- For $12 a month, you get unlimited bandwidth and storage, a free custom domain, SSL security, 24/7 customer support, access for two contributor accounts, and website metrics.
- The business plan at $18 a month allows you to create unlimited contributor accounts, access to a fully integrated ecommerce store, a mobile information bar, $100 worth of Google Ads credit, a professional Google email address, and advanced website metrics.
- Squarespace also offers two ecommerce plans ranging from $26 to $40.
Ease of Use
Squarespace is a tad more of a challenge to use than the likes of Weebly or Wix. Its interface is clear, easy to understand, and uncluttered. However, it differs slightly from other drag-and-drop editors in that you can’t just drag elements anywhere. The editor is more section based, which may take longer to get used to. Those that have a bit of patience or possess some technical know-how should find this very easy to navigate, though.
Features
Squarespace is at its best when it's used for blogging or small businesses that want to feature lots of images. It has tons of built-in blogging tools, which makes them a serious rival of WordPress.com. There’s also a mobile app available so that you can edit your site on the go.
Squarespace also has a good set of ecommerce tools. Overall, the website builder offers a great toolset across the board, no matter what industry you’re a part of. Squarespace is also entirely scalable, so as your business grows, your Squarespace website grows with you.
Wix
Wix is another market-leading website builder; it comes highly recommended all over the web and is used by over 100 million people across the world.
Design and Customizability
Wix is a drag-and-drop editor with over 500 templates to choose from, each of which boasts high levels of customizability. It also includes a mobile editor so that you can make responsive changes to your design. In fact, the options are so extensive it can be a little overwhelming.
Note: you can’t change your template after you’ve gone live.
Pricing
Besides a free plan that provides access to most of Wix's features, albeit, under the shadow of the Wix subdomain and branding, Wix has several pricing plans. The cheapest plan lets you connect your domain and access 500 MB of bandwidth.
The combo plan at $13 a month gives you 3 GB of storage, removes Wix's ads, and includes a web domain for one year. You can upload 30 minutes of videos, and you'll gain $75 in ad vouchers.
The unlimited plan for $17 a month includes 10 GB storage, as well as the site booster and visitor analytics app.
The VIP plan at $39 a month includes 20 GB, as well as a professional logo, social media logo files, and priority support.
Beyond that, Wix also features a few business and ecommerce plans.
Features
Wix users enjoy an extensive set of features, but if anything's missing, there's an app market with over 280 plugins!
Wix has everything you should need to create your own website, including a guide to improving your SEO, a variety of contact forms, and the chance to activate a blog and online store.
What's the Best Free Website Builder for Small Business Websites?
If you’re a small business, these are the website builders we recommend to you:
Weebly – Best Website Builder for Small Business
Weebly is one of the most budget-friendly options with no limitations on pages and content. It boasts an easy-to-use interface and excellent customer support. Its features are great for getting you onto the web fast and provides you with a practical toolkit with everything you’ll need to design and manage your site.
Webflow
Webflow might only work for those with some web design knowledge. Still, if you have a clear idea of what you want, Webflow's one of the most flexible and powerful tools on the market for bringing your vision to life.
WordPress.com
WordPress’s website builder might not be for everyone. Still, if you’re blogging extensively or if you're familiar with the WordPress editor already, this is one of the most powerful website builders on the internet. Millions use it, and it wins hands-down for having the best blogging features on the market.
Pros and Cons of Choosing a Free Website Builder
At first, choosing a free website builder to design your website seems like an excellent way to save cash for your business. After all, you probably only have a limited budget to start with. With expenses like staff, manufacturing, and even advertising to think about, you don’t want to spend a fortune on a site builder too.
Choosing a free website builder and content management system helps you to save money that you can then use on other essential parts of growing your business. However, there are some down-sides too. For instance, most of the free website builders out there just don’t come with all the tools and features you would expect from a premium products.
Sites like Weebly and Wix Adi offer access to the basics tools you need to design a website. However, if you need anything more advanced, including analytics tools and more themes, you could be out of luck. Here are the pros and cons of using a free website builder.
Pros:
- The price: Website builders allow companies to build their own websites, for free, often without any need for coding knowledge. When you’re not spending a fortune on your site building technology, you can devote more of your budget to things like marketing and growing your company.
- Typically easy to use: Tools like Wix and Squarespace are relatively easy to use – even on their free tiers. However, it’s worth noting that some other website builders, like WordPress, come with a more significant learning curve. If you’re looking for simplicity, you’ll need to do your research.
