How to Use Weebly In a Few Easy Steps

Weebly has over 250 million unique website visits per month. On top of this, Weebly boasts over 30 million websites under its belt, so it’s no wonder so many people are turning to this website builder.

We’re going to explore how to sign up to Weebly, how to build a website, and even how to set up your own online store. We’ll discuss the pros and cons of using Weebly, it’s pricing structure and features. Hopefully, this will give you a good idea as to whether Weebly is the right website builder for you.

This guide is designed to help you understand, and learn how to use Weebly in a few easy steps…

Create a Website with Weebly.com

 

1. Signing up to Weebly

Signing up to Weebly is free. Head on over to Weebly.com to get started.

 

 

Once you’ve clicked ‘Create Your Website’, you’ll need to fill in a few details. Simply enter your first and last name, followed by your email, a password, and your country. Remember, signing up is free, so you can enjoy Weebly’s benefits and features before committing to any kind of pricing plan.

 

Next, you’ll be asked what kind of website you want to create. Choose between ‘I just need a website’ for a personal website, business website, or blog, and ‘I need a website with an online store’ if you want to sell online.

If you’re not sure whether you might need an online store in the future, don’t worry, this isn’t a final decision. You can change things later if you wish.

 

 

2. Choose your design

Now it’s time to choose your theme. All of Weebly’s themes are free. There’s plenty of categories to filter by, including business, portfolio, personal, even blog, coming soon and other. Take a look around and click on a theme to preview it.

 

 

Each of Weebly’s themes is mobile responsive. This means you won’t have to worry about how they’ll look on different devices, as Weebly’s themes deal with this for you. There’s a wide range of professional and modern-looking themes.

What’s more, if you choose a theme and change your mind, you can switch templates at any time.

Once you’re happy with a theme, click ‘Start Editing’ in the top right-hand corner when previewing a theme.

 

 

Create a Website with Weebly.com

 

3. Selecting your domain

Things are now starting to get more real. Weebly will ask for your domain name to proceed. If you already have a domain name you can choose ‘Connect or transfer it now’.

 

 

If you need a domain name, simply enter your desired name into the search box. Once you hit ‘Search’, Weebly will display some options for you. If your domain name is available, you’ll see it in the list below under the ‘Professional Domain’ heading.

Domain names with Weebly are included for free when you sign up for their 1-year plan. If you don’t want to commit to anything yet, you can choose a Weebly subdomain that will look something like www.mysitename.weebly.com 

 

4. Building your website

Now the fun really begins! We’re going to talk about Weebly’s editor in detail, discussing the features and tools it offers. Before we begin though, your editor will look something along these lines (depending on the theme you’ve chosen).

 

 

Text Boxes

With Weebly, WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). This means that Weebly is very literal, so if you see and use a text box, that is what will appear on the editor. You can choose to add a title or text box to your website by clicking on the feature on the left-hand panel.

It’s as simple as clicking the tool on the left then clicking where you want it to appear on your website. If you want to edit text, click in the box where you’ll see options to change the font, size, colour, etc.

Images

If you’re creating an online store or portfolio, imagery can be very important. With Weebly, you can easily add images, galleries and even slideshows to your website.

Simply upload the files you want from your computer, and let Weebly do the rest.

Sections

Whilst the themes that Weebly provides are all well and good, they won’t necessarily provide everything you want on your website. You may want to move elements around on your website or add new sections.

Again, this is really simple to do. Drag the ‘Section’ element from the toolbar on the left and drop it where you want to add a new section. Here you can choose to add a gallery, contact form, menu, featured item, or team.

Elements

There are plenty of elements to experiment with and use on your website. If you see a lightning symbol next to an element, e.g. HD Video, this means it is only available on a premium plan.

As with all the tools available on Weebly, it’s a case of dragging the element you want to use and dropping it where you want it on your website. If you accidentally place something that you didn’t want or no longer need, you can move elements around or remove them.

Pages

Unless you want a one-page website, you’ll need to understand how to add new pages to your site using Weebly. Using the tabs located at the top of the editor, click on pages.

This will open up a new menu on the left-hand side. Simply click the plus icon to reveal a list of new pages you can add. Depending on the type of page you want to add to your website, choose one from the list and click it.

Theme/Design

Do you remember when I said you could change your theme if you’re not happy with it? Well, here’s the part where we take a look at some other theme and design options. If you want to change your theme, select ‘Theme’ from the tabs at the top of the editor, and click ‘Change Theme’.

If you want to change other aspects of the theme or design you currently have, select ‘Change Fonts’ for more options.

You can change the font type, style, size, and weight, along with more features using the change font tool. This allows you to change aspects of each element on your website, meaning nothing ever has to look the same. Or, if you want it all to look the same, it can be.

Delete

Building your website is all about experimentation. If you don’t like something you’ve done or added, it’s super easy to delete to it.

All you have to do is highlight the element on your website you want to delete by clicking it. The option to ‘Delete’ will show on the top of the section. Once you click delete, Weebly’s editor will ask you to confirm whether you’re sure you want to delete it.

 

 

Create a Website with Weebly.com

 

5. Weebly Apps

Many website builders offer apps or plugins to enhance your website. These are by no means essential, however, they should help to take your website to the next level.

Weebly’s App Center can be accessed from the left-hand toolbar in the editor.

 

Here you can manage installed apps or add new ones. Once you click ‘Add App’, you’ll be able to explore the App Center where you’ll find hundreds of apps that you can install. There’s a mix of paid and free apps. Much like WordPress plugins, there are apps that have a free and paid element to them, depending on what you require.

