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Review of Weebly

Review of Jimdo

And there are even more videos
 

What is an online website builder and how does it work?

Weebly: creating a free account and choosing a domain name

Jimdo: signing up for an account and choosing a domain name

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Screenshot taken from OLSB blog


April 30, 2012 will mark the end of OLSB. I have no idea why they need to shut the whole thing down – to annoy this many customers simply makes no sense at all. Even when you are Microsoft.
 

20 pages to self-transition your site to Office 365

The replacement product is called Office 365. I guess everyone thought that at least it would be an easy process to get the old site into the new system. After all, both OLSB and Office 365 are Microsoft products. Chances are that once you’ve read the 20 page self-transition guide (Word doc) you won’t find it easy at all. Every single step involves doing things manually.
 

The nature of website builders

A hosted site builder comes with a lot of benefits but also with one major disadvantage: Your provider has to stay in business or at least keep the product in their portfolio. Microsoft is far from going out of business, but they decided to do away with it anyway.
 

Office Live Small Business alternatives

We have always been advocates of online website builders. However, we only recommend specialized site builders from companies who are truly dedicated to their mission. That’s why we look at how they are financed and we also have met in person with some of the providers to get a feel for the respective companies.

So if you want to continue with a hosted site building service, please take a look at our comparison chat. Here you can also find recommendations suited particularly to small business websites.

In case you are looking for a different solution, for example an Open Source CMS, you could check out Wordpress.org and hire someone on Elance to help you create it. Make sure you check the ratings before choosing a provider.


If you have any comments about Microsoft’s move, please let me know!

Image: © Sean Gladwell - Fotolia.com
 

BaseKit doesn’t use a Freemium model, and in this it is similar to the longer-established New-York-based provider Squarespace. Indeed,    comparing the websites  of the two  , you can’t help getting the impression that BaseKit have been taking inspiration from their colleagues in the US in other aspects too.

BaseKit pricing

A trial version of BaseKit* is available for a 14-day period. Limited to only three web pages, the trial version is a bit too restrictive to really try it out properly, however. We therefore obtained the full Business version for our review.

Our advice to the BaseKit team would be to give users access to a full website kit as a trial version – it will make it harder for people to leave after that!

Apart from the trial version, the BaseKit packages available are Basic, Business and Professional. The Business package seems the most useful at $14 (£8) per month with a one-year contract. It includes your own domain name and unlimited web pages.

Setting up a website with BaseKit

Having registered and logged in, you choose your website template – and BaseKit offers some very nice designs indeed.

  
Once you have chosen a template you get a basic website with dummy content, which you can then start to customize. Additional elements are displayed in the left-hand column and are inserted simply by using drag’n’drop.

This really is exactly as easy as it sounds. You can also move elements around very easily and arrange them whichever way you like. There is plenty of room for creativity. BaseKit also offers lots of useful additional functionalities, such as a search function, a comment widget, form templates and a nice photo carousel plug-in.

Social Media integration is also included, of course, as are e-commerce buttons for PayPal and Google Checkout. You do need at least the Business package for the latter. Nevertheless, for a fully fledged online shop BaseKit is probably not really the right tool. Incidentally, Squarespace doesn’t yet offer any e-commerce functionality at all.

Now for a few minor problems I’ve had with BaseKit. For example, I found it quite complicated to change the banner graphics or navigation for the entire website. Tech support suggested that I should use the template widgets. To figure out how this works exactly took me quite a while.

It's interesting how Basekit's approach to create different site structures compares to the one of Squarespace. Both ways have their pros and cons.

Having said that, it doesn’t do any harm in principle to understand the basics of how HTML and CSS work together. With BaseKit, just as with Squarespace, you will soon come across terms like Border, Margin, Padding etc., and it helps to have some basic background knowledge so you can understand what these words refer to.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

As far as SEO is concerned, BaseKit passes with flying colors. You can access all relevant areas and are even able to set up 301 redirects. Here BaseKit can certainly hold its own against its US counterpart.

