GoDaddy Website Builder Review

Looking to build your own website? GoDaddy website builder can do that and more. Read on.

Building your own website is a challenge, even when using website builders. Some options may be cheap but have limited features. While others are not friendly for beginners.

Fortunately, the GoDaddy website builder offers a range of features at reasonable prices and has a user-friendly interface.

Let's talk about the ins and outs of the platform and see if it's worth it. There is also a step-by-step guide for easier reference. Read on.

Websites + Marketing: GoDaddy Website Builder

Websites + Marketing is the name of GoDaddy's website builder. As the name suggests, it does more than create your business website. It's packed with marketing tools as well.

Not all website builders suit all types of business, and that's the same for GoDaddy. This website builder is more suitable if you're an online store, a service business, or a personal brand.

Also, GoDaddy is a trusted platform with over 21 million customers worldwide. That goes to show that it's worth a try. It has a free plan and free trial (for paid features) to help you get started.

So, let's cut to the chase. Should you build your small business website with GoDaddy?

Is it worth building a website with GoDaddy?

GoDaddy is worth it for building your website. Let's evaluate GoDaddy with the criteria of a good website builder.

The website builder should be:

• Easy to use
  
• Flexible and scalable
  
• With search engine optimization features
  
• With 24/7 customer support
  
• With experts you can hire when you need to

Ease of Use
GoDaddy Website Builder makes creating a site easy, especially for small business owners. The platform is certainly a beginner-friendly website builder. And the 7-day trial is more than enough to test it out.

Flexibility and Scalability
It's very much lacking in the flexibility that most website builders offer. For example, it can get pretty annoying if you find that you can't move text when it's in the way of your cover images.

Also, a good website builder doesn't just provide what you need now. It provides what you need in the long run as well. When growing your audience or number of products, GoDaddy makes it easy to scale with its pricing plans.

Search Engine Optimization
GoDaddy's website builder falls short on search engine optimization features. Its competitors, like WordPress, offer more in this area.

WordPress lets you edit meta descriptions in every post, optimize using plugins, edit headings on blog posts, etc. GoDaddy only helps you find and use industry-related keywords.

Support
GoDaddy offers 24/7 support for all pricing plans. If you need help creating your site, you can always contact GoDaddy experts.

With these in mind, GoDaddy can be worth a try. It doesn't have "wow" features that make it stand out, but it's surely a trusted all-in-one platform.

Speaking of features, let's talk about that next.

What are GoDaddy Features?

GoDaddy has three groups of features. These are the general features, features for social media and email marketing, and eCommerce features.

You can access all of these during the 7-day free trial. You'll be using a subdomain, which is likely your business name with the GoDaddy branding (name.godaddysites.com).

Here's a list of what the GoDaddy website builder offers:

It's the ideal time to test if the interface works for you. So, let us start our review with editor interface. Then, let's talk about the other features in detail.

GoDaddy Website Builder Interface
GoDaddy Website Builder has a user-friendly interface that makes website building easy, even for beginners.

• Sidebars
  The sidebars are clearly labeled and organized. You can add pages, upload images, embed videos, and set up contact forms from here.

• Design tools
  This website builder provides tools to adjust the design of your website. You can change background colors, typography styles, animation effects, sliders, and more.

• Editing template sections
  GoDaddy Website Builder comes with pre-made page layouts too. These are great if you don't have the time or skills to design your own.

  You can select from various page layouts, such as a Home Page, About Page, Blog Post, Contact Form, and more. You can customize these further using the sidebar.

The downside of GoDaddy? It's not a drag-and-drop editor where you select items on the sidebar and place them on the page. And although you can delete some things, you can't add elements (i.e., text boxes) within each section.

But what about the other tools it offers? Here are some of the price-worthy features of GoDaddy.

General Website Features

• Free SSL certificate
  This is included with all website builder packages. Rest assured, your site is secure from the moment it's created.

• Custom domain connection
  A custom domain name is your own URL name. This makes your website seem trustworthy and professional.

• Mobile-optimized websites
  GoDaddy's website builder is designed with mobile users in mind. The editor automatically optimizes the design of your website for mobile screens so it looks great on any device.

