WebsiteBuilder.com offers a host of website creation tools, as well as marketing help and eCommerce. Lots of templates to choose from to customize your site and everything is setup in an easy drag and drop way to make it super easy for anyone to build a nice-looking website. Read our WebsiteBuilder.com review below.
OverviewWith WebsiteBuilder.com, you can design and create a website in an evening, with no money and no credit card needed, as long as you use a subdomain. It is simple for beginners to use by choosing a template and making use of the handy drag and drop functionality to add content and make it look the way you want it.
Who is WebsiteBuilder.com Recommended for?
This platform and its easy navigation and design tools are perfect for people who have never built a website before. It is fairly idiot-proof, and it will not take you long to get the hang of working with it.
Areas of Focus/Specialties?
WebsiteBuilder.com offers an extremely handy set of measurement tools to help you build your site. While not unique to this platform, they are more comprehensive than others we have seen. The top of the website editor offers columns, rulers and snap to the grid which makes it so much easier to align elements and make your site visually appealing. These tools are easy enough to use and allow you to build a website that is both exacting and beautiful.
Technical Specifications/Limitations
Besides the already mentioned, and totally user-friendly drag and drop functionality, WebsiteBuilder.com comes with 21 different categories of templates to choose from, and lots of preloaded and high-quality photos for your use. Elements like buttons and icons are available to drop wherever you like on your site and to click any object allows you to change its appearance in some different ways.
One significant limitation we found is the lack of ability to upload lots of photos at once; manually clicking upload and doing them one at a time is tedious and time-consuming. For an eCommerce store or real estate agent with lots of home pictures to add, this could be a real pain. Hopefully, an upgrade to that area of the site is in store soon. Another unwelcome quirk is the lack of an auto-save feature, so don’t forget to click save on every edit!
Scalability
Scalability is an important point to be aware of when working with a website builder. While five pages may be plenty of your current business, you may find yourself outgrowing it or growing in different directions with a need to create additional pages. WebsiteBuilder.com limits the number of pages you can have in the free version, but premium versions are infinitely scalable for all that amazing future growth!
Money-back Guarantee
If you are like me, you like to see how things work before you commit to using them. While I appreciate the free platform on this site builder, I would also want to check out the paid version as well before I decided it was the right tool for my purposes. So I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the site does offer a 14-day money back guarantee on its premium plans and any other products or services, with these exceptions: domain registration, priority support, domain privacy, eCommerce, email addresses, or SEO Ebook.
What is their Reputation?
The domain has been active since 1996 though it appears to have changed hands sometimes during those years. It has an Alexa rank below 40,000, an SEO Moz domain authority rank of 42, and a Google Pagerank of 2. I did a search for reviews online and came up with a somewhat mixed bag, with most reviews at entirely opposite ends of the spectrum and very few lukewarm.
Awards
We found WebsiteBuilder.com listed multiple times in articles on SiteBuilderAwards.com: The Best ECommerce Website Builders, The Simplest Website Builders, Best Mobile Website Builders, The Best Blog Makers, The Most Affordable Website Builders, and Best Website Builders for SEO.
Why Choose Website Builder?
Ease of use, endless customization, sharp looking and fresh templates.
Key FeaturesThe experts had similar things to say about Website Builder. While the actual design interface is pretty user-friendly, the company’s selling and pricing practices are questionable. In fact, the same company sells the same product (at different prices) under a few different domain names. However, it’s hard to knock the tools that the site does offer, including:
Ultimately, the expert ratings vary pretty widely according to how much critics took the complaints against billing and customer service into account. Those who focused more on the actual program’s performance were more apt to award Website Builder 3.5 to 4 stars out of a five.
Outside of any shady business practices, Website Builder does offer the tools you will need to build a good looking website. In fact, customers enjoy the user interface and even describe it as “fun” to play around with a learn. Tools like Master Page Elements and the Design Panel make it easy to both replicate page designs throughout the site and customize details like font styles when needed.
Users who were looking for some more sophisticated tools beyond a simple one-age site were also happy with the blogging features and eCommerce capabilities. Between the attractive templates and user-friendly builder, there are some interesting selling points when it comes to using Website Builder. Just make sure that you are aware of what you will be charged.