Functionalities we were missing

One thing we would have expected from a comprehensive toolkit like BaseKit is an integrated blog function. And my guess is that this will probably be added sooner or later. Also, similar to Squarespace, BaseKit lacks a mobile-friendly website version. I think, in this day and age, when the Internet is increasingly being accessed through smartphones and tablet devices, this is no longer acceptable. So this should really be addressed urgently.

Support

The system is well documented and we also found the Live Chat Support especially useful. The BaseKit team seems to place particular importance on excellent support, something we very much endorse.

Conclusion

BaseKit offers an extremely promising platform with great potential. We also welcome the fact that Squarespace is now finally facing some real competition. Perhaps this will help speed up the development cycles of the American provider, which can be a little on the slow side.

At the moment Squarespace still seems the more rounded and further advanced of the two. In particular its brilliant blog function is as yet unrivalled – as are its membership functions and the Business package.

Anyone seriously interested in a premium website builder tool should definitely give both providers a go. A clear bonus of BaseKit are its fresh and contemporary designs. You can try Basekit free for 14 days*.

If, on the other hand, you are a complete novice to website creation, I would recommend sticking with one of the less complex website builders like Jimdo or Weebly.

*Affiliate link

 
A website that’s off-line is not a great first impression for your business.

With online website builders we usually have no control over where the site is hosted. We are therefore at the mercy of the web host chosen on our behalf by the provider.

We wanted to know how they perform and have been monitoring the server availability of websites created using major website building tools such as Weebly, Jimdo, Wix.com, Webnode and Webs.com over a 4.5 month period.

To get the full picture we used Pingdom to monitor their uptime, as well as speed and response time.

Not all website builders provide 99.9% uptime

The testing took place between June 18 and November 5, 2011. Three out of the five providers tested achieved very good results. Weebly leads the field with an uptime percentage of 99.96. Webnode, too, gives no reason for complaint with a respectable 99.94%.

Jimdo was a little unfortunate as it experienced an extensive downtime of nearly two hours, shortly before the end of our testing period. If we had stopped our monitoring on October 31 its uptime score would have been 99.99%.

Here are the results in detail:

Notes:

ms = milliseconds, DE = Germany, CZ = Czech Republic, JP= Japan
Monitoring of uptime took place once per minute through Pingdom. Pingdom runs tests from 37 different locations throughout North America and Europe. Per service provider only one randomly selected website was tested. The test results include scheduled maintenance.
 

The top 3 service providers achieved results above 99.9% – the common uptime promise of many hosting companies.

We also tested Squarespace, but found out afterwards that the website we were using for the test had an unusual configuration, set up by the website owners themselves, which unfortunately skewed the test results and rendered them useless for the purpose of our comparison.

Response times: Which provider has the fasted server?

Anyone calling up a Jimdo website from the US will be able to view the site within an average of 228 milliseconds. Weebly, too, is one of the faster providers.

Webnode and Webs.com, on the other hand, are a little on the slow side with an average wait of 1000 milliseconds and more. Admittedly, Webnode’s server is based in the Czech Republic, which may explain the delay. Why Webs’ response time is so slow is a mystery, as its websites are hosted within the US.

Load time, by the way (and not to be confused with response time), is not only important from a user perspective but is also one of Google’s new ranking criteria (although content relevance still remains the most crucial one).

And one has to bear in mind, of course, that load time also depends on the size of the site to be loaded. So, for example, not compressing images properly will make your website slower to load.
 

Jimdo offers a range of server locations
 

When it comes to response times, the server location is a significant factor. Whereas Weebly, Wix.com, Webs and Webnode are content with offering servers in their own country only, Jimdo offers servers based in the USA, Europe and Japan.

Jimdo allocates the respective server automatically, depending on the continent from which the majority of visitors access a website. For example, when accessing a website from the UK it can make a huge difference which side of the Atlantic the website is hosted.

With 81Solution you can find out the location of your website's server yourself.

Again, Google also likes it when a website is hosted in the same part of the world where its target audience comes from.

Conclusion

These results show that almost all of the website builders offer acceptable uptime levels that are perfectly sufficient for smaller websites. Especially Weebly and Jimdo showed very encouraging test results both in terms of uptimes and response times.