Whether you want to boost traffic to your site, increase sales, or integrate your website with social media, Weebly has it all for the taking. I highly recommend exploring what’s on offer in Weebly’s App Center before deciding on anything firm.

I often find this part of creating a website quite fun. In fact, I’ve regularly come across apps that I wouldn’t have thought of installing until I’ve come across them in the App Center. It’s a great source of inspiration!

You can either search by an app you have in mind, or filter by popular, highest rated, new, free, or even by category or type of app.

When you click on an app, you can view the user rating to get an idea of whether it’s any good or not. You’ll also be able to see details about its cost, features, and support should you need it.

If you have an app in mind that might be useful but you can’t find it, you can submit your app idea to Weebly! And if you’re a code-whizz, you can develop your own app to submit to Weebly’s App Center! Pretty cool, right?

In order to install an app to your website, simply click ‘Add’ whilst viewing the app page, then click ‘Connect’. This will install the app on your website. You’ll now be able to view the app on the toolbar dashboard.

 

 

6. Add a store

Do you remember during step 1 we were asked whether we wanted to build a website or store? If you chose website and now want to add a store, or simply want to learn how to add a store, this is how you do it.

• Select Dashboard > Store
• Go to Pages > Add product page
• Select Dashboard > Items > Item Library

Above are several ways you can add or edit your online store.

In order to set up your store, you’ll need to fill out some information. This is basic information like company name, address, layout, social media, and analytics.

I won’t go through every aspect of the online store as Weebly guides you through this process pretty well. Adding items, shipping information, and other features are really easy. In fact, I’d probably say it’s the simplest online store builder I’ve come across.

If your items have different variations, like colour, or you want to add modifiers like custom text, this is all possible in Weebly’s store editor.

Remember, you won’t be able to sell products on Weebly’s free plan, but you can get a feel for what you can do.

 

7. Weebly Pricing

Until this point, we’ve been looking at Weebly’s free plan. Their free plan is a great way to explore the features on offer and experiment with their editor. However, if you want a professional website without Weebly branding that unlocks other features, you’ll need to think about upgrading.

	Connect	Pro	Business	Business Plus
Free Domain		✔	✔	✔
Free SSL	✔	✔	✔	✔
Storage	500MB	✔	✔	✔
Connect custom domain	✔	✔	✔	✔
Remove Square ads		✔	✔	✔
Advanced site stats		✔	✔	✔
Site search		✔	✔	✔
Age confirmation			✔	✔
Password protection		✔	✔	✔
Video backgrounds		✔	✔	✔
HD video & audio		✔	✔	✔
Members		100	Unlimited	Unlimited
Membership registration			✔	✔
Shopping cart		✔	✔	✔
Accept payments via PayPal			✔	✔
Weebly transaction fee		3%	0%	0%
Items		25	Unlimited	Unlimited
Item badges	✔	✔	✔	✔
Item options			✔	✔
Digital goods			✔	✔
Item reviews			✔	✔
Inventory management			✔	✔
In-store pickup		✔	✔	✔
Automatic tax calculator			✔	✔
Coupons			✔	✔
Square gift cards			✔	✔
Shipping calculator			✔	✔
Shipping labels			✔	✔
Abandoned cart emails			✔	✔
SEO	✔	✔	✔	✔
Lead capture	✔	✔	✔	✔
Pop-up notifications			✔	✔
Advanced eCommerce insights			✔	✔
Community forum	✔	✔	✔	✔
Chat & email support	✔	✔	✔	✔
Phone support		✔	✔	✔
Priority support			✔	✔
Price	£4/mo	£9/mo	£18/mo	£28/mo

Weebly has 4 pricing plans. The prices above are based on an annual billing period, which is the cheapest way of signing up for Weebly. However, if you want to pay on a month-by-month basis, their prices will be:

• Connect: £6/mo
• Pro: £14/mo
• Business: £26/mo
• Business Plus: £32/mo

There are savings of up to 36% if you sign up for the whole year. This is my recommendation as it will offer you the most affordable pricing plan.

 

 

8. Publish your website

You can publish your website from different areas. If you aren’t ready to publish your website, you can do this at any point. Remember, you can change the theme whenever you like or return to the editor at any time.

When you’re ready to publish, you can choose ‘Publish your website’ from the dashboard or select the ‘Publish’ button from the Weebly website editor.

If you’ve published your website by accident or want to backtrack, you can choose ‘Settings’ from the top menu tab, or from your dashboard. Scroll to the very bottom and select ‘Un-publish’ to un-publish your website.

At this point, you can either make further changes to your website, add apps, or let your users start to view your website. With Weebly, everything is easy which is why I love it so much. Nothing is ever final if you don’t want it to be, meaning any mistakes can be rectified.

 

9. Conclusion

The aim of this guide was to offer a step-by-step solution to using Weebly. I hope by now I’ve got you on-board and you too love how easy it is to use Weebly.

Getting started with Weebly is seriously simple. Whether you’re a beginner who’s never created a website before or a skilled coder who wants an easy life, Weebly offers something for everyone.

I find their pricing plans very reasonable, and love the fact you can upgrade at any time. Sometimes you don’t realise you need to upgrade until you come across and element or feature that requires it. This is where Weebly makes things easy.

Using Weebly’s drag and drop editor is a breeze. You can customise themes, elements and design your entire website in a matter of hours if you want to. However, if you’re not convinced Weebly is the right website builder for you, you can check out our 10 best website builders here.

 

Create a Website with Weebly.com