• Integrated analytics
  With GoDaddy's analytics integration, you can track how many visitors your site is getting, where they're coming from, and how they interact with your content.

  This helps you better understand your audience, so you can make informed decisions about how to grow your business. It uses Google Analytics and Google AdSense.

• Analytics dashboard
  The analytics dashboard lets you quickly access your website's performance data and see how it changes over time. It also gives you useful insights that can help you optimize your site for better results.

• Search Engine Optimization
  GoDaddy has an integrated email marketing platform and built-in SEO tools. Using them ensures your site is visible in search engine results.

  The main SEO tool from GoDaddy is its SEO wizard. It'll help you check for relevant keywords in your industry. After researching keywords, you can use them to edit your page title, business description, website headline, and content.

Need more tools? These features can further assist you in building your online store or creating your blogging website:

• Customizable Templates

  To customize templates, you can add or delete sections and pages. The website editor now offers 5 font styles (H1 to H5), which was not available before. You can also adjust the font types and colors to match your branding.

  H1 to H5 refers to the heading styles. H1 are used for titles while subheadings are used for taglines, captions, etc. With GoDaddy, these are labeled "Style 1 to Style 5."
  

  When editing, it is possible to change the theme and retain certain elements like text. This is a benefit not offered by some website builders like Wix. Also, your site is automatically responsive or mobile-friendly. But you cannot make edits to your site in mobile view.

  However, compared to other website builders, customization features are much more limited. It's a lot less flexible than Squarespace. For example, with GoDaddy, you can't move elements around freely (e.g., move texts higher or lower on the page).

• Branding Features

  GoDaddy helps you create a professional-looking website with its few branding features. You can create a free logo, customize website colors, and switch up fonts.

  GoDaddy studio is the tool you can use to create the logo. It also comes with logo templates, stock photos, and photo editing features.

  You can always upload your own logo, assuming you're not a new business. And it's always more professional to have a logo specially made for you, instead of creating one from a template.
  

  Although you can customize colors, you can only select one primary color. GoDaddy will select the rest of the colors that go with it. It can put you off if you have multiple colors for your brand.

  For texts, you can select a primary font and a secondary font, but you can't upload your own fonts.

• Online Store Features

  GoDaddy dashboard simplifies eCommerce product management for physical and digital items like videos, eBooks, and music.

  You can include URLs and descriptions to promote products. Another options is to offer add-ons like gift wrapping and accessories.

  There are multiple payment options like GoDaddy, Square, PayPal or Stripe. You may also provide online payment links and virtual terminal. This feature is included in paid plans.

  Processing rates are the same for all pricing plans if you use GoDaddy Payments.^[1]
  

  • Online credit/debit card rates: 2.3% + 30¢
    
  • In-person credit/debit card rates: 2.3% + 0¢
    
  • Virtual terminal rates: 3.3% + 0¢

• Booking or Online Appointments Feature

  This feature is essential if you're a service business. It's easy to set up online consultations, 1-on-1 training, webinars, etc.

  Customers can easily book your services, whether it's a one-time event or a recurring one. You can have it at a physical location or on online platforms such as Zoom.

  Taking payments is also easy. You can choose to accept them offline or have it required upfront. For upfront payments, you can require a deposit or have customers pay the full amount.

• Blogging Features

  GoDaddy's blogging features are lacking compared to its competitors. You can't set up different headings, which is an essential feature for blog posts. The Styles 1-5 mentioned earlier are only available for editing your web pages.

  The only things you can do include:
  

  • Add a featured image
    
  • Create blog categories
    
  • Add videos and images within the post
    
  • Email the post to newsletter subscribers

  The last bullet makes email marketing easier. It can help you be more consistent when connecting with your audience.

  Because of the limited tools, however, GoDaddy wouldn't be suitable for content businesses. You're better off using WordPress.

  If you do end up creating a blog with your website, you can earn from it with Google AdSense. You can connect your site through Settings within the website builder. If you don't have a Google AdSense account yet, you can also sign up from there.
  

• Customer Engagement Features

  There are 2 ways GoDaddy helps you engage with your customers. One is through Conversations, and the other is through Connections.
  

