Weebly Website Builder
Weebly is a free-hosted web-based website builder that is easy to use. However, it has its cons as well as its pros. Read below our full review.
This is a quick & simple review of the free hosted web-based website builder Weebly as used to build the website - Weebly - A Review.
Weebly is a very popular and easy to use free hosted web-based drag-and-drop website builder. Below is an account of my personal experience with the Weebly web-based website builder when making a simple example website.
Weebly is a popular and fairly simple-to-use drag-and-drop free hosted web-based website builder. However, like any theme (as well as the web-based website builder), there is a learning curve to figuring out how to make what you want fit inside the templated box. IE - there is a learning curve to the quirks of the builder as well as the theme chosen (page layouts, change images, etc.).
Themes - In this case the theme was chosen based on layout. Using the simple design of a full-screen image and text and button overtop, it is clean, simple, elegant - typical of what is to be expected of a website today. However, there are many quality themes available to get you started. No matter the theme, it should be fairly simple to change the layout via the drag and drop of objects to the left of right of existing objects thus creating an additional column. You'll see when you dive in.
SEO - Page specific titles, descriptions and keywords are available to customize. H1 tags are available to add via separate app, otherwise all paragraph titles are H2 tags. Canonical, social media and schema tags are available on a per page basis via html code. Server optimization via robots.txt and htaccess files are not customizable as they are auto-generated. And of course one can add Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools via settings.
The downside to using a free hosted web-based website builder (in addition to needing to use a theme) is that from an optimization standpoint for page speed, capabilities are limited. Custom server optimization is not possible via htaccess file. In addition, if you ever become dissatisfied with the host from a support or customer service standpoint, or if they go out of business, you're stuck as it cannot be moved to another without rebuilding it from scratch.
The upside is it is free hosted, and can be managed via the web. This means everything used to build the website is made to simply work and work well together. Another plus is that Weebly can double as a blogging platform, it is easy to make blog posts, which is good for seo, that can be shared with Facebook, which is also good for seo. For an added fee, you can connect your Weebly website to a custom domain name or add other available bells and whistles. For eCommerce sites, it looks as if Weebly has partnered with Square. This huge! Support is always available. Resources: First Steps & Learn to use Weebly.
If you are going to build a website, why not build one that is more than just pretty? Why not build one that is worthy of being found via solid on-page seo techniques? Depending on your needs (including maintenance) as well as budget, I can most likely build for you a custom website that can look almost exactly like your favorite Weebly template but is more technically sound in terms of on-page seo and html errors. Either I can maintain the website for you or show you how to via my affordable desktop software. You can read the full review here for more info on this tool. Contact me for more information.
Rob Shurtleff
The Website Guy
Weebly is a very popular and easy to use free hosted web-based drag-and-drop website builder. Below is an account of my personal experience with the Weebly web-based website builder when making a simple example website.
Weebly is a popular and fairly simple-to-use drag-and-drop free hosted web-based website builder. However, like any theme (as well as the web-based website builder), there is a learning curve to figuring out how to make what you want fit inside the templated box. IE - there is a learning curve to the quirks of the builder as well as the theme chosen (page layouts, change images, etc.).
Themes - In this case the theme was chosen based on layout. Using the simple design of a full-screen image and text and button overtop, it is clean, simple, elegant - typical of what is to be expected of a website today. However, there are many quality themes available to get you started. No matter the theme, it should be fairly simple to change the layout via the drag and drop of objects to the left of right of existing objects thus creating an additional column. You'll see when you dive in.
SEO - Page specific titles, descriptions and keywords are available to customize. H1 tags are available to add via separate app, otherwise all paragraph titles are H2 tags. Canonical, social media and schema tags are available on a per page basis via html code. Server optimization via robots.txt and htaccess files are not customizable as they are auto-generated. And of course one can add Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools via settings.
The downside to using a free hosted web-based website builder (in addition to needing to use a theme) is that from an optimization standpoint for page speed, capabilities are limited. Custom server optimization is not possible via htaccess file. In addition, if you ever become dissatisfied with the host from a support or customer service standpoint, or if they go out of business, you're stuck as it cannot be moved to another without rebuilding it from scratch.
The upside is it is free hosted, and can be managed via the web. This means everything used to build the website is made to simply work and work well together. Another plus is that Weebly can double as a blogging platform, it is easy to make blog posts, which is good for seo, that can be shared with Facebook, which is also good for seo. For an added fee, you can connect your Weebly website to a custom domain name or add other available bells and whistles. For eCommerce sites, it looks as if Weebly has partnered with Square. This huge! Support is always available. Resources: First Steps & Learn to use Weebly.
If you are going to build a website, why not build one that is more than just pretty? Why not build one that is worthy of being found via solid on-page seo techniques? Depending on your needs (including maintenance) as well as budget, I can most likely build for you a custom website that can look almost exactly like your favorite Weebly template but is more technically sound in terms of on-page seo and html errors. Either I can maintain the website for you or show you how to via my affordable desktop software. You can read the full review here for more info on this tool. Contact me for more information.
Rob Shurtleff
The Website Guy