Having a well established online presence in the current digital age is quite crucial for both individuals and businesses, to give the audience a proper overview of what they are all about. For a more professional and approachable digital presence individuals and businesses opt for a website or a blog. Weebly, a quite popular website builder, is one of the magic wands that makes this possible, and that too with ease.
Being a website builder, Weebly offers its users a user-friendly platform that allows them to create and customize blogs, websites and even online stores, without them having to acquire any extensive technical knowledge. It is a great option for one to get started with, though factors like business goals, budget, etc. need to be considered too in order to see if this is the right fit.
What is Weebly, and what is it for?
In the simplest words, Weebly is a website that is cloud-based and enables its users to create blogs and websites for themselves or their businesses, and manage them with the help of a simple drag-and-drop interface.
Weebly was founded in 2006, and has, with time, evolved into one preferred and used website builders worldwide. Parented by Block, Inc., it can be accessed through weebly.com. Now, if you ask what is weebly.com, then it is the official website of Weebly through which you can access it. Millions of websites have already been created and built on its platform. Catering to individuals, entrepreneurs, and small business owners in establishing their blogs, websites, and portfolios, Weebly has quite a diverse audience, indicating its user-friendliness and potential.
As a basic website building platform, Weebly offers various different templates and themes that the users can not just use but also customize as per their preferences and requirements that fit their brand and design. Also, there is an additional feature that gives the users access to integrated e-commerce functionalities that further contribute in making it easier to set up an online store.
Features offered by Weebly
Weebly has a lot of features making it preferable.
A user-friendly interface
The interface that Weebly offers is very easy to use and one does not require much technical knowledge to figure out how things will work. It has a drag-and-drop editor feature that makes the entire process of website creation simpler. Most elements that participate in designing and customising a website or blog, such as text boxes, images, buttons, etc. can be easily added and adjusted. The user does not need to have coding skills to get this job done, which makes Weebly easy to use and accessible by almost anyone and everyone.
Design that is responsive
The designs that the Weebly website offers are responsive on various devices. Thus, when the website, blog or portfolio, that is created, is visited or viewed from a smartphone, tablet or a PC or whatever it fits the screen well making it look presentable and attractive. The impression that the design puts is easily well received.
Option for e-commerce
The e-commerce tool on Weebly adds options for the user to add features like shopping carts, product description pages, inventory management space and payment processing, making the business owners to be able to make more use of it. It also supports platforms like PayPal for easy transactions with customers through the website created.
Access to SEO tools
Weebly has built-in SEO tools that the users get to use with ease when it comes to optimizing their websites with search engines. In the current digital age, SEO is extremely critical as it is what helps one to reach one’s audience. Weebly has included features such as meta tags that are customizable, pre-constructed URL structures, customizable sitemaps, etc.
Security features
Not only for security purposes but also for the users or rather the website creators to be able to build a sense of trust with their customers and target audience, Weebly provides SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificates. The SSL certificates are provided to all the websites that are hosted on the official platform on Weebly, indicating that the website one is viewing is authentic.
Additional App Center
A website or even a blog requires integrations with a third-party for certain functionalities. Weebly’s App Center enables the users with doing the same. This allows the users to incorporate their websites and blogs with additional features like social media integration, email marketing, etc. in order to make the website or blog more personalized, or the brand more accessible.
Weebly’s reliability
Even after knowing what is Weebly, how weebly.com works and what Weebly’s features are, there still remains a question – is Weebly a reliable source?
Well, as a website builder, though there are some other websites outside in the market that work better, Weebly has definitely garnered quite a reputation for being reliable, and here is why:
Performance
As per the infrastructure that the Weebly website builder has is extremely robust and is designed to smoothly handle high traffic volumes, without the user having the user to face significant website shutdowns. Also, due to Weebly’s cloud-based architecture, it has a fast loading time.
Support
The customer support that Weebly offers is very useful and often comes in handy when needed. There are articles and tutorials available on the official website of Weebly, weebly.com, that provide ample information and instructions. The only issue here is that the customer support options are limited, and this just depends on the plan that has been chosen by the user. The immediate access to all the features vary based on the plans,
Security
Weebly has built-in SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encryption and DDoS protection, since it takes user security seriously. This not only safeguards user data from any potential thefts but also builds trust with the verification certifications it provides.
Data Backup
Though pretty reliable for website building, Weebly still lacks a reliable data backup system. In case of any accidental deletes, the process of recovery of the lost content might be quite challenging.
Are there any costs associated or is Weebly free?
Weebly, again, comes with several offers, similar to free, freemium, premium,etc., that cater to different budgets and needs.
Free Plan
This plan costs $0 per month and is free, offering very basic website creation options and features with around 500 MB of storage. This also includes a Weebly subdomain and it lacks most of the custom features’ support such as custom domain.
Personal Plan
A personal plan on the Weebly website comes for $10 per month when billed annually, otherwise it is available for $13 per month. This includes certain more features and also adds options for connection to a custom domain.
Professional Plan
For $12 per month when billed annually or $16 when month-to-month, the professional plan comes with a wider range of customization features in the website.
Performance Plan
The performance plan again goes for $26 per month when billed annually, but is $29 monthly otherwise. This plan brings in a lot more features and options for managing operations.
Pros and Cons
There are pros and cons in everything, so they are here as well.
If you start with the pros first, the ease of use must be mentioned. Though there are more similar websites and blog-building websites, Weebly is one of those that is extremely user-friendly. Then, due to the website having quite competitive plans when it comes to pricing, using the website is good value for money. The responsive templates that Weebly offers are designed in such a manner that they definitely ensure an optimal view across different devices. Lastly, the built-in tools that are integrated into e-commerce in order to facilitate online sales and business do not require any kind of third-party solution.
Coming to the cons, just as Weebly has built-in e-commerce tools, while they are quite sufficient for small businesses, they might not be the best solution when it comes to larger businesses. Then, though the website allows for ample customization, the accessibility varies from plan to plan and is somewhat restrictive in comparison to most of its competitors, such as WordPress and Wix. Yet, the biggest con has to be the limitations in backup since it poses a high risk of data loss.
Conclusion
Overall, Weebly is quite a good option for an individual or a small scale business who are trying to establish a digital presence, that too with not having to think much of extensive technical knowledge or even much investments financially. For a rapidly growing business or an individual seeking for something extremely reliable and long-term, all pros and cons must be considered thoroughly before making a choice.
In the end, whether Weebly is an appropriate choice for one completely depends on factors such as priority, needs, requirements, preferences, budget, etc. But, if the priorities are simplicity and cost-effectiveness, then Weebly remains a pretty reliable option among so many others in the market.
Also Read:
