Overview
GoDaddy was founded in 1997 in Baltimore, Maryland by entrepreneur Bob Parsons. Currently, it has approximately 18.5 million customers and over 7,000 employees worldwide. It was known as one of the world’s most popular domain registrar and hosting providers.
Till 2014, GoDaddy released an eCommerce solution to complement its existing services. The software has been evolving ever since. GoCentral (GoDaddy Ecommerce package), is a combination of GoDaddy’s website builder and online shopping cart host, now called Websites + Marketing. This platform has a reputation for making online selling easy for beginners and small merchants.
The GoDaddy website has already claimed 717 reviews of their platform which is rated at a very respectable 4.1/ 5 on Capterra. So what do customers think after using this platform?
“Want a web page? No time or expertise? Try GoDaddy Website Builder!”
In this article, we will provide you with everything to get the answer to whether or not GoDaddy is the right website builder for you? Keep reading to get:
- Pros and Cons of GoDaddy
- Detailed analysis (Features, price, SEO…)
- Honest reviews of GoDaddy’s users
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Pros and cons of GoDaddy eCommerce
1. Pros
Fast and Rock-solid uptime
Firstly, GoDaddy is primarily known as a domain registrar and hosting provider. One of GoDaddy’s strengths that you can always rely on is a dependable uptime at all times. The company offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee and ensures that promise is upheld.
The average loading time for a GoDaddy-hosted website is 554 milliseconds. With under 50% of websites not loaded in under 2 seconds, GoDaddy manages almost half of a second. You don’t want customers visiting your site only to find that it takes too long to load, or worse is offline.
Ideal for beginners
Most small business owners are too busy to spend weeks designing their first website – they just want to get a website up and running as soon as possible
GoDaddy uses Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) to customize quickly – we’re talking minutes here.
Expressly they have a simple and fast procedure of domain registration coupled with free hosting facilities as well as direct marketing and email promotion tools.
If you’ve never tried dealing with an eCommerce store before, then you’re going to love the experience that you get with GoDaddy.
Hang in there, we will dig deeper into the ease of the website building process. In case you are in a hurry, jump to Ease of use for more detailed information.
2. Cons
Lack of customization
Generally, the main limitation of GoDaddy is the lack of creative customization ability compared to other top hosted platforms. Everything about is incredibly basic. You won’t be able to make large changes to the overall designs of your site.
It is possible for you to add HTML or custom code to your sites like custom forms, maps and special-function buttons — to name only a few options.
GoDaddy’s website builder doesn’t give you control over the little details. For example, you can choose an overall color scheme, but you can’t change the color or font of specific blocks of text. Likewise, users can’t drag and drop items to rearrange a page or adjust the template.
When it comes to design flexibility, you can’t skip through Squarespace – one of the top website builders at present. In case you want to transfer from GoDaddy to Squarespace, this article is for you.
Lack of apps
GoDaddy will only let you deal with a small and simple site. This is because third-party plugins cannot be installed to add more functions to your online stores. GoDaddy does not even have an app store, you can only install a few available apps from the dashboard.
If you want to grow a brand that is more complex professional, you’ll be better suited to a scalable and hosted solution like Shopify.
LitExtension provides professional Godaddy to Shopify migration service to help you easily migrate data on GoDaddy to Shopify yourself.
GoDaddy Pricing
All GoDaddy plans begin with a 1-month free trial, moreover, no part of the website builder is off-limits during your trial, so make good use of it to determine. You don’t need to register a credit card to sign up for it, just an email.
GoDaddy comes with 4 plans depending on the features you need
- Basic – For personal use: 15$/month
- Standard – For new businesses: 20$/month
- Premium – For growing businesses: 25$/month
- Ecommerce – For selling online: 30$/month
However, if you are an online store owner, the one and only package suitable is GoDaddy eCommerce pricing. It includes several features including:
- Add and edit products listings
- Set up flexible shipping options
- Sell products directly through your online store
- Sell on marketplaces like Amazon and Etsy
- Sync orders and inventory across channels
- Manage discounts and promotions
You could save money by registering for the annual plan if you have a long-term plan for your business. You can also save 47% by signing up for an annual subscription for the first year before renewal.
Plus, when you pay for an annual plan for the first year, you’ll get a free one-year domain which usually ranges from 7.99$ to 20.99$/yr.
GoDaddy Help and Support
Plenty of website builders offer email support. But when it comes to asking questions or troubleshooting issues with tech software, nothing really beats a phone call with experts.
You’ll find various support channels like phone support and live chat, along with their existing knowledge base and community forum. GoDaddy offers 24/7 phone support, or you can live chat with a GoDaddy expert all day on weekdays. GoDaddy also has a How-To section, unlike any other website builder I’ve seen. On this page, you can watch video tutorials grouped into comprehensive, stand-alone courses. Are they actually helpful? Let’s check-it-out
Ease of Use
1. Build time
GoCentral’s proposition, “start making sales in under an hour”, definitely holds true. It can help you get your eCommerce store up and running in a flash. No technical skills needed, simple sign-up process, fast and affordable for new entrepreneurs.
As soon as you sign up you’ll be directed to the theme editor, where you can start building your site. Just choose a theme, add your products, verify your payment method and you’re all set.