Keep in mind that it can be a good idea to check whether your preferred provider has a server in the country where your target audience is located.

You can download screenshots of the original  Pingdom results here .

If you have any questions or further observations please feel free to leave a comment.

I had the chance to talk to Powen Shiah who is Jimdo's US Country Manager. Enjoy the interview (and sorry about the bad lightening - I still need some practice):
 

Links mentioned in the video:
basic cookies
Dropbox
Square

It rained a lot that day and I did in fact stay a little longer. Jimdo's office is in a coworking space, meaning I had the chance to chat with Rishi and Robert from a company called DigiOh.

Their service enables you to sell digital goods through a custom link. Interesting service and they invited us for a beer :)

Anyway, I hope you liked the second part of the WebsiteToolTester US Tour. Next will be Weebly!
(Update: Weebly's CEO Dan Veltri agreed in our meeting to answer a couple of questions in a text-based interview - unfortunately we never got it from him).

Here's what you can do now:

Find out more about Jimdo

Read our Jimdo review

Or take Jimdo for a test drive
 

P.S. If you ever go to San Francisco, you really have to rent a bicycle and cycle over the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito. It's fantastic! Take a look at the pictures below.
 

The video was recorded on Oct 10 2011.

The interview was recorded on Sep 29, 2011.

Interesting side note: on the way out I almost got stuck in the elevator with Squarespace's support guru Shaun. We had a little chat and I have to say that their attitude on support is admirable. They just don't feel good if they can't solve your problem within a couple of hours. So if responsive support is one of your major concerns, I think Squarespace is the provider of choice.

Visit Squarespace's blog

Read our Squarespace review

Or try it out for free and receive a special 10% WebsiteToolTester discount

Tutorial: Using HTTrack to backup your website

Just one word upfront for users of Weebly, Squarespace or Yola: these tools provide a convenient built-in backup   feature  . Webnode does too but not in their free plan. Wix users will not be able to create a backup with this tutorial, unfortunately, as websites based on Flash can be tricky to download.

Step 1: Download HTTrack - it's free!

Go to HTTrack.com and download the right software for your computer.

Step 2: Install it and open HTTrack

This will be your starting screen:

Step 3: Choose a name for your project and select a backup location on your computer

Step 4: Add the URL(s) of your website and hit "next"

Step 5: The connection settings should be fine. Click on "Finish".

Step 6: This is what the progress screen looks like - it will now download all pages that can be freely accessed. Password protected areas will not be backed up!

Step 7: Your backup: to access the offline version of your website just open the "index" file.

Tip: put a recurring event in your calendar to remind yourself to create backups.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. If you have any feedback or questions, please do leave a comment!

Icon: Shiny Icon Maker / Screenshots taken by Fabian

Plenty of online providers offer free plans for you to build your own website. These are usually based on free website building software, and because hosting is included, you don't even have to worry about web space.

This sounds like a pretty good deal, and it's often worth taking a closer look. We decided to save you some work and do it for you.

So who really pays for these free plans?

It's true that the best things in life are free, but this generally only applies to intangible things. Hosting a website, on the other hand, clearly costs the provider money. They have to cover the cost of running their servers, marketing their services, not to mention ongoing development.

Free websites are almost always based on a freemium model. This means that the free entry-level plan is funded by those customers who go on to purchase a paid (or premium) plan.

That's why it's worth doing your research before choosing which free online website builder is best for you.

What do you miss out on with a free website?

You almost certainly won't get proper domain name, because .com or .net domains always come at a cost. Most providers will give you a subdomain such as yourname.providername.com.

This may be fine for a personal website, but it's not recommended for professional or commercial sites for the following reasons:

• It looks unprofessional.
• You're not doing yourself any favors in terms of search engine rankings.

In addition, many providers will run advertisements for their own or other businesses on your free website – again, not a professional look.

Then there are the providers who offer only dated or unattractive layouts on their free plans, and keep the good designs for their paid plans.

So which free website plans are worth checking out?

Here are some more details on the free plans offered by four of the best providers.

