Webs.com Review | 55 Million Websites Built? Good for You?

2 EASE OF USE

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Webs is a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) website builder, meaning you build the entire website right in front of you and what you see when you are building, is what actually shows up after you publish the website.

Webs gives you the option to either build “normal pages” or “specialty pages”.

Normal Pages

Webs provide you with 6 different page layout configurations, so whenever you create a new page, you can choose which page layout to use.  You can change the page layout later on if you want.  The modules that you insert into the page (i.e. your content) will be automatically transferred into the new layout so you won’t lose any information.

Specialty Pages

Webs also give you “specialty pages” – what we mean is that they have dedicated, pre-set structured webpages for you to choose from.  These include pages dedicated to blogs, web stores, photos, membership, videos, forums, guestbooks and appointments.  You will find these pre-set pages in the App store and these are nice to have especially if you have a need for them.

Since these “App pages” are pre-set in structure, you won’t be able to drag and drop any modules into these pages, like how you could for normal webpages. Although this seems a bit inflexible when it comes to design, it’s a nice feature if you have a need for it.

Overall, based on our Webs.com review, it is a very intuitive and easy to use website builder.  Combining normal pages and specialty pages will allow you the ability to create a more interesting website without making the building process complicated.  We like how Webs gives you many features, but keeps things quite simple.

3 TEMPLATE DESIGN OPTIONS

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Webs has 450 mobile-optimized design templates for you to choose from, which is a fairly large collection.  These templates span over 20 different industries so this helps you find one that caters to your industry.

However, Webs doesn’t allow you the flexibility to edit the HTML and CSS of the templates, so even if you want to hire someone to modify the design for you, you won’t have this option with Webs.

This is also the primary reason why there aren’t any third party templates providers for Webs, which is the same as for Wix.

However, Webs does allow you some customization options.  Some themes come in several color schemes, and some allow you to customize the background image/color. You can also customize the font styles of the navigation bar, body and footer.

But in general, compared to other website builders, Webs’ templates selection and flexibility is not very comprehensive.  You can still build a good website with Webs, but if you’re selective over design, this is where Webs can fall short.

MOBILE TEMPLATES

Aside from the template for the browser website, Webs also provide you with some options when it comes to customizing mobile templates so your website can be mobile-ready.

The options that Webs give you are actually a lot more than what other website builders have.  Most website builders only provide you with one generic mobile design, and you can’t customize it.

With Webs, you can choose from 6 mobile template designs.  You can even customize the color scheme of each template to match your website’s color scheme.

This is fantastic feature that give you more control over your mobile website without having to pay and manage a separate mobile website.

4 HELP AND SUPPORT

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Webs Customer Support

If you subscribe to their premium plans, you can get email support for the Starter plan, email + live chat for the Enhanced plan, and email + live chat + phone support for their Pro plan.

However, if you are only using their free plan, your support option is limited to forum discussions, so you may not get the necessary, 1-on-1 attention you may want.

This is understandable as they have millions of users to support, and it’s only fair to give paying users a higher priority and better service levels.

Webs Tutorial Resources

Webs have a knowledgebase located in the dashboard.  At any time you have a question, simply type in your question and it will give you the closest matching answer.  We’ve tested this and we do find a lot of answers in the knowledgebase – so this function is pretty helpful.

However, one improvement point is that Webs could try to incorporate more pictures and tutorial videos in their help section.  Currently, their knowledgebase has a lot of text which although helpful, could sometimes be overwhelming if you prefer pictures.  Nevertheless, if you are an Enhanced Plan or Pro Plan user, you can just use their Live Chat function to get help.

Webs Community Forum

Webs has a comprehensive and helpful forum.  If you have questions, you can quickly search within the forum to see if their support staff has answered the same questions before.  You can save a lot of time using this approach.

We have seen some Webs.com reviews that their forum help could take some time, but as mentioned above, if you do upgrade to a paid package, you will receive 1-on-1 help, which is fair as you are a paying customer.

5 WEBS ECOMMERCE

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If you are building an online store, Webs offers a pretty comprehensive e-commerce solution.  You can choose to add a Web Store or integrate your Etsy store (if you have one) directly into your website.

Web’s web store has all the practical features that any online store will need.  It allows you to insert product images, descriptions, prices, set tax options, shipping options, configure product versions (so your visitor can select different versions of the same product), and product status.

You can also set your products in different categories to allow for easier sorting.

For premium accounts, you also have access to the inventory tracking system.  This system helps you manage and track your product directly in Webs dashboard.

You can use PayPal as your payment processor to collect money from your customers.  You will have more payment options if you choose to integrate your Etsy store in the website.

Overall, we think in our Webs.com review that it has a decent set of e-commerce tools to help you build a web store.  To take maximum advantage of what their tools have to offer, you will need to upgrade to their premium packages, which is something you should consider if you are serious about your business (we will discuss premium packages and pricing below).

Another positive point is that Webs does not take a transaction fee from each of your sale (some other shopping carts provider out there does take a percentage of your sales), so you get to keep all your profits.

6 WEBS SEO

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Webs allows you to optimize all the basic SEO functions, such as titles and descriptions for your overall website.  However, you will need to subscribe to a paid plan in order to customize the titles, description and meta tags for individual web page.

Webs also provides you with an internal traffic tracking tool which allows you to see how many visitors you have, number of pageviews, monthly averages, traffic sources, etc.

Of course, if you want to use Google Analytics instead of Webs’ own stats tracking tool, you can definitely do so.  Just insert the snippet of tracking code you get from Google Analytics into the “Settings” tab when you are in your Webs dashboard.

Website Builder SEO Guide – see our opinion about SEO with various drag & drop website builders and how they compare with each other.

7 HOSTING AND EXPORTING OPTIONS

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Webs provides free hosting, so you don’t have to pay extra for that, even if you are not using their paid plans.  This is helpful as you will not need to manage your own hosting.  If there are any technical or security issues, Webs will manage it for you so your website will always work properly.

With the free plan you have limited storage space and limited bandwidth, so the size of you site will be restricted.  However, the free space you receive should be sufficient for you to build a basic website.  Upgrade to their paid packages to receive more storage space and bandwidth.

One downside of Webs is there is no exporting function.  This means if you ever want to use a different website builder or host your own website, you can’t take the website with you.  You will need to build the site from scratch if you ever choose to leave Webs.

This is not entirely uncommon as Wix and Jimdo also have this restriction.  If this is an important consideration for you, you can check out Weebly or Squarespace as they do allow you to export websites.

Our Webs.com review recommendation is that if you’re interested in Webs, try it for free to see if it fits your needs.  This way, you can decide whether you would like to commit.

8 PRICING - IS WEBS WORTH THE INVESTMENT?

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You can try using Webs for free and there is no pressure to upgrade since they don’t impose a time limit for using them for free.

With the free account, you will have limited features, storage space and bandwidth and you won’t be able to access their 1-on-1 customer support unless you decide to upgrade.

If you do decide to upgrade to Webs’ premium plans, they have a 30 day money back guarantee policy,which removes the financial risks from you:

Webs has 3 levels of premium plans: Starter, Enhanced and Pro.

If you sign up to a 1 or 2 year plan, you do get a “bulk” discount of 33% off the monthly price – a substantial savings if you are comfortable with committing to use Webs after you test them out with a free account.

Further, if you sign up to their 1 or 2 year plan, they will waive the $10 set up fee, which is only applicable if you sign up for a month to month payment plan.

You will also receive a free custom domain if you sign up to their Enhanced or Pro annual packages (which is about a $12 value with most domain name registrars such as GoDaddy)

So if you sign up for a 2 year plan, you will save 33% and for a 1 year plan, you will save 15%.  If you sign up for either the 1 year and 2 years plans, you will also receive a free domain name (which will cost about $12 or so with most domain name registrars).

The benefit of upgrading to premium plans, of course, is that you will gain access to premium features, such as full range of e-commerce tools and priority support.

If you benchmark prices of premium plans across other website builders, you’ll notice that the monthly investment of using Webs as your website builder is pretty fair, or even slightly on the cheaper side.

Further, Webs give you $100 worth of advertising credit to use for Google Adwords and Facebook Ads when you sign up for their Enhanced or Pro plans.  That alone will pretty much means you get to use Webs’ premium packages for free for the first year.

As mentioned in our Webs review, this website builder provides you with a number of good tools if you are building an online store, and their App store gives you some helpful tools that are fully integrated with Webs to help manage your business.  The benefits of using integrated tools is quick and hassle-free installation, and that you can confident that the Apps will not conflict with Webs.

9 WEBS REVIEW - CONCLUSION / RECOMMENDATION

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Further, if you want to set up a membership sign up website, Webs is one of the very few website builders that have this feature provided for you as part of their builder.  The benefit for you is that you don’t have to install an external membership system which may cause conflict with the website builder – that’s a headache you don’t need.

Overall, our Webs.com review results is that it is a user-friendly builder and the learning curve to learn how to use it is pretty low, so you can build a website without tearing your hair out.

Although the design template selection is somewhat limited when compared to other website builders, they do provide you with some decent customization options for each template.  If you are not overly picky on design, you can find something you like.  In addition, Webs has good mobile site customization features, which is helpful as more people are “going mobile”.

A good approach is to start with a free website, familiarize yourself with their tools and how easy or difficult it is for you to use webs, then make your decision to upgrade or not.

After all, Webs is free for you to try, and even if you decide to upgrade, they still have a 30 day money back guarantee policy, which removes the financial risks from you.

Keep in mind that there is no time limit to use their free services.