Weebly. has anyone used them?

[michm]

Hi,

I came across Weebly, where you can build a free website. Has anyone used them? Just wanted your thoughts.

Thanks

michm

 

[sirbrandy]

What website are you trying to build? If it's just for your personal hobby/blogging, then that should be fine.

But, if this is for business and in some way you are planning to get money out of it, it is not advisable. You should spend a bit for your own domain than going to those free domain hosting.

 

[Dan_HiHosting]

You can get good quality hosting with your own domain for £20 per year these days, so if you're looking to have your own domain (which is essential for a business) then you'll want to avoid weebly which will overcharge for this and just about everything else.

Their business model is built on roping people in on free hosting and then charging for FTP, for databases, to remove adverts, for a reasonable amount of webspace, the list goes on.

Any decent web host will provide you with an easy to use site builder, and using these you'll have full control and ownership of your site, which isn't the case with the likes of weebly.

Having said that, I'd normally recommend using Wordpress over a site builder. There are lots of good free themes out there, and plenty of help on the internet, including on UKBF.

Many of our clients go that route, having never used Wordpress before, with some great results.

I hope that helps .

 

[Salpots]

Hi,

Would you mind giving me a bit more information about wordpress?

I have a website already etc, but once my website is live I target an American audience via the web and can see by just looking at WP that it has a huge American audience, but didn't grab the concept (other than blogging etc) when I looked.

Is it something I could set up to run alongside my own website as an attention grabber so to speak?

Having said that, I'd normally recommend using Wordpress over a site builder. There are lots of good free themes out there, and plenty of help on the internet, including on UKBF.

Many of our clients go that route, having never used Wordpress before, with some great results.

I hope that helps .

 

[Dan_HiHosting]

Well traditionally Wordpress was used as a blogging tool. So your blog on your site might be powered by Wordpress, and the rest might be a static website, or using another CMS (Content Management System) like Drupal.

So it can be used to grab attention in the sense of getting traffic to your site through useful blog posts shared over the web.

However these days Wordpress is a CMS in itself, which means you can make your entire site in Wordpress using static pages.

It's very easy to use, so it's often the first port of call for beginners or for small to medium sized sites, and it's generally what we recommend depending on your needs.

Of course, you can still have a blog page in your site if your entire site runs on Wordpress.

I hope that helps.

 

[Salpots]

Thank you very much!

 

[Baz Watkins]

Weebly is free, but your restricted to their t&c's. The best way nearly always costs money:

• Buy your own market specific domain from £5 to £15
• Get a market specific webhost from £20 to £50
• Buy a small CMS (Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal etc) website package from £200 to £1,000+ (Price depends on design firm)
• Add chosen market SEO'd content - probably free with the package
• Upload to web host who may manage this for FREE, but maybe budget for it just in case
• Wait a few months to build domain age and page rank
• Wait a while longer to get decent traffic from your chosen market
• If you need an instant return get ppc, if you have a marketing budget get a SEO specialist to build it up organically - PPC and SEO will cost what you want to spend
• Add new market specific content at regular intervals
• Increase your footprint with Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Linkedin pages and posts.

This is in bulletpoint format, but certain things move around, your design may come after your content, your content may fit your chosen design and so on.


Other things to consider:

• You could buy a domain name early and add a holding page to build up age, good idea if you think the website will take time to build.
• Build it all from an SEO viewpoint, so you give yourself the best chance of reaching your target market.
• Don't be cheap, professional work costs money, how much depends on your budget and that professional.

If you have zero budget, get the cheapest market specific domain you can find, the same with a webhost, download Wordpress and add your own words and images making sure to tie what you add to your chosen market. The cost will be less than £100 and it will be all built to your t&c's...

There are other things that could be added, so if I've missed something...soz.

 

[Dave-backthatup]

It depends on what you are using your website for.

If its not to make money buy monetizing with advertisement's then google 'wordpress free' its simple to use and they have a large database of free templates to use.

 

[michm]

Hi,

Sorry for late response.

Its for a cleaning business, just basic to say what I do / prices etc...

I know there are cleaning businesses that get most of their customers from their website and not through the hundreds of leaflets they post!! So thought it would be a good place to start?

Thanks

 

[Dan_HiHosting]

Hi Michm,

Then you'd definitely be better off paying for some decent hosting and setting up a Wordpress site.

It'll look a lot more professional, and wordpress is really well suited to small information/brochure sites like that.

You'd be doing yourself a disservice going for anything less.

If you need any help, just let me know.

Dan

 

[yourcreditmanager]

I use Weebly myself for my business site and would recommend it if you're intending to do your own web design and retain control of the site etc but it takes take time. You've got to weigh up the pros and cons of the DIY option versus getting a professional in.

I register the domain names for my sites via godaddy for a nominal sum each year and have found the weebly web design software reasonably user friendly considering I'm very much a layman at web design. In my experience it was much easier experience that using soho which was just too flippen complex for a technophobic luddite like myself...

I've never used wordpress so I can't comment on the comparison between that and weebly.

Michael

 

[RichB0101]

I've created a couple of sites using Weebly, and the Pros and cons are as follows:
Pros: It is very easy for a non-techie person to build a website; You can build websites very quickly; they have a good range of attractive, business-like templates; they allow a blog; Quite seach-engine friendly
Cons: Everything is free until you want something beyond the basics (others on this thread have pointed this out); It doesn't have as many features and services as WordPress; It's all a bit beginner level
Hope this helps
Richie

 

[Baz Watkins]

£500 buys you a professionally built and seo'd CMS based website, where you own it all, the website, the domain, the images, the content everything. As it is built on a CMS there are no follow on costs except for the yearly domain or hosting fees.

