Review of GoDaddy Website Builder. Does it work well?

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There is no question that GoDaddy is one of the most well-known names in the field of internet business. You can construct your website using the company’s very own website builder, despite the fact that they are best known for providing domain names and web hosting services.

They have just released an entirely new version, and if that makes you feel as though you’ve experienced something similar before, it’s probably because this is the second time in the past two years that they have done so. Their website builder, which was formerly known as GoCentral (and before that, as simply Version 7), has recently been rebranded as an entirely new builder that is simply referred to as Websites + Marketing. But why the plus sign before marketing? In a moment, we will discuss that further.

Since the most significant drawback of the earlier version was that it was too restrictive, we were curious to learn whether or not GoDaddy has finally made improvements to their website builder in light of all these new features. It has a spruced up user interface, and it comes completely free of charge. At first glance, it appears to hold a lot of potential.

Let’s get right down to business and investigate the specific alterations that have been made to GoDaddy’s website builder.

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What to expect from the GoDaddy Website Builder review?

GoDaddy Websites + Marketing is a website builder that is user-friendly for beginners and offers designs that are optimized for mobile devices. The most recent version aims to provide a solution that is more comprehensive overall, particularly in terms of marketing (hence the new name). There is a Content Creator that can assist you in producing social media posts, a blogging feature that is adequate, an email marketing tool that is cute and compact, and an SEO Wizard that can assist you in optimizing your website.

GoDaddy provides a free plan in addition to paid plans that begin at a reasonable $11.99 per month in price. They all include website hosting and support that is available around the clock. However, if you go with the free plan, you won’t be able to use a personalized domain name. In addition, the “Ecommerce” plan is the one and only option available to you if your goal is to launch an online store.

GoDaddy Pricing

Free $0 

For straightforward websites that make use of the godaddysites.com domain. There will be an advertisement displayed at the very top of each page, and access to certain features will be restricted.

Basic $11.99

Provides you with the ability to use your own domain and eliminates GoDaddy advertisements. Advanced SEO is not included in this package. enables only a limited number of posts across social media platforms and email marketing sends.

Premium $21.99

Includes advanced search engine optimization features. You are limited to sending 500 emails and making 20 posts across social media.

Commerce $24.99

25,000 messages sent via email and unlimited posts across all social media platforms. Added features for scheduling appointments online, such as the ability to accept payments and set up recurring events.

Commerce Plus $44.99

E-commerce features such as payment processors that accept credit cards and the ability to recover items from abandoned shopping carts are included.

We are currently displaying the renewal prices for annual contracts. In most cases, the discount applies only to the first year. Included is a free yearlong domain name registration.

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Pros

Mobile-friendly layouts

The layouts are responsive and can be adapted to fit tablets and mobile phones. Even the editor for the website can be accessed from mobile devices.

Simple to use

The editor has a very clean organizational scheme. Including or excluding components is as easy as a stroll in the park.

Swift loading times

In point of fact, GoDaddy came out on top in the comprehensive comparison we did of the loading times of page builders.

Marketing all-in-one solution

GoDaddy Websites + Marketing allows you to manage a large number of your marketing functions in a single location by providing you with an enhanced blogging feature, an integrated email marketing tool, and a social media content creator.

Cons

Shortcomings in SEO

The SEO settings for the lower-tier plans are extremely fundamental, and the settings for the higher-tier plans aren’t significantly more advanced. In point of fact, we find that certain aspects are positively detrimental to SEO (e.g. the auto-generated page URLs that get changed every time you tweak a page title). Website builders such as Squarespace provide you with superior SEO customization options.

No app store

Your website’s functionality can only be expanded to a certain extent because there are only a few integrations available to choose from.

Incompatible version updates

GoDaddy has a track record of releasing an entirely new website builder approximately once every two years. The fact that you are unable to transfer your content to the new platform is the major drawback of this situation. You will have no choice but to reconstruct your website as the level of support for the older products continues to decrease.

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Brief Features Overview

Ease Of Use

The website builder offered by GoDaddy provides a pleasant and straightforward editing experience. It is organized in the same way as the majority of other website builders, with a dashboard that serves as the hub for site management and page sections that can be added to and edited without leaving the visual editor. It is even possible to edit your site while using a mobile device, which is an additional convenient feature. There are no concerns raised here; however, a “undo” function might be useful.

Templates And Flexibility Of Design

The themes may not be particularly innovative, but they are well-organized and responsive even on mobile devices. Depending on the kind of website you’re creating, GoDaddy will make some recommendations for you to select from among their available themes (store, restaurant, blog etc).

Because it is not a drag-and-drop builder, you will not have unrestricted control over the layouts of your pages. You do, however, get a good variety of options for displaying content (columns, image next to text, etc.), which enables you to put together a design that will probably come very close to what it is that you are looking for. This is a significant improvement over the previous version.

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Advertisement-Free

At the very top of each and every page is a banner advertisement. On paid plans, this limitation can be removed.

Languages

Both the editor and the dashboard are translated into a great number of languages in addition to English. Unfortunately, there is no provision for the creation of a website that supports multiple languages. Site123 is an excellent platform for developing a multilingual website, provided that you enjoy the editor experience.

Your Very Own Domain Name 

If you have a paid plan for your website, you will have the ability to use a domain name that is completely unique to you. You can accomplish this by purchasing it directly through GoDaddy, transferring it, or connecting it to an existing account. Other options are also available.

Depth Of Navigation

In practice, there is only one level, but it is possible to include a menu so that additional navigation links can be displayed in a single location. This will help to create a navigational appearance that is cleaner. However, we would only recommend GoDaddy for websites that are less than 10 pages.

Widgets (Functional Add-Ons That Come In The Form Of Small Tools)

You already have access to some really helpful features out of the box, such as an appointment scheduler, website popup, messenger (a form of live chat), and the capability to embed media. Integrations with a number of third-party tools can also be added to the platform (including SoundCloud, GoFundMe, Yelp, and OpenTable). Unfortunately, there is still not an app store available, which could be limiting for the website you are developing.

Mobile Apps

The GoDaddy app is extremely versatile, allowing you to not only make changes to your website but also to manage bookings, store orders, and social media accounts. If you have a GoDaddy store, your device can also be converted into a point-of-sale reader, allowing you to accept payments using just that. The app is, alas, only downloadable in the United States of America and Canada. However, if you go to websites.godaddy.com, you can use the mobile-friendly editor to make changes to your website.

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E-Commerce

A PayPal button integration is available across all pricing tiers. If you want to run an online store, you’ll need to upgrade to the most expensive plan. This includes some nice extras such as the ability to book appointments, review products, and integrate with online marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and more. There is also GoDaddy Payments, which is GoDaddy’s very own payment processor and is offered to customers in the United States. However, GoDaddy is really only suitable for use with stores that sell fewer than 5000 items. If you have a larger store, you should check out our guide to the best ecommerce website builders for superior options.

Search Engine Optimization (Seo)

Unfortunately, the only SEO options available with the free plan and the lowest paid plan are restricted to page titles and descriptions. In addition, even after upgrading, the available optimization settings are not very advanced. For instance, you are unable to edit the SEO for your blog posts. And what’s even more perplexing is that you can’t change the URLs of the pages either. These URLs are auto generated, and they change every time you modify the title of a page, which is terrible for search engine optimization. We did enjoy the fact that you are able to view Google search metrics directly within the tool; however, their “big SEO draw,” which is the SEO wizard, is really only useful if you are just starting out.

Blog

The new version of the blog is unquestionably an advancement over the older one, as it includes several new features such as commenting, social sharing, email subscription, and category organization (thanks to a built-in integration with Disqus). Text, images, and videos are the only forms of content that can be uploaded, and an HTML editor is not available.

Visitor Statistics

Through the use of the Insights feature, users have access to statistics such as pageviews as well as a score that is compared to that of other sites that are comparable. Integration with Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, and Pinterest Meta Tag is also possible. It is possible to add yet another tool by making use of the HTML element.