  • GoDaddy Conversations is a dashboard where you can manage all customer communications. You can organize, view, and reply to messages from your Facebook, Instagram, SMS, etc.
    Pro tip: The mobile app makes responding more convenient. You can reply to your customers on the go. You'll just have to provide your phone number with GoDaddy to download the app.

  • Connections is a feature for creating exclusivity or memberships. Visitors can create member accounts on your site to access private pages. You can choose whether anyone can create an account or if you'll have to send an invite.

Social Media and Marketing Tools
GoDaddy is packed with marketing features. It can even serve as your social media planner, where you can plan and schedule posts.

Aside from managing your socials, you can also create digital ads, optimize with SEO features, and create targeted emails.

Here's what you can do in more detail:

• Social posts
  GoDaddy makes it easy to follow trends so your business can ride the wave. The calendar feature provides an overview of what's current and what's next.

  It's very convenient to plan your content. The dashboard lets you create and schedule posts to be posted everywhere without much effort. You can use it to post on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

  Creating posts is even easier with the template gallery. But you can also upload an image if you already have it. You can add a product, website link, or video in each post.

• Digital ads
  Also from the dashboard, you can set up digital ads. You can promote it on Facebook, Instagram, and Google.

• Email marketing
  Connecting with your community through email marketing is essential for businesses. GoDaddy lets you import subscribers if you already have them. You can also place a subscription form on your website to gain more subscribers.

  There are many templates available for creating emails. But you can start with a blank canvas if you prefer. You can even create a campaign using HTML.

GoDaddy offers marketing services to assist in setting up and managing your campaigns. With their help, you can maximize the potential of online marketing and get the best results.

Now that you know about the features, how much do you have to pay for them?

GoDaddy Pricing

You can choose monthly or annual plans. Annual terms get you an additional discount.

Here's the pricing for annual plans:^[1]

GoDaddy's paid plans come with a professional email that's free for a year. This lets you seem more professional to your customers or clients with an email using your business name or custom domain name (e.g., hello@mybusiness.com).

If you have a physical location for your store, you can also opt for their POS.

You can choose from two kinds of devices:

• GoDaddy Smart Terminal: $249/device
  
• GoDaddy Card Reader with Charging Dock: $49/device

You've got the features listed down and the overview of how much to budget. Let's talk about how to actually set up your store next.

How to Use GoDaddy (Step-by-step)

GoDaddy provides services like website building, online marketing, and eCommerce solutions. We'll give an overview of the steps to create your website and discuss building your business page, products, and appointment.

Here's how you can start building your website with GoDaddy:

1. Choose a plan
   
2. Choose a domain name
   
3. Design your website
   
4. Publish your website
   
5. Manage your website using GoDaddy dashboard
   
6. Promote your website with GoDaddy's tools and services (for example: SEO optimization)
   
7. Monitor your website

Since there are a lot of features to work with, it can get pretty daunting to create your own site. Here are additional steps that can be taken to ensure that your website meets your business needs.

• Initial Question and Answer

  When you start a new site, you'll be asked for your main goals. You could be planning on selling goods and services, for example. Or maybe you're looking for clients to book appointments.

  There's also an option to just start with a basic website and share info about your business. If you're a personal brand, you can also create the site to promote yourself.

  What info do you need to provide next?
  

  1. If you choose to sell, you'll be asked how you prefer to do it. For example, aside from selling on your site, you could also be selling in-person, in online marketplaces, or on social media.

  2. You'll be asked how much sales you make in a year (if applicable). This helps GoDaddy recommend the right products and features for your site.

  3. Next, you'll be asked of your business industry. For example, you could be a skincare brand, an environmental organization, or a portrait photographer. This will help them determine the right website templates to show you.

  4. You'll then add your business name and contact information. You can add your physical address if you have a brick-and-mortar store. You can also add your phone number and email so customers can reach you.

  5. Lastly, you'll get to choose a template for your website. You can customize these templates to your liking.
  Templates can help you get started more easily instead of having a website designed from scratch. But GoDaddy can also generate a custom site for you if you prefer.