- Large communities: Because there are a lot of business owners out there that see the value of free website builders, there are also big communities. You can usually find people on social media or Quora to answer any questions you might have. However, you may struggle to get help from a professional.
Cons:
- Data ownership: If you decide to leave the company that you build your website with, there’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to take your website with you. It’s best to double check whether you’ll still own your website if you go for a free option.
- Limited customization options: You only get the bare minimum when it comes to features with a free website builder. There’s a chance that you won’t have many great website templates to choose from, and the code or designs might be outdated. Some free website templates aren’t responsive either, which harms your online presence.
- Problems with your image: One of the biggest downsides of using a free website builder, is that you’ll often need to advertise the builder on the site itself. This means that you could have “made with Wix” or similar branding strewn all over your site. This isn’t great if you’re trying to build a successful looking brand.
- Limited storage space: Your free website builder may only let you make a certain number of pages before you run out of space. Unfortunately, this is unlikely to be enough for most companies. If you decide to make multiple product pages, or you want to market yourself with content, then you’ll need unlimited page options.
- No domain name: Some free website builders will let you bring your own domain name into the mix. However, most of the time, you’ll end up with a sub-domain. This could mean that your site gets an URL like AnnesCupcakes.wix.com, instead of the domain you want.
- Expenses for extra add-ons: Because the amount of functionality that you get from a free website builder is so limited, there’s a good chance that you will want to expand with extra functionality. Unfortunately, paying for all the extra add-ons that you need could mean that you spend more than you would have for a premium site.
- Customer service: Finally, if you use a free website builder like Ucraft or Mozello, there’s no guarantee that you’re going to get a fantastic customer service. While you might get access to things like email support tickets, options to speak to an expert over live chat or via a phone call might be limited and reserved to people who pay for their hosting service.
FAQ
Deciding whether you should use a free online website builder to create your site or not isn’t always as simple as it seems. Often, the best bet for most businesses is to start off with a free version of a website builder to see if they like the way the technology works.
If you’re comfortable with the tool that you pick, then you can get rid of any extra hassle by just upgrading to a more advanced version. Usually, you’ll need to pay for a premium package to sell products anyway. Most free software solutions will allow you to make a basic website, but eCommerce is only rarely included.
Here are some commonly asked questions about free website builders.
Are free website builders good for SEO?
A: Unfortunately, it’s not likely that you’ll be able to get a free website builder that’s going to help you to reach the top of the search engines. Although there are some tools available for search engine optimization, you may find that you need to work with a professional web developer to really get the most out of your website. This means taking on extra expense.
The majority of website builders will only offer the very basics in terms of SEO. You’ll be able to edit title tags, meta descriptions and other parts of your website, but you may not get any advice on things you can do to improve site structure for SEO or address a number of other issues.
Which website builder is easiest to use?
A: The website builder that’s easiest for you will be the one that you feel most comfortable with. A good thing about using free website builders, is that you can test some of the features of a premium product in advance. Plus, you get to try multiple different options and pick the one that’s right for you without wasting any money.
Many people love Wix for a simple drag-and-drop website building experience. However, Squarespace is also a very good choice if you’re a design-focused company, such as an interior designer. The Square Online store might be one of the best options for eCommerce sites, while WordPress is ideal for those who don’t mind using community help.
Which is the best eCommerce website builder?
The best website builder for designing an eCommerce site is the one that gives you the most features, without forcing you to upgrade to a premium option. Shopify is great for eCommerce in general, but it’s not free. On the other hand, the Square online store allows you to build a genuine store for free.
With Square, you only need to pay for the cost of payment processing when you’re handling transactions. You also get a lot of templates to choose from, and an excellent user experience. However, there isn’t a lot of customer support available from Square.
Is Wix Really Free?
A: It’s rare to find a website builder that won’t lead to additional costs eventually, Ultimately, you’re going to need to pay if you want things like a checkout page for your eCommerce store, or premium widgets and tools for your site.
Wix is available for free if you want to use the basic tools to design a website. However, if you want to access professional features, like the option to use your own domain name, or set up an eCommerce store, you’ll need to choose one of the Wix premium plans. The cheapest plan with a custom domain name will cost around $6 per month, but this doesn’t include eCommerce features.