The Contact Page

The contact form feature is pretty advanced, with the ability to add fields, display an opt-in button, and even include a ‘Message us on Whatsapp button.’ (WhatsApp button) You have a number of options available to you for how to present it (for instance, with a map).

Password Protection & Member Areas

You can protect certain pages with a password and then invite members to view them by having them create their own login. Additionally, you have the option to conceal pages from the navigation.

Newsletter Tool

Simple email marketing campaigns can be carried out with the help of GoDaddy’s integrated newsletter solution. You will have access to all of your standard statistics, such as opens, clicks, bounces, and so on, when you use it.

Add Code For Html

Pages can have HTML, CSS, and JavaScript added to them through the element that is specifically designated for that purpose.

Storage Space

Unlimited!

There is no limit on either the amount of web space or the bandwidth. The maximum number of pages that can be created is 999.

Support

Support Channels: FAQ, Chat, Email, Telephone.

A knowledge base that includes how-to videos and step-by-step guides will be of assistance to you during the initial stages. Even though it’s great that there is support available around the clock, we sometimes found it to be rather slow. Phone support, a community forum, and a blog are some of the additional help resources available.

Fun Factor

One of the more user-friendly editors that we’ve experimented with, featuring a respectable selection of design layout options and practical content sections (image galleries, price lists etc). A significant improvement over the earlier version, in which you did not have a great deal of room for creative expression.

Overall Rating

GoDaddy does a great job of living up to its reputation as a user-friendly website for novices because the platform is uncomplicated, user-friendly, and easy to navigate. In addition to this, it provides an excellent selection of built-in sales and marketing tools, such as a blog, an online store, a social media creator, and email marketing, all of which perform exceptionally well. Although it has limited design control and search engine optimization (SEO) options, we believe that it could be useful for anyone whose website requirements aren’t overly complicated.

Review of GoDaddy Website Builder: A Closer Look at GoDaddy’s Features

How simple is it to create a website?

Feeling apprehensive about creating your first website from scratch? To our great relief, GoDaddy makes it nearly impossible to make a mistake! In point of fact, it provides two distinct methods, both of which are very easy to use, for constructing your website.

The first thing you can do is head on over to the homepage for GoDaddy Websites + Marketing and then click the button that says “Start for Free.”

The first step in the process consists of GoDaddy asking you a series of questions about the kind of website you want to build. You are able to change your responses at any time by clicking the “Back” button in the event that you make an error or have a change of heart.

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You also have the option of proceeding directly to the Templates page, where you can search through the various categories to locate a design that appeals to you. When you move your mouse over it, you’ll see that you have the option to either preview the template as a published website or to select it for your site by clicking the ‘Start Editing’ button.

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The flexibility to change your template is one of the aspects that sets GoDaddy apart from its competitors. You won’t lose any of the content you’ve added to your website if you use GoDaddy because you can switch to a completely different theme. From what we’ve seen, it’s extremely unusual to come across a website builder that provides this feature. It is therefore helpful to be aware that you are able to update your design at any time, should you ever feel the need to shake things up a little bit.

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Changing the theme of a website hosted by GoDaddy — amazingly, you won't lose any of your content if you switch to a different template.

GoDaddy provides a helpful checklist of ‘Next steps’ for you to refer to in order to orient yourself. These are based on the goals for the website that you specified in the past, and they can assist you in determining where you should direct the majority of your efforts:

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Although there are a few idiosyncrasies, navigating the editor is relatively simple and uncomplicated. To start, the GoDaddy editor is not a drag-and-drop interface, despite the fact that it is visual (in the sense that you can see the changes you make as you make them). Because of this, it is not possible to move elements like text and images around by dragging them; rather, the only way to add sections is to select one from a list of pre-built layouts:

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You will also observe that there is not an inline text editor available. Consequently, any alterations that you make to the text are displayed in a window to the right of the editor, as opposed to appearing directly on the page:

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In this sense, it is less flexible and intuitive than drag-and-drop website builders like Wix and Squarespace, which give you the ability to place content wherever you’d like (although this can also have its drawbacks if you don’t have design expertise). In other words, it doesn’t allow you to place content wherever you’d like. On the other hand, if you don’t need to have complete control over the design of your website, this option is perfect for you.

If you are in the process of developing a website for your company, this could very well be the situation. In this context, having a reliable collection of online business tools is likely going to be more important than having a website design that breaks new ground. Now that we have that out of the way, let’s investigate the tools that the GoDaddy website builder provides for small businesses.

Tools for Business and Marketing at GoDaddy

Booking appointments

Customers will be able to schedule appointments for services, events, or classes offered by your company directly through your website by utilizing the appointment booking feature offered by GoDaddy.

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A website owned by GoDaddy contains an appointment booking calendar.

To configure it, you will need to log out of the Editor and into the primary dashboard for your GoDaddy account. You can locate it by selecting the ‘Appointments’ menu option at the very top of the page.

Appointment booking on your website is very easy to set up; all you need to do is add each of your services, and then choose whether you want to organize them as Appointments, One-time Events, or Repeating Events. You also have the ability to set prices, to accept payments, to add details about video conferencing, and even to let customers reschedule their appointments online.

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It would be a nice touch to be able to manage customer reminders via email and SMS, and even allow customers to book via Instagram or Facebook. These would both be examples of nice extra touches.

After putting it through its paces, we can confidently say that this is one of GoDaddy’s most impressive offerings. We compared it to other online scheduling tools and discovered that this one was not only more user-friendly but also more cost-efficient.

This is because there is no additional cost associated with adding this feature to your website. Instead, this feature is incorporated into all of the plans, even the free one. (For example, Squarespace’s Acuity Scheduling solution costs between $14 and $45 per month, and Wix’s Wix Bookings tool is only available to customers on paid plans.)

On the other hand, the Basic plan’s entry level grants you permission to schedule only one-time appointments (e.g. consultations). You’ll need to upgrade to at least the Premium plan if you want to sell events and recurring appointments (like classes and workshops), both of which require more expensive software. If you need to accept payments online, the same thing applies to you (which is only possible for sites in the US, Canada, UK, and Australia).

Instruments of marketing

When GoDaddy made the decision to change the name of its website builder to “GoDaddy Websites + Marketing,” the company made a very deliberate step into the realm of online marketing. So, let’s find out how well it lives up to that promise, shall we?

When you navigate to “Marketing” in the dashboard menu, you’ll find a decent number of features within the marketing toolkit that GoDaddy provides, including the following:

  • Social media manager — enables you to link your various social media accounts, set up posting schedules, and even produce social content with the assistance of GoDaddy Studio’s content creator.
  • Marketing calendar — provides you with a list of upcoming events and holidays that can serve as a source of inspiration for your marketing campaigns.
  • Digital ads — permits the creation of advertising campaigns on Facebook and Instagram, as well as their management.
  • SEO – you can add search-optimized text to your site with the assistance of GoDaddy’s SEO Wizard, which also assists you in locating relevant keywords to target.
  • Email Marketing — a newsletter editor that gives you the ability to send out email marketing campaigns.
  • Blog — permits the creation of blog posts, as well as their scheduling and publication.

We believe that one of these, GoDaddy Studio Content Creator, is among the most helpful of these. You won’t have any trouble becoming accustomed to the editor if you have previous experience using graphic design software such as Canva. You can choose from hundreds of different templates, and downloading the images and putting them to use in your social media posts is completely free of charge.

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GoDaddy's social media content creator

The SEO Wizard is also a good starting point for those who are new to search engine optimization because it provides a step-by-step guide on how to optimize your site. This makes it an ideal tool for those who are just getting started in the field. However, we have discovered that website builders such as Wix provide more advanced SEO options (such as 301 redirects and editable robot.txt files, among other things), and as a result, they are a better choice for those who have more experience with SEO.