2. Super easy to use
When you are in the dashboard, the sidebar-based editor is really easy to get the hang of. It is as simplified as possible so that you’re not overwhelmed by too many options. You can click any element on the page to edit it. Each page is divided into sections for easier customization.
You can easily add a menu section, PayPal button, calendar, or more with one click, just need to hit a big + button to add components to your site and all the options are tailored to the sort of business you’re running.
There’s even a mobile editor, so you can build your site and manage your inventory from your tablet or smartphone.
Themes and Customization
Getting started with GoDaddy could hardly be easier (or quicker) thanks to its intuitive ADI tool. Most of them are industry-specific, you just plug in some simple details like the name and industry of your business and GoDaddy will auto-generate a template with pre-loaded content that’s targeted to your general market. There are more 1,500 business categories to choose from.
All themes are smartphone-optimized layouts, and you can preview them on desktop and mobile as you edit.
Nevertheless, there are some limited options for templates. GoDaddy eCommerce only provides 22 website themes and the design doesn’t look as sophisticated as themes from other website builders, like Wix or Shopify.
If you’re looking for a way to customize your store down to the finest details and implement your favorite software into the mix, then you’re just not going to get that with the GoDaddy eCommerce Shop.
Regardless of the ease of the building process of GoDaddy’s theme designs, it certainly lacks some customization functions. You will not be able to edit pages with HTML or CSS. So, there are actually only a few things you can make about GoDaddy templates’ design.
You just can change things like the overall color scheme and font choice, add or delete widgets, insert your images, modify your header and footer, and add more pages to your site.
That is to say, the theme you choose will end up looking very similar to the theme template, which can either be advantageous or disadvantageous.
Sales Tools and Features
When you put Godaddy’s eCommerce plans in comparison with other platforms like Wix or Shopify. Their feature set has been pared down or way behind their competitors, so you’re left with only the essentials.
Here are some common features on GoDaddy eCommerce to help you engage visitors and make more sales:
GoDaddy InSight™ is a smart learning system that provides data and guidance based on your business industry and goals. It’s a guide to direct your efforts so you’re spending time on the tasks that will have the most impact on your business. Next, for tracking the performance data they also provide Insight Score – benchmarking your business to others in your industry and region, with a similar merchant.
You can see data across your website, social media, online reviews, online store and Bookkeeping all in one dashboard. Easily monitor new reviews from Google, Yelp and Facebook and get reminders to respond.
Moreover, with the launch of market selling, GoDaddy eCommerce allows you to integrate to sell products across top marketplaces – Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Walmart, Jet and more.
SEO Features
1. GoDaddy Search Engine Optimization
GoDaddy’s Search Engine Optimization is a do-it-yourself tool that improves your website’s search engine optimization (SEO). It guides you through optimizing your website for search engine inclusion. Search Engine Optimization analyzes your site by applying various rules based on what search engines see when they visit your site. Then it reports the results of the analysis and suggests measures you can take to improve the optimization of your site to improve your website’s visibility on the world’s top search engines like Google®, Bing® and Yahoo®.
You’ll be asked a few simple questions about the kind of targeting you’re after and GoDaddy will suggest the best keywords to use to help your site rank better on Google.
In addition, GoDaddy’s SEO Services is included in all website + marketing builder packages (except for Basic Plan).
2. Blogging
GoDaddy offers a custom dashboard, the opportunity to add a blog to your website, you can quickly post new content to engage visitors with eye-catching photos, tasty recipes or industry insights. So while GoDaddy doesn’t have the most feature-rich blogging platform out there, it will definitely work for basic blogging, as a simple mommy blog.
Thus, it helps get your website to be found on Google, use the traffic to convert visitors to lead:
- Attracting backlinks and social shares.
- To leverage your keywords.
- It can position your site as a resource.
- Capture feedback about your products and services.
- A great way to network and build relationships with industry influencers.
Is GoDaddy Suitable for Your Business?
GoDaddy is very user-friendly and is the fastest outright website builder for creating a website. Its design assistance means you just have to enter your details before GoDaddy creates a tailored website for you to customize.
Simple layouts and guidance on adding elements to your site make for an extremely straightforward and speedy building process. For this reason, it works well with small businesses or beginners who have little to no technical knowledge of building websites, only want to sell a few hundred items, the lack of choices is not a big deal.
Conclusion
GoDaddy eCommerce provides most of the features you need for online sales. The program itself is easy to use with the monthly price. In summary, we suggest you use GoDaddy to create your eCommerce store as it’s a website up fast with a small-scale store. Especially, if you are a newbie or don’t have a technical support team.
On the other hand, if you are looking to build a massive e-commerce store, this is not the right tool for you. GoDaddy isn’t the best choice for powerful or complex websites – it may offer speed and simplicity, but this also means it’s not ideal for building a truly personalized website.
If you’ve already had a website and want to move to a new dream store on GoDaddy platform, we bring you the best solution for migration. You can do a Free Demo with a few simple steps to envision how your store looks like and how the migrations performed with LitExtension. In case you need any assistance with migrations, please feel free to ask. Our support team is always ardor to help.
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