GoDaddy Website Builder Review: Good or Bad?
Want to make a website that looks good and is easy to use?
Choosing the best website builder is crucial to achieving this goal.
With web design software becoming increasingly user-friendly, choosing the right platform for your needs is essential.
A platform like GoDaddy’s Website Builder can work to your advantage if you’re not looking for a complex website that requires countless development hours.
In this article, I’ll take a closer look at the features and benefits of GoDaddy’s Website Builder so you can see if it fits your needs well.
Let’s get right into it.
The Complete GoDaddy Website Builder Review
The GoDaddy Website Builder is a complete platform that provides everything you need to create a professional website.
There is no need to install software or learn to code – you can create a website in minutes, even if you have no technical experience.
GoDaddy’s platform streamlines the website creation process through a wizard that allows you to use their artificial design intelligence (ADI) to build your site.
All you need to do is enter the required information, and in just a few minutes, you will have a website that can be published live on the internet and is ready to accept visitors.
Small businesses that do not want to spend money on a web designer or do not have the time to learn how to code themselves can benefit from this.
Various functionality comes with the GoDaddy website builder, which I will look at in this article.
That said, the GoDaddy website builder is not for everyone.
If you want to build a custom site that doesn’t look like anything else on the internet, this product might not be for you.
Also, if you’re looking for creative freedom and want complete control over every aspect of the website design, this might not be the right product of choice.
In all you do, you are somewhat limited to the templates they offer and how much you can customize them.
If you’re looking for a complete solution, a site builder such as WordPress can give you a better online presence.
How To Create Your GoDaddy Website
Here’s how to start building a website on GoDaddy.
Click on the “Start For Free” option from the main dashboard, and you will be ready to answer the required questions.
You can hit the back button at any point if you make a mistake during the answering process or want to change some of the previous answers.
Alternatively, you can go to the templates page and edit your preferred template.
Design Flexibility And Templates
Let’s now speak more in detail about the templates I mentioned in the previous section.
When it comes to the designs of these templates, a lot of thought has gone into this process, ensuring the templates enable you to create a website that looks good and is mobile responsive.
There is also the option to use stock photos from the included library and embed video and audio from websites such as YouTube, Vimeo, and SoundCloud.
Currently, more than 100 templates are available in 20 different styles, which is great if you’re looking for somewhat of a selection of designs to choose from.
Another great thing about using these templates is that the content will automatically fit the format you choose, so even if you change templates later on, your content will still look great within the new template.
Cons Of The GoDaddy Editor
One thing to notice is that while the GoDaddy editor is entirely visual, it does not offer drag-and-drop features.
You can’t move things around by dragging and dropping them everywhere; instead, you must choose from a selection of layouts that are as close to what you want.
While this is not a huge problem, it can be a bit of a nuisance if you’re used to working with other editors that are more flexible when it comes to design.
GoDaddy’s Business And Digital Marketing Tools
Various functions can help you with your websites and marketing using GoDaddy’s site builder platform.
Here are some of the most important ones to consider.
Appointment Booking
Booking an appointment is crucial if you have a service-based business and must take on clients at specific times.
This feature will allow customers to book the right slots with you directly from your website.
With a booking calendar, you can also see which days are full and are still available.
Overall this is a great tool that can save you a lot of time and help you to stay organized.
Setting Up Appointments
Using various communication tools, you can also send customers reminders and offers before their appointments.
With the ability to create email marketing campaigns, send SMS, connect with customers on Facebook or Instagram, and more, you have many options for staying in touch.
Businesses that want to reduce no-shows and ensure their customers are happy with the service provided will find this feature beneficial.
The best thing about all this is that you are not charged extra money to use these features.
They are all included (at various levels) in the plans you subscribe to, allowing you to save money on third-party appointment scheduling software and communication tools.
Even some of this functionality is included in the free plan; however, this only comprises one-time appointments.
Social Media Manager
GoDaddy has an inbuilt social media manager that includes a content calendar.
You can use this to plan and post content on various social media platforms to save time and ensure that your social media presence is consistent.
