Web

Web.com: Get your business online while coached by the best

Web.com is a well-established player in today’s website building, hosting and online marketing industries. For five consecutive years, Deloitte, the largest and most successful accounting firms of the Big Four, has listed Web.com as one of the fastest growing companies in North America. Its fantastic “Build It For Me” service will help you construct exactly the site you want - without much work on your end. And its over 2,500 templates are more than enough to work with. The downside is that it offers no free trial period, and the free option is quite limited.

• Specially aimed at small business owners and individuals looking for a simple way to launch a website.
• “Build It For Me” is a great deal for those who don’t have the time or energy to design their own website.
• Website Coaching - Web.com has its own staff of website coaches who’ll help you create a better website without hiring a third-party service. These experts take a hands-on approach to maximizing users’ experience on your website.

• SEO experts at your disposal
• Very simple interface
• More than 2,500 templates
• Initial fees are the lowest in the industry. Just $1.95 (in the first billing cycle).
• “Build It for Me” option gets a team of experts to custom-build your site

• No free trial option available
• Mobile site – Web.com offers mobile compatibility as a premium service only
• The DIY options are somewhat limited
• Not the most user-friendly platform

Web.com’s drag-and-drop website builder is refreshingly simple and provides all the required tools to customize your website. One of its most useful features is the spell-check widget, which allows you to add typo-free text without having to copy-paste from Word. Also worth mentioning is the full compatibility across templates: if you decide to change your website template, Web.com guarantees a smooth migration of all your content.

You can use Web.com to build a site by yourself, but this platform’s strength is really in its paid, custom-built sites. For this reason, if you choose this platform, we recommend hiring one of their experts to build your site.

Web.com does not offer a free trial option, probably because it’s not quite like any other website builder, but more of a hosting company that offers website building services.

Website Builder: With a basic introductory plan you’ll get a domain name, full access to the template library and gallery of stock images. This plan is ideal for users who are just getting started in website building. The first billing cycle cost is $1.95.

Website and Online Marketing: This option is more appropriate for startups, freelancers and small businesses seeking marketing tools to drive traffic to their site. In addition to what’s included in the Website Builder plan, you’ll get a business profile in local search engines, ranking your site in top search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing, plus SEO consulting services with a Web.com expert team. The first billing cycle cost is $2.95.

Website, Marketing and Store: For those looking to launch an online store or enable payments, this is the plan for you. It includes all of the services and features included in the first two plans, plus the capacity to sell up to 500 different products, accept credit card payments, and a powerful email marketing tool. The first billing cycle cost is $3.95.

All three packages include a 60-minute consultation with a MyTime Support expert.

eCommerce Plan

Web.com has one of the best eCommerce platforms available. The setup is easy and only takes a few minutes. Once you sign up for one of their eCommerce plans, an assistant will pop up to help you proceed. Then choose one of Web.com templates for eCommerce stores.

There are three eCommerce plans:

eCommerce Express Package ($29.95/month): sell up to 20 products, online store builder and multiple business email addresses included, 2.5% transaction fee

eCommerce Standard Package ($59.95/month): everything included in Express Package, plus sell up to 500 products, email marketing tools, submits products to Google, 1.5% transaction fee

eCommerce Pro Package ($99.95/month): unlimited product listings, advanced marketing features (like affiliate management), 1% transaction fee, dedicated SSL Security Certificate

The Standard Package, Web.com’s most popular package, is significantly more expensive than the Express Package, but it’s a better option for serious businesses with significant sales.

eCommerce plans give your store the capability to accept payments from the most popular credit card companies as well as other payment services (like PayPal). Web.com also offers you offers you the possibility of sending customers marketing messages and pulling comprehensive reports so as to easily get any details from your customers, orders and products. Other great features available on Web.com include coupon codes, the possibility of blacklisting customers and tracking codes for online ads.

Most importantly, Web.com will handle all of the technical and complex details so you can focus on running your business.

When Web.com refers to the Do-It-Yourself website building option, they don’t mean you’ll be handling every single detail on your own. Their template gallery is probably one of the largest in the market with templates organized in 30 categories and many more subcategories. You’ll find the perfect one - take our word for it.

Templates

Web.com’s expansive template gallery is divided into around 30 different categories. Within each of these are various subcategories, and users can also browse by keywords or color schemes. When you click on a template, you’ll see a more detailed view of the template with an example site. However, many of the templates share a fairly similar structure.

Another big plus is that Web.com’s builder will migrate your content from one template to another, so if you decide to change templates after creating your site, you won’t have to rebuild from square one as you would with other website builders without this capability.

Customer Service

Web.com offers a wide range of support. If you prefer phone support, you can call them at 1-800-932-4678. Support for their SEO, web design and marketing plans is at 1-800-311-2707. You can get a free consultation about your website at 1-800-862-8658. Alternatively, you can contact customer support by email (customersupport@web.com) and there’s a Web.com support portal with tutorials.

Overall

Web.com offers a number of great solutions, especially for small- to medium-sized businesses that would rather pay for premium services and rest assured that all of their technical, design and marketing needs will be taken care of. If you are looking to get a custom site built by experts as well as coaching in SEO technology and online marketing, you can’t go wrong with Web.com.