Speaking of the extra “hidden” costs of free website builders, remember that you may also need to pay for extras with any free site builder. For instance, if you want your own domain, you will need to buy that yourself, unless you choose a website builder with a free domain name included. You may also need to pay for an SSL certificate.
Ready to Get Online with the Best Free Website Builder?
We hope this list has helped you get a feel for the best free website builder to suit your needs. There are tons of software on the market, so you need to think about what your current and future business plans are and pick a solution to complement your ambitions.
Remember, you might find that after a little while experimenting with the best free website builders, you no longer get enough of the right features from your initial software. If that’s the case for you, then you might need to upgrade to a premium package.
If you’re planning on running an eCommerce company, for instance, most free website builders won’t come with eCommerce tools built-in. Even the tools that do offer free ecommerce options won’t be completely free, as you will still need to pay for the costs of transactions and payment processing. Keep that in mind when you’re choosing your site builder.
We recommend starting with a free plan to see what kind of website builder works right for you, then upgrading as your business grows.
All of these options have free trials or plans, so give your favorites a shot and let us know what you think. We would love to hear how you got in the comments box below, speak soon!
The post The 14 Best Free Website Builders to Use in 2020 appeared first on Ecommerce Platforms.
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Bluehost Hosting Review for 2020: Is it the Best Hosting Solution?
As a small business owner who is in the process of setting up an ecommerce storefront, you may have selected a software platform that is not a hosted service but requires you to provide your own web hosting for your store (such as WooCommerce). This being the case, you're probably looking for a suitable and affordable hosting service. In this BlueHost review we'll talk about the pros and cons of one of the most popular hosts. This way, you'll get an idea if Bluehost is the right option for your online store or if you should consider something else.
BlueHost is one reputable and reliable company offering quite powerful, yet inexpensive, web hosting packages.
BlueHost offers website hosting plans under several categories like Shared Hosting, VPS Hosting, Dedicated Hosting etc. However, for the purpose of this review, we're only going to look at a few of their plans that relate primarily to ecommerce stores trying to scale up. For example, we'll take a look at shared hosting for smaller stores, the WooCommerce plan for companies implementing the popular WordPress plugin, along with the various WordPress hosting plans offered through Bluehost.
Now that you have a general idea of what hosting is for your business, keep reading to learn more about how Bluehost can save you money and time when building your ecommerce site. The goal is to create a fast, secure and reliable online store, and Bluehost has plans for all of the above.
Bluehost Review: Pros and Cons
Every hosting provider comes with pros and cons to consider.
In a world where countless companies are competing for your money, there are dozens of providers out there offering a range of added bonuses to attract new custom, including everything from email accounts, to guaranteed uptime, or a free domain name.
Bluehost stands out as one of the best hosting companies on the market for a range of important reasons. The brand delivers sensational hosting for companies on a budget, and an excellent level of reliability. However, there are some downsides to Bluehost too.
Pros:
- Excellent, budget-friendly pricing perfect for companies with a limited amount of cash to spend on their website’s performance.
- WordPress integration means that you can set up a site with one of the world’s most popular CMS solutions with ease.
- Onboarding and education is simple with Bluehost. You get plenty of resources designed to help you make the most of the service.
- Bluehost provides excellent customer support too. This means that if anything does go wrong with your site for any reason, you have the guidance you need.
- Add-ons and extras are everywhere with Bluehost. You can unlock a full product suite, complete with shared hosting, domain names, managed WordPress hosting and more.
Cons:
- Some additional costs might appear when you’re using Bluehost, such as add-ons for your checkout cart.
- Storage isn’t great for Bluehost, particularly on the Basic plan, which gives you very little space for content.
- The backup, guarantees and extra peace of mind tools you get from Bluehost aren’t as excellent as what you might find elsewhere.
Bluehost Review: The Pricing
Bluehost Review: Shared Hosting
Let’s take a closer look at the kind of features you get from this web hosting service, depending on the price that you choose.
Shared hosting is generally available at $7.99 per month, but the Bluehost company frequently delivers discounts so that you only pay around $2.95. If you’re on a small budget and you need the basics for a smaller website, then shared hosting from Bluehost is extremely affordable.
Keep in mind that shared hosting is intended for hobby sites more than professional eCommerce stores.
Since Bluehost provides a wide range of offerings, they separate them into certain plan groupings. The most common plans they sell are called shared hosting accounts, which means that you'll be sharing server space with other websites. This is a great launching point for companies just getting started, and it's by far the least expensive option. You can see the pricing for shared hosting below:
- Basic – For $7.99 you receive one website, 50 GB of space, one domain, five parked domains, and 25 subdomains. You also get a free SSL for protecting transactional information in your online store.