 
Free website providers: video overview

Weebly and Webnode's free plans (links open in new window) are both very attractive. But it's important not to be blinded by the word "free".

Once you've built your website, moving it to a new provider can be quite a hassle. So remember to take your future plans into consideration when weighing up your options, especially if you might want to get a proper domain name, matching email addresses or an ad-free version of your website at some stage in the future.

There are also many other criteria to take into account, such as technical support or extra features like an online store or overall ease of use.

See our website builder reviews for more detailed information on all these criteria and more.

Mobile websites from Jimdo, Weebly and Webnode

Our new Tool Tester, Fabian, carried out some tests on his 4th Generation iPod Touch.

Webnode

Webnode have offered mobile versions of their websites since early 2010. Here's how they look:

Rating:

+ Online stores also optimized for mobile use
– Have to scroll to the bottom of the page for navigation menus and a link to the standard view

More info:
> Detailed Webnode Review
> Webnode website

Weebly

Weebly followed suit almost a year after Webnode.

 Screenshots from Affiluc.com

Rating:

+ Easy access to menu and standard view
+ Attractive layout (you can even choose a base color)
+ Mobile version can also be disabled

More info:
> Detailed Weebly Review
> Weebly website

Jimdo

Jimdo's websites went mobile-ready in May of this year.

Screenshots from wdnk.de

Rating:

+ Two ways to access the menu: button on the right, or scroll to the bottom
+ Online store also mobile-optimized
+ Clear layout
+ Mobile version can also be disabled

More info:

> Detailed Jimdo Review
> Jimdo website

Wix

Wix.com also recently released a website builder for mobile sites (Alpha release). Wix websites used to be the worst when it comes to the mobile web. The problem is that Apple does not support Flash on the iPhone and/or iPad due to some questionable policy. But we can now see a (small) light at the end of the tunnel:

Rating:

+ Finally a way to enable iPhone users to display Wix sites
– Not automatically enabled
– A second website needs to be created and maintained
– Features are quite limited at this time

More info:

> Detailed Wix Review
> Wix website

Updates:

30 Aug 2011: Webs.com have now also added a mobile website version. What's nice about it is that it will also be created automatically. You can even choose a template and pick your preferred colors. All in all it is a great addition but should feature more pre-built designs.

Where does that leave the rest?

Other well-known providers such as Squarespace, Yola and Homestead have yet to offer mobile versions for websites built on their platforms. This means mobile browsers try to render these pages in their entirety - so smartphone users have to zoom in and out  a lot, which can get a little tiresome.

Conclusion

It's great to see such a forward-thinking approach from some website builders. Mobile internet usage is already significant, and will become even more so in the not-too-distant future. With any luck, we'll see the rest of the pack fall into line before long.

Get a stylish font for free

Exactly what we did with our WebsiteTool>>Tester font you can see at the top of the page - we got it at dafont.com. To play around with your new font just get a free Photoshop alternative.

Add a screencast to your site – at no cost

If you are in a hurry, try Screenr. Definitely the fastest way to create a screencast. Camstudio.org is more sophisticated but still free. In combination with a good headset and a free software like Windows Movie Maker you can create nice tutorials or demos for your audience.

Build a community – with a free forum

While there are certainly a lot of open source forum options available they always require web space and are not that easy to implement for a non-technical person. Tal.ki enables you to build a forum very fast and integrates well with Weebly, the (free, of course) online website builder.

Let your visitors give you feedback more easily

Blogs usually provide a commenting feature. But sometimes there are static pages or landing pages that would be more valuable if users could add their feedback. Try Disqus and add a comments box to any of your web pages. (You can see it in action right on WebsiteToolTester).

Create a presentation – but not one of the plain ol’ boring ones

Prezi is an amazing tool that works best as a Power Point alternative. But why not adding a nice presentation to your website? Surprise your visitors!

Free images and icons for your website

Check the Freebies sections of Smashingmagazine or other great blogs. Or try the Shiny Icon Maker and design your own icons.

If you are looking for free photos you can search Flickr or try the Creative Commons Search. Make sure you select the right licensing model and credit the author.