Apart from the content calendar options, some features allow you to create your ad campaigns, identify the keywords for your search engine optimization, and even create, schedule, and publish blog posts.
All these features are included in the various subscription plans, so you don’t have to pay anything extra to use them.
They are also convenient for small businesses that don’t have the time or money to invest in a separate social media management tool.
SEO Wizard
The GoDaddy search engine optimization (SEO) wizard can help you improve your website’s ranking in Google and other search engines.
This wizard is an excellent feature for those unfamiliar with SEO tools who need guidance.
The wizard will ask you various questions about your business and then provide specific recommendations on what you can do to improve your ranking.
This wizard is a good starting point for those unfamiliar with SEO or who need help initially.
As with many features on this platform, remember that if you need complete control over your search engine optimization, GoDaddy might not be the best option for you, as you can’t fully control your SEO campaign’s various aspects.
Analytics
GoDaddy integrates with Google Analytics regarding website tracking, presenting data in a simple format that allows users to figure out what’s working and what’s not.
The main dashboard shows you all you need to know about your website traffic in an easy-to-understand way.
You can see the number of unique visitors, total pageviews, average session duration, and even the number of new vs. returning visitors.
You can get an overview of your business website and its performance and identify any areas that need improvement.
While other website builders have internal analytical tools, not many tools can compare to Google’s regarding getting a complete business overview.
As such, with GoDaddy integrating with Google Analytics, users have an excellent option to get all the valuable insights that can help them make the right decisions.
Domains
GoDaddy is one of the best in the business when considering domain registrars.
They are an accredited ICANN registrar, so you can be sure your domains will be safe and secure.
They also offer a wide range of custom domain extensions at competitive prices.
With GoDaddy being one of the largest domain registrars in the world, setting up a domain couldn’t be easier.
Security
SSL certificates are included with all domain names, which is excellent news if you want to set up an eCommerce website.
Your customers will get peace of mind that their details are safe and could also help boost your search engine rankings.
In addition, there is a 99.9% guarantee for uptime, so you can be sure your website will almost always be online.
Backups & Restores
With an auto-save feature and regular backups that this platform takes, your website data will be safe if something happens.
For example, if you make a mistake or accidentally delete something, you can quickly restore it to the last saved version of your website.
However, note that there is only one backup saved, which means that you can only restore to the previous version of your site and not the versions before that.
GoDaddy Websites Blog Editor
This handy feature lets you easily create and manage a blog within your website builder account.
If you want to share blog-style content with the world, the blog editor makes it easy to do just that.
You can easily add text, images, and videos and even embed social media posts directly into your blog posts.
You can keep your website content fresh and up-to-date, and it can also help to boost your search engine ranking if you want to get people to find your site for specific keywords.
As with other features, there are also limitations when blogging using GoDaddy.
Compared to other content management systems, you can’t do things like adding multiple authors or even enabling commenting on your posts.
You also can’t have HTML code embedded within your blog, tables added to your posts, or even include picture galleries.
Selling Online With GoDaddy
Considering this platform’s e-commerce plan is a good idea if you want to sell online.
Here are some of the ecommerce features the GoDaddy selling platform offers you:
- SSL security ensures your customers’ data is safe and secure when browsing and buying on your website.
- Promotions and discounts help you boost sales by offering your customers incentives to buy.
- Marketplace and social selling allow you to sell your products on popular marketplaces and social media platforms.
- Site performance tracking helps you monitor your website’s performance and identify areas that need improvement.
There is also an in-house payment gateway known as GoDaddy Payments, which integrates directly with the ecommerce platform to allow you to create and send customized payment links.
This feature is only available to those in the United States.
If you are outside the US, you can connect with any payment provider that includes Square, Stripe, and Paypal.
You can also connect to various offline payment methods as needed.
Importing Products
With this platform, you can import products by adding them as a CSV file or directly importing them from other marketplaces you sell on.
These include platforms such as Amazon.com, eBay, Google Catalog, Square, Etsy, and more.
After adding these products to your online store, you can also enable the add-on feature allowing customers to customize their orders and add their personalization to an order.