- Plus – For $10.99 you receive unlimited websites, unlimited SSD storage, a free SSL certificate, unlimited domains, unlimited parked domains, unlimited subdomains, and spam prevention tools.
- Choice Plus – For $14.99 you receive unlimited websites, unlimited space, unlimited domains, unlimited parked domains, unlimited subdomains, an SSL certificate, spam tools, domain privacy, and a site backup.
- Pro – For $23.99 you get unlimited websites, unlimited space, unlimited domains, unlimited parked domains, unlimited subdomains, SSL, spam tools, domain privacy, a site backup, and a dedicated IP.
Keep in mind that Bluehost almost always has promotions going on for its hosting, regardless of the package and type of hosting. So, make sure you don't get tricked into a certain plan just because the pricing looks appealing.
In general, the promotion is usually for the first year only, and it typically offers around a 50% discount for that year. If you don't like the idea of this increasing pricing scheme, I would recommend finding a different host. It's nice to see these discounts, but I've always seen it as rather deceptive–especially for the average user trying to get started with a website.
Bluehost Review: VPS hosting
VPS hosting is a popular alternative to shared hosting plans. Standing for virtual private server, this kind of server gives you more disk space and ease of use for your backend. If you’re looking for a Bluehost hosting package that goes beyond the basic tools that bloggers need, this could be it.
The cheapest hosting plan from Bluehost for VPS starts at $29.99 per month, or $18.99 with one of the many discounts that Bluehost offers. That’s a great price compared to other companies, and it’s great for integrating with a range of backends, including Joomla and WordPress.
Like with most of its hosting packages, Bluehost has various VPS plans to offer, starting with $29.99 for the Standard plan. Here’s what you get from each available plan:
- Standard: $29.99 per month with 2 cores, 30 GB of SSD storage, 2GB of RAM, 1 TB of Bandwidth, and 1 IP address
- Enhanced: $59.99 per month for everything you get from Standard, as well as 60GB of SSD storage, 4GB of RAM, 2 IP addresses, and 2 TB of bandwidth
- Ultimate: $119.99 per month for everything you get from Enhanced, including 4 Cores, 120 GB of SSD storage, 8 GB of RAM, 3 TB of Bandwidth, and 2 IP addresses
If you’re running a relatively small site without many MySQL requirements, but you want the reliability of a VPS hosting plan, the smaller Standard plan might be a good idea. The Enhanced plan is probably the most popular, as it allows you to scale your website more aggressively, and access more storage space.
The features available from the VPS hosting that Bluehost.com offers are excellent. You get a lot of freedom compared to other web hosting companies. What’s more, you can easily connect your site with Weebly and WordPress.org. If you have any trouble building your website, you can also tap into the phone support and knowledge base tools that Bluehost has to offer.
Even if you don’t need advanced hosting options, it might be worth considering VPS hosting if you receive a lot of visitors on a regular basis. The more traffic your website gets, the more bandwidth it’s going to need. The Enhanced plan should provide you with a comfortable amount of space, unless you’re running a particularly large website.
Bluehost Review: Dedicated Hosting Prices
Dedicated hosting is generally the most expensive option for anyone in search of absolute power and control when it comes to managing their website. If you need extra technical support, and an incredible amount of space, then dedicated hosting is the choice for you. BlueHost dedicated hosting comes with everything you need to thrive online.
Performance, security, speed, and technical features are a lot more robust on dedicated hosting plans than anything else. Just like with other kinds of Bluehost hosting, you get three dedicated hosting plans to choose from, ranging in price from around $119.99 per month, to $209.99 per month.
Remember, Bluehost offers a discount for your starting price in most cases. This means that you can save a little money when you first sign-up. The three packages available include:
- Standard: $79.99 per month, renewing at $119.99 – comes with 4 cores, 500GB of storage, 5TB of bandwidth, 4GB of RAM and 3 IP addresses
- Enhanced: $99.99 per month, renewing at $159.99 per month – comes with 4 cores, 1TB of storage, 10 TB of bandwidth, 8 GB of RAM and 4 IP addresses
- Premium: $119.99 renewing at $209.99 per month – comes with 5 IP addresses, 1TB of storage, 4 cores, 16 GB of RAM, 15 TB of Bandwidth
If you want as much control as possible over your website, then the cheapest plan will often do the job and give you that extra power. However, the Enhanced plan is the one most recommended by Bluehost. This package comes with generous features, and you can use it to run a lot of videos and extra weighty widgets on your site.
