Georgie Peru, Author at UKWebHostReview

19 Feb 2020

BigCommerce Review (Is it Really That Good?)

Over 150,000 websites are powered by BigCommerce. It’s a popular eCommerce store builder where you can sell products and make money online. BigCommerce is an ideal solution for growing businesses or large online stores. It has plenty of tools and features to help you expand your business and reach.

BigCommerce powers some pretty big-name websites. These include the likes of Ben & Jerry’s and Toyota. Just like all of our reviews, I signed up for BigCommerce and thoroughly tested it inside and out. I look at their features, tools, pricing, customer support, and pros and cons.

Visit BigCommerce.co.uk

All of my reviews are 100% open and honest, with the aim to give you a good idea of whether to sign up for BigCommerce or not. Let’s take a look and see what I found…

1. Pricing

BigCommerce offers four pricing plans: Standard, Plus, Pro and Enterprise. For the purpose of this review, we’ve looked at the first three as Enterprise is done on a custom-pricing basis.

	Standard	Plus	Pro
Transaction fees	0%	0%	0%
Products, file storage and bandwidth	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
Staff accounts	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
Online store	✔	✔	✔
Point of sale	✔	✔	✔
Facebook/Instagram	✔	✔	✔
Pinterest	✔	✔	✔
Google Shopping	✔	✔	✔
Responsive website	✔	✔	✔
Single-page checkout	✔	✔	✔
Apple Pay, Google Pay, Amazon Pay	✔	✔	✔
Coupons, discounts and gift cards	✔	✔	✔
Shipping label discounts	✔	✔	✔
Real-time shipping quotes	✔	✔	✔
Professional reporting tools	✔	✔	✔
Blog	✔	✔	✔
Product rating and reviews	✔	✔	✔
Free HTTPS and SSL	✔	✔	✔
ShipperHQ	Available	Available	Available
Customer groups and segmentation		✔	✔
Abandoned cart recovery		✔	✔
Persistent cart		✔	✔
Stored credit cards		✔	✔
Google customer reviews			✔
Faceted search			✔
Custom SSL			✔
Custom facets
Price lists
Unlimited API calls
Online sales per year	Up to £38k	Up to £115k	Up to £306k
24/7 support	✔	✔	✔
Express routing, priority support
No transaction fees on leading payment gateways	✔	✔	✔
Special credit card rates from PayPal	1.85% + £0.18 per transaction	1.80% + £0.18 per transaction	1.75% + £0.18 per transaction
Price	£22.91/mo	£61.16/mo	£191.21/mo

All plans come with a free 15-day trial or you can request a demo. The standard plan will cost you around £22.91 per month. It will give you the ability to set up an online store with all the necessary features. As per the pricing plan, it’s ideal for businesses who don’t plan to exceed £38k per year in online sales.

As your business grows, or when your needs increase, you’ll have access to more features. A noteworthy feature that’s available on the Plus and Pro plans is the abandoned cart recovery. This is highly recommended if you want to grow your business and entice customers to go through with a sale.

The Plus plan is ideal for well-established and growing businesses, whereas the Pro plan is suited to businesses that are fast-growing and making up to £306k in sales per year.

BigCommerce is more expensive than it’s competitors. There’s no hiding that fact. However, it does offer some unique features that other eCommerce builders don’t. Shopify is a great platform, however, it requires you to purchase and install third-party apps to do the same things that BigCommerce already does.

2. Ease of Use

When looking for a website or eCommerce builder, it’s important that you’re able to use it with ease. Business owners will want to focus on their customers, building relations and marketing. Therefore, you don’t want to spend hours upon hours figuring out how to build your website or store, least of all struggling to use it.

When I tested BigCommerce for myself, I took into consideration all skill levels, from beginner to expert. If I had to score BigCommerce’s ease of use, I’d probably give it a 3 out of 5. The reason for this is because the design interface can be a little hard to get to grips with.

There’s one area where you add and manage your products for your online store, and the other area is where you can edit the design of your website/store. Although it’s not impossible to use by any means, it may take longer to understand than Shopify.

I’d recommend users to be at least a little tech-savvy. If you’re a complete beginner, I don’t think BigCommerce would be user-friendly enough. It’s a powerful and complex tool, full of terminology that may be difficult to understand if you’re new to creating online stores.

3. Themes and Design

BigCommerce has hundreds of themes to choose from. These are split between free and paid themes, reaching up to £230. When choosing a theme, you can filter by collections and industry. Collections allow you to sort through specific values, like storefronts designed for large catalogs, etc. There are various industries you can filter by, e.g. animals, arts and crafts, fashion, food and beverage, and lots more.

In total, there are 12 free themes on offer. Each theme has something unique that will fit certain industries. For example, fashion and jewelry come with a product zoom feature, so customers can view products in multiple ways.

I’d suggest spending a good amount of time looking through their themes to find the best fit. You can preview a theme beforehand so you know exactly what you’re planning to use. Unlike Wix, you can change your theme at any time, meaning the option to change your mind is there.

Like most websites and eCommerce builders, BigCommerce’s themes are all mobile responsive. There isn’t a separate mobile editor for their themes, as this automatically gets done when you’re building your store.

BigCommerce has recently introduced a new tool called Store Design. This allows you to customise your storefront in one place, making usability a lot easier. You can choose sections of your store you want to edit or customise and make changes there and then.

4. Tools and Features

Being a powerhouse in the store builder world, BigCommerce has some very useful tools and features. Whilst the platform might cost more than its competitors, all its tools and features are available at your fingertips without having to use third-party apps.

Products: You can sell physical and digital products, as well as services with BigCommerce. It’s the only eCommerce builder available where you don’t have to use third-party apps to sell all these types of products.
Shipping: Shipping can be a bit of a minefield when you start using an eCommerce builder. However, BigCommerce makes this pretty easy to deal with. There’s a wide range of shipping options, including real-time quotes, shipping labels, free shipping, and more. Their shipping app integrates with the likes of DHL and FedEx, offering discounts of up to 80% off. Customers will be able to enjoy shipping tracking and updates, in-store pick up, and next day delivery. All these options help to increase customer loyalty and trust, making your life a lot easier.
Payments: BigCommerce doesn’t charge any transaction fees on leading payment gateways and doesn’t require you to use their payment gateway as other eCommerce builders do. The only fees you’ll ever pay are the standard credit card charges, so you’ll hopefully save money compared to BigCommerce’s competitors. There are well over 60 payment gateways to choose form, including PayPal, Stripe, Apple Pay, Amazon Pay, Square and lots more.
Abandoned Cart Recovery: This feature is a must if you’re selling products online. Rather than faffing about setting up emails, if your customers enter their email address and abandon their cart, an automatic email will be sent out. You can customise these emails, making them personal, as well as including enticing offers and discount codes. Check out our abandoned cart recovery statistics to see why this is such an important feature.
Social Media Integration: Multichannel integrations are great. It means you can sell your products and services via other platforms like Facebook, Instagram and even on the Amazon marketplace. You can manage everything from one dashboard, whilst analysing data to see where, when and who is best to sell to.

5. Customer Support

When you’re spending a lot of money on a platform, and offering products/services to your customers, it’s important to have a solid customer support network. Thankfully, BigCommerce offers a variety of ways to get in touch.

You can contact them via telephone, live chat or visit their help center. The knowledgebase is full of useful articles including how-to guides. There’s a community section that allows you to discuss topics and ask questions to other BigCommerce users, as well as their experts.

If you sign up for BigCommerce’s free trial, you’ll find an email inviting you to a free 10-minute call to discuss your requirements. My personal experience with BigCommerce has been nothing but great. Their experts really are experts, offering help and support when needed.

6. What Customers Think

As well as offering my opinion on BigCommerce, I think it’s important to see what other customers think about the platform. I’ve searched high and low for customer feedback, most of which seems quite in-line with my own review.

Now that BigCommerce has a WordPress plugin, people have become very excited about it. For those that love both platforms, this is a match made in heaven. This is a brilliant solution for those that are struggling with their storefronts, which can be made a lot easier with WordPress.

On the flip side, BigCommerce’s TrustPilot reviews offer just a 3.5 star rating. A lot of the complaints seem to come from BigCommerce’s customer support. Although I haven’t experienced poor support, it seems as though others have.

7. Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
✔ Offers the most built-in features compared to other eCommerce builders	✖ Editing tools can be a little confusing and complex for beginners
✔ Integration with multiple channels and social media	✖ Expensive compared to competitors (but offers more features)
✔ Great SEO tools to help improve your website
✔ Scalable for most types of businesses
✔ Helpful support team and community
✔ Free and paid themes available

8. Conclusion

For me, BigCommerce is a real powerhouse in the eCommerce builder market. It offers extensive and advanced features that will take your online store to the next level. If your business is fast-growing, it offers brilliant scalability.

However, if you’re a beginner or you’re not looking to grow your business to its full extent, I wouldn’t recommend BigCommerce.

BigCommerce’s features are great for the right business. Because of this, if you use the platform for the wrong business, you’re going to be wasting a lot of time and money to get nowhere fast.

If you have the time to dedicate you and your business to BigCommerce, I truly believe it can bring you success. It can be used regardless of whether you want to grow your already extensive enterprise or a smaller business.

Fancy taking the plunge to grow your business? You can sign up for BigCommerce’s free trial with no obligation or payment information required.

Visit BigCommerce.co.uk

27 Jan 2020

Volusion Review (Including Everything You Need to Know)

Though it may not be as well-known now, Volusion is actually one of the long-standing eCommerce website builders. It was established in 1999 and offers great ways for people to sell online. However, some aspects can be a little confusing.

There are around 30,000 online stores powered by Volusion. You may wonder why we’re mentioning them now, given the other competition that’s out there.

In the last year or so, Volusion update it’s services to what’s known as V2. This brings some new features including new shopper accounts.

In my opinion, Volusion is an ideal solution for those that care about the data of their website as opposed to the design. Switching between the front and back-end editor can get pretty boring, and their features don’t offer much in the way of niche tools.

However, I still believe they are worth considering. Here at UKWebHostReview, we signed up to Volusion and tested their services to give you an honest opinion about them.

Volusion Pricing – Is it Worth it?

First off, Volusion offers a 14-day free trial. This allows you to try out their services without making any kind of financial commitment. Aside from this, Volusion has 3 pricing plans along with a custom plan.

Features	Personal	Pro	Business
Number of products	100	5,000	Unlimited
Bandwidth	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
Support	Online	Online + Phone	Priority
Secure Checkout	✔	✔	✔
Online Sales Per Year	£39k	£79k	£397k
Transaction Fees	0%	0%	0%
Staff Accounts	1	5	15
Free Responsive Themes	✔	✔	✔
Powerful Side Editing Tools	✔	✔	✔
Drag and Drop Tools	✔	✔	✔
Securely Accept Payments	✔	✔	✔
Easily Manage Inventory	✔	✔	✔
Built-in SEO Tools	✔	✔	✔
Social Media Integration	✔	✔	✔
Ratings and Reviews	✖	✔	✔
Newsletters	✖	✔	✔
Import/Export	✖	✔	✔
Abandoned Cart Reports	✖	✔	✔
Phone Orders and CRM	✖	✔	✔
Amazon and eBay Integration	✖	✖	✔
API Access	✖	✖	✔
Deal of the Day	✖	✖	✔
Dedicated Success Team	✖	✖	✔
Advanced Report Builder	✖	✖	✔
3^rd Party Shipping Calculated Rates	✖	✖	✔
3^rd Party Gateways	✖	✖	✔
Price	£22.17/mo	£60.40/mo	£228.59/mo

Overall I’d say Volusion are reasonably competitive. There are certain features that their Personal plan doesn’t offer, compared to Shopify’s Basic plan where they do offer these. For example, if you pay £22.17 per month with Shopify, you’ll get the abandoned cart recovery feature which is extremely useful. Alongside their standard pricing plans, Volusion also offers additional extras (at an additional cost).

From graphic design and setting up tracking codes to expert marketing strategy, our team is ready to set you up for success. Quick Wins are fast, affordable and provide the peace of mind that the work was done right.

Volusion – Ease of Use

In my own experience, I found Volusion fairly easy to use. However, if you care about design, you’ll probably want to look at another eCommerce website builder. Navigating Volusion’s front-end is frankly a nightmare. It seems other people also feel this way. If you head over to Volusion’s TrustPilot page, you’ll see what I mean.

Paige Daniels hits the nail on the head with their review. I’m not going to push Volusion to one side just yet. There are some great aspects and features to their services, I’m just struggling to find that these outweigh other competitors in the industry.

Volusion – Tools and Features

Aside from their design flaws, Volusion offers some pretty good eCommerce tools. After all, they are an eCommerce site builder so this is what we should be focusing on. Let’s take a look at what’s on offer:

Inventory: If you want your customers to view an inventory of your products, Volusion can display this in ways no other eCommerce builder has been able to. Video options allow for awesome visuals and can show off some truly stunning content. This would suit businesses selling clothes, as you’ll get a true 360 view of what’s on offer. What’s more, once a product sparks a customer’s interest, you can follow this up with Volusion’s suggested products feature. This is a big difference between Volusion and Shopify, as Shopify only use 3rd party integrations.

*Note: You cannot sell digital products with Volusion. Therefore if your business relies on this kind of sales, you’ll need to look elsewhere.

Third-Party Apps: Using Zapier, Volusion allows you to connect to thousands of third-party apps to enhance your online store. Whether you’re looking for email marketing apps, project management, or account management, I pretty much guarantee you’ll find it here.

Mobile App: Volusion’s mobile app is super handy for busy business owners. It offers on-the-go management of your store and products. You can easily check on your inventory and sales, and make changes where necessary if anything goes wrong. One of my favourite mobile features they offer is the ability to snap photos on the go! If you see an image that would suit one of your products, simply take the photo and upload it there and then.

Payment Integration: Volusion’s payment gateway integration is quite extensive. From PayPal and Stripe to Apple Pay and Amazon, there’s a lot on offer to cater for a wide range of customers. Although none of Volusion’s pricing plans charge a transaction fee, the usual credit card charges do apply to each payment.

Volusion – Templates and Design

Volusion offers 11 free themes and 34 premium themes. Compared to other website and eCommerce builders, this is a little on the slim side. Volusion’s premium themes cost £137.6 per piece. In comparison to the likes of Shopify and BigCommerce, they all offer premium themes at around the same cost.

Although Volusion’s themes look a lot better since the V2 update, they’re still no match against SquareSpace. The themes are quite specific, so unless your business is shown, it’s going to be quite hard to customise your chosen theme. It’s not impossible, but it’s not the ideal situation that other builders seem to offer.

One thing Volusion does do better than Shopify in this instance is it lets you change themes anytime you want. You can change your online store’s appearance without the hassle or worry that your content will go missing, or you’ll need to rewrite it. It’s all done automatically for you.

Volusion – Customer Support

Volusion’s customer support isn’t necessarily instant, but it is there and it is decent. To speak to an advisor at Volusion, you can schedule a telephone call or arrange to call them between 7AM – 10PM CST. Not ideal for U.K. customers, but there is the option of emailing them.

All of Volusion’s pricing plans (aside from the Personal plan) include 24/7 support. This support is actually personal support via telephone. So, although you can leave them a message, I recommend contacting them directly or arranging a callback for a more personalised experience.

Their Personal plan lets you contact them via online help, but doesn’t include social media. You won’t be able to contact them via telephone, so it’s worth thinking about this before purchasing your plan with them.

Volusion – Conclusion

I feel like during this review I haven’t been able to outwardly shout about Volusion’s awesomeness. Whilst they do offer some excellent features and tools, I feel a lot of this is outshone by other eCommerce builders who simply do it better (and easier).

If data is the source of your interest, Volusion is a great bet. Their analytics tool is beyond brilliant, however, the likes of Shopify seem to win my heart.

For me, Volusion is a real average player in the market. It shines in some areas like offering video-based products, lots of payment gateways, and suggested products. However, there are lots of features it doesn’t seem to include. For example, if you want to build a blog to work alongside your website or online store, you can’t do this with Volusion. If you want to sell online, you’ll need an SSL certificate and this isn’t included within the price.

By all means, give Volusion a try. They offer a free 14-day trial, so give it a go and see for yourself. You may find that they offer exactly what you need. However, on a personal note, other eCommerce builders offer a lot more and their value for money is better.

27 Jan 2020

Where and How to Find the Best Freelancers (Web Designers, Developers and Graphic Designers)

Finding the best freelance web designer, developer or graphic designer can be a minefield. I am talking from personal experience here as, honestly, it can be really tough and time-consuming. If you want a great result, you’re going to have to put in a bit of work to start with.

Some of the hardships I’ve come across with finding freelancers are:

It takes up a lot of time
The freelancer can let you down
The freelancer doesn’t live up to expectations

That being said, a brilliant freelancer can turn your website into something rather spectacular. Freelancers can offer a lot of value to a website and give you the chance to focus on other important tasks. For me, these tend to be writing content, marketing products/services and ultimately growing the business.

As I have a lot of experience in this field, I thought it was about time to share with you where and how to find the best freelancers. This guide should cover everything you need to know whilst reducing your valuable time and hopefully save you the headache!

#1: Upwork (Best overall portal for Freelancers)

UpWork is one of the most popular online job portals, for good reason. Their platform caters to a wide range of freelancers, including web designers, developers, graphic designers, and even architects. My experience with UpWork has been brilliant. I put this down to their rigorous signup process which weeds out any potential disasters or time wasters.

I find UpWork easy to use and clear. Finding a freelancer is simple as they categorise almost everything, anywhere you go on their website.

Features	Included
Post jobs	✔
People can apply to jobs	✔
Search freelancer skills criteria	✔
Global access	✔
Reviews and rating system	✔
Tests for freelancers	✔
Management and tracking tools	✔
Secure payment	✔
Cost	Free to post

Central place: Whether you’re a freelancer or looking for a freelancer, the discussion history feature is brilliant. Upwork provides a secure platform to discuss projects, as well as being able to upload documents and images. If you need to go back and find information from the past, it’s easy to find as it’s all located in one place.

Time tracking: This tool is one of my favourite parts about Upwork. If you’re hiring a freelancer for a small job on an hourly basis, the freelancer can track the time they’ve spent on the project. You can then monitor and see how far the project has come along.

Screenshots: Another neat feature supplied by Upwork. When a freelancer is working on a project, you can get automatic screenshots of the freelancer working on your project. This is reassuring and shows exactly what the freelancer has been working on. Too many times in the past I’ve been thrown under the bus by a freelancer claiming they’ve put in more time than the work shown.

Payments: Upwork’s payment system is secure and versatile. If you want, you can create milestones for freelancers which is helpful if you’re working on a large project. This allows you to release payments at each milestone, giving both you and your freelancer peace of mind.

Skill testing: Upwork offers standardised tests that freelancers can complete. These can be applied to multiple technical skills such as writing, coding and more. As a freelancer, this allows you to show off your skills as well as reassuring potential clients of what you can do. If you’re looking to complete a project that requires a certain skill, you can check with a freelancer matches your requirements.

Overall:

Upwork is an ideal platform for both short-term and long-term projects. The level of detail included in every aspect of Upwork gives freelancers and clients superb reassurance. For me, Upwork is the best of the best. It’s detailed, simple to use, and secure. It offers a wealth of freelancers at your fingertips and I’ve had no reason to complain so far.

#2: Fiverr (Best for those on a budget)

Fiverr changes things up a little versus the traditional way of finding a freelancer. With Fiverr, freelancers, such as, designers, developers and graphic designers, will post the types of jobs they want to do. For example, a graphic designer might post that they can create a logo, or a developer might post that they can develop a WordPress website.

When you want to hire a freelancer, you search through them according to their specialties. Fiverr is a great platform for smaller or short-term projects where you know exactly what you want.

Features	Included
Post jobs	No, you find your own freelancer using the platform
People can apply to jobs	See above
Search freelancer skills criteria	✔
Global access	✔
Reviews and rating system	✔
Tests for freelancers	✖
Management and tracking tools	✖
Secure payment	✔
Cost	Free to post

Quick: The whole idea behind Fiverr is that it’s simple to use and quick to find freelancers. Most of the work that is posted can be completed within a matter of days, rather than months.

Ratings: You can check a Freelancer’s profile and their previous ratings. This allows you to gauge their background and the type of work previously completed. For me, being able to see previous customer feedback is essential when finding a freelancer.

Presets: Freelancers can post preset jobs that you can pay for. For example, a designer could post “one-page website design with unlimited revisions”. This way, you know what you’re getting and what to expect. It’s kind of like buying an item online, you go in looking for something specific and leave with what you’ve asked for.

Overall:

Fiverr is ideal for quick jobs. If you’re on a budget, which, let’s face it, a lot of people are, it’s the perfect platform. If you don’t have time to waste and know what you want, Fiverr offers up some incredible freelancers with ratings and feedback to reassure you.

#3: Shopify Experts (Best for Shopify eCommerce websites)

In my experience, Shopify is one of the best eCommerce website builders. What’s more, they have a large pool of experts dedicated to their platform. Whilst many people can build their own online store without help using Shopify, it’s good to have a port of call that you can rely on should you need expert help.

Shopify Experts is ideal if you’re using Shopify. For example, if your online store is starting to grow, you may need help from a developer to optimise your website. You may decide that you have a specific requirement for your Shopify store that you don’t know how to design or develop yourself.

Features	Included
Post jobs	✔
People can apply to jobs	✔
Search freelancer skills criteria	✔
Global access	✔
Reviews and rating system	✔
Tests for freelancers	✖
Management and tracking tools	✖
Secure payment	✖
Cost	Free to post

Vetting process: It’s tricky hiring a freelancer when you’ve never worked with them before. It can be hard to trust people. However, Shopify Experts vets all of their experts. This means you can be reassured that anyone you work with will be an actual expert, approved by Shopify themselves.

Product setup: If you’re struggling to setup your products on your online store with Shopify, their experts can help. Shopify Experts can add all of your products to your store as well as product descriptions, meta tags, images and more.

Store setup: If you know you want to use Shopify but simply don’t have the time to invest, Shopify Experts can build your online store for you! This takes the hassle out of the job allowing you to focus on other important tasks.

Overall:

If you’ve got an online store with Shopify or are considering signing up, I can’t recommend Shopify Experts enough. There’s no better place to go to ensure that your Shopify store gets the best help from actual designers and developers who know what they’re working with.

#4: 99designs (Best for Graphic Designers)

99designs is the place to go if you’re looking for a designer. This platform presents designers on a platter, whether you’re looking for a graphic designer, clothes designer, web designer, etc. You’ll also get a choice of designers to choose from.

With 99designs you post your project and pick who you want to complete the work. One of the best features is that you only pay once you find the perfect freelancer for the job. Once your job is up for bidding, designers will present their work to you, meaning you get to choose between multiple designs. This removes any potential financial risk.

Features	Included
Post jobs	✔
People can apply to jobs	✔
Search freelancer skills criteria	✔
Global access	✔
Reviews and rating system	✔
Tests for freelancers	✖
Management and tracking tools	✖
Secure payment	✔
Cost	Free to post

Pay for what you want: This feature is really great if you’re worried about what a freelancer can actually produce. You’re essentially asking designers to show you what they’re made of before you choose the winner. If you can’t afford to lose out financially (which most people can’t), then I thoroughly recommend 99designs.

Pro service: If you need a designer on a regular basis, 99designs offers a pro service. You’ll get an in-house manager that deals with the hiring process and ongoing project work. This is great for larger businesses who need to delegate work to save you some time and effort.

Advice: Another awesome feature that is unique to 99designs is their advice service. If you simply want some advice on a project from a designer, you can get this. Perhaps you’re not entirely sure what you’re looking for or don’t know whether a designer is necessary, meaning you won’t waste any valuable time.

Overall:

99designs is the perfect platform if you want a designer or you’re worried about a freelancer’s capability. It’s transparent nature means you won’t lose out as you’ll get to choose from multiple designers who want to work for you. Whether your project is large or small, or you don’t know what you might need, 99designs has a range of services suited to your needs.

#5: Toptal (Best for expert freelancers)

Toptal is a unique platform which sifts out the best freelancers in the world. Most freelancer services will allow a wide range of skills, catering to most budgets. However, Toptal have a very thorough screening process which means they can offer the top 3% of freelancers to use their platform.

The service that Toptal offers means that you’ll get the best quality available. They do all the hard work by picking the best out there. As you can see from their website, many big brands like Motorola and HP use Toptal, which is why I rate them very highly.

Matching: Toptal will match your requirements and company to their ‘Toptalers’. This means you won’t have to go searching for the best talent around. Toptal’s screening process means you won’t be wasting your time as they also screen freelancers for ethics, proficiency and attitude.

No-risk: When you decide to work with a Toptaler, you’ll get a risk-free trial period to decide whether you want to continue working with them or not. So if someone doesn’t live up to your expectations or they’re not what you need, you won’t be losing out financially.

Team: When you hire a Toptaler, it’s like having an employee. They’ll join you team and work with you remotely, as well as on-site if required. They’ll adapt to your style of project management meaning you won’t have to change the way you work.

Overall:

If you’ve got a little more time and budget, and are looking for expert freelancers, Toptal is highly recommended. It’s like hiring a concierge service to do all the leg work, match you up to the best freelancers, and ensure that the work is done to the highest standard. Best of all, if you don’t like who you’re working with, it’s absolutely risk-free during the trial period.

27 Jan 2020

How to Start Selling Online and Making Money Today

Taking the step to sell online is an ambitious yet rewarding move. However, starting the process can be a little daunting. For example, you’ll need to choose how to sell online, what to sell, and a way to attract customers.

Once you figure out the above, selling online can be a very successful step to take.

In the U.K., in 2018, eCommerce sales were £688.4 billion. You could be part of that figure, making hundreds, thousands, or even millions of pounds. If you want to know how to start selling online and making money today, this helpful guide will cover:

Figuring out where to sell online (which platform to use)
Choosing how to sell online
Finding which products to sell
How to attract customers and grow your business

Whilst that might sound overwhelming, rest assured this guide isn’t all technical jargon. I’m going to show you how to sell online step-by-step in the most cost-effective ways. In 2024 we are very lucky to be able to turn to website builders and online store builders. Selling online can be achieved in a few simple steps.

So, let’s get started!

1. Where to sell online

There are various different ways to sell online. Whilst there are a lot of choices, the great thing is that you don’t have to choose. You can use them all if you really want to.

The three main places that you can use to sell online (which we’re going to discuss) are:

Building your own eCommerce store (using a website builder)
Making use of existing marketplaces like Etsy, eBay, and Amazon
Using social media tools like Facebook Shop

One of the great benefits of using an online store builder like Shopify is that you can integrate your social media. If you’ve already built your online store and listed all your products, you can easily link these with the Facebook shop without any extra effort.

Using an eCommerce builder to sell online

Building your own eCommerce store is a great way for you to be in control. You’ll decide how your store looks, which products you sell, and which tools to use to market your products.

It’s an extremely cost-effective way of creating a website, as most website builders like SquareSpace will provide your web hosting and give you a free domain.

Plenty of people around the world are using eCommerce and website builders on a daily basis. For example, over 1.2 million people actively use Shopify.

When you sign up for a website builder, you’ll have lots of help. This is why it’s a great service to use, especially if you don’t understand code.

There will be plenty of templates and themes to choose from meaning you can start selling online straight away. If you do have a creative design flair or want to add your own personal touch, this is also very possible and easy to do.

I’ve put together a small overview of my favourite eCommerce builders. Of course, you can choose whichever platform you like, but in my experience, these are the best:

Platform	Good for	Price
Shopify	Awesome template design Very easy to use Plenty of features	£22 per month
Wix	Modern, responsive templates Incredibly easy to use Wide choice of plans	£13 per month
BigCommerce	Popular with large businesses Lots of tools and features No transaction fees	£22 per month

Why I love online store builders:

Complete control of your store
No waiting on algorithms to update to sell online
Make changes as and when you need to
Start selling online fast
Hosting and domain usually included

Using a marketplace to sell online

Using a marketplace like Amazon is a great way to sell online. As of 2019, Amazon had over 2.5 million active sellers on the Amazon marketplace.