GoDaddy’s blog actually comes with some very handy features, such as the ability for readers to share posts to social media and to receive blog updates via email. The Blog is an essential tool for those who aim to get more organic traffic to their site, and those who want to do so should consider using GoDaddy’s blog.

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However, it is lacking in a few other important characteristics. You are unable to, for instance, add multiple authors or enable commenting on the post. Within the editor itself, you will only be able to add text, images, videos, and dividers; you will not have the option to create tables or galleries, nor will you have the ability to embed HTML code.

If you’re looking for more advanced blogging functionality, your best bet would be a tool like Squarespace, which offers a significantly wider variety of blogging features than other platforms.

Despite this, we believe it’s important to point out that GoDaddy provides many marketing tools that other website builders simply don’t have available to them. GoDaddy might be exactly what you’re looking for if you want an easy-to-manage website and marketing solution that includes everything you need in one package.

Selling online with GoDaddy

If you choose an ecommerce plan from GoDaddy, you’ll also have the option to add an online store to your website at no additional cost. To that end, how does the ecommerce functionality of GoDaddy stack up against that of other platforms? Let’s find out.

The first thing you need to understand is that GoDaddy is really only designed for stores that are either small or medium-sized. Even though the two ecommerce plans have product limits ranging from 5,000 to unlimited, we believe that if you attempted to reach these limits, you would start to notice a significant slowdown in the performance of your website.

It is probably more realistic to aim for a maximum of a few hundred physical and/or digital products. If you have plans to increase your sales, you should consider using an e-commerce platform that can handle larger product catalogs, such as Shopify or WooCommerce for WordPress.

Second, because of its size and scope, GoDaddy is in the enviable position of being able to provide customers with a wide range of additional services in addition to an online store builder. When you hover your cursor over “Commerce” in the navigation menu of the dashboard, you’ll see a ton of different options, including the following:

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Let’s go into these topics in a little bit more depth.

The Commerce Hub is a reporting dashboard that provides you with an overview of the sales of products as well as any services that you may sell (via the appointment booking tool we explored earlier).

It is important to note that this does not only show you the product sales that have been made through your online store; rather, it also incorporates sales that have been made through other channels, such as a physical store, the phone, social media, or online marketplaces. This is an interesting aspect of this situation.

These are able to be linked through the Marketplaces & Social and In-Person & POS menu options, respectively. The first alternative gives you the ability to set up a point of sale (such as a physical store or market stall). Either by purchasing terminals and card readers directly from GoDaddy or by using the GoDaddy mobile app to process payments, you will have the ability to accomplish this goal.

The second one enables you to connect your GoDaddy store with online marketplaces such as Etsy, Facebook, eBay, and Amazon. You’ll have the ability to manage sales and inventory all from within GoDaddy, which is a huge benefit if you’re selling across multiple marketplaces because it means you’ll never have to leave the platform.

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Connecting your GoDaddy account to any of these other online sales channels is possible.

GoDaddy also provides a payment processing service known as GoDaddy Payments. This service enables users to accept payments via credit and debit cards while simultaneously lowering the associated transaction fees. Please be aware that at this time, this feature is only available in the United States. If you are located outside of the United States, however, you can connect PayPal, Square, and Stripe and accept offline payments.

That is all wonderful news if you have been in the retail business for a long time; however, if you are new to selling, how simple is it to get started selling things on your website?

You will, thankfully, discover that GoDaddy’s online store manager is just as user-friendly to navigate as the rest of the website builder that the company offers.

You can begin by adding products one at a time, or you can import them all at once (via CSV, or from an existing Square, Amazon, Etsy, eBay, Walmart or Google catalog). It is possible to sell both physical and digital products, which is great news if you are interested in selling digital products such as music files or ebooks, for instance.

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Additionally, there is a decent amount of leeway for personalizing product listings. You can enable an ‘Add-on’ field that gives customers the ability to personalize their product, in addition to the standard options that are included in all ecommerce builders (descriptions, inventory levels, variants, etc.). This field is enabled by default.