If you’re looking for huge levels of cloud storage from your web hosting provider, but you don’t want to spend a fortune on your credit card, then Enhanced might be the right option. You get an excellent uptime guarantee with all packages, and access to Bluehost datacenters. Additionally, according to user reviews, you can expect a good amount of tech support too. Response time for these websites is usually fantastic.
Bluehost review: WordPress Hosting
Shared WordPress hosting costs exactly the same as a normal shared hosting plan from Bluehost. Unfortunately, the plan is only for small sites. If you want something more comprehensive, with a robust control panel and lots of added extras, then you’ll need to look at the WordPress Pro pricing options.
The simple WordPress hosting solution starts at $2.95 per month for a single website and up to 50GB of website space. You also get a free domain for a year. There’s also Plus at $5.45 per month (renewing at $10.99) for unlimited websites and unmetered site space. Finally, you can upgrade to Choice Plus, which starts at $5.45 per month and upgrades to $14.99 on renewal.
While the basic options for WordPress hosting are fine for beginners, you’ll really need to move to Managed WordPress hosting if you want more control and functionality.
In addition to the shared hosting, you may want to look into the more advanced, and managed, WordPress Pro hosting, which allows more visits per month, marketing tools, and the ultimate security. Here's the roundup:
- Build Plan – For $29.99 per month, you receive Jetpack Site Analytics, a full marketing center, 100 free premium themes, daily backups, malware detection, and domain privacy.
- Grow Plan – For $39.99, you get everything in the previous plan, plus Jetpack Premium, WordPress live ticket support, 10GB video compression, Jetpack Ads integration, SEO tools, and business review tools.
- Scale Plan – For $59.99 per month, you gain access to everything in the previous plan, plus Jetpack Pro, unlimited backups and restores, PayPal integration, unlimited video compressions, elastic search, and live chat support.
All of the WP Pro plans include great benefits, like a staging environment, no traffic limits, and unlimited websites, domains, subdomains, and web storage.
The final pricing option to look at from Bluehost includes support for WooCommerce and WordPress. Basically, these plans are designed so that WooCommerce is already installed and optimized, and they also have advanced ecommerce security. It makes sense for people building online stores to consider these plans. They're definitely more expensive than the shared plans, but you also get more things dedicated specifically to ecommerce functionality.
For instance, you receive a free SSL, which would typically not be included with a shared hosting plan.
Have a look:
- Starter – For $13.99 per month you gain support for one online store, 100 GB of SSD storage, a storefront theme installation, free SSL, domain privacy, marketing credits, and a free setup call.
- Plus – For $17.99 per month you get unlimited online stores, unmetered SSD storage, a storefront theme installation, free SSL, domain privacy, marketing credits, a backup tool, and a free setup call.
- Pro – For $31.99 per month you get unlimited online stores, unmetered SSD storage, a storefront theme installation, free SSL, domain privacy, marketing credits, a backup tool, Bluehost SEO tools, and a free setup call.
All of the ecommerce plans include PPC search credits to boost your advertising efforts, a dedicated IP, unmetered bandwidth, one free domain, a WooCommerce auto-installation, and a free SSL certificate to protect your website data.
What Bluehost Features Can You Expect to Help You With Ecommerce?
As you may have noticed in the pricing section, not all of the plans are suitable for online stores. I'm sure a smaller shared hosting plan would be fine for a very very small ecommerce shop, but you typically want to grow past that as quickly as possible. I recommend that you take a look at the ecommerce plans from Bluehost. If it seems like you can complete most of the tasks (WooCommerce and theme installation) then you might be better offer skipping the higher price. However, you should keep in mind that you'd be losing a free SSL.
Anyway, here are the best features that mainly help out with ecommerce.
Bluehost Review: Migrations, Direct Installations, and One Click Installs
One of the best parts of Bluehost is that you generally don't need to know much about development, or hosting for that matter, to get all set up with an ecommerce hosting plan. The company provides support for migrating an old site to Bluehost, and you can choose a plan where tools like WooCommerce and ManageWP are already installed.
Not to mention, if you plan on running your site on WordPress, the backend of Bluehost has a handy one-click installation button, expediting the process to just a few minutes. After the installation, it gives you the login credentials for WordPress and you can be on your way to selling online.
As for ecommerce stores, all of the WooCommerce plans come with the popular plugin already installed on your host. Although it's not that hard to install a plugin, Bluehost takes care of it for you. This is particularly helpful if you have minimal experience with WordPress to begin with.
There are plenty of other one-click installations or managed install offerings from Bluehost. All you have to do is go to your dashboard to find out what the host can do for you.
Bluehost Review: Nice Themes
WordPress themes are often required since most people don't plan on designing a website from scratch. In fact, doing that makes no sense, even for a developer.
Bluehost has some plans that offer free theme installations. For instance, the ecommerce pricing plans provide installations for the popular Storefront theme. That doesn't save you any money (since the theme is free,) but it cuts out yet another step in the online store building process.
If you want access to premium themes for free, the WP Pro hosting package is the way to go. The offerings tend to change, but Bluehost currently gives you 100 premium WordPress themes with the WP Pro plan. This is a wonderful deal, considering you would typically have to pay around $50 to $100 for each theme, and it comes along with a fully managed WordPress site.
Bluehost Review: Ecommerce-Ready Security
If you opt for one of the WordPress or WooCommerce plans, you'll automatically gain access to some type of security plan. In the past it has been SiteLock, which is an advanced security platform for locking down site information and protecting details that flow through your site. Some plans (all of the ecommerce plans) also have SSL certificates, which allow for secure connections when customers are punching in their payment and personal details. This way, you can ensure that your customer and business data is protected at all times.
Bluehost Review: Dedicate IP Addresses
A dedicated IP address is a good idea for most online stores. The reason for this is because beginner online stores are most likely being run on shared servers.
Shared servers house numerous other websites, so you might find that some of the sites on that server hog all of the resources. Of course, Bluehost works to resolve this, but a dedicated IP protects you from these noisy neighbors, since you no longer have to share the same IP address.
This should essentially lead to better performance throughout your website, along with increased SEO and a better user experience.
Bluehost Review: Marketing and PPC Credits
Bluehost is known for giving away marketing and pay per click credits on almost all hosting plans. This is especially true for ecommerce plans, since many of them have anywhere from $50 to $200 in marketing credits.
The PPC credits are for pushing more traffic to your site with search engine advertisements. You would pay for the ads using your credits and try to promote something like a new product or product line.
The marketing credits are also for getting the word out about your company, so you must check to see how many marketing credits you receive with each plan.
Bluehost Review: Domain Privacy
Once again, it depends on which plan you choose, but you always have the option to pay for domain privacy. The ecommerce plans are nice because they all come with domain privacy built-in.
What does this mean?
Whenever you buy a domain your personal information is logged online. This information includes things like your name, address, and contact information. The reason they have this is for better communications between site owners. However, many people don't like this since it invites spam.
Therefore, Bluehost offers to hide this information from other people and spambots. It replaces your details with the contact information of Bluehost. Typically this means that if a legitimate message comes in about your site, Bluehost will let you know. However, most of it is spam, so you're basically removing all of this from your inbox.
Bluehost Review: An Enhanced Dashboard for Accessing Files and Handling Domains and Other Items
The Bluehost CPanel, or dashboard, stands out as one of the simplest on the market, since it's organized into a few tabs for things like domains, subdomains, hosting, files, CDNs and security. If you've never used a CPanel before it may look intimidating, but it won't take long to get the hang of things. Recently, Bluehost has updated its dashboard interface to a beautiful, modern layout.
Bluehost Review: A CDN
A content delivery network can be integrated with Bluehost. A CDN is one of the easiest ways for you to support increasing traffic on your ecommerce site. With shared or managed hosting your site files are stored and served up on an individual server.
This means that if your server is located in Illinois, someone in India will have a longer wait to see your website, because the person is far away. A CDN distributes how your site is delivered through a network of servers located all over the world. This means that your customers are more likely to load up your site faster, and because of this, your search engine rankings should improve.
Bluehost Review: ManageWP Integration
ManageWP provides a service for those companies that run multiple WordPress websites. It's a pain to jump back and forth from dashboard to dashboard, so this consolidates all WordPress dashboards into one. Most of the plans on Bluehost don't actually provide the direct integration anymore, but still have the ability to integrate a ManageWP account with a WordPress site.