GoDaddy Shipping Options
With the ability to offer free or local shipping or even in-person pickup, GoDaddy offers various options for fulfilling orders.
You can add shipping labels through Shipengine and its integrations, which give you discounts when using platforms such as USPS, UPS, FedEx, and more.
You can also set the tax for different regions, which is great if you ship internationally and must include relevant information for customers in other countries.
GoDaddy Customer Support
When getting the know-how to build your site, their support team is always willing to help you with any issues.
It is always a good idea for business owners to have someone on call who can help them with technical difficulties, and GoDaddy’s customer support is up to par with every other major site builder.
GoDaddy’s customer care is open 24/7 through live chat or phone.
Pricing
When it comes to the GoDaddy pricing, here are the available website builder plans:
Basic Plan: $11.99 per month
Premium Plan: $21.99 per month
Commerce Plan: $24.99 per month
Commerce Plus Plan: $44.99 per month
The free plan is good enough for those just starting; while being quite limited in terms of marketing features and functionality, it does provide an opportunity to review the platform before committing to a premium plan.
On the other hand, the GoDaddy eCommerce plan is the highest-paid option, offering the most comprehensive choices in terms of features and functionality.
What Makes a Great Website User Experience?
A great website user experience should be easy to navigate, visually appealing, and intuitive.
It should include well-structured content that is organized logically and makes sense to the visitor.
A navigation system should be present that allows users to quickly find the information they seek and explore further into the website on their own.
For example, consider a site that deals with selling digital products.
Users should be able to easily purchase products without going through too many steps and needing to search for product info.
On top of this, customers should have access to helpful customer service representatives who can quickly address their queries or concerns.
Another user experience consideration includes mobile responsiveness.
As people are increasingly relying on their phones and tablets to browse the web, it is essential that your website looks good and functions correctly regardless of the device or screen size.
Responsiveness is usually used to describe how quickly a site responds to requests. Still, in the case of mobile responsiveness, it refers to how well a website adapts its content and layout to fit different screen sizes.
Another vital factor in a fantastic website user experience is the loading speed.
No one likes waiting for a page to load, so ensuring your website is optimized and runs quickly are essential.
You can do this by compressing images and ensuring no unnecessary scripts run in the background.
By considering all of these considerations when designing or revising your website, you can create a great user experience, leading to increased customer satisfaction and conversions.
GoDaddy Website Builder Review – FAQ
Can You Get A Free Domain On GoDaddy?
You get a free domain when you purchase an annual web hosting plan.
How Does GoDaddy Rank In Terms Of Ease Of Use?
GoDaddy is highly user-friendly and easy to use.
You can use their templates to create a professional-looking website.
There is no drag-and-drop feature, so you must rely on preset layouts.
Does GoDaddy Provide A Hosting Service?
Yes, hosting is included as part of their website-building solutions.
You don’t have to worry about researching and finding a separate hosting company with all the needed tools in a single interface.
Wrap Up.
Over the years, GoDaddy has improved its platform significantly, and it now offers everything you need to create a successful online store.
The platform is easy to use, even if you’re a beginner, and it comes with all the features you need to sell online.
With the new ADI editor, creating a GoDaddy site is even more accessible, enabling you to be up and running quickly.
In addition, the improved navigation makes finding your way around the website’s back end easy.
The team at GoDaddy also put in various considerations for those looking for a marketing website builder, allowing users to stay in touch with customers as needed.
Moreover, with no need to know any code when setting up your site, the learning curve is practically non-existent.
Finally, through its ecommerce functionality, the platform integrates with several popular marketplaces and sales channels, making it easy to sell your products in multiple places.
That said, you might want to look elsewhere if you are looking for advanced SEO functions or a platform that offers more control over your website’s design, fonts, looks, and theme.
While GoDaddy is an excellent tool for building essential to intermediate-level websites, getting more advanced usually requires a different solution.
Further reading on AdamEnfroy.com: Want something different than GoDaddy for your site hosting?
Check out this list of GoDaddy alternatives to learn more.
Moreover, here are a few different reviews to consider when evaluating your website-building options:
