Jimdo Website Builder Review
For those who are looking for an intuitive website builder with a very affordable price tag, Jimdo is a classic choice. Upon seeing Jimdo website examples, we can say that this platform offers freedom, customization, and website creation in all ways possible. It aims to remove the technical barriers that discourage a user from establishing his or her own online presence.
Jimdo has serviced more than 20 million websites and they are directly marketed toward businesses including restaurants, retailers, and even freelancers. Over the years, Jimdo has added more features on its stash while making sure that the website builder remains easy to use.
Jimdo PROS and CONS
Overall, Jimdo provides all the basic needs of creating a website. Although it can get a bit tricky when it comes to editing, the platform does most of the work for you. Read on our Jimdo review:
PROS
-Very affordable pricing
-You can get unlimited storage on the Unlimited plan
-Excellent support and help resources
-Full control over SEO
-Comes with both an Android and iOS app
-Very easy to use even for beginners
CONS
-There are editing limits on the templates
-There’s no restore option
-The elements on the website tend to be clunky
-The templates are not always attractive
Overall Score: 9/10
Key features
Jimdo started with two teens working their way through the web in a farmhouse in Germany. From the humble beginnings to 200 employees to date, this platform has gone a long way. Jimdo was able to sustain its popularity due to the suite of features that its users love. While it improves the platform and new tools get added, the website builder remains user-friendly.
Of course, like any website builder, Jimdo also has its upsides and downsides. But overall, the negative points are outweighed by the positive ones. Here are some of the great features that make Jimdo a topnotch website builder:
Excellent SEO. Search engine optimization is one of Jimdo’s strongest suits. If you avail the paid plan, you can edit meta descriptions, URLs, titles, and alt tags among others. On the premium plans, you can set 301 redirects too. However, remember that the free Jimdo account pages don’t get indexed on Google. If you want to rank, you better pay for a premium account.
Jimdo blog page. Although there are no category options here, the Jimdo blog is still a great feature for SEO purposes. It contains the usual pingbacks and trackbacks plus you can install Disqus to integrate a comment section.
Site stats. Jimdo has one of the most comprehensive Google Analytics integration we’ve seen. It’s nicely installed on the website which allows you to track the performance of your platform.
HTML code. You can add widgets using HTML codes. This is added functionality aside from manually editing your website.
Password protection. Depending on the premium plan you chose, you can password protect multiple pages. However, blog posts can’t be password protected. Still, this is an excellent feature if you want to give some of your readers special access.
There are more features to explore inside Jimdo. The above-mentioned points are just some of the things we like and what we found useful.
Ease of use
Jimdo is very easy to navigate and its clean and seek UI makes it even more intuitive. No need for coding or brain-racking setup since the site is fully hosted and you’ll get a free domain for the first year.
The drag-and-drop editor of Jimdo is comparable to creating PowerPoint presentations. It’s pretty easy to understand and effortless once you get the hang of it. Just click on the section and you can edit the text and other elements.
You can also drag images into the page you’re editing. If you want added functionality like contact forms or widgets, you just click the add button. Even dummies can learn this platform for under an hour.
With its ready-to-use templates, there is only a little legwork left to do. However, this fact can also be a downside. Jimdo is a bit restrictive if you want to change how the theme works. If you’re planning to go against the pre-set layout, it could be a bit of a problem.
Nevertheless, this is made for beginners and those looking for a ready-made website. If you’re the type who wants to code or perform in-depth designing, you’re better off with the likes of WordPress.org.
Jimdo responsive templates
Jimdo’s themes are also simple – too simple that it’s bordering to being unattractive. Of course, you can choose other templates with sidebars and widgets, but most of their available designs are too simple to look good. The options are also very limited.
On the flipside, customization is a breeze. You can beautify your website even if the theme can’t be revamped massively. If you use the Jimdo Style By Element where you can place styles for elements of the same kind. Take note that you’re not going to style each element individually but by its type.
If you want to skip the hassle of styling, you can use the Jimdo ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence). You’ll just answer some of the questions the Jimdo platform will ask and they will create the website for you. Anyway, you can still edit the website from there.
Do you want to have full control? You should use the Jimdo Creator. Through this, you can drag things, resize elements, and customize elements to your heart’s content.
SEO
Unlike other website builders, Jimdo does SEO the right way. The platform has a slew of tools that you can use to help your website rank better on search engines. It covers the staples like editing alt tags, metadata, headers, and so on.
Aside from that, the website builder will walk you through the process of optimizing your website. This is a great thing for those who are new to SEO.
However, the Play package which is free doesn’t come with any SEO tools. Basically, this won’t be indexed on Google. But aside from that, the rest of the packages have advanced SEO tools that you can enjoy using.
Integrations and add-ons
Sad news for fans of add-ons and paid integrations, Jimdo doesn’t have an integrated App Store yet. Still, you can integrate social media sharing widgets and embed videos to make your website look great and more informative.
Moreover, there’s no newsletter tool inside the platform. If you want to use this functionality, you can source a third-party software for an external newsletter. We also wish that Jimdo has the backup and restore for added value.
The consolation here is that Jimdo integrated Google Analytics seamlessly on its platform. No need for a separate site stats tool. Also, setting up a multilingual website is possible as the platform supports eight languages. As for the editor, it supports any language so there wouldn’t be a problem on your end.
Pricing
Like what we said earlier, Jimdo is a pretty affordable platform. However, they don’t offer a monthly payment. You will pay a whole year of subscription upfront at a monthly rate. Nevertheless, the pricing is very affordable even more those who are on a budget:
| PACKAGES | START
$9/mo. |
GROW
$15/mo. |
ECOMMERCE
$19/mo. |
UNLIMITED
$39/mo. |
| Storage | 5 GB | 15 GB | 15 GB | Unlimited |
| Bandwidth | 10 GB | 20 GB | 20 GB | Unlimited |
| No. of pages | 10 | 50 | 50 | Unlimited |
| Design analysis | No | No | No | Yes |
| Support Response time | 1-2 business days | 1-2 business days | 1-2 business days | Less than an hour |
Remember that the domain is free for a year only and you’ll have to pay for $20 thereafter. It’s a bit expensive as compared to GoDaddy and other domain name registrars.
Jimdo has a free package but it has very limited resources. First off, you’ll only have 500 MB of Jimdo free storage, 2 GB of bandwidth, and the pages won’t be indexed on Google. There’s no point in creating a stunning website if it won’t be seen by your prospect readers.
If you’re not yet sure if Jimdo is for you, the free account would be a good start. But remember that the more you pay the more features you get. Besides, the packages won’t hurt your pocket even if it’s paid annually.
Jimdo support
The level of support depends on which plan you will avail. If you want a fast response, it’s better to avail the Unlimited package. Nevertheless, you can reach Jimdo through social media or email. They also have their knowledge base where you can access FAQs and other self-help resources.
Even though Jimdo doesn’t have a live chat or phone support, their other means of support provide clear and useful answers. On their knowledge base, you’ll have a mix of images, text, and videos if you need help with setup and other things.
Support quality is considerably high and the lack of real-time response is compensated by the readily available resources. For those with a free account, there is an accessible chatbot and support documentation. But if you have urgent concerns, you’ll have to be patient.
So is this for you? By looking on Jimdo website examples, beginners will have fun using this website. But for those who want in-depth website creation, this platform would show its limits.