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Summary
IONOS Website Builder is a website builder tool provided by IONOS, a web hosting and cloud services provider. It offers drag-and-drop functionality, customizable templates, and integrations with other IONOS products. It is designed for small businesses, freelancers, and individuals with no coding experience to easily create their own professional-looking website.
Overall
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Ease of Use - 80%
80%
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Features & Flexibility - 80%
80%
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SEO & Mobility - 80%
80%
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Help & Support - 80%
80%
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Pricing - 80%
80%
Pros
- Ideal for Multilingual Websites: The Basic and Plus Packages allow you to reach an international audience in 60 different languages
- Customer Phone support included: ALL 1&1 MyWebsite packages include telephone support. This is generally missing from lower end plans offered by other web building platforms
- One-Click Back-Up: Back-ups can be saved at any point with just one click.
- Easy Blog Import Function: Anyone who has an established Blog with RSS Feed can easily migrate it to their 1&1 website
Cons
- Content suggestions: While industry-specific content is available, it needs to be changed. Failure to do so will result in search engines detecting duplicate content. This would NOT be good for your website rankings
- Poor image quality: This may surprise. With the vast number of available images, it is surprising how many of them are of low quality.
- No free trial: While a 30-day money-back guarantee is available (as long as you remember to cancel on time). There is no free trial available
- Cancellation of account: Many users who have decided to move on from 1&1 complain of an overly complicated cancellation process
Introduction: What is 1&1 MyWebsite ?
Welcome to our IONOS Website Builder Review. The 1&1 MyWebsite builder is offered from the stable belonging to the huge German internet company 1&1 IONOS. The choice of layouts, images and tailored texts is very broad and fits across a wide range of specific industry segments.
Overview: Our IONOS Website Builder Review could be the solution to your online presence.
What makes it even more interesting is the fact that you are free to customise any of the designs as you please, and with an image archive containing around 20 million pictures there is certainly room to achieve this.
It is also very interesting to note that Duda have provided the website building platform as a 3rdparty rather than this being an in-house development.
Although the 2 companies have now gone their separate ways, the 1 and 1 core website builder platform provided by Duda remains.
What that means to those choosing the 1&1 website builder is that they can be fully confident of using a solid, tried and tested web building platform.
Ease of use:
The ease of use when setting up a 1&1 website is very straight forward. Do not be put off by the seemingly overpowering number of options offered.
The editor has a good structure and makes ‘drag, drop and move’ whatever you wish to where you want it easy.
In this respect it comes pretty close to the ease of use Wix offers.
Nice touch – A very nice touch the 1&1 website builder offers is the ability to display a “digital business card” giving details of who you are while your site is under construction.
This will allow you to leave telephone or email contact details while your 1&1 homepage and full website content is being built – Far more informative than “Site currently under construction!”.
Features and Flexibility:
When looking at the features and flexibility of the 1&1 website builder there is lots to engage.
IONOS Website Builder Out of the box:
Everything required to set-up your 1&1 homepage and additional content pages comes as standard out of the box.
Highlight details on what is offered through each of the 3 subscription plans and what support you can expect during set-up as well as onward management are listed below.
IONOS Website Builder Review of Themes/Templates:
The industry specific, modern approach to design that 1&1 offers is there to guide you and give inspiration. There are over 400 templates to choose from and you are free to modify as you wish.
As we have previously mentioned, it is just a shame that lots of the images from their huge stock of photos are not what many small to medium enterprises would expect in terms of sharp looking quality.
On the plus side, those who have development expertise in their organisation can access the template source code and modify template design exactly as required.
IONOS Website Builder Review of Apps and Widgets:
There is an easy to access Widgets sidebar that allows you to quickly add many different kinds of content and tools to your pages.
- Standard Options; Text, Images, Buttons, Forms
- Embedded Options; Maps, Audio Files, Video Files
- Social Content Options; Share Buttons, Twitter Feeds, Facebook/Disqus Comments, Scribd Documents
As for advanced App integrations think of such features as:
- Google translate
- Click-to-Call buttons
- OpenTable-based reservations for restaurants
- Newsletter service
- Online scheduling tool
- PollDaddy surveys
- TripAdvisor reviews relating to your company
It is also possible to integrate other 3rdparty tools through the use of the 1and1 web apps directory.
IONOS Website Builder Review of Hosting:
1&1 offer a flexible selection of hosting plans. They also offer a choice of Linux or Windows server hosting.
Those looking for a basic online presence should opt for the small hosting package, anyone else should look at the large hosting packages on offer.
For example, it is recommended that businesses go with the largest hosting package.
All 3 hosting packages are offered with sufficient webspace for all. Another point worthy of note is the dual hosting provision which comes as standard. This helps protect your 1&1 website through the simultaneous storage of data in 2 separate locations.
Domain registration is something 1&1 IONOS have offered for many years and are adept at provision for those in need. Although it does have to be said that they are not the cheapest domain registration company out there.
IONOS Website Builder Review of Backups:
We have just mentioned the dual hosting protection 1&1 MyWebsite offers, but it should also be noted that you can keep multiple backups as well as archived alternative versions of your website.
This means editing can be carried out without the worry of losing previous versions. It is also possible for you to switch between different versions – A good example of this would be for those who wish to promote any “time-sensitive” campaigns.
See more IONOS MyWebsite features
SEO and Mobility:
SEO capabilities are something that anyone intending to set up a web presence needs to strongly consider. Without good SEO you will not get noticed.
The 1&1 website builder offers SEO at different levels. The basic offering allows you to modify such things as:
- Meta tags
- Image ALT tags
- Page title and descriptions
- URL
- Indexing
- 301 redirects can be set up (important if you ever choose to change URLs of a page)
There is also access available to the 1and1:
SEO Checker tool:
When looking to optimise your 1&1 homepage and related pages the SEO Checker tool claims to assess all crucial aspects of SEO.
Once you put the tool into action it offers detailed analysis of such things as:
- Onpage SEO
- Offpage SEO
- Responsive web design
- Social media SEO
How does the checker work/costs?
You need no special technical expertise to put the checker into action. Simply enter your web address into the 1&1 SEO site checkup tool. It then automatically begins to analyse a variety of site aspects.
First use of this SEO analyzer is free. After this, you have the option of receiving a 2nd, more detailed SEO audit checklist for a small fee. Obviously, the 1stanalysis is there to tempt you into paying for the 2nd.
Blog and blog post SEO limitations:
The 1&1 MyWebsite blog function is fairly easy to use, but for those who have an existing blog it is also possible to import it using the RSS import function.
If you go with the 1&1 website blog function there are limitations in respect of SEO titles. You cannot separate the SEO title from the post heading because 1and1 only provides one field here.
Mobility and mobile features:
Those establishing a web presence should already be aware that the chances of their site being viewed from a mobile device rather than a desktop/laptop are pretty high.
This makes the mobile functionality of any web builder you choose a key requirement.
The 1&1 website builder creates a mobile version of your site automatically. To achieve this, you need to enable the “MyWebsite Mobile” option.
It should also be mentioned that the mobile version of your site utilises the same desktop version style of your site.
What this means is that consistency is maintained across different versions of your site and gives visitors ease of identification no matter what device they are accessing from.
See more IONOS MyWebsite SEO features
Support and Resources:
Next in our IONOS Website Builder Review, we look at their Support and Resources.
This is an area that receives mixed results from customers. Some claim you are continuously re-directed to different departments – others that 1 and 1 are more interested in selling you additional services than assisting with problems.
1&1 MyWebsite do offer a general 24/7 helpline, you can also contact them via e-mail, however, they have also introduced a ‘personal consultant’ feature.
This dedicated contact person is classed as being your contact for anything and everything. From your 1&1 homepage issues through to advice on how to improve your website.
The company claim ‘your’ consultant will available for you during standard business hours via direct telephone, email or chat. You can also request a callback at a time of your choice.
It would appear that this ‘personal consultant’ is more ‘sales oriented’ than there for technical assistance, however we have a solution for this!
As mentioned, the 1&1 website builder platform does not offer a free trial, but they do offer a 30-day money back guarantee period.
So, those interested in the 1&1 website builder could take the 30-day trial, test it to the hilt, including availing of your ‘personal consultant’ and/or technical assistance to see how satisfied you are with the service.
1 or 2 calls per day over a 1-month trial should give you a fairly sound idea of what level of help and support you are getting!
See more IONOS MyWebsite Support features
IONOS Website Builder Pricing:
Next in our IONOS Website Builder Review, we look at their pricing plans.
While we have already mentioned there are no free plans on offer from the 1&1 website builder, they do offer 3 paid packages with free trial periods.
Here are details of monthly and annual subscriptions at the company’s standard pricing. It is important to be aware that different incentives are regularly offered by the platform.
According to their terms and conditions page, if you're not satisfied, or it's not the right product for you, you can cancel in the first 30 days for a full refund.
Note: You MUST remember to cancel your 30-day money-back guarantee trial period if you are not going to continue with the platform services. Failure to do so will result in continuous billing!) From our experience, this and in the event they are not then an informed colleague will be.
>> Check for the latest IONOS MyWebsite Pricing and Discounts <<
Conclusion and Recommendation to our IONOS Website Builder Review:
So, our IONOS Website Builder Review conclusion;
What is it best used for?
The 1&1 website builder is a solid option for those who have fairly straight forward website plans.
A nice touch is the “Business Card” which you can immediately post once registered. This takes pressure of you in terms of rushing to get your site ready and ‘live’.
Those with multilingual needs will find it extremely easy to translate their 1&1 homepage along with every other page. The advantage here is that you simply activate required languages using the language feature. With other builders it is general that you need to add new languages via a menu – far more contrived, particularly if you want to implement several different language options.
While the back-up feature may not initially seem so important, please believe us: IT IS! The fact is that with 1&1 you can save a back-up at any point, and when necessary restore it at will.
The blog should be seen as a nice feature, although certainly not the best out there and the flexible editor is a welcome plus.
1&1 Alternatives:
While there will undoubtedly be interest in the above offers, those who are still unsure as to whether this pricing plan structure will fit their immediate and future needs, it is recommended that you also review other Website builder platforms to achieve a comprehensive understanding of what is out there.
Here's a list of the best 1&1 alternatives to create a website;
| Rank | Website Builders | Our View |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Squarespace | Best for Design & Creatives |
| 2 | Shopify | Best All-In-One eCommerce solution |
| 3 | Webflow | Best for advanced design tools |
| 4 | Weebly | Best for ease of use |
| 5 | Wordpress.com | Best for beginner blogging |
| 6 | Carrd | Best for single page websites |
| 7 | Wix | Good for general use |
IONOS Website Builder Review Final Word:
We feel an average website can be built using the 1&1 website builder platform and if you are hosting with them a reason to try to software free for 1 month.
That’s all for now:
Thanks for reading ourIONOS Website Builder Review and don’t forget to keep an eye out for our ever-growing blog of review and comparison articles. You may be interested in our related website builder, eCommerce platform review and comparison articles below;