  The downside of using GoDaddy is that their templates are limited. Other drag-and-drop editors have many more templates to choose from.
  

• Setting up your website

  The checklist for setting up your site revolves around your business information.
  

  1. You can start with the "About" section, where people can learn more about you and your business. A good "About" section includes your mission statement, your company story and how much you've evolved, and the problems you solve for your customers.

  2. Add your contact info so visitors can reach out to you. This will help them call you and find your location. You can also set up a contact form request on your "Contact" page to keep inquiries organized.

  3. Next, you can add your photos to your site. This could be cover photos for your web pages or gallery. You can add images for products and services later on.

• Setting up your eCommerce Store

  Setting up your online store can be easier from the dashboard instead of within the GoDaddy website builder. But you can still add products while inside the editor.
  

  1. When adding new products, you can upload your product image, set regular and sale prices, create product categories, and input SKUs. You can also add a video URL for a better product overview.

     You can add tax categories, too. Choose from standard, non-taxable, and digital. To manage stock inventory, you can turn tracking on or off. You can also mark items as limited edition.

  2. Next, it's time to set up payments. You can choose from GoDaddy Payments, PayPal, Stripe, or Square. PayPal will be selected by default.
     Choosing GoDaddy Payments will let you accept payments online, in person, and over the phone.

• Setting up appointments

  To set up appointments, you need to add an appointments section on your website through the website editor. You can do so by displaying your services or upcoming events.

  Next, list all your services in the Appointments dashboard.
  

  1. Add an image to showcase your service. Then, you can input your service name and duration in hours or minutes. Add categories and a description, so customers fully understand what you offer.

  2. Aside from adding physical locations, you can select the location as "online." For example, you can perform online consultations through Zoom or Google Hangouts. It's also possible for a customer to select the location.

  3. Set up scheduling options. Customers can book in advance or reschedule online. Set up a buffer time after each of your services so you have time to prepare. That way, your sessions won't be back-to-back.

  4. For one-time events, input the total number of participants (300 is the maximum). You can add staff at multiple events at the same time.

  5. For repeating events, you just set the recurrence schedule. An event can repeat every month or day at a specific time. You can also set when the recurrence ends (e.g., after a certain date or number of occurrences).

  6. After listing all your services, make sure your business info is updated in the Appointments dashboard. Also, set up the contact page through the website builder. That way, your customers will know how to connect with you.

If, at the end of the steps, you find that GoDaddy could be limiting or too much, here are a few alternatives.

What are GoDaddy Alternatives?

There are many other website-building solutions that offer similar features compared to GoDaddy. Sometimes these alternatives offer lower prices or more specialized tools.

Some of the top GoDaddy alternatives include Shopify, WordPress, and Wix.

1. Shopify for eCommerce Businesses

Just like GoDaddy, Shopify is more than a website builder. It's best for eCommerce businesses because of its product management features.

In every online store, the customer's checkout experience is possibly the most important. You'll want to have a website builder that can ensure a great and seamless experience.

Keep in mind that compared to other website builders, designing your store with Shopify is not the easiest. However, it performs omnichannel selling best.

2. WordPress for Content Businesses

Over 40% of all websites use WordPress. The largest companies, such as the Fortune 500, use it. It's possibly the platform where you can get the most features.

It works great for all types of businesses, especially those producing lots of content. But compared to other website builders, it's also the most complicated to learn.

Although, once you get the hang of it, you can do many things with it. Of course, you can always hire a WordPress expert instead.

3. Wix for Showcasing Your Brand

Wix is a website builder with over 800 templates. Subjectively speaking, it also has a lot of aesthetically pleasing designs.

It's great for portfolios, personal use, or for creating a website to showcase your business. It has page presets that let you create them quickly.

To make things even easier, it has an Artificial Design Intelligence feature that can create the website for you. You only need to answer questions related to your business.

The Bottom Line

The GoDaddy website builder, also known as Websites + Marketing, can help you create websites easily.

More than site building, however, GoDaddy is also packed with marketing features that can help bring audiences to your site.

If you're looking for a one-stop shop website builder that can help you get your site ready in a day or two, this is a great option.

References