A relatively new platform Strikingly is an online web development application and website builder that makes creating a mobile-friendly site with a single, scrolling page accessible for those without any development experience or knowledge. Read our Strikingly review below.
OverviewStrikingly is a fresh-looking and modern website builder that allows novice technical people to put together sleek internet sites, albeit in single page format. Strikingly offers users mobile-friendly websites that are quick to create and instantly publish, with its simple user interface and template designs.
Who is Strikingly recommended for?
Strikingly is highly recommended for those looking for an easy way to build a sleek single page website, without any programming or web design skills or knowledge. With the numerous templates available, it is possible to set easily up a business or personal website. For those building their first website, Strikingly is very simple and will not allow you to veer off-course to any great extent.
Does Strikingly offer any area of focus or specialties?
Strikingly’s strength is that everything on the site is straightforward, and users can easily understand the directions and set up their site. No coding or programming experience is needed to put together a lightning fast site to represent a small business or an individual, complete with sharp images and vector icons and professional fonts. Pair all that with the pre-loaded templates in various styles to build a website in minutes. The concept is simple, and the reality is a perfect match.
Another plus is that all of the Strikingly themes are mobile-friendly and will look great on any of your devices.
What are Strikingly’s Technical Specifications or Limitations?
Strikingly does leave some things to be desired. For instance, there is no drag and drop functionality like similar website builders offer, and limited customization is available. The templates are more than simple guidelines with Strikingly, and it is nearly impossible to override them to alter sizes of images or change where the text goes. Likewise, it is a challenge to change from one theme to another; rather, you have to start over.
Another limitation that Strikingly has is the inability to handle eCommerce to any extent. There are a “simple store” feature and the ability to embed a PayPal button, but that is about it.
Does Strikingly offer adequate scalability and room to grow?
Strikingly has a free plan that is suitable for small sites that do not need a lot of bandwidth or customization, but it also offers upgrades for larger sites. The Pro plan consists of unlimited bandwidth, three pro sites, and unlimited free sites, along with custom URLs and embedded HTML and custom code abilities.
What is the money back guarantee policy?
The policy allows you to test drive one of the premium plans for 14 days. Additionally, you can use the free plan for as long as you want to get familiar with the platform. Once you are on a paid plan, you are only committed for the term of service you have chosen; the following month on a month to month agreement or the next year on an annual contract.
What is their reputation?
A quick check of the web’s reputation checking services shows that Strikingly has a good reputation among users and the general public alike. MyWot says it is safe for children and is trustworthy, and VirusTotal and Google safe browsing analytics both say that the site is free of viruses.
Why choose Strikingly website builder?
Though Strikingly is limited in its customization options, particularly on its free plan, it offers an excellent value for small business owners and individuals in need of building an online presence. Strikingly is continually adding additional templates and functionality to its site that make it easier still to create a site that will grow with you or your business.
Key FeaturesThe experts seem to place Strikingly right in the middle of the website builder pack. It certainly has something to offer the right audience, but it doesn’t come with a wide range of robust tools and features like many other options on the market. Perhaps most importantly, Strikingly rates highest when it comes to user experience. Those looking for a program that is simple and easy to use will quickly take to Strikingly. However, those with more design experience and high expectations may be disappointed by the limitations of the builder.
The fact that it only creates one-page websites may be a drawback for some, but it speaks to the simplicity of the program. Basically, Strikingly hasn’t received higher scores from experts because there are other options that also offer an equally user friendly interface and include more features. Strikingly is a solid option, but not necessarily the best.
The good news is that Strikingly offers an extremely simple and easy to use website builder. You can preview full sites that have been built using their templates and get a real feel for your own site’s potential. Using Strikingly, you can build a site in less than an hour. It is that easy to use. Plus, more experienced coders will enjoy access to HTML and CSS editors.
Customers also enjoy the flexibility of the program. You can easily add a blog and/or turn your site into an eCommerce store. While Strikingly isn’t meant to support large businesses, it will allow you to expand your website and appeal to a wider audience. More than anything the program is described as simple, which translates into great for beginners.
Most of the negative complaints against Strikingly have to do with the quality of customer service and affordability. It is common and perhaps even reasonable that a website builder will have a few negative reviews addressing customer service. However, I was surprised to see just how limited customers are when it comes to contacting support. Essentially, you can only send an email and hope for a prompt response. Strikingly doesn’t even offer a phone number to call let alone a live chat feature. While there is a knowledge base, you are largely one your own when it comes to troubleshooting.
In addition, customers were disappointed with the amount of features available with more affordable plans. Only premium plans offer a robust set of features.
Design & CustomizationWebsite design features include customizable templates, social media promotion buttons, super speed uploader for photos, slideshow features, all in an automatically mobile-optimized site. For publishing, you will get a free sub-domain name(http://yoursitename.strikingly.com),a unique one-page style, and SEO capabilities.
| Feature | Overview |
| Website Templates | Choosing a template is as simple as the click of a button with this site builder.
Free: The Strikingly site offers eleven different website templates on the three plan, and each one of them is quite striking and well-designed to publish a website in almost no time. Premium: Even better, the Strikingly premium plans offer hundreds of website template designs to choose from when you are more familiar with the platform and ready to upgrade, or if you wish to build a unique website from the very beginning. All templates are mobile responsive and include features like ‘Click to Call’ to make a website very friendly for its audience. Sites are optimized for SEO, allowing the simple adding of Meta tags and keyword. |
| Website Builder Interface | UI is where Strikingly shines! The user interface is so simple and intuitive that anyone who has learned to read can put together a fresh-looking site by just choosing and clicking their selections and then adding their personalized content.
The interface even allows you to see exactly how your site will look on computers and mobile devices with a few quick clicks. If you have ever spent time building a website another way, including other relatively user-friendly platforms like Google’s Blogger, you will appreciate Strikingly and its simple user interface. |
| Page Style Customization Options | When it comes to page styles, Strikingly website builder is somewhat limited. The only real overall changes available are between light, dark or different colors. There are lots of friendly and professional fonts available to amend the look of your pages. Variations in the features section will allow you to edit text but not move it or change the color; likewise, changing images is simple, but you cannot resize them or move them to a different area. Both text and images are set in the template, and neither can be moved, unlike many other platforms which offer better customization. |
| Site Navigation | Strikingly is a much different type of website than many of us are used to. The format is a long-form, single scrolling page. To find what you need, you just scroll down until you find it in the section where it is located. There are dots on the left which you can hover over and click to get to each section of a PC or tablet; on a smartphone, there is a menu section to the left which you can use as an alternative to scrolling all the way. While this will work quite well for some smaller companies and many individuals, it is limiting to larger enterprises. It would not be fun searching for information on seemingly endlessly scrolling pages. |
| Content Management | Changing or adding content to a Strikingly website is pretty straightforward. You can easily change the text or images in any of your sections as quickly as you chose your initial content. You can also add blog posts and other content just as quickly. |
| Photos and Galleries | Adding images and galleries is simple, and the website even makes slideshows easy to setup and implement, though they are limited to a single format. Even more so, adding videos to the site is as easy as uploading them to the site and clicking to add them to a section. |
| Mobile Site Building | Here is another area where Strikingly shines! Most website platforms and website builders require a PC to setup and publish.
Strikingly websites are so easy and intuitive; you can pick and choose your styles and templates, upload some images and add a little text before you hit publish and can share off your fresh and cool website that you created yourself. |
| Social Sharing Integration | Social sharing buttons are added to Strikingly sites by way of the app store, which allows you to have a Social Feed on your website. Add your social media accounts, and you can also write preferred tweets for people to share about your blog posts and content. |
| Design Services | As there is no mention of design services on the website, I do not believe they are offered, though this is certainly something that users should contact the Strikingly team about for guidance and possible assistance.
Some of the elements you can add to your website include maps, videos, contact forms, and PayPal buttons. These might solve some, or all, of your design needs. |
Features & Tools | Feature | Overview |
| Setup | Easier than any website you have ever designed (or attempted to create.) |
| Web Design | Design is limited to the templates that are offered, and the tweaks that you can make to them. For instance, you can choose a template and change its “style”, but those changes typically only involve changes in colors and fonts. Elements are locked in place on the page layouts, so that is not possible. |
| Custom domain name | Custom domains are both available and included with the premium plans. If you have a domain you already own, you can transfer it, or you can purchase one from within the dashboard of the website. |
| Depth of Navigation | At first glance, this would appear to be a problem for Strikingly. However, it is possible to create multiple page sites by linking Strikingly sites to one another. e |
| Widgets and Apps | Apps and widgets for the site are relatively limited. You will not find hundreds of plug-in style apps like you will with WordPress. |
| Monetization | Currently the only monetization options available to Strikingly website users is to link to affiliates in your blog content. |
| Visitor Statistics | No internal application seems to exist for tracking visitors through a third-party application easily handles this. |
| Photo,Video,and Audio | The Strikingly website builder makes it easy to upload and add pictures and video to sites. Like most things on the platform, a simple click or two will handle it. |
| Blog | A blogging app is available to add to any section of a Strikingly website. Once the blog app is added, it is extremely easy to add content to the blog. |
| Google Maps | A simple click of a few buttons, and Voila! Google Maps is embedded on the Strikingly site. |
| HTML Editor | With this app, copying and pasting HTML code can add unique elements to a Strikingly website. |
| Social Media Integration | Integrating Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest is a single click process, and allows simple social sharing. |
| Forms and surveys | Integrating forms and surveys are available, although the customization of these forms is limited. |
| Storage Space | Storage space depends on the package chosen; the free plan comes with 5 GB, the Limited plan with 50 GB, and the Pro plan features unlimited bandwidth. |
| Newsletter Tool | Integrate a MailChimp account and send out newsletters to all your customers and prospects. |
| Forum | Cut and paste forum code to build a sense of community on your Strikingly site. |
| E-Commerce / Online Store | Strikingly allows integration of Simple Store so site owners can engage in eCommerce on their sites. |
| Gateway Integration | Typeform is Strikingly’s choice to help with gateway integration, with drag and drop interface and intuitively natural creations. |
| SEO Friendly | Adding keywords and Meta tags to a wonderful site add to its natural SEO, which makes it quickly raise in the SERPs. |
| Site Limited Access (Password Protection) | With a Pro account, it is possible to create a password protected site for private groups or membership sites. |
| Google® Analytics | Adding Google® Analytics allows the review of visitors and their statistics. Where do the visitors come from and how long do they stay? GA is available for blog posts for Limited and Pro Plans |
| Website Security | Secure Socket Layer (SSL) is standard technology for security online, it establishes encrypted links between servers and browser< |
| Multiple Languages Mobile Optimization CDN Technology: | Google Translate will handle multiple languages; you can also use multiple pages, or simply input both languages into your text boxes. |
Plans & Pricing Strikingly offers three different pricing packages; Free, with a 5 GB bandwidth limit and a Strikingly sub-domain, Limited with 50 GB and Pro with unlimited bandwidth.
Free Strikingly plans do not get their custom website URLs; they come with a strikingly.com subdomain. Join the Free plan with a few clicks and an email to signup.
Limited plans are often adequate for small businesses. This plan costs $8 month and is billed annually, so the cost upfront is $96. For $96, the plan owner will get 50 GB monthly bandwidth and a free URL domain name. And matching email, along with full use of all the tools on the Strikingly, website builder.
Pro package is $16 month, also billed annually, for an upfront cost of $192. With unlimited bandwidth, a free custom email and domain, mobile action buttons (click to call!), HTML, CSS, and Javascript available, no ads, and options for enhanced image editing and website password protection.
The free plan offers 5 GB of space, and the PRO plan allows unlimited bandwidth along with email and a free domain name registration. The Strikingly platform enables the website to grow and scale as needed to a much larger and more dynamic site by customizing with HTML, Javascript, and CSS.
Both of the paid versions comes with a 14-day trial; that is to say, you pay and then have 14 days to check out the paid packages without being out any money if you decide you hate it.
For comparison’s sake, similar sites offer premium plans for a little more and a little less. Wix offers their premium plan starting at $4.45, and Weebly sites are $3.29 monthly for a two-year contract. Squarespace offers premium plans for $8, and LightCMS begins at $19.
Strikingly does offer perks in the form of free sites for social media engagement and following, or helping them add fans and followers.
Customer Support There are an extensive help section and FAQs on the website; there is also a knowledgebase area with still further help for specific areas that users can search for their particular needs. From web creation, design and formatting and technical issues, the answers to most questions can be found on the Strikingly website.
There is also a blog which addresses many of the newest features and helps with any recurring questions or issues.
You can also email the Strikingly support team via the message box on their site; it promises an answer to your email within 24 hours and allows you to screenshot what is happening to give them a better idea of how to help. No chat capability or phone number is evident anywhere on the website.
Ease of Use As noted earlier, using Strikingly is about the easiest way to build a website that there is. Straightforward and quick clicks, adding a few pictures and some text, and the new site is done.
This is a perfect platform for beginners, who will be able to use the website builder easily to create something stunning without programming and coding knowledge. Advanced users might find the site a little simplistic and lack of customization and control options.
Strikingly has a one-click feature that enables it to access Linkedin or Facebook pages and pull data to be arranged on a website that you can rearrange to a limited extent. Adding photo galleries and work portfolios is straightforward and fast, fast, fast!
Conclusion Overall, we like the Strikingly platform. It is a sleek website builder that is intuitive and fast to use to create simple websites. Beginners are walked through the entire process, with very little room for error because of the structured templates. Strikingly is ideal for beginners to create beautiful websites, and it truly is idiot-proof.
On the other hand, it is disappointing that there is no drag-and-drop function within the platform, and the only customization available is that which is allowed by the template setup. There are a limited number of templates and eCommerce options, which might frustrate advanced users.
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