However, we did notice that a few extra subfolders were added to the final URL, which is not ideal. From an SEO standpoint, we liked that you can customize the URLs for each of your products; however, we did notice that this was not the case. Despite this, it appears that this is a widespread issue with e-commerce builders – Shopify stores all use a URL format that is relatively similar.

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GoDaddy adds /ols/products/ to product URLs, which isn’t ideal

Now that we’ve covered some of GoDaddy’s more ecommerce-specific features, let’s look at some other ecommerce solutions and see how GoDaddy stacks up against them.

The available shipping options aren’t all that terrible. GoDaddy gives you the ability to offer free or local shipping, in addition to in-person pickup for your customers. You can get real-time shipping rates from both USPS and UPS if you are located in the United States. You also have the option of purchasing shipping labels through a ShipEngine integration, which grants you access to discounted rates offered by a variety of shipping companies, including USPS, UPS, and FedEx. On the other hand, e-commerce platforms like Shopify (and even Wix) provide you with more customization options.

Different regions have the option to manually configure their own tax rates. You will have access to automated sales tax calculations if you are on the highest ecommerce plan that GoDaddy offers thanks to the integration of Avalara that they offer (again, this is only available in the US). This is comparable to what is offered by Shopify, Wix, and Squarespace; however, if you are located outside of the United States, Shopify offers a greater number of automated options.

Although you have the ability to send automated emails to customers whose shopping carts have been abandoned, this solution is much more straightforward than those provided by competing e-commerce platforms. You are restricted to sending just one email, and you are unable to make any changes to the message that you send (for example, to include special offers).

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Although the GoDaddy online store builder comes with a wide variety of features, not all of them have the same level of depth as those offered by competing ecommerce builders. However, considering that the pricing for an ecommerce plan (which starts at $24.99) is much cheaper than that of Shopify or Wix, it is a logical option if you are just starting out, or if you only plan to sell a few products. The pricing for an ecommerce plan starts at $24.99.

Using the GoDaddy website builder: Our Verdict

We have to admit that previous re-launches of GoDaddy’s website builder have left us feeling a little underwhelmed. However, this most recent update has pleasantly surprised us. GoDaddy has made a number of significant enhancements to the functionality of their website builder, in addition to updating the user interface and the templates that it offers. Insights, which are metrics that compare websites, and member pages that are password protected are two of the new features.

They have also improved their already existing features, such as their blog, appointment scheduler, and contact forms, in addition to providing more options for layouts. These changes, taken together, make it possible to create websites that are more comprehensive and contain a greater number of features.

In spite of all of these changes, the ease of use is still there, with clear navigation and an editor that strikes a healthy balance between complexity and a high degree of adaptability.

However, there is still much work to be done in order to improve SEO capabilities and provide a wider variety of apps and integrations.

Will it satisfy all of your requirements? If you are looking for an easy-to-use website builder that is also a one-stop shop for email marketing, a blog, appointments, social media posts, and an online store, it may very well be for you – as long as you do not have requirements that are too complex. In other words, if you are looking for a website builder that can do all of these things in one place, it may very well be for you. GoDaddy isn’t quite there yet if what you’re looking for is something that gives you greater control over the design, SEO, and integrations of your website.

Concerns regarding ongoing support are also shared by us in light of the fact that they have a history of releasing an entirely new version of their software every couple of years. A website built on this version might become irrelevant in just a few short years, which is a possibility. Now all we can do is wait and see what happens.

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Do you need GoDaddy to build your website?

Advisable, if

  • To construct a website, you will need a tool that is not overly complicated.
  • You want your website to be thoroughly integrated with all of your other online marketing efforts (email marketing, social media, blog etc).
  • You are looking for a solution that will allow your customers to schedule appointments and pay for those appointments.
  • You require assistance via telephone, don’t you?

Not advisable, if

  • You require more advanced control over SEO.
  • You are interested in having access to an app store so that you can increase the functionality of your website.
  • Your website will consist of more than twenty separate pages in its entirety. The structure of the navigation makes it impossible to add more.
  • You want to steer clear of the possibility that you will have to reconstruct your site in a few years’ time.

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