I have built a few websites recently for this value, also providing a phone and written tutorial to help them manage the future of their website.

Only go FREE if your truly skint, if you have even a little bit of money any web designer worth his salt will build you something of quality and longevity.

 

[ecenica]

Hi,

Sorry for late response.

Its for a cleaning business, just basic to say what I do / prices etc...

I know there are cleaning businesses that get most of their customers from their website and not through the hundreds of leaflets they post!! So thought it would be a good place to start?

Thanks

I would really recommend giving WordPress a try first.

WordPress has a gentle learning curve and once you get the swing of things it has so many advantages over Weebly and other site builders.

One of the best features of WordPress is how Google friendly the whole system is. We've setup WordPress sites for Ecenica users and seen their sites listed in Google within a couple of days.

Feel free to get in touch if you have any WordPress-related questions.

Cheers

Rich

 

[Matt121]

Weebly is great for newbies in making their websites as their UI is very user friendly. However, I would not recommend using Weebly for business sites as you are very limited when it comes to the design.

 

[WilliamsData]

Wordpress is extremely well supported and still getting better.

There will be a learning curve with it as opposed to Weebly, but there are so many wordpress guys and companies around supporting it now you will definitely find someone that can help you get started at a price that suits

 

[AJCant]

I used weebly for my first website. I found it very basic such as moving text boxes, and pictures etc. However I did find it to be a good efficient website builder, and an advantage of it is that you can try before you buy.

 

[webgeek]

I've got *cough* a few Weebly sites and can tell you that, since Panda/Penguin, the rate of these sites getting in the Google index is low.

What's that mean?

If you want to build a site and NOT have it found online, then Weebly is a great choice. However, if you are like most - I'd suggest spending the few quid for a domain and hosting package. Inexpensive ones are everywhere!

 

[Dan_HiHosting]

Another key advantage of Wordpress over site builder services like Weebly (other than the fact that Weebly et al ridiculously overcharge for a poor service in the hope that novices won't know better) is that you have full ownership of your site, and can do with it what you please. You can change providers, add more content, and another great advantage is that you can get a professional involved if you want.

Wordpress is very widely used, which really helps for getting support if you want to make your site yourself, but also means there are a wealth of designers out there that can take your site to the next level if you have the budget.

You can test out your business and site by making it yourself in Wordpress, using a free or premium theme, and then as your business grows you can get a bespoke design done by a professional if you want. As you will have done most of the hard work yourself (content, target audience, research etc.) that'll help keep costs down as well.

And Wordpress is excellent for SEO. Like Webgeek said, getting found is what it's all about, for any website, but that's especially important for a business.

 

[WebFixer]

I wouldn't bother with online site creators. You tend to get problems when you want to move away from the host or you need upgrades.

 

[fisicx]

Really?

So blogger, tumblr, facebook, wordpress.com and cause problems?

 

[spreadtrader]

I've used weebly on a few sites.

As someone said it's fine if you don't need to be listed high on google.

The Weebly site for my old business was up for years before it started ranking for very basic locally based key words. Though it was fine to use as a link in email signatures and on business cards and promo stuff etc

Where it would shine is if you wanted to create a test site quickly to run with some adwords - it would be just the job for that as it is so so easy to use.

 

[WebFixer]

Really?

So blogger, tumblr, facebook, wordpress.com and cause problems?

Yes, when you want to do that one techical thing they can't/won't let you do.

Or you don't want a 'footprint' for your website.

Or you just want the site to be under your control and not the webhost.

Or you don't want to pay for upgrades that would come as standard with a pro webhost.

But mainly: I would not be happy spending time promoting a website on a service that could alter its terms or formatting at any time.

A client of mine had a dickens of a time getting his site away from an online site creator service. He had a serious business attached to it and it was not pleasant. The support wasn't there.

 

[Dan_HiHosting]

Really?

So blogger, tumblr, facebook, wordpress.com and cause problems?

I think what was meant is more the likes of Weebly, Mr Site, etc. which rope people in on the promise of things being really cheap or "free" and then overcharge for things that should be included as standard. If you make a site in weebly and then want the features provided by even a £2 per month starter web hosting package you can expect to pay at least 3 times that. Then if you want to move to a host that doesn't charge extra for having a database, or for more email accounts, or ftp access, or anything else you'd expect as standard, moving gets very costly, and from what I've heard, as difficult as they can make it.

With Wordpress, you can host or move your site wherever you like. It's not proprietary, and ranks better.

In my opinion you're better off going with the favoured choice, Wordpress, and then getting help online from the wealth of information and help available, than to rely on poor software to provide that help for you.

We've had a number of UKBF members that were looking at online site builders choose to host with us instead and have Wordpress installed for them automatically and they've got on really well. Their sites look and perform a whole lot better, and it works out more cost effective.

 

[fisicx]

I think what was meant is more the likes of Weebly, Mr Site, etc.

I know. I was just being a bit pedantic.

Many people have done OK with onsite builders. A small hobby site for a knitting group will be fine. A fan site set up by a teenager on wordpress.com is OK as is a weebly site for a local babysitter.

It all depends on your niche. I wouldn't recommend then for anything other than hobby or very local sites but for many they do the job.

 

[ibm@i3media]

Weebly is good only to a certain extend. It has very limited features that are free. Wordpress is still the better option.