Archives:

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

In 2024, it’s entirely possible to earn a living by making money from your website. Whether you want to earn a bit of pocket money or make a full-time career out of your website, earning money from your website is a very popular thing to do.

The thing is, you don’t need to run an online store, selling products and services, in order to make money. In fact, some of the most profitable websites are those that don’t sell products.

That’s not to say you can’t create your own online store and make money. Because it’s a very profitable market. However, there are other ways too, and it’s how job to show you exactly how to earn money from your website.

We’re going to take a look at the most popular methods and establish how to earn money from your website today…

1. How to sell products

In the U.K. alone, in 2018, there were over 199.7 billion business to customer (B2C) eCommerce sales and 165.3 billion business to business (B2B) eCommerce sales recorded.

Find more statistics at Statista

As you can see from the chart above, these figures are continuing to grow, year-on-year. So it’s no wonder the eCommerce market is a popular opportunity to investigate. It’s now even easier for people to set up their own eCommerce stores, without requiring any coding or web development knowledge.

Platforms like Shopify make it easy to grab a slice of the eCommerce pie. Here are a few reasons why they are so great:

• Pre-designed themes and templates
• No coding skills required
• Easy to add your own products and services to sell
• A wide choice of apps and plugins to enhance your online store
• Multiple pricing plans to suit every budget and business requirement
• Integration with social media platforms
• Newsletter and subscription forms
• Discount codes and coupons
• Analytics and SEO

Whilst many eCommerce builders are suitable for beginners, there are also tools for those who are a little more technical. WordPress.org is one of my favourite platforms which I recommend to web developers and people with some coding experience.

WordPress is a content management system (CMS). You’ll need to find your own web hosting if you’re using WordPress.org, but I can assure you that it’s worth it. You can choose to build your website entirely from scratch or make use of their awesome themes and plugins to customise your own website.

If you don’t believe you can create a successful eCommerce website, take a look at Forbes’ success stories.

BeardBrand made use of their awesome branding to stand out above the rest of the beard products market. Although the initial investment to get their brand out there was more expensive than your standard branding, it made a huge difference, and the proof is in the pudding.

In the first year, BeardBrand was hitting £95,254 in monthly sales. Its customers were wowed by the unique branding, along with the more personal experience it offers.

2. How to sell services

Selling services is very similar to selling products. You just need to know what kind of product to sell, and how to sell it. The key difference between selling products and services is in order to sell services, you don’t need an eCommerce store builder.

In fact, it’s probably a little less complicated to sell services online. Services can be anything from online courses, a hairdressing business, or weekly recipe plans for the family. Finding something you’re good at is the best way to sell a service because it can be pretty much anything you like.

In order to sell your services online, you’ll need to create a website. There are plenty of simple website builders like Wix and SquareSpace where you can literally drag and drop elements to create your site. This is an ideal starting point for beginners.

The best way you can sell your services is to find out what makes you unique. Think about why people should choose your service over another, and establish your unique selling point (USP).

Even the strangest ideas can turn into a big success. Medium lists 32 examples of strange and successful online businesses.

Comprising of four friends, the Yes Theory YouTube channel was set up with the idea of people saying “yes!”. By changing their mindset, and hoping that others can do the same, these guys have turned their lives into someone what of a fairytale.

They’re now mingling with celebrities, embarking on dangerous adventures, and have over 5 million subscribers on YouTube.

3. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is incredibly popular amongst bloggers. However, you don’t need to be a blogger to jump into the affiliate marketing world. In fact, you’ve probably used an affiliate marketing link multiple times without even knowing it,

If you don’t know what affiliate marketing is, it’s basically companies offering people rewards in return for selling their products or services. The great thing is, you don’t need to do much in order to gain traction.

It does help if you have a website or blog related to the product or service you’re advertising, but it’s not a requirement.

Affiliate marketing tends to take on two different types of methods, both of which are similar to adverts. These are:

• Cost per click (CPC) – making money when someone clicks on your affiliate link
• Cost per acquisition (CPA) – when a user buys a product or service, after clicking your link, you’ll receive commission or a set rate per converted customer

Many affiliate marketing programmes will offer nicely designed links in the form of banners or adverts you can embed on your website. This tends to be the preferred method in which website visitors like to see advertising, as opposed to random ads that may not necessarily be relevant.

Even if your existing website isn’t relevant to the product or service you’re using affiliate links for, you can easily create a blog and create related content. Alternatively, programmes like Amazon Associates contain a broader range of products that may appeal to wider audiences.

4. Selling advert space

Adverts on websites are everywhere. As much as they can be frustrating when browsing a webpage, they are a great way for people to make money.

Out of all the results on the page, the top three paid spots receive 46 percent of the clicks.

Pay-per-click (PPC) is one of the most popular methods of selling advert space. When someone clicks on the advert displayed on your webpage, or search results, you’ll receive a commission from the advertiser.

If you’re using Google AdWords, the average CPC across all industries is around £1.59. Whilst this doesn’t seem like much, the more traffic you generate to the website, the more money you’ll make. To put this into perspective, say you get 5,000 visitors all clicking on an advert in a month, that’s £7,940 per month.

The most popular method of selling advert space is using Google Adsense. Google will generate adverts for you to display on your website by way of embedding code onto your webpages. They do their best to analyse what your website is about to find the most relevant adverts.

Another way of selling advert space is to go to the advertiser directly. This is going to take more time and effort, as you’ll need to find the right companies and persuade them to use your website to display their adverts. However, it can be more profitable.

5. Donations

If your website doesn’t generate a lot of traffic, but the user base you have is dedicated and engaged with you, donations can be a great way to earn money.

Donations are often presented as appreciation for your work and services, or a way to keep your work ‘alive’ due to not making money through other avenues. Examples of types of websites that accept donations are:

• Charities
• Podcasts
• Software
• Open-source projects
• Information websites

One of the most well-known websites accepting donations is Wikipedia. If you don’t know what Wikipedia is, it’s an online information website that is free to use. The founders of Wikipedia want to keep it free to use, but accept donations in order to keep it going, and to show appreciation for their work.

Setting up donations on your website is pretty easy. Lots of payment gateways will allow you to embed donation buttons on your site, but most people tend to use PayPal. In order to accept donations via PayPal, follow these simple steps:

1. Create a PayPal account
2. Go to the Donation creation page here
3. Enter your information and customise your donation button
4. Add your email address to receive donations
5. Choose custom donation amounts or allow any donation
6. Finish and get your code

Once people click on your donation button, they’ll be redirected to PayPal’s website. Here they can fill in their details and select how much they want to donate.

6. Subscriptions

When people think of subscriptions, they tend to automatically go to magazines and newspapers. However, subscriptions can be for a wide range of products and services. Examples include:

• Magazines and newspapers
• Podcasts
• Recipes
• Online courses
• Software
• Audio and video

According to Forbes, “15% of online shoppers have signed up for one or more subscriptions to receive products on a recurring basis, frequently through monthly boxes”. In the past 5 years, the subscription eCommerce market has grown over 100%.

A great example of a subscription is web hosting. You can’t go to a store and physically buy it, but you can subscribe to web hosting services in order to receive a service. If you’re thinking about creating your own website, you’re going to need web hosting. Companies like Hostinger offer web hosting from just 80p per month, so it’s not going to break the bank.

Visit Hostinger.co.uk (£0.80p/Month)

If you’re using a website builder or CMS platform, most of them will allow you to create a specific subscription-based area, that can only be accessed by subscribers. Often, this is protected by a username and password which you’ll get once you’ve subscribed.

You can set it so this area contains your premium content or services that only subscribers can have access to. A great way to promote a subscription service is by offering exclusive offers and discounts or even promoting giveaways.

7. Conclusion

After reading this guide, hopefully, you now know that selling products online isn’t the only way to make money online. Technology is growing, thus are methods to make money.

You don’t even need to have a big website or brand to start raking in the cash. Personal websites, bloggers, and even YouTuber’s are becoming millionaires through advertising, subscription services, and affiliate marketing.

Here’s a quick overview of what we’ve learned so far:

Method	Description	Ideal for
Selling products online	Selling products via an online store. Easy to create a website using an eCommerce builder like Shopify	People who have products to sell
Selling services online	Like selling products, but easier to sell services of any kind using a simple website builder like Wix	Creative minds who have a USP
Affiliate marketing	Signing up to affiliate programmes like Amazon Associates and embedding affiliate links on your website	Website owners or bloggers
Selling advert space	Displaying adverts on your website or blog in return for commission or flat rate when users click on an advert	Website owners or bloggers with high traffic
Donations	Receiving donations for your work in appreciation, or to continue doing what you do	Websites that don’t generate much traffic but hold solid customer engagement and loyalty
Subscriptions	Offering a subscription-based service that can’t be obtained physically	A range of services like online magazines, software, courses, etc.

All of the methods listed provide ways to make money online. You can choose which option is best for you by checking the ‘Ideal for’ column in the table above. Of course, this is just a guide, but are my recommendations based on a lot of research.

Many of these methods rely on generating lots of traffic to your website. In order to do this, you’ll want to make sure your website’s SEO is top-notch, to gain you a bigger advantage in the dog-eat-dog world of making money online.

Remember, anything is possible, you just need to work hard and have a good idea of what you want to achieve going into it.

Pinterest is a great tool for inspiration. There’s plenty of content on there, including food recipes, home decor ideas, arts and crafts, fashion, and more. However, did you know that you can sell and make money on Pinterest?

Pinterest is a popular social media network where you can earn money by selling your products. They have almost 300 million active monthly users. In fact, Pinterest’s average order value is up there with the likes of Instagram and Facebook.

Find more statistics at Statista

From the chart above, it’s clear that Pinterest has gained a lot of traction in the past 4 years, and looks to continue to do so. Pinterest is an awesome tool that eCommerce stores should grab by the horns.

If you’re planning on starting an eCommerce store, you might want to take a look at our review of the best eCommerce platforms. Website builders are a great way to build an online store without requiring any coding skills.

 

 

#1: Learn how to sell on Pinterest

Selling on Pinterest starts with understanding what ‘Rich Pins‘ are. They are split into four categories: app, product, recipe, and article. A Rich Pin allows you to purchase a product that you find on Pinterest.

• Product pins: They include real-time updates about your product, including price, availability, and location.
• Recipe pins: These include the necessary information to create a recipe, such as ingredients, cooking time, and serving sizes.
• Article pins: If a user comes across an article they want to save, an article pin can help them do this. They will see the article title, author, and story description.
• App pins: These show an install button so users can download your app straight from Pinterest. App pins are currently only compatible with iOS.

 

In the example above, you can see the Rich Pin outlined. This tells the user the price and stock availability of the item. You can connect Rich Pins directly from your website to your Pinterest account. This means if you update your product details, they’ll automatically change on Pinterest.

eCommerce builders like BigCommerce offer tools and features that allow seamless integration with Pinterest.

Rich Pins displaying your item price and availability can be seen by millions of Pinterest users. This enables users to click through to your website and hopefully purchase your product.

 

 

#2: Understanding the difference between Rich Pins and Buyable Pins

It’s time to cut through the jargon and really understand what Rich Pins and Buyable Pins are. In 2016, Pinterest launched a new feature called Buyable Pins.

These essentially cut out the middle man. Previously, if a user found a product they were interested in, like a t-shirt, they’d have to find it, click the pin to go to the online store, then purchase the product via the online store.

Buyable Pins are blue, so they should be easily identifiable on Pinterest. They work across mobile and web applications, so any user can interact with them. If you’re using Apple Pay, the process is made even simpler. 

What’s more, as a seller, you won’t have to pay anything extra to Pinterest, so you won’t be losing out on sales revenue.

At the moment, Buyable Pins are only available in the U.S. In order to apply to use Buyable Pins, you’ll need to do the following:

• Create a business Pinterest account (or you can convert your personal account over to a business account)
• Agree to the Pinterest Buyable Pins guidelines (this covers certain products, confirming your profile, and ensuring great customer service)

As we know, millions of people are using Pinterest every month. This opens up a world of opportunity to sell your products online. Remember, if you’re using a website builder like BigCommerce or Shopify, it’s now even easier to connect and sell with Pinterest.

 

#3: Using affiliate marketing to sell on Pinterest

When you get paid by someone, or a company, to advertise or promote their product, this is known as affiliate marketing. For example, you might visit a website that contains affiliate marketing links or banners, linking to other products or services.

If you sign up as an affiliate, you’ll be provided with your own personal link. This link can track users clicking on the link, and record whether a sale is made or not. Once a sale is made, you’ll either get a percentage of the sale or a commission payout.

Using affiliate marketing to sell on Pinterest is actually easier than you might think! We know that millions of people use Pinterest on a daily basis. They are either browsing for particular products or inspiration. When they come across something they like, they can either pin it or complete a purchase.

Once you find an appropriate affiliate marketing programme, all you need to do is locate the company’s pins or products, and repin them yourself. Make sure you add your affiliate marketing link, then bam, you’re done!

Key things to consider before signing up to affiliate marketing on Pinterest:

• Some affiliate marketing programmes require you to have a website and provide proof of that website (if you don’t have one, don’t forget to check out our best website builders, to create a website in a matter of minutes)
• Make sure the descriptions are correct when you repin products
• Ensure repinned products contain the right relevant keywords
• You don’t need a large following for pins to be seen (just ensure the information is accurate)

 

#4: Pros and cons of selling on Pinterest

There are lots of pros (and some cons) of selling on Pinterest. As we’ve discussed, selling on Pinterest, or even signing up as to an affiliate marketing programme, can be very lucrative. However, as with anything, there are some drawbacks too.

Pros	Cons
✔ It’s an easy platform to drive traffic	✖ Can be very time consuming
✔ Great for visual brands, or design-focused products	✖ Pinterest has somewhat of a niche audience
✔ Offers a high conversion rate compared to other social media platforms	✖ Pins are singular, meaning a user can only purchase one product at a time
✔ Pins have a long lifetime value if they get re-pinned	✖ Products can easily get lost amongst other pins or “similar products”
✔ Pinterest can help to boost your SEO
✔ Free to set up and use
✔ Buyable Pins make it easy for customers to 1-click buy a product
✔ Can be used as a mobile or desktop app

 

#5: Conclusion to selling on Pinterest

Pinterest is a massive social media channel with great opportunities for small and large businesses to sell products. Whilst there are other platforms like Facebook which are even bigger, Pinterest consistently seems to win in terms of the average money made per transaction.

People who use Pinterest tend to be looking for specific things. Whether that be a recipe, new dress, or home inspiration, the likelihood is that they’ll come across something that piques their interest.

If you already have a business and aren’t yet selling on Pinterest, you should definitely consider it. If you don’t currently have a website, you don’t need to worry about hiring a web designer to do your dirty work. Simply sign up to a website builder or eCommerce store builder like Shopify or BigCommerce.

Both Shopify and BigCommerce make use of Pinterest’s Rich Pins, so users will not only be able to buy your product, they can see information about your product too. However, Shopify would be my recommendation, simply because you can also use Buyable Pins, meaning your customers won’t have to leave Pinterest to buy your product.

Whether you choose to sell on Pinterest using your own website or by signing up for affiliate marketing, it’s definitely an avenue worth exploring.

Building a website for your church allows you to engage with your community. It may also open some doors to younger audiences who use the internet more frequently. If like many churches, you accept donations, it’s also super easy to set up a donation button on your website. Discover more in our Church website builders review of 2024.

97% of consumers will check to see if a local organisation is online. Picture this; you’ve just moved into a new area and you’re looking for your local church, what do you do? You’ll probably use a search engine to track down your nearest church.

If your church doesn’t have a website, you could be missing out on a lot of potential members.

Most churches won’t have much time or money to spend on building a website. That’s why using a website builder to build your church website is going to be your new best friend! You won’t need any prior experience or coding skills to build a church website.

1. Wix (Best Overall Website Builder)

Pros	Cons
✔ Easy to use	✖ Unable to change templates once your site is live
✔ Free plan available	✖ Free plan includes Wix branded adverts
✔ Mobile-friendly templates

Wix is my all-time favourite website builder, not just for church websites. It’s an extremely popular platform, offering an easy-to-use interface for beginners. Because of its drag and drop nature, building a website is extremely simple and can be done in a matter of minutes.

Wix’s templates are free to use and include a wealth of church websites for you to choose from. If you’ve never seen a line of code in your life, you needn’t worry. It’s a case of choosing elements you want to include on your website like text boxes, images and videos, and dragging them where you want them to appear.

Although Wix’s templates aren’t just for church websites, they do include some handy features. For example, you can add donation buttons, contact forms and even start a blog. People can keep up-to-date with the latest events and learn more about your church.

If you want to include a map to your church, you can add one, pinpointing your location and contact details. Wix offers a free plan, so you can try it for free, and keep your website for free, for life – which is why it tops our list of free website builders. However, I would recommend upgrading to a plan that allows you to connect your own domain and remove Wix branded adverts, to look more professional.

Create a Website with Wix.com

2. SquareSpace (Best for Designs)

Pros	Cons
✔ Beautifully designed templates	✖ Pricing plans are more expensive than some other website builders
✔ Great features	✖ Not as beginner-friendly compared to Wix
✔ Easy to use

SquareSpace offers some really awesome designs that are guaranteed to wow your website visitors. If your website is image-heavy, SquareSpace can definitely handle the load. Although it’s not as beginner-friendly as the likes of Wix, it’s still simple to use and requires no coding skills.

Squarespace doesn’t have any church-specific templates, but it does have community and non-profit site templates. You can select the specific features you require, such as donations, and Squarespace will display any matching templates.

Pricing plans start from £10 per month, but allow you to connect a custom domain and include a free SSL certificate. The extra money you dish out on SquareSpace is definitely worthwhile. Their features are pretty awesome for a variety of industries and include 24/7 support and website metrics.

Once you sign up to Squarespace, you can upgrade or cancel at any time, you aren’t tied into any contracts. If you do have any developer experience, there’s the option to edit the HTML and CSS of your template directly, offering even more creative flair opportunities.

Create a Website with SquareSpace.com

3. Weebly (Best for Budget)

Pros	Cons
✔ Cheap pricing plans	✖ There aren’t any church-specific templates
✔ Offers good scalability	✖ Doesn’t offer as much creativity as other website builders
✔ Drag and drop builder

If you’re on a budget, Weebly is my recommended website builder for your church website. It offers simple yet professional theme designs which are all mobile-friendly. If you’re not looking for as much creative freedom as Wix, Weebly is a suitable platform.

Weebly doesn’t offer a search function when it comes to their themes, so looking through them can be a bit tedious. However, they do have category selections to narrow your search down a little. there aren’t any church-specific themes or non-profit ones, but their selection is fairly small, so it shouldn’t be hard to find a suitable design.

Weebly has a free plan which gives you 500MB storage and a free SSL certificate. It does contain Weebly branding, but their cheapest plan coming in at just £4 per month will remove this.

Unlike Wix and SquareSpace, Weebly doesn’t offer specific features for each of their themes. You’ll need to preview the themes beforehand to see if they contain the features you’re after, like donation pages, and go from there.

Create a Website with Weebly.com

4. Sharefaith (Best Church-Specific Website Builder)

Pros	Cons
✔ Selection of templates with specific features included	✖ Not as beginner-friendly as other website builders
✔ Other services on offer	✖ More expensive pricing plans
✔ Church-specific templates

Sharefaith offers many services related to churches. Included in these services are a church website builder, donation services, church graphics, live streaming, church mobile apps, and worship software. If you’re looking for all things church-related, this is what I recommend.

Sharefaith’s website themes are all dedicated to churches. You won’t have to search through to find the best template as they’ll all be suitable. There’s a wide range of templates to choose from, and you can try or preview any of them for free.

Although their themes are pretty design-focused, they aren’t a comparison against SquareSpace. However, they do provide plenty of built-in features, similar to Wix, and allow you to share sermons.

If I had to pick a flaw with Sharefaith it would be their pricing. The membership plan which grants access to their website builder comes in at £35.75 per month, which is around £35. The pricing plans are billed annually and include free web hosting, the ability to switch templates and offer a donations platform.

Create a Website with Sharefaith.com

5. Ministry Designs (Best for Customer Support)

Pros	Cons
✔ High quality and knowledgeable customer support	✖ Very expensive
✔ Easy to use	✖ Features available with other website builders
✔ Includes blogging tools

Ministry Designs is unique in the fact that their team all have church ministry backgrounds. This is obviously a good thing if this is the industry you’re in and you need specific support. Their support is excellent and I couldn’t rate them highly enough.

However, they are extremely expensive. You’ll need to fork out an upfront fee of £794 dollars to get started, plus £15.90 per month. Unless you have the budget to cater for Ministry Designs and are serious about your church website, this may not be the most suitable platform.

Saying that their website templates are geared towards church websites and offer some cool features. These include blogging tools, video backgrounds, donation pages and more. There should be enough features to get you started and see you through your church website.

On the other hand, other website builders like Wix and Squarespace that do offer church templates or non-profit themes, also offer similar features for a fraction of the cost. You won’t be tied into a contract, but you’ll need a healthy investment, to begin with.

Create a Website with MinistryWebsiteDesigns.com

6. Nucleus (Best for All-in-one Services)

Pros	Cons
✔ Good customer support	✖ Expensive pricing plans
✔ Great for beginners	✖ Doesn’t offer much creative freedom
✔ Drag and drop design

Over 115,000 people are using Nucleus to create and maintain their church website and services. You can try their services for free for 30 days. Their services include a website builder, sermon videos and social media integration, 100% donation retention, and unlimited 4K stock videos.

Their website builder offers a drag and drop functionality, making it user-friendly and easy to build your website. There’s plenty of third-party app integrations and their services allow you to reach out and get engagement from social media followings.

Nucleus’ customer support is very similar to Ministry Designs. They absolutely know what they’re doing and they’ll help any way they can, including video tutorials and support when building your website.

However, much the same as Ministry Designs, they aren’t cheap. If you pay annually, you’re looking at £78.6 per month which works out at £943 over the year. Alternatively, if you pay monthly, it hikes up to £99 per month.

Create a Website with Nucleus.church

7. WordPress.org (Best for Experienced Individuals)

Pros	Cons
✔ Wide range of themes and templates	✖ Additional web hosting required
✔ Extensive plugins	✖ Not recommended for beginners
✔ Unmetered creative design

Although it’s not technically a website builder, I feel I have to mention WordPress.org on this list. WordPress.org is a self-hosted platform so you’ll need your own web hosting and domain name. Most web hosts support 1-click installs of WordPress, and hosting starts from as little as 80p per month with Hostinger.

The beauty of WordPress is that the world is your oyster. There are hundreds of themes available via WordPress itself, or you can download themes from places like ThemeForest where experienced developers upload them for your use (at a small cost).

WordPress has a huge library of plugins so you can really make your website your own. However, you do need to be somewhat experienced in coding to get your head around the platform. Saying that there are WordPress plugins specifically designed for page builders which you can view here.

Create a Website with WordPress.org

If you’ve come across this guide, I’m betting you are looking to increase your SEO to rank higher on a search engine result. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is aimed at increasing your website’s position and visibility on a search engine such as Google.

SEO is important so that people can find your website. You may have the best online store or blog, but without visitors finding it, it won’t mean a thing.

So why are we talking about web hosts?

Well, your web host can have a big impact on your SEO score. For example, if your server speed is slow, you’ll rank lower on a search engine search. Or if your website experiences a lot of downtime, people won’t be able to find it.

Your web host can affect SEO in other ways too:

• Location: If your main target audience is in the U.K., your website will rank higher in U.K. searches. Factors such as your IP address can be tracked to determine your location. If your website is hosted in the U.S., but your mainly getting U.K. visitors, your website will rank lower. The server location can also affect the speed at which your visitors can view your website.
• Speed: In 2010, Google told the world that page speed is a determining factor when assessing your SEO score. Although your web host isn’t solely responsible for your website speed, it does have an impact. There are plenty of resources available to check your loading speed, like Google PageSpeed Insights, GTMetrix, and Pingdom.
• Uptime: Uptime means the amount of time your website is available, online. Search engines crawl your website multiple times a day, so if your website is down often, the search engine will report that your website is inaccessible. If this happens a lot, search engines will flag your website as unreliable, causing your rankings to drop. Many web hosts can’t guarantee 100% uptime, but you’ll want to get as close to this as possible.

We’re going to explore the 7 best web hosts to increase SEO. We’ve signed up for all of the web hosts listed in this article to give you an honest representation of their services. Hold tight and enjoy the ride!

Best Web Hosts for SEO

Below is an overview of the 7 best web hosts for SEO. After signing up for each of the providers, I monitored a variety of aspects to ensure they really deserved their place here. These factors included speed, performance, uptime, server location, customer support, and security.

Hosting Provider	Best For	Price
SiteGround	Uptime	£2.95/mo
BlueHost	WordPress websites	£2.23/mo
Hostinger	Server speed	£0.80/mo
iPage	Customer support	£1.50/mo
HostGator	Security	£2.12/mo
GoDaddy	Server location	£3.25/mo
A2 Hosting	Money-back guarantee	£3.03/mo

#1: SiteGround (Best for Uptime)

Pros	Cons
✔ Solid uptime results	✖ More expensive than some web hosts
✔ Great customer support	✖ Low storage limits
✔ In-house features to increase website speed and performance

SiteGround offer a 99.9% uptime guarantee. Whilst that’s not the best on the market, I have been a SiteGround customer for years, and my own uptime results show outstanding performance. Over the last month, I’ve been monitoring my SiteGround website to show you what I mean.

Since I started monitoring my SiteGround website with UptimeRobot, I’ve had zero downtime. In the last 24 hours, 7 days, and 30 days, my website has enjoyed 100% uptime. My site hasn’t been down for even a few seconds!

As we’ve already discussed, uptime is incredibly important to increase your SEO. If your website constantly experiences downtime, search engines are going to rank your website lower for SEO. When they crawl your website, if it’s up and online, it will report back that your website is accessible and will rank higher.

Visit SiteGround.com (£2.95/Month)

#2: BlueHost (Best for WordPress websites)

Pros	Cons
✔ Great speeds for WordPress websites	✖ SpamExperts not included in Basic plan
✔ Automatic WordPress updates designed to increase security	✖ Domain Privacy not included in Basic or Plus plans
✔ Affordable web hosting with WordPress experts available 24/7

BlueHost is one of my favourite web hosts for WordPress websites. It’s actually recommended by WordPress themselves. However, you may be wondering why this has any relevance to SEO. If you’re hosting a WordPress website with BlueHost, you’ll get fast speeds and performance, as well as WordPress optimised tools.

Designed with you in mind, Bluehost provides everything you need to create and manage a WordPress website. Enjoy powerful website management tools, automatic WordPress installation, and 24/7 expert support all at a price that fits any budget.

Included in BlueHost’s basic plan for just £2.23 per month, you’ll get:

• Unlimited bandwidth
• 24/7 WordPress support
• 1-click WordPress installs
• 30-day money-back guarantee
• Free SSL certificate

A lot of these factors help to increase your website’s SEO. Because of the plugins available for WordPress websites, they are notorious for experiencing slow speeds, if not well-optimised. That’s where BlueHost comes in.

Their WordPress hosting includes automatic updates to ensure your website is always on the latest WordPress version and release. This minimises any security risks. Their hosting also includes a WordPress staging environment to ensure you can make changes to your website, and test them before they go live.

Visit BlueHost.com (£2.23/Month)

#3: Hostinger (Best for Server Speed)

Pros	Cons
✔ Very affordable pricing	✖ Only 1 email account on Single web hosting plan
✔ Free SSL certificate included with all hosting plans	✖ Customer support can be hit and miss
✔ Great server response times

Hostinger has been rapidly growing over the years, with over 30 million customers worldwide. They have become a very attractive budget web host, offering plans from just 80p per month! When I first came across Hostinger, I had my suspicions. I wondered if they could really deliver powerful performance at such cheap prices.

According to Littledata, response times less than 302ms would put your website in the best 20% of sites that they benchmark for. Anything under 221ms puts you in the 10% category. Considering I am paying a measly 80p per month, I was extremely delighted that my Hostinger website was nearly in the best 10% of websites for server speed!

Littledata surveyed 3,572 sites in January 2020 and found the average server response time was 553ms.

On top of this great server performance, Hostinger publishes all of their server statuses to see which servers (if any) are experiencing any outages. In the last 90 days, Hostinger’s hosting services have reported 100% uptime.

Visit Hostinger.com (£0.80/Month)

#4: iPage (Best for Customer Support)

Pros	Cons
✔ One hosting plan to suit a variety of web hosting needs	✖ One hosting plan means there’s a lack of scalability
✔ Free SSL and domain name included	✖ Mixed reviews about their server performance
✔ Excellent and responsive customer support

Whilst a web host’s customer support won’t directly affect your SEO ranking, it is an important factor for you. If anything goes wrong with your website, or you’re struggling to figure something out, excellent customer support is a must to ensure your website is up and running as soon as possible.

Whenever I’ve dealt with iPage’s support, I’ve received nothing but a positive experience. iPage’s 1st line support is always friendly and helpful. On the rare occasions where they haven’t been able to deal with my query straight away, their 2nd line support has got back to me within 1 day.

iPage has a handy tool called 24/7 monitoring. This monitors each of their customer’s websites to ensure there are no issues. If there are any issues, their monitoring support team will react immediately to deal with the issue.

Visit iPage.com (£1.50/Month)

#5: HostGator (Best for Security)

Pros	Cons
✔ Free SSL with all hosting plans	✖ Not as cheap as other web hosts
✔ Instant backups available across all plans	✖ Customer support isn’t much to shout about
✔ Cheap Positive SSL upgrades and free on Business plan

HostGator is one of the web hosts that really stands out for me with regards to security. If you’re looking to host an eCommerce site or a website with a lot of traffic, I highly recommend HostGator. But if you’re after an awesome customer support experience or need lots of help as a beginner, they may not be the best host for your needs.

HostGator’s Hatchling plan includes a free SSL, as do all of their plans. If you want to upgrade your SSL to Positive SSL, this is possible from as little as £2.57, which is a lot cheaper than other hosts offer the same for.

As I said, if you’re looking to host a larger website with HostGator, I’d recommend the Business plan. This includes a free SSL, free dedicated IP, and a free Positive SSL upgrade. All of these features are great for security and will help to increase your SEO.

HostGator also provide 24/7/365 support, instant backups (in case anything goes wrong with your site), and a 99.9% uptime guarantee.

Visit HostGator.com (£2.12/Month)

#6: GoDaddy (Best for Server Location)

Pros	Cons
✔ Unmetered bandwidth on all hosting plans	✖ Expensive compared to other hosts
✔ Free Office 365 Email for the 1st year and free domain name	✖ No free SSL on lower plans
✔ Choice of server location

Server location is important. If your chosen web host doesn’t have a server located near your visitors, it may be time to rethink your hosting provider. The further away the server is, the slower your website will load, creating a poor user experience. This, in turn, will negatively affect your SEO.

GoDaddy offers a selection of server locations which include:

• Europe
• North America
• Asia

Whilst these server locations are quite broad, they should enable you to choose a location more suitable to your audience. Some web hosts will only have one server location, and in most cases, this is in the U.S.

If server location is a problem for you, you may want to consider cloud hosting. Cloud hosting doesn’t use a single server location, instead, it uses satellites in space, so you may receive a better service this way. Cloud hosting can be more expensive than shared hosting, so it’s worth checking out beforehand.

Visit GoDaddy.com (£2.99/Month)

Looking for a free SSL hosting provider? An SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate makes your website secure. It means that your website visitor’s data is kept private, such as their payment details, personal information, etc. If you’re planning on selling products on your website or storing sensitive data, an SSL is absolutely essential.

Not only does an SSL protect your visitors, it means your website will rank higher with search engines like Google.

SSL certificates range in price, however, you can also obtain them for free. Everyone likes things for free (I certainly do)!

Many web hosts include SSL certificates for free in their pricing plans. They understand how important they are, so it’s a great way for them to get customers, as well as you getting what you want – bonus all round.

We’ve spent a long time investigating the best FREE SSL hosting providers so you don’t have to. Let’s take a look at what we found…

Overview of the Best Free SSL Providers

So we know SSL certificates are an essential part of your website.

When someone visits your website, a secure link is created between your website visitor and the webserver. Any data that’s passed between them is encrypted, which means it’s protected and secure. Anyone that logs into your website, makes a transaction or submits any data that will be secured from hackers.

Before we look at each hosting provider that provides a free SSL certificate, let’s take a look at a quick overview of them below:

Hosting Provider	Free SSL Certificate	Cheapest Price
Hostinger	✔	£2.59/mo
BlueHost	✔	£2.23/mo
HostGator	✔	£3.25/mo
InMotion	✔	£4.95/mo
A2Hosting	✔	£3.03/mo
SiteGround	✔	£2.95/mo
GoDaddy	✔	£6.99/mo
iPage	✔	£1.50/mo
DreamHost	✔	£2.01/mo
WPEngine	✔	£19.38/mo

#1: Hostinger (Best Free Unlimited SSL Hosting Provider)

 

Pros	Cons
✔ Free unlimited SSL certificate with all pricing plans	✖ Renewal price is hiked up
✔ Affordable web hosting from £2.59 per month
✔ 24/7/365 chat support

Hostinger claims to be the best cheap web hosting provider. It’s hard to deny this when their plans start from £2.59 per month! They offer a 30-day money-back guarantee as well as 1-click installs for WordPress.

If you’re planning on hosting a WordPress site, you can be reassured that your website will see fast speeds as Hostinger have a custom-built WP optimization stack and LiteSpeed cache. All of their plans include a FREE unlimited SSL certificate to keep you and your website visitors secure.

Hostinger plans include a free domain name too, so for £2.59 per month, your website and web hosting journey can get going with a bang. Should you encounter any issues, their live chat service is on hand 24/7/365.

Visit Hostinger.co.uk (£2.59p/Month)

Get an additional 10% by using our code UKWEBHOST.

#2: BlueHost (Best for WordPress Hosting)

Pros	Cons
✔ Free SSL certificate with all pricing plans	✖ Add-ons and extras during checkout must be deselected if you don’t want them
✔ Free domain name included for the 1st year	✖ Initial term is 36-months
✔ Recommended by WordPress

BlueHost is rated as the number one recommended host by WordPress. If you’re hosting a WordPress website, you can’t go too far wrong with BlueHost, with prices starting from just £2.23 per month.

BlueHost powers more than 2 million websites across the globe and they offer a 30-day money-back guarantee. In my own personal experience, BlueHost stands out for their customer support, uptime and performance. In fact, I experienced 100% uptime on my website hosted with BlueHost.

If you sign up for a plan with BlueHost, you’ll get a FREE SSL certificate with Let’s Encrypt. What’s more, if you’re not a web developer, there’s no need to panic. Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates should be automatically installed on your website with BlueHost.

Visit BlueHost.com (£2.23/Month)

#3: HostGator (Best for Powerful Web Hosting)

Pros	Cons
✔ Uptime guarantee of 99.99%	✖ More expensive compared to other web hosts
✔ Includes free site transfer for cPanel and WordPress	✖ Renewal prices are a lot more expensive
✔ Free SSL certificate and domain included

HostGator offers powerful web hosting with a 99.99% uptime guarantee. All of their pricing plans include a FREE SSL certificate to keep your website protected. If you sign up to their business plan, you’ll get a free upgrade to Positive SSL.

With HostGator, you can upgrade your SSL certificate if you want, however, their standard SSL should be more than sufficient. Their extra SSL certificates include (at a yearly cost):

• Positive SSL (£15.88)
• Multi-Domain SSL (£63.54)
• Extended Validation (EV) SSL (£214.46)

Whilst HostGator isn’t the cheapest web host around, they do offer some pretty decent features for the price. All plans include 24/7 live support, unmetered disk space and bandwidth, and instant backups.

Visit HostGator.com (£3.25/Month)

#4: InMotion Hosting (Best for VPS Hosting)

Pros	Cons
✔ Powerful shared and VPS hosting	✖ More expensive compared to other web hosts
✔ Offers a 9o-day money-back guarantee
✔ Free SSL certificate

InMotion is more expensive than other web hosts, but their features and performance pack a serious punch. All of their pricing plans include a FREE SSL certificate as well as unlimited disk space, bandwidth and email accounts.

When you pay a little more with InMotion, you get a lot more in return. InMotion offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee, so they make a suitable shared hosting provider. If you’re looking to sell online, you may want to consider a host that guarantees 99.99% uptime.

InMotion is an outstanding web host if you’re looking for VPS hosting. Their managed VPS plans include a free SSL which is called AutoSSL. When you login to your cPanel, you’ll be able to scan all of your websites hosted with InMotion to ensure SSL certificates are applied and automatically renewed.

Visit InMotionHosting.com (£4.95/Month)

#5: A2 Hosting (Best Money-back Guarantee)

Pros	Cons
✔ Anytime money-back guarantee	✖ Doesn’t include a free domain name
✔ Multiple server locations worldwide
✔ Free SSL certificate

If you’re looking for hassle-free hosting, A2Hosting can offer just that. Its shared pricing plans include a FREE SSL certificate with Let’s Encrypt. You won’t have to install the SSL yourself as this is done automatically by the web host.

A2Hosting’s anytime money-back guarantee means you can host your website with reassurance. If anything does go wrong, their awesome customer service team are on hand to help. However, if you’re not enjoying your experience, you won’t lose out financially.

Like many other web hosts, A2Hosting offers additional SSL certificates at a yearly price, including the following:

• Single Site SSL (£39.66)
• Premium SSL (£79.37)
• Wildcard SSL (£119.07)
• Advanced SSL (£158)

Visit A2Hosting.co.uk (£3.03/Month)

#6: SiteGround (Best for Performance)

Pros	Cons
✔ Reliable and powerful web hosting (my personal favourite)	✖ Not the cheapest hosting available
✔ Recommended by WordPress
✔ Free SSL certificate

SiteGround is one of my favourite web hosts. They offer some of the most reliable web hosting I’ve come across, as well as being recommended by WordPress. In my SiteGround review, you’ll see that I’ve experienced 100% uptime with them, as well as fast response times.

All of SiteGround’s hosting plans include a FREE SSL certificate by Let’s Encrypt. Their plans aren’t the cheapest around, but starting at £2.95 per month, I promise you they offer some very good features compared to other hosts.

If you want to upgrade your SSL certificate, SiteGround offers the following on a yearly basis:

• Premium Wildcard (£70) (ideal for medium-sized websites)
• Premium SSL (£320) (ideal for large websites)

All of SiteGround’s SSLs are installed for free and include 256-bit Encryption, mobile compatibility, and browser compatibility.

Visit SiteGround.com (£2.95/Month)

#7: GoDaddy (Best for Scalability)

Pros	Cons
✔ Free domain name included on every annual plan	✖ Free SSL only available on Ultimate and Maximum plans
✔ Scalable hosting with 1-click upgrades
✔ 24/7 monitoring and DDoS protection

GoDaddy is well-known for being a domain name provider, but it also offers a range of web hosting products. It’s not as advanced as it’s competitors, but it does offer reliable web hosting from just £2.99 per month, including a free domain name.

My main issue with GoDaddy is that it only offers a FREE SSL certificate on its Ultimate and Maximum plans which cost £6.99 and £9.99 per month. When you consider other web hosts include this for free, some from just 80p per month, it does make you wonder why you’d choose GoDaddy over other hosts.

However, GoDaddy does include some powerful features across its pricing plans. For example, all plans include a free domain name, unlimited bandwidth and generous storage, and additional resources. If you feel your CPU or RAM requires an upgrade, you can scale up your plan at the click of a button.

Visit GoDaddy.com (£2.99/Month)

#8: iPage (Best for Personal websites)

Pros	Cons
✔ Very affordable pricing from just £1.50 per month	✖ Not the best uptime
✔ Free SSL certificate included	✖ Server speeds are slow compared to other hosts
✔ Free website builder

iPage offers affordable web hosting from just £1.50 per month. It’s a great web host if you’re starting your first website, or you’re hosting a personal website or blog. It doesn’t boast the best uptime or server speeds around, but it is very cheap for beginners.

iPage only offers one shared hosting plan to keep things simple. This plan includes a FREE SSL certificate and a 30-day money-back guarantee. iPage throws in quite a few free extras too, like a domain name, SiteLock for security scans, a website builder, and free WordPress building tools.

If you want to upgrade your SSL certificate with iPage, they also offer the following features at a cost:

• Protection & Help Google Rankings (£35.99 per year or £71.99 for 2 years)
• Protect Multiple Subdomains (£107.99 per year or £215.98 for 2 years)
• E-commerce Protection (£269.99 per year or £539.99 for 2 years)

All three of these SSL certificates include the Seal of Trust logo but only the Wildcard SSL will protect multiple subdomains.

Visit iPage.com (£1.50/Month)

#9: DreamHost (Best for Free Features)

Pros	Cons
✔ Recommended by WordPress	✖ Expensive shared hosting plans
✔ Free SSL certificate included	✖ Customer service isn’t as good as other web hosts
✔ Fast SSD storage

DreamHost offers shared hosting from just £2.01 per month, with a lot of free features included. It’s recommended by WordPress and includes a free domain name, FREE SSL certificate, SSD storage and is optimised for WordPress.

It’s one of the few web hosts that offer a 100% uptime guarantee. For a lot of people, this makes the extra cost worthwhile, and for me, I’d say it’s great for medium to large businesses who know what they’re doing.

If you’re not looking for great customer support but you do want powerful performance, DreamHost ticks those boxes. Its support isn’t poor as such, but it’s not the best, so I wouldn’t recommend them for beginners.

Visit DreamHost.com (£2.01/Month)

#10: WPEngine

Pros	Cons
✔ Advanced features and tools	✖ Very expensive plans
✔ Free automated SSL certificates on all plans
✔ Ideal for WordPress users

WPEngine is designed for WordPress users who mean serious business. If you pay annually, their cheapest plan works out at £19.38 per month, but it does include an automatically applied SSL certificate for FREE.

As I said, WPEngine is recommended for WordPress users and includes 35+ StudioPress Themes for free. You’ll also get a global CDN, 24/7 support, EverCache, and page performance. Whilst these tools and features might not make a lot of sense, they’re designed to give you the most optimal WordPress experience.

If you want to add additional SSL certificates to your WPEngine website, you can do so on the Growth, Scale and Custom plans. Their StartUp plan is most suited to those with no more than 25,000 visits per month (personal websites and blogs), whereas their Growth plan limits up to 100,000 website visitors.

Visit WPEngine.co.uk (£19.38/Month)

Let’s start off with something simple…

Before reading this, I can guarantee that your attention was drawn instantly to the video above. When there’s a moving image (or video), it’s hard to ignore.

This is why it’s a brilliant option to wow your website visitors with a video background. Our subconscious will always be drawn to something moving, versus something that’s still.

If you want to grab your website visitor’s attention or draw them to something, in particular, video (when used in the correct way), can be a lifesaver.

Let’s take a look at a few video marketing statistics that might tempt you to invest in this idea:

• 95% of video marketers plan to increase video spend
• 89% of video marketers say video promotes a good return on investment (ROI)
• 87% of video marketers say video has increased their website traffic
• 80% of video marketers say video has directly helped increase sales

These kinds of figures are hard to ignore. FoodBloggerPro says that website owners saw a 138% increase in conversions when using a video background on their homepage.

Whilst I can’t guarantee that your website conversions will reach this, even the smallest improvement can help. It’s all about using video backgrounds the right way.

Simply adding a video background to your homepage won’t increase conversions or traffic. You need to know what you are doing in order to achieve great results. That’s why we’ve put this guide together.

Let’s start exploring these options in order to wow your website visitors today…

1. How to use video backgrounds the right way on your website

As I mentioned earlier, it’s not just a case of adding a video background to your website and being done with it. Whilst you don’t necessarily need any particular skills to do this, you do need to understand the know-how to get there.

When is a video background appropriate to use?

Video backgrounds are appropriate to use in many cases. Depending on the type of website you own may depend on whether you need one or not.

• Business or Online Sales: If you own a business and have products/services to sell, a video background can cement a sense of brand awareness. If you are selling a certain type of product, for example, ties, you could show a video of how to put a tie on correctly. Videos should make your potential customers want to buy something.
• Hotels and Accommodation: This is a great industry to make use of video backgrounds. There’s no better way to show off a hotel, B&B or similar than by using a video. You could show visitors around your accommodation, nearby areas, or fun activities they can get involved in.
• Healthcare: A carefully chosen video can promote trust and confidence in your customers. You can use videos in various ways, including healthcare professionals meeting with patients, staff connecting with each other, or show off your facilities.
• Digital Services: Although this may seem like a trickier area to conquer, video backgrounds are a fine way to show off your digital services. Showing customers how to use your services (e.g. an app or course), ways in which your customers can get support from others, etc.

If you use video backgrounds the right way, they can transform any type of website to encourage engagement and potential sales.

At this point, if you’re feeling a little overwhelmed, don’t be. I promise that I will show you each step of how to use a video background effectively. If you don’t have a website built already, head over to our best website builders where you can start designing your own site in a matter of minutes.

When not to use a video background

As we know, video backgrounds draw attention to themselves. If you don’t want to draw attention from something specific on your website, a video background is not ideal.

For example, if you’re describing something important or a process for your customers to follow, you won’t want their attention to move elsewhere.

Videos are designed to improve the experience. If a video won’t help to improve your website visitor’s experience, then don’t use one. It’s really as simple as that.

Rules for using a video background

I’m going to run through some best practices for using video backgrounds. These are rules that you should follow in order to offer the best experience for your website:

• Short and sweet: Keep your videos short. Longer videos are inherently larger, causing your user’s to eat more of their bandwidth. This may also slow your website down which can have a poor effect on user experience, page speed, and SEO. Videos between 10-15 seconds in length are ideal.
• Excessive movement: Video backgrounds are just that, they are backgrounds. They shouldn’t make you feel like you’re on a rollercoaster ride. You’ll also need to consider users with motion sensitivity, so as not to deter potential customers.
• High quality: Videos should be high-quality, to begin with. You can optimise your videos after they’ve been uploaded, but in the first case, they need to be the best they can be.
• Relevance: Your video background should be relevant to your website, brand or business. Whilst there are plenty of awesome-looking videos out there, dumping one in randomly will not If your visitors are going to be drawn to your video background instantly, this will set the tone for the rest of their journey, so don’t confuse them.
• Remove audio: This may sound strange, but there’s a reason for it. Video backgrounds automatically play when your website loads, so audio will too. If someone is viewing your website discreetly, in a quiet place, or in the office, the last thing you want to do is deter them by blasting their ears with audio. Also, video backgrounds will not automatically play on mobile if they contain sound.

 

2. How and where to find videos

Unless you are ofay with making professional videos yourself, you’re going to need to find an appropriate video. Video backgrounds can’t just be taken from someone else, without their consent.

Saying that, your video skills don’t have to be perfect, as you can always hire someone to edit them for you. Some of the best videos I’ve seen have been filmed using a digital camera or mobile phone. The trick is to make them look awesome, post-filming.

If you want to hire a freelancer to create a video background for you or edit a video you’ve taken yourself, I suggest either UpWork or Fiverr. I’ve reviewed both of these platforms in my guide to finding the best freelancers.

For those of you who don’t want to create your own videos, here are some places you can source some stunning stock videos from. There are free and paid sources, so if budget is an issue, have no fear:

• Video Hive: Video Hive is part of the Envato group. Here you’ll find literally thousands of video backgrounds including stock footage, effects, and motion graphics. You can filter by tags, price, sales, rating, length of the video and lots more. Prices generally range from £8.73 – £38.13.
• Videvo: Videvo offers free stock video footage as well as motion graphics, effects and more. There’s a real variety on this website that would suit most types of websites. For example, landscapes, cars, pets, transport, healthcare, etc.

 

3. How to add video backgrounds to your website

So far, so good. We’ve learned when it’s appropriate to use video backgrounds, so hopefully, you’ve got an idea as to whether one would be suitable for your website or not.

If you’re still reading, I’m going to assume that you need a video for your website. Perhaps you’ve already found one using our stock video suggestions and now you’re reading to add a video background to your website.

Setting up a video background can be both easy and hard. It really depends on how your website has been developed.

Let’s explore some of the options:

Adding a video background to WordPress

If you’re using WordPress for your website, you can either find a theme that supports video background or find a suitable plugin. Both options are easy enough, but I’d like to cast your mind to a few key points.

• Plugin: If you decide to use a plugin for your video background, you’ll need to consider a few things. Firstly, does your theme support the plugin? If not, you may get conflicts that could end up causing issues or break your website.
• Theme: If your theme supports video backgrounds, it should be quite easy to get started. Different themes will, of course, have different ways of doing this. If you’re not sure how to do this, you should be able to contact the theme developer for support.

Adding a video background to Wix

If you’re 100% that you want to use a video background on your website and have yet to choose a website builder, I guarantee Wix is the easiest option.

You won’t need any coding skills to use Wix. Wix’s drag and drop functionality means you can drag elements from their toolbar and drop them onto your website, wherever you like.

To add a video background, the steps are simple:

• Click “Background” on the editor
• Choose “Video”
• Select whether you want to upload a video, add a free Wix video, or purchase a stock video

It’s worth noting that if you use a video background on Wix, it won’t show on mobile. Wix does offer a variety of video editing tools too, so you can adjust colours, overlay and add text to make your video background look awesome.

Adding a video background to Shopify

Shopify is similar to WordPress in that you can either find a theme that supports video background or use Shopify’s app store to find a suitable app.

Although it’s not as easy to add a video background to Shopify as it is with Wix, it’s not too difficult either. If you are selling products or services online, I recommend using Shopify due to its powerful eCommerce features.

Shopify’s themes don’t offer much in the way of video background support. There are some themes that allow you to add video backgrounds, but I would suggest seeking a theme from a third-party like ThemeForest.

 

4. Conclusion

I really hope this guide has been useful in establishing if a video background is appropriate for your website, where to find a video background, and how to add them to your website.

There are plenty of tools available to understand video backgrounds in more detail. However, if you follow our key principals and rules, I am confident you will be able to wow your website visitors with a video background.

Video landing pages and backgrounds are a great way to draw your website visitor’s attention to key information. It’s a way for you to showcase your best products, services, or details about your brand and business.

Using video backgrounds in the right way is a thing of beauty. I highly recommend checking out the resources available to you, as well as reading our reviews on website builders and eCommerce builders to find the perfect match.