GoDaddy Website Builder Review
Almost every website builder platform is finding ways to make website creation easy for its users. This effort to reach non-coder users is one thing that led us to this GoDaddy website builder review. As the largest and most popular domain name registrar, GoDaddy is famous for many things – one of which is its ridiculously low pricing.
With GoDaddy, you can set up your website in just a few minutes. And if you’re not yet sure if this platform is for you, GoDaddy offers a trial period, making it the best free website builder for beginners.
GoDaddy Website Builder PROS and CONS
So far, GoDaddy is one of the biggest and most accessible website builders. Aside from its website building platform, you can also create storefronts and avail many of their web products.
But is this website builder the right pick for you? We weighed on the pros and cons here.
PROS
-A website can be up and running in a few minutes
-Very cheap pricing for hosting and domain
-Very intuitive and easy to use
-The platform is very popular and many websites are created in it
-Users will enjoy a 1-month free trial
-Tons of templates to choose from
-24/7 support for all users
CONS
-You can’t change themes without losing content
-Basic design and look
-Less freedom to create and design
-The features aren’t as in-depth as what competitors have
Overall Score: 8.9/10
Key features
Thousands of websites are created in GoDaddy. Its slew of features and ease of use make it an appealing choice for most users. Their philosophy is this: build your website under an hour. Sure thing, you can get a website live in just a few minutes even if you’re a newbie. Their website builder is intuitive enough for many to wrap their heads around.
As much as GoDaddy is great for beginners, we also have some caveats that we will discuss along the way. To get you started, here are the major features that we like about GoDaddy:
New blogging feature. About a year or two ago, GoDaddy doesn’t have a built-in blogging feature. They’ve just released this functionality and still a work in progress. You can’t save drafts, schedule blogs in a later date, no RSS feed, no customizable URL, and no comments section. Overall, this is for casual bloggers but not for professional ones.
Newsletter support. You can capture email listings on the Subscriber section which automatically integrates with GoDaddy’s marketing tool. You can also import it to third-party software like MailChimp.
Restaurant menu. For businesses like restaurants and cafés, the menu feature will be helpful in setting up a store website. It’s also easy to edit the items on the go. You just click the item, edit it, and save it.
App market. If you want to add more features and functionality, you can scout for add-ons in GoDaddy’s App Market but with additional fees.
Available widgets. GoDaddy’s widgets cover the basic functions like social sharing, calendar, picture gallery, and more. However, some important integrations are missing.
These are just some of the features of the GoDaddy website builder. We admit that there are some missing pieces like multilingual options, designing from scratch, membership systems, form builders, and so on. Most of all, we wish GoDaddy offers password protection for specific pages. When it comes to the fun factor, we can say that GoDaddy is a bit mediocre but still worth the try.
Ease of use
When it comes to ease of use, we think GoDaddy gets the upper hand from its competitors. Most of the legwork has been done by the website builder so users no longer have to deal with the technical setup. It’s like everything is already served on the plate and you just need to eat it.
However, this fact also brings in some downsides. Since GoDaddy had pre-set some of the options, users find it limiting at some point. There’s less creative freedom due to the stiff settings and tweaking what’s already there also proves to be a challenge.
Nevertheless, we and other users have great things to say for GoDaddy. First, it’s very user-friendly. The platform never fails to guide you on the process of creating a website. It’s as if everything is being spoon fed to the users.
Through this, you can already create a good-looking website in half an hour. The basics are covered but if you want to do in-depth designing, we’re afraid it’s going to be difficult.
GoDaddy website builder templates
When it comes to the design and templates, GoDaddy loses a lot of points. Almost all their themes have the same format and style which is problematic if you want to stand out from the crowd. Yes, there are some differences, but too little that it’s hard not to notice the resemblance.
Although you have around 300 themes to choose from, finding unique ones can be a challenge. And if ever you want to switch to another theme, you’re doomed. You simply can’t change without losing your website’s content. This is a big problem for big websites that need serious revamps.
You can try to customize the look but you can’t go too far. If you want to modify your theme, you’ll find it exhausting as you’ll need to enter your preferences multiple times just to see the results visually.
As for the depth of navigation, you only stick to one level. Anyway, you can always place another menu if you want to display additional navigation.
SEO
For the SEO department, we think GoDaddy provides the staples. You can edit the descriptions and page titles but there’s no separate SEO setting other than that. When it comes to the blog section where SEO efforts can be done, the possibilities are limited too. You can’t embed videos and the order of the headlines doesn’t make sense. If you’re planning to rank on Google, GoDaddy isn’t the best platform for you. If you want, you can load an external blog to your GoDaddy site.
One problem with GoDaddy is that, sometimes, products in a store can have wrong titles and no meta descriptions. Generally, you can’t integrate a rich snippet feature which is a big ranking factor on Google.
If we are to sum up GoDaddy’s SEO factor, it’s painfully basic. Too painful that those who seriously want to reach the top of the SERPs need to look elsewhere.
Integrations and plugins
The good news here is that GoDaddy offers more integration that its rival website builders. First, it allows you to set up and manage newsletters, integrate widgets, and add more functionality through the App Market. You can also use HTML codes or JavaScript to tweak the website.
For online shops, there are many integrations that can be done. Mostly, GoDaddy has a specialization on this aspect. But when it comes to making your website seen, this could be a challenge when it comes to organic search.
GoDaddy website cost
If there’s one thing that you should know about GoDaddy, it’s that their pricing is very, very affordable. Both the domain and hosting only cost a pocket change. This is a big selling factor of the platform as compared to its competitors. No doubt, GoDaddy is very popular all over the internet.
To give you an idea, here’s the pricing table for GoDaddy’s packages. If you’re not yet ready to put your money on it, the 1-month trial should be enough to let you decide.
| PRICE | STARTER Free | PREMIUM $4.61/mo. | BUSINESS $5.38/mo. | eCOMMERCE $9.23/mo. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hosting | Free | Free | Free | Free |
| Domain name | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Website stats | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Ad Credits | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Priority support | No | No | Yes | Yes |
For those who are serious about creating a sustainable website, this pricing chart is already a catch. Remember, however, that GoDaddy is more of an e-commerce website builder. If you want to create a blogging site, you may reconsider the likes of WordPress or Squarespace instead. The SEO tools here are very limited more so the blogging features that you can use.
Customer support
GoDaddy has a 24/7 customer support which is excellent in almost any way. You can reach them through phone, ticketing, or email. You can also refer to their help center for self-help resources and GoDaddy website builder tutorial.
It may not be the best option for bloggers, but for online stores, this is a champ platform.
Should you choose GoDaddy?
It depends on what you actually need. If you’re just looking for a simple website builder with telephone support and appointment systems on its platform, GoDaddy is a good choice. However, it’s important to identify its limitations before you sign up.
If you’re an aspiring blogger who’s planning to structure more than 10 pages, it’s best to consider other platforms. The blogging and SEO tools in GoDaddy are very limited and you’ll be frustrated over time.
In this GoDaddy website builder review, we hope that you’ve decided whether GoDaddy is the right platform for you. If you have experiences to share about the website builder, let us know below!