Bluehost Review: Automated Backups and Restores
The final feature that will certainly come in handy for ecommerce sites is backup space. Imagine building your entire site, accumulating sales, then noticing one day that your site crashes, or someone hacks into it. You may lose data, so you'll need a backup to restore the lost information. Most Bluehost plans have backup space for you to feel at ease.
Bluehost Review: Blazing Fast Speed
Speed often depends on some of the tactics you take yourself (cleaning up files, optimizing images, keeping plugins to a minimum and using caching plugins.) It also depends on the amount of traffic you receive. However, Bluehost has the packages required to keep your site fast at all times. The shared hosting plans have unmetered bandwidth, and you can even get high performance with the Business Pro Plan. The website space is reasonable, and you have various other upgrade options if your site traffic is causing slow download speeds.
First of all, some of the plans have content delivery networks, which expands your reach throughout the globe. They have VPS hosting which provides two to four CPU cores for the ultimate speed. Finally the dedicated hosting goes all the way up to 4 x 3.3 GHz CPU if your site is gaining traction fast.
What about WooCommerce Hosting?
Managed WordPress hosting from Bluehost is ideal for anyone who really wants to get serious with their WordPress website. This isn’t a solution intended for hobbyist just getting started online. If you’re searching for a way to grow and scale your website with eCommerce features, then managed WordPress hosting might be the right choice.
If you’re selling online, then you could also consider using the Bluehost plan that combines WordPress and WooCommerce. Starting at $5.95 per month at the time of writing, BlueHost WooCommerce hosting is usually $13.99 per month.
WooCommerce hosting is easily the best choice if you’re selling items online. There are even additional plans to consider. Here’s what you get from each package:
- Starter: $13.99 per month ($5.95 with discount): Support for 1 online store, 100GB of SSD storage, a storefront theme, free SSL, and domain and privacy protection.
- Plus: $17.99 per month ($7.95 with discount): Everything you get with Starter including, unlimited storage and unlimited online stores. You also get a Codeguard website backup for your store.
- Pro: $31.95 per month ($11.95 with discount): Everything from the Plus plan, including Bluehost SEO tools, a domain privacy and protection solution and more.
The WooCommerce plans from Bluehost are definitely worth considering if you can’t afford any issues with load times and downtime on your websites. It’s unusual to see a WooCommerce package from a host provider, with few competitors like GoDaddy, Drupal and HostGator offering similar solutions.
If you’re selling through WordPress and WooCommerce, these plans may be a no-brainer for you. However, it’s worth upgrading to a slightly more expensive plan if you can. This will give you more security features to work with.
Bluehost Review: Customer Support
The Bluehost support team is always kind and knowledgeable, and it's nice because they are generally available at all times. So, if you have a question at 3am, simply open up a ticket or a chat box to get your answer. The self-help resources are there for you to complete your own research, and the company even has some forums to chat with other users. Phone, chat and email support are all offered, and you can always send in a ticket if you don't mind waiting about 24 hours for a response.
In terms of quality support, Bluehost is the best you can find, considering its representatives know what they are talking about and they never seem to send you off to other people if they can't figure out the problem. The point is, you can rely on the first person you start talking with.
You can check out the BlueHost site by clicking here.
The screenshot below shows some of the BlueHost dashboard options and features:
One of the best things about Bluehost as a hosting provider, is its flexibility. Whether you’ve been exploring Provo web hosting, Spamassassin widgets, or searching for a new kind of cloud hosting, it’s hard to beat Bluehost for it’s incredible versatility. This Utah based website will support everything from domain names transferred from iPage and other sites, to free SSL certificates.
Cloudflare backup support with your website builder also means that you get the peace of mind that comes with knowing your website is protected – no matter where you are. What’s more, compared to other options like Siteground and Dreamhost, Bluehost is generally very affordable. You can even find unique hosting packages for WordPress and WooCommerce, or unlock enhanced hosting packages that support your presence on Google.
With a 30-day money-back guarantee, Bluehost even ensures that anyone who isn’t happy with their hosting can go elsewhere. Although you might have a hard time switching later on. Overall, if you’re searching for a dedicated server or WordPress hosting, Bluehost is a popular choice.
Now that you've had a chance to understand exactly what Bluehost can do for your ecommerce website, consider visiting the website below to signup for a plan. Also, feel free to drop a line in the comments section below if you have any questions about this BlueHost review.
Click here to visit the BlueHost website.
The post Bluehost Hosting Review for 2020: Is it the Best Hosting Solution? appeared first on Ecommerce Platforms.
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