Selling on an online marketplace is incredibly easy to get into. It’s no wonder so many people are doing it! The entry requirements for selling using a marketplace are pretty easy to achieve.

If we’re talking about basic selling, it’s as simple as creating an account, listing your products, and choosing how your products will be delivered. Starting off is simple, but gaining traction is another thing entirely.

Platform	Good for	Fees
Amazon	Amazon has a good reputation Very popular marketplace Convenient delivery options Great for starting out	From £0.75 per item sold + additional fees
Etsy	Good for creative, arts & crafts Niche market More personal feel Good platform to build a brand	From £0.15 per listing + other fees
eBay	Sell almost anything Very accessible marketplace Bidding and buy it now options	10% of the final transaction
Facebook	Creating a business page Can link to other platforms Interact with consumers	5% per shipment

It can be quite difficult to stand out using a marketplace. Marketplace selling is insanely competitive, so it’s important not to rely solely on them. As a shopper, you’re often looking for the best product at the cheapest price. If you go onto eBay and find the product you want for £5 and £2, most will likely choose the £2 option.

However, creating a brand for yourself can be a way to win a shopper’s trust. If we revisit the example above, would you rather buy from a seller, selling your desired product at £5 who has excellent reviews, or the £2 option with very poor reviews? A seller with good reviews is more likely to sell their products.

2. How to sell online

Once you’ve established where you’d like to sell online, it’s time to decide how to sell online. By this, I mean figuring out your business strategy. I’m not suggesting that you’re going to have a full-blown business plan in place, but a general idea is always good to start with.

Don’t worry though, I’ve got your back. I promised I would show you step-by-step how to start selling online, and that’s what we’re doing today.

The ideas that I’m going to walk you through aren’t the be-all and end-all. However, it should give you enough ammunition to start your journey. Let’s start with some questions to figure out your business strategy.

What do you want to achieve?

You’ll want to have a think about some short-term goals, to begin with. For example, how many products do you hope to sell and how much profit do you want to make. Although it’s hard to forecast your finances, it’s important to have a rough idea to keep you on track.

Profit vs spend

Before diving in, you’ll need to work out what your profit margin is going to be. If you’re making items from scratch, how much will it cost to source your materials and make each product? If you’re buying your products to resell, how much will it cost to do this and how much profit will you make by selling to your customers.

If you have absolutely no idea what you should be charging, it’s worth doing some research. It’s important to look at your competition to see how much they’re charging. I’m not suggesting you should undercut them, but it’s good to understand the current market.

Look at your competition

Following on from the point I made above, you’re going to need to look at your competition. If someone is already successfully doing what you intend to do, learn from them. See what people are buying, where they’re buying from, and how much.

If the same sellers are appearing on eBay, Amazon, etc. then they’re probably doing something right! There’s absolutely no harm in sussing out the competition and looking at their product descriptions, images, and prices.

Whilst you may think they’re a waste of time, signing up for your competition’s newsletters is a great way to remain updated. Products and pricing change very often depending on the climate of your market. You may even pick up a few tips on how you should (or shouldn’t) be doing things.

Market research

By knowing your customers you’ll understand their needs. If you can meet their needs, there’s more chance they’ll buy from you again and again. Customers like variety; whether this is product variety, shipping options or payment methods. Offering choice to your customers is important.

Marketing

In order to sell products, you’re going to have to do some marketing to attract customers. There are a variety of ways you can do this. For example, you could set up a blog related to your products/services. People like to read interesting and unique content.

3. Which products should you sell

This is an interesting question; which products should you sell? I imagine you already have an idea of what you want to sell online. However, have you thought about what your customers want? If you don’t sell the products your customers want, they won’t buy them.

Whilst I understand that concept might seem a bit strange, it’s true.

Remember, eCommerce store builders like Shopify let you sell physical and digital products. You don’t have to make something or buy items to sell on. Maybe you have a great idea for an online course that’s in high demand by people.

Here are a few things you can do, and tools you can do to understand which products to sell online:

Google Trends: Google Trends can show you what people are searching for. If you have a search term in mind, the results will display based on that term’s popularity. For example, if you want to sell swimwear online, you may want to see whether particular swimwear is more popular. Perhaps swimsuits are more popular than bikinis, but tankinis are making a come back.

With Google Trends you can compare multiple search terms.

Using Google’s tool, I’ve input three keywords: bikini, swimsuit, and tankini. I can see that the term bikini is more popular than the others and had a spike in popularity during the summer. This not only gives you an idea of what is popular but also when it is popular.

Google Keywords: When you’ve nailed your product idea, it’s worth seeing in more detail how it performs. Google Keyword Planner can show you lots of data including how competitive your keyword is. It will also make other suggestions for keywords and average monthly searches.

From the above, we can see that the keyword “bikini” is very popular with high competition. However, other variations have less competition and may be worth investigating. Saying this, you don’t want to sell products that have absolutely no demand, so find a middle ground.

Learn from others: We spoke about it before, but I’ll say it again. Checking out what your competition is doing is crucial. Especially if your competition is making it big. Try and find the biggest sellers of your product and see what’s working for them.

Dos and Don’ts of selling products

Now that you know what you’re selling, the time has come to actually sell your products/services.

Imagine, as a customer, you have a product that you want to purchase. You visit a website but the product images are blurry. Maybe you’re ordering a takeaway and the food looks tantalising, but the description doesn’t tell you what the ingredients are.

The two main elements of selling online (successfully) are:

Product image
Product description

Your product images must display what your product is. Aside from this, there are a few crucial tips for ensuring success:

High-quality images
Consistent image sizes
Multiple views of the same image
Display each product variant

When it comes to describing your product, you may want to consider the following for your product descriptions:

Create your own description (not copied from elsewhere)
Highlight the benefits of your product
Write original content that has a personal touch
Write in a way in which your customers can relate
Always tell the truth

4. How to attract customers

Although this may be the part that takes the most effort, for me, attracting customers is the fun part.

Gone are the days of having to create a design that fits on a leaflet. The online world makes marketing easy without having a degree in the subject!

These tips and tricks all cost zero money. Starting up your own business is costly, so being able to save some of your budget is crucial. Marketing can be quite simple. For example, if you were a customer wanting to buy one of your products, where would you look for them?

Social media: This is one of the biggest marketing tools that you’ll have in your pocket. At the end of 2019, there were 2.4 billion Facebook users. That’s a huge market for you to explore. I would definitely recommend experimenting with Facebook and Instagram to start with. Social media allows you to connect with your customers, follow trends, and even create adverts at a very low cost.

Blog: Blogging is a great way to increase your SEO and reach out to your customers. Regardless of the products you’re selling, you can write about related content. People love reading interesting things. Once you’ve got their attention, you can link to your products within your blog posts, hitting two birds with one stone.

SEO: This is how you’re going to reach customers through search engines like Google. Remember the trends and keywords we talked about earlier? It’s really important that your online store’s content relates to the products you’re selling. Many eCommerce builders have built-in SEO tools. It’s worth exploring those to get you started.

5. Conclusion

Understanding how to sell online and make money can be overwhelming. However, I hope I’ve covered all the basics for you in this guide. Whilst there are many more options to uncover, we’ve looked at the most popular ways to get you started.

Whether you want to use a store builder like Shopify, a marketplace like Amazon, or social media, there’s a world out there waiting for you.

I highly recommend experimenting with various options and doing your research. If you already know what products you want to sell, there may be a specific platform or tool that’s just right for your needs.

However, it is crucial (in my experience) to have an eCommerce website or at least a website to represent your brand. This is a real key to success, allowing you to integrate with other channels, interact with your customers, and share ideas via a blog.

All three of the eCommerce store builders I’ve mentioned are free to try:

I wish you the best of luck in your selling journey!

27 Jan 2020

SquareSpace vs WordPress (What’s the Difference)

I’m going to assume that you’re looking to create a stunning and professional-looking website? If so, that’s why you’re trying to decide between Squarespace vs WordPress.

They’re both massive contenders in the website builder market. Squarespace offers unmetered designs and high-quality templates, whilst WordPress.org (which is what we’re reviewing) offers an open-source platform with endless possibilities.

However, how do you choose between them both? Before we dive into our in-depth comparison, let’s take a quick look at what sets these two platforms apart.

WordPress

Open-source platform
Plenty of plugins
Unmatched personalisation and customisation
Self-hosted solution
Can be quite technical
Not ideal for beginners

Squarespace

Very easy to use
Beautifully designed templates
Hosting is included
Drag and drop website builder
Variety of pricing plans
No technical know-how needed

We’re going to look at which platform is right for you. Are you more of a free spirit and are looking for extensive customisation options? Or would you prefer an easy-to-use tool that takes time and effort out of the equation, whilst providing stunning results?

Let the battle commence: Squarespace Vs WordPress…

#1. Squarespace Vs WordPress: Pricing

First up we’re going to look at pricing. WordPress is a self-hosted solution, which means the content management system (CMS) is free to use, but you’ll need to purchase your own domain name and web hosting. This also means you have a wide choice when it comes to which web host you want to sign up to. For example, you could sign up to iPage from as little as £1.50 per month.

WordPress is a 1-click installation feature. Most web hosts offer this free of charge, and those that use cPanel will definitely include Softaculous. However, there are also WordPress web hosts that are slightly different to shared web hosting. To find out exactly what the differences are, head over to our WordPress hosting page here where you can discover the difference between unmanaged and managed WordPress hosting.

Squarespace offers 4 pricing plans. These vary dependant on different features and tools that you might require. Here’s a quick overview of what Squarespace’s pricing looks like (including discounts for paying annually):

Plan	Monthly	Annual (monthly equivalent)	Savings (annually)
Personal	£13	£10	£36
Business	£21	£15	£72
Basic Commerce	£24	£20	£48
Advanced Commerce	£37	£30	£84

To get your hands on an exclusive SquareSpace offer code, click here for your discount.

Overall:

There’s quite a few differences between Squarespace and WordPress’s pricing because their structures are so different. Both have their pros and cons which balance out pretty equally in my opinion. WordPress hosting is available from as little as 80p per month with Hostinger, but you’ll need to buy a domain name on top. Squarespace is available from £10 per month, but it already includes a domain name and your hosting is managed for you.

#2. Squarespace Vs WordPress: Features

Before we begin this section, I thought it would be good to look at an overview of what each platform offers. Both have good and bad points and are really at different ends of the scale to each other. This is a good thing though, as it allows us to look in-depth at what they offer and why one may be more suitable than the other.

Good for

Bad for

SquareSpace

A wide range of awesome features

All features built-in, so no third-party plugins required

Can only use built-in features

WordPress

Basic built-in features

Plenty of free, well designed and developed plugins

Have to use plugins as the built-in features aren’t enough

In terms of a website builder, SquareSpace offers some of the BEST features I’ve come across. Whilst they’re slightly more expensive than their competitors, there’s no denying how awesome their tools and features are. On the other hand, whilst WordPress heavily relies on developer-built plugins, some of them are absolutely genius. They may even knock the socks off the built-in features that a lot of website builders and CMS platforms have on offer.

SquareSpace Features:

SquareSpace has a ton of features. A lot of them come as standard and are really easy to use. There’s no need to install apps or plugins, it’s a case of going to your dashboard and choosing what you want to use:

Blogging tools
SEO and analytics
Beautiful template designs and Fonts
Social media integration
Email and marketing campaigns
Sell digital and physical products
Edit your website on the go

WordPress Features:

WordPress is well known for being a powerful CMS. Their plugins (both free and paid) make WordPress a jungle of possibility. Aside from their plugins though, they do have some very good built-in features that shouldn’t be overlooked:

Publishing and scheduling tools
Multiple users and contributors
Comments management
Pages and posts for blogging
Multilingual options
Image editing and media galleries

Overall:

SquareSpace and WordPress offer something very different in terms of their features. They both boast powerful tools used in different ways. SquareSpace is updated on a regular basis, and as it’s a website builder, they do all the hard work for you. WordPress, on the other hand, relies on you to update and manage your own site.

If the version of WordPress or your plugins is out of date, it could make you vulnerable to attacks. In my opinion, SquareSpace is MUCH easier to use and offers minimal security risks which I believe are important to running a website.

#3. Squarespace Vs WordPress: Ease of Use

If you’ve never used a website builder or CMS platform before, ease of use will likely be important to you. Sometimes even the most confident of users or developers may still prefer an easy to use system. Before we look at SquareSpace and WordPress individually, I’ll say now that SquareSpace is much easier to use than WordPress, but not the easiest on the market.

Good for

Bad for

SquareSpace

Beginners as no coding skills are required

Drag and drop editor makes it simple to create a website

Preview changes (WYSIWYG) as you go

Compared to Wix and other website builders, it’s not as easy to use

WordPress

Great for advanced users and developers/coders

Can customise to your own abilities and skills

Will likely need some basic code knowledge

Can’t preview during editing, but can when paused

SquareSpace Ease of Use:

SquareSpace is a website builder, meaning it’s generally easier to use than WordPress. You can choose your own template to begin with and customise it as you go. If you have more advanced skills, you can use these to edit CSS directly, but if you don’t, no sweat!

Their drag and drop editor is very simple to use. It’s a case of choosing the element you want (e.g. image, text box, video) and dragging it to where you want it. What you see is what you get (WYSIWYG) makes it easy to see exactly what your website will look like once published.

WordPress Ease of Use:

WordPress, on the other hand, is a whole different ball game. WordPress is open-source, so you use code or the ever-popular plugins available to customise and create your website. There’s an insane amount of plugins available via WordPress, as well as themes that you can install. If you’re not technically minded, this could pose a problem, to begin with.

However, the end result can be very powerful. Whilst a lot of the time you’re creating your website blindly, as you have to click a preview button which opens a separate web page, there’s a lot on offer. WordPress has a website builder-like feature called Gutenburg and another called WordPress Bakery. Both of these are very similar to drag and drop editors where you can build your page, and see what you’re doing as you go.

Overall:

If you’re not keen on coding or hiring a developer to create your website, then WordPress may not be the best option for you. SquareSpace is most definitely more beginner-friendly, however, it’s not as powerful as WordPress.

This one is really down to your own preference. Both offer something completely different. In my personal opinion, I would start with a website builder like SquareSpace to find your feet, then when you’re feeling more confident, test the waters with WordPress.

#4. Squarespace Vs WordPress: SEO

SEO is an important aspect to your website if you’re wanting people to find your website. For example, if you run a small business and want people to come across your website via a Google search result, SEO is what’s going to help you get there.

If your website doesn’t have very good SEO, or any SEO at all, your website will be buried at the very bottom of the pile. Whilst your average joe or even developers might not be SEO experts, your website builder can help you with this.

SquareSpace SEO:

Thankfully, SquareSpace has built-in SEO tools to help you grow your website. Their tools include site indexing, tagging, robots.txt, redirects, sitemaps, and lots more. Whilst this may not make a lot of sense to you, SquareSpace will ensure your website is set up for SEO and everything will be done for you.

WordPress SEO:

When you first create a website with WordPress, you’ll find they already have some handy SEO tools. However, as you may expect by now, WordPress has plenty of SEO plugins that can help boost your website. Yoast SEO is a popular plugin with a five-star rating.

It has over 27,000 reviews and 5+ million active installations. As you create your pages or write your blog posts, Yoast will aid you in ensuring everything is SEO friendly. One word of caution though, when you’re installing plugins, make sure they don’t conflict with each other or do the same things as one another as this can cause issues.

Overall:

This result is very much down to what suits you. Similar to what we’ve discovered already, WordPress has powerful tools available through their plugins. However, if plugins aren’t for you or you just can’t get your head around it, then SquareSpace’s SEO tools are all built-in.

Whichever option you choose, you won’t lose out on your website’s SEO.

#5: Squarespace vs WordPress: Security

When you create a website, security must be something that you factor in. Unfortunately, the internet can be a dangerous place. Hackers get a kick out of attacking vulnerable websites, so make sure you aren’t one of them.

Good for

Bad for

SquareSpace

SquareSpace will manage your website’s security

SSL certificates included in pricing plans

SquareSpace can sometimes be a hacker’s target due to its popularity

WordPress

Security is managed by you and you are in control of it

Some plugins can manage and enhance your website’s security

Managing your own security means it’s your responsibility

Plugins that aren’t updated can pose a risk

SSL must be purchased and installed separately (check with your web host)

SquareSpace Security:

When you sign up to SquareSpace, you are essentially paying them to look after your website’s security. Your security is in their control, and they are experts in the field. If you are a beginner or simply don’t want the responsibility of your website’s security, SquareSpace is a great option. I would personally rather someone did the job for me!

SquareSpace’s pricing plans include a free SSL certificate. When a visitor lands on your website, they will see the small padlock icon next to the URL. This indicates to them that your website is secure, building trust with them and ranking you higher on Google. If you plan to sell products on your website, an SSL is essential to protect payment details.

The only downside to SquareSpace is that it’s so popular. This makes it a target for hackers and DDoS attacks. However, in my experience, they do a pretty good job at combatting this and I personally wouldn’t be concerned.

WordPress Security:

With WordPress, it’s down to you to look after your website’s security. You’ll need to ensure you have an SSL certificate and backup your website regularly. However, your web hosting provider may be able to help with this. Many web hosts include SSLs for free as well as taking backups of your website.

Plugins can also be your friend here. There’s a lot of plugins that can help with running your website. However, if you decide to go down this route, please ensure the plugin you install is trustworthy. Check out the plugins’ reviews from other users before installing it on your WordPress website.

Overall:

The big difference between SquareSpace and WordPress in terms of security is who takes responsibility. If you don’t think you’re ready to install your own plugins, I would suggest SquareSpace is a safer bet. However, this isn’t to say WordPress is unsafe. In fact, you can make WordPress just as safe by installing the correct plugins and ensuring your web host can provide you with an SSL.

SquareSpace vs WordPress: Conclusion

It’s safe to say that we’ve already established SquareSpace and WordPress are big players in the website builder industry. Whichever you choose, you’ll be able to achieve a professional and awesome looking website.

However, there are clear differences between them. SquareSpace is ideal for people who don’t have much technical experience or simply don’t want the effort of coding their own site. SquareSpace offers high-quality website templates that can be customised to your heart’s content. If you do want to add your personal touch by coding, they give you this option but you don’t have to use it.

WordPress is more suited to someone with technical experience or a desire to learn code. You’ll need to manage your own website’s updates, security and seek your own web hosting. However, the results can be truly powerful, which is why so many websites are powered by WordPress.

In my opinion, SquareSpace is easy to use and suitable for a wider audience. Though WordPress can probably achieve a lot more in the long run but takes more time and effort.

Really, it’s up to you to choose what’s best for you. Both are popular with good reason, but I’d say SquareSpace is an all-rounder which is much easier to access.

17 Jan 2020

SquareSpace Offer Codes You Won’t Want to Miss

SquareSpace is an awesome design-oriented website builder. It offers unmissable, professional templates that offer the highest quality website layouts. If you want to create a website without the hassle, without any technical know-how, and you want it done fast, SquareSpace is a brilliant choice.

What’s more, if you’re interested in using SquareSpace, we have some exciting offer codes for you! If you sign up for any plan with SquareSpace today, we’re offering an exclusive 10% off ANY of their paid plans. If you’re ready, enter the SquareSpace offer code GIMME10 at the checkout to save 10% off.

	With 10% Offer	Without Offer
Personal	£9	£10
Business	£13.50	£15
Basic Commerce	£18	£20
Advanced Commerce	£27	£30

* The above monthly prices are based on annual plans with SquareSpace. You can sign up for an annual or monthly plan whilst using our SquareSpace offer code. However, you will receive a larger overall discount with an annual plan paid upfront.

How Does it Work?

SquareSpace offers a 14-day FREE trial to all new customers. Once you’ve used your free trial, you’ll be ready to choose your SquareSpace pricing plan. It doesn’t matter whether you pay monthly, annually, or even more, the 10% SquareSpace offer discount is still valid.

When you’ve entered your personal and payment details, you’ll land on a review page. Make sure you review that all of your details are correct, and enter the code GIMME10 in the offer code or promo code box.

That’s all there is to it! You’ll get 10% off any SquareSpace paid plan on all first purchases. This is an exclusive discount that can only be used once, so use it wisely and make it count!

What is SquareSpace?

SquareSpace is an easy to use website builder. It offers beautifully designed mobile-friendly templates, allowing you to create a website in under an hour. SquareSpace is suitable for a wealth of purposes, whether you want to create a blog, pages, gallery, online store and more.

SquareSpace uses drag and drop functionality. This means you can literally drag elements from the toolbar onto your website. It couldn’t be easier and the vast amount of features will blow your mind. Let’s take a look at what’s on offer.

SquareSpace Features

Although it may seem a little pricey to start with, you’ll soon realise that SquareSpace is AMAZING value for money. Remember, you can use our offer code GIMME10 to get 10% off any paid plan. SquareSpace offers almost endless features to get your website up and running. What’s more, you’ll never need to go elsewhere as their tools ensure your website is well maintained, including increasing traffic with SEO.

Some of their main features include:

Modern design templates with Google Fonts and Typekit Fonts
Video backgrounds
Image galleries
Mobile editor
Custom CSS
CDN included for free
Blog functionality
Online store
Payment gateways
Social media integration
Template switching
Email campaigns
SEO
Site analytics
No adverts
24/7 support

SquareSpace Pricing

SquareSpace have 4 pricing plans which are: Personal, Business, Basic Commerce and Advanced Commerce. The core features included in their Personal and Business plans include the following:

Core Features	Personal	Business
Free custom domain	✔	✔
SSL	✔	✔
Bandwidth and Storage	Unlimited	Unlimited
SEO features	✔	✔
Templates	✔	✔
Contributors	2	Unlimited
Mobile-optimised	✔	✔
24/7 support	✔	✔
Basic Website Metrics	✔	✔
SquareSpace Extensions	✔	✔
Email from Google		✔
Premium Integrations and Blocks		✔
CSS and JavaScript customisation		✔

If you’re looking at ramping things up a little or you want to sell products online, SquareSpace’s Basic and Advanced Commerce plans will be right up your street:

Features	Basic	Advanced
Free Custom Domain	✔	✔
SSL Security	✔	✔
Unlimited Bandwidth and Storage	Unlimited	Unlimited
SEO Features for Site Visibility	✔	✔
Templates to Fit Every Need from Blogs to Portfolios	✔	✔
Contributors	✔	✔
Mobile-Optimized Websites	✔	✔
24/7 Customer Support	✔	✔
Basic Website Metrics	✔	✔
Squarespace Extensions	✔	✔
Professional Email from Google	✔	✔
Premium Integrations and Blocks	✔	✔
Complete Customization with CSS and JavaScript	✔	✔
Advanced Website Analytics	✔	✔
£80 Google Adwords Credits	✔	✔
Promotional Pop-ups and Banners	✔	✔
Fully Integrated E-Commerce	✔	✔
Transaction Fees	0%	0%
Sell Unlimited Products	✔	✔
Accept Donations	✔	✔
Point of Sale	✔	✔
Customer Accounts	✔	✔
Checkout on Your Domain	✔	✔
Powerful E-Commerce Analytics	✔	✔
Powerful Merchandising Tools	✔	✔
Products on Instagram	✔	✔
Abandoned Cart Recovery		✔
Gift Cards		✔
Sell Subscriptions		✔
Advanced Shipping		✔
Advanced Discounts		✔
Commerce APIs		✔
Limited Availability Labels		✔

SquareSpace Pros and Cons

Like any website builder or web service, SquareSpace has its pros and cons. Whilst I believe SquareSpace is incredibly versatile and offers something to suit most people, there are downsides to consider.

Incredible templates and designs
Blog feature is essential for increasing traffic
Mobile editor allows you to make changes on the go
A huge wealth of features and tools
Great for beginners and advanced users

Pricing is a tad more expensive than other builders
May be difficult to create multilingual websites

What is SquareSpace Best For?

SquareSpace is one of my favourite website builders because it has so much to offer. In my opinion, it’s as great as the likes of WordPress, but better for beginners, because it’s so easy to use. However, some features stand out more than others, which is why I’ve summarised what SquareSpace is best for.

Blogging: SquareSpace’s blogging tools are brilliant. Although SquareSpace focuses quite heavily on designs and visual features, it’s just as easy to share your content ideas with your website visitors. A blog is a great idea because you can have multiple contributors with SquareSpace. This means others can share their ideas too, as well as being able to easily manage your blog from your mobile device.
eCommerce: SquareSpace has two pricing plans entirely dedicated to growing your eCommerce store. There’s plenty of tools to get you started as well as enhanced features to maintain and grow your business. If making your storefront look visually stunning is a priority, combined with powerful tools, SquareSpace will not let you down.
Personal: If you plan on creating your own personal portfolio or blog, SquareSpace is a great platform to do this. Their design tools work perfectly to enable you to create stunning imagery, videos, and show of your talents. Templates are a great way to offer inspiration, where you can then add your own personal touch to create your own professional website.
Scalability: What I love about SquareSpace is that you can scale your website’s needs with their plans. They already offer unlimited storage and bandwidth, so you don’t have to worry about running out of room. However, if you want more features or you want to try your hand and selling products, their pricing plans cater to a variety of needs.

15 Jan 2020

Best Website Builders to Create an Online Portfolio

Creating an online portfolio can be a quick and easy task. It’s a great way of showing off your own work to others. You may even be able to entice new visitors and potential clients to your business. Using a website builder is a surefire way for you to achieve this.

However, it’s understandably quite a daunting market. There are so many website builders around, how on earth do you choose the right one? You’ll have to consider multiple factors like price, usability, and features, which is just the tip of the iceberg.

To save you the time and effort, I’ve been researching the best website builders for creating an online portfolio. I’ve tested them all in-depth and hope to be able to give you an open and honest view of each of them.

1. Wix (Best Overall Portfolio Builder)

Wix is my favourite website builder for many reasons. It’s very easy to use and has lots of features and tools for you to create an awesome portfolio website. As well as offering helpful support and plenty of templates, it’s also very affordable.

If you’re looking to grow your audience and get your portfolio seen, Wix can most definitely help with that. It has over 500 beautiful templates that are mobile responsive. They also have specific templates for portfolios, making it even easier to get online.

Wix Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Wix's editor is very easy to use and intuitive	Once you've selected a template, you can't change it without losing your content
Wix's ADI editor is an added bonus, meaning you can create a website with minimal time and effort	There are so many features that it can be a little overwhelming for beginners
Wix websites are optimised to work across multiple devices

Wix Pricing

	CONNECT DOMAIN	COMBO	UNLIMITED	VIP
BANDWIDTH	1GB	2GB	Unlimited	Unlimited
STORAGE	500MB	3GB	10GB	20GB
WIX ADVERTS	✔	✘	✘	✘
FREE DOMAIN	✘	✔	✔	✔
INCLUSIVE VIDEO MINUTES	0	30	60	120
AD VOUCHERS	✘	£75	£75	£75
SITE BOOSTER APP	✘	✘	✔	✔
VISITOR ANALYTICS APP	✘	✘	✔	✔
PROFESSIONAL LOGO	✘	✘	✘	✔
SOCIAL MEDIA LOGO FILES	✘	✘	✘	✔
PRIORITY RESPONSE	✘	✘	✘	✔
VIP SUPPORT	✘	✘	✘	✔
PRICE	£3/mo	£6/mo	£8.50/mo	£18/mo

Wix’s website pricing offers 4 plans. These range from £3 per month and go up to £18 per month. They also offer eCommerce and Business plans too, however for the purpose of this review, I won’t be looking at those in detail.

Wix also offers a free plan, however, it does have quite a few limitations. For example, you won’t be able to have a custom domain, you’ll have Wix ads on your website, no access to Google Analytics, and limited storage/bandwidth.

Feature	Free	Premium
Domain	Assigned URL: username.wixsite.com/siteaddress	Connect a custom domain
Wix ads	Wix ads appear on every page & favicon in URL	Remove Wix ads
Storage	Up to 500MB	Over 500MB available
Bandwidth	Up to 500MB	From 1GB and up available
Online payments	Not included	Included with Business Premium Plans
Customer support	Available	Premium & VIP support options including faster response time
Google Analytics	Not included	Included

The table above is taken from Wix’s website and gives you an overview of