It appears that Website Builder is another decent program who may not have the best pricing and selling practices. There are some companies out there that attract customers because they have an excellent product. They may have to do some work to get their name out there, but cancellation rates are low, and growth is good.
Then there is the other type of company. They will offer a functional product and find all sorts of ways to upsell you and lock you into contracts. Based on user reviews, it sounds like Website Builder is the second kind of company. Instead of making quality and customer service their primary goals, they try to retain customers through other practices that may seem too aggressive and not necessarily transparent.
Design & CustomizationThis is an area where WebsiteBuilder.com truly shines. The design is simple and seemingly infinite with all of the templates and style options you have at your disposal.
| Feature | Overview |
| Templates | As previously noted, WebsiteBuilder.com comes with thousands of website templates in 21 different categories. Finding one that is both easy and challenging; there is so much to choose from it can be hard to narrow it down and pick just one. Further, you can choose from all of these templates even on the free plan when testing things out.
Category arranges templates, and you can search for them as well. Additionally, you can hover over each to get a full preview of how they look before you decide which to use. |
| Interface | Another plus for WebsiteBuilder.com, the user-interface is as easy as any site builder we have seen, and much easier than many. Everything is laid out easily, and even the least tech-savvy person you know can build a website with it. |
| Page Style Customization` | It’s a snap to customize pages in WebsiteBuilder.com. The website editor includes two toolbars, one at the top, and one on the left side. On the left, click on the paintbrush icon which is marked “Design” and a menu for colors, fonts, text styles and backgrounds opens up. From here, you have even more chances to make it unique by uploading your background images, changing the opacity or overlaying elements. |
| Site Navigation | It is very intuitive, and navigation is quick and easy. Just click what you need to do or find, and instantly, the information is at your fingertips. |
| Content Management | Adding and changing content is also an easy task in WebsiteBuilder.com. Want to add a new page? Just click the big plus sign at the top, and then Pages, and the site even has pre-built templates for most of the common page types so that you don’t have to start from scratch. It is just as easy to add sections to each page. |
| Photos and Galleries | Just like basic content, a gallery can be added by clicking the Plus sign in the top left column, choosing Galleries, and making some choices about how you want your gallery to look. You will also be prompted to input alt-tags for proper SEO. |
| Mobile Site Building | All WebsiteBuilder.com sites are fully mobile responsive, which means they will automatically look great on any device. Even better, with plans, you can click on the mobile phone icon at the top left of the site editor and see exactly how your website will look on personal devices. |
| Social Sharing Integration | The site offers excellent social sharing integration via a simple widget that you can drop right into your site wherever you want it. This widget contains links for Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and Google+. We could not see a way to add further social media sites on the free plan though this might be available for a premium plan. |
| Design Services | If you do not feel you can put a site together with WebsiteBuilder.com, they offer complete design help as well. A three-page personal website can be built for you at a cost of $359, a five-page professional site will set you back $499, and the most extensive offered is a small business package which integrates eCommerce. |
Features & Tools WebsiteBuilder.com includes many features to help you quickly get online. Let’s take a brief look at each.
| Feature | Overview |
| Setup | Could not be easier. Go to the site, click on Create a New Site in the upper left corner. |
| Web Design | Choose a template from over 10,000 or start from scratch totally your call. (But you will want to use one of their templates, trust me, they’re great!) From there, tweak your colors, fonts, background, etc. to your preferences. |
| Custom Domain Name | Easy-peasy, and you can choose one right on the website. If you already have one, the site tells you how to transfer it quickly. |
| The depth of Navigation: | We did not see a way to add submenus or subpages to sites built on WebsiteBuilder.com. This can be a limitation for large websites that would want to group pages together to organize better. |
| Widgets and Apps | Lots of widgets are available to add Google Maps to your pages, SoundCloud Player, social media following and sharing buttons, embed widgets. |
| Monetization | eCommerce is available on paid sites so that you can sell your products and services quickly. You can also claim free ad credits for Google, Bing, Facebook, and Amazon, as well as Google Adsense. |
| Visitor Statistics | Google Analytics is quickly added to track statistics. |
| Photo,Video,and Audio | Photos and galleries can be added to the site, and there is an extensive image library available. You can also add videos and video galleries. Audio is implemented via SoundCloud Player. |
| Blogging | You can add a blog to your site with the touch of a button |
| Google Maps | There is a widget available to add Google Maps quickly. |
| HTML Editor | On premium plans, you can add HTML widgets to a page or an entire HTML page. |
| Social Media Integration | It is simple to add sharing and following buttons to your site with a quick social widget addition. |
| Forms and surveys | You can easily add a contact form to sections; there are lots of nicely done contact forms available. |
| Storage Space | Storage space ranges from 50MB on free plans, to 5GB on the personal plan and 10GB on the professional and small business plans. |
| Newsletter Tool | This appears to be an overlooked area of WebsiteBuilder.com. We could not find an integration tool. |
| Forum Support | |
| E-Commerce / Online Store | Easy to setup and manage, but you must opt for a paid plan to add it to your website. |
| Gateway Integration | No payment integration evident on the free version, and a search of the knowledge base came up empty. |
| SEO Friendly | The site offers free and easy to use tools to boost SEO. |
| Site Limited Access (Password Protection) | Password protected or paid sites do not appear to be part of WebsiteBuilder.com’s offerings, yet. |
| Website Security | The site is secured via https, and there is also a Norton Secured badge on the site. Additionally, payments made to the site can be made via PayPal for an added layer of protection. |
Plans & Pricing There is a free plan available; this plan comes with a branded domain in the format http://yourwebsitename.my-free.website. This is less than ideal for a business site as it looks very unprofessional. We would recommend opting instead for a premium plan and getting a perfect domain name (web address.)
The site offers a choice of several upgraded plans:
Personal. This plan is $7.99 per month and offers a free domain name and email, no ads and a mobile site.
Premium. This plan will cost $9.22 per month, and includes advertising credits and SEO tools.
Business. This plan is $10.75 and adds priority support.
eCommerce. This plan will set you back $18.45 and includes your online store.
The pricing for each plan is based on paying for two years in advance; it is possible to do a shorter term, but it costs a little more. As of the time we are writing this, they are offering 50% off their paid plans (except personal.) With those discounts, it makes WebsiteBuilder.com a very attractive option.
The free plan allows you to build two websites; both will have the above mentioned “my-free-website” tag on the web address. If that does not matter for your purposes, you can technically build a cool, free website.
Customer Support Because website builders were created for do it yourself site creators, customer support is crucial to success. The worst thing that could happen is that you could get stuck while working on your site and be unable to get it published. Luckily, WebsiteBuilder.com offers adequate support in the forms of an extensive FAQs page, a searchable knowledge base, live chat, and a Contact Us form to request assistance.
There is separate tech support and billing support. Phone support is available for billing as well. There are not any video tutorials on the website as of yet, but we have a feeling they will be forthcoming soon. Support does not appear to be around the clock, and that can be a problem at times. However, we think the Knowledge Base is pretty comprehensive and can answer most questions.
Ease of Use This is probably one of the easiest to use platforms we have seen for creating your site. It offers lots of features to make your site function professionally, and lots of great-looking templates to make it look good. Even a total novice could put together a beautiful website in an evening with this tool.
Conclusion We like WebsiteBuilder.com, and would (will) use it to build a website for ourselves. Keep in mind, we know WordPress very well and can create a pretty awesome site with it. However, the WebsiteBuilder.com platform could be used to make a website quickly and without much hassle.
If you have ever struggled to design a custom header to fit a WordPress template, you will so appreciate the ease with which you can finish up a professional site with WebsiteBuilder.com. So much of the work is already done for you, from the templates to the pre-built pages, forms, and other elements, that it is a snap to put together an excellent website that represents you well, regardless of the look and feel you want.
We highly recommend that you give WebsiteBuilder.com a try, as we believe it will fit most needs well. While we realize that some of the limitations that we see, like the lack of email integration and a mass image uploader are deal-breakers for some people, the site is only a few years old. We expect that the team will continue to tweak the offerings and make it even better in the very new future. But what is here already is pretty freaking awesome!
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