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All opinions and commentaries are based on the author’s own hands-on experiences with the website builders.

WEBS.COM REVIEW 40 MILLION WEBSITES BUILT – WHY

PEOPLE LIKE WEBS? OUR DETAIL REVIEW

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A brief introduction to Webs and who should be using them

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Webs Overview Webs.com was one of the earliest online

website builder. To put it in context, webs.com was launched 4 years before Wordpress

It is a semi drag and drop website builder that targets small businesses and entrepreneurs, but it is flexible to be use for personal or non-profit websites

While they don’t have a very wide selection of themes, the designs are decent and it does give you some customization options

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Webs Overview Webs.com is one of the very few website

builders that have membership sign up features provided for you as part of their builder.

Robust e-commerce tool that make it ideal for small business that are looking to create on online store

Webs.com currently powers over 40 million websites. Since it is one of the earliest online website builders, they were able to acquire an impressive number of users.

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The 3 Top Pros and Cons of Webs.com

WEBS.COM PRO & CONS

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Webs.com Pro - #1 When it comes to user-friendliness, Webs has

done a good job in making it pretty intuitive for you to build a website.

Their drag and drop builder allows you to drag modules (such as pictures, paragraphs, slideshows etc) into the website, and allow you to edit them by just clicking on them.

Based on past users feedback, Webs was pretty buggy and can freeze up at times. Webs has since completed a significant overhaul of their builder in mid-2012, and the current version of the builder gives you a much smoother user interface and experience. It’s very easy to add modules, edit them and remove them as necessary.

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Webs.com Pro - #2 Webs allow you to build membership sites

directly on their websites. This is a very rare feature in the world of website builders and

in fact, Webs is the only website builder we know that includes membership site features in their builder.

Webs’ membership function is fully integrated so you don’t have to worry about compatibility issue and installation issue. In addition, you can manage your members directly in your website builder, so there is no extra account to setup and manage.

You can set different level of access, send out group email to members, and restrict which of your pages could be viewed by the public, or by members only.

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Webs.com Pro - #3 Webs has an App Store that allows you to

integrate more features and third party tools directly into your Webs website.

Fully integrated Apps with 1-click installation – you don’t have to worry about finding out how to install Apps into your website which could sometimes be technical.

Webs use Apps to provide more features for small businesses and entrepreneurs . Client information / interaction organization tools, SEO tools, sharing of documents, and Etsy store integration tool are some of the Apps available to Webs users.

There are both free and paid Apps as some of the paid Apps are created and serviced by third party companies.

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Webs.com Con - #1 Standard theme design with limited

selections As of April 2013, Webs only offer around 40 templates for you

to choose from. In addition, about 6 of them can only be accessed if you upgrade to their premium package.

While there are not a whole lot of themes available, the designs are fairly decent so if you are not overly picky with the design of your website, you will most likely be able to find what you need.

You do have some customization options like customizing the background, color scheme and font style for some themes

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Webs.com Con - #2 No custom theme option or access to

html/css code to customize your theme

If you are not completely happy with the 40-ish templates that they provide you, you won’t be able to modify it through codes.

This is not entirely uncommon as Webs.com also doesn’t open

up the codes to users either, but it is a drawback.

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Webs.com Con - #3 Loading time between changing of

pages was fairly slow in editing mode.

Although this will not stop you from building a pretty good

website, it does get a bit tiring as all the seconds of waiting does add up especially at the beginning when you will be building a ton of content into the website.

The website does load pretty fast when it is in published

mode. So when your visitors are visiting your website, the loading time is pretty normal.

Semi drag & drop website builder

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WEBS.COM PAGES & LAYOUTS

Normal Pages

Webs provides you with 6 different page layout configurations, so whenever you create a new page, you can choose which page layout to use.

Standard, Sidebar Left, Sidebar Right, Banner,

Banner/Sidebar left, and Banner/Sidebar Right

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.

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

Specialty Pages

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

Webs also give you “specialty pages” – what we mean is that they have dedicated, pre-set structured webpages for you to choose from.

Go Mobile with Webs.com

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WEBS.COM MOBILE THEMES

Mobile Themes

The options that Webs give you are actually a lot more than what other website builders have. 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.

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

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Webs.com has one of the most committed and best supporting team

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Customer Support

For free account users, you can seek support from Webs’ forum where you can post questions and receive answers.

For Starter Plan users, you will have full email support

For Enhanced Plan users, you will have both email and live chat support

For Pro Plan users, you will have priority email, live chat and phone support. Phone support is not normally offered in many website builders. So this is a great service for people who need more directions

Webs.com have several tiers of custom support depending on the plan you are on

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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.

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.

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Community Forum Support 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.

If you upgrade to Webs’ Starter, Enhanced or Pro plans, you can receive additional support through email, live chat or phone (depending on which plan you subscribed to – we discussed this a few slides ago)

Comprehensive Tools to Help You Build a Online Store

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WEBS.COM E-COMMERCE

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Comprehensive Set of e-Commerce Tools

Webs.com offers two method of selling product online

You can choose to use the Webs.com store app OR you can integrate your Etsy store by adding the Etsy Store App

ETSY STORE There is a monthly charge to use the Etsy app

You will need an Etsy account to use the app

All features available to you in Etsy.com will be available here in your personal store

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WEBS STORE

Full Control Over Product Variants - so your customers can pick and choose different variations of your products.

Unlimited Products – For Pro users, they do not place limits on how many products you want to upload into your website. There is a product limit for Start and Enhanced plan users

Inventory Management - easily manage your inventory across your entire store by stock level, price, or title.

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WEBS STORE

Configure Sales Taxes - Webs.com allows you to set up taxes so the tax amounts will be automatically added to the checkout process

Payment Methods:

Google Checkout

Paypal

Shipping Options - You can create different shipping options for your customers to choose from

No Option to Export Your Website …

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WEBS.COM HOSTING / EXPORTING OPTIONS

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Webs.com Hosting Webs.com hosts all the websites for you, so

you don’t have to pay for hosting separately.

They manage the entire hosting process for you so you can focus on building your website and other more important things

Webs.com takes care of all the security upgrades for their servers and do all the technical details to ensure your website is always up and running, and doesn’t get hacked.

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Webs.com Exporting Option One downside of Webs.com is that they don’t

have an export or archive feature.

So basically, you can’t take the website out of Webs.com if you decide you want to leave them.

One of the main reasons is that they have unique website building technology that won’t function properly outside of their own environment.

So once you disconnect the website from Webs.com, some functions will no longer work and other hosts cannot adapt to those functions.

Is Webs.com worth your investment?

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WEBS.COM PRICING PACKAGES & PLANS

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Webs.com – Free Plans Available

Webs.com offer Free Plans so you can try out the builder till you are ready to commit to a plan

With the Free plan you will have limited theme options, pages, premium features and no customer support

Regardless of the restrictions, you are getting free hosting that would cost you $5 - $10 a month to host the site yourself

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Webs.com – 3 Pricing Plans Webs.com offers 3 plans: 1. Starter – $3.37 per month for annual plans (or $4.95 plus

$5 One Time Signup Fee if you are paying month-to-month)

2. Enhanced – $5.02 per month for annual plans (or $9.95 plus $10 One Time Signup Fee if you are paying month-to-month)

3. Pro – $6.67 per month for annual plans (or $24.95 plus $15 One Time Signup Fee if you are paying month-to-month)

Webs run different promotion at different times, so the price may be different then the price listed above.

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Webs.com – 3 Pricing Plans 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 $150 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.

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So what’s the final verdict?

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Webs.com Review - Conclusion This a solid website builder with lots of practical

features and Apps to allow you to build a fully functional website for small business and/or online store.

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.

Webs.com Review - Conclusion Theme design may be limited, but 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”.

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.

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Webs.com Review - Conclusion 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.

TRY WEBS.COM FOR FREE

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Expert Website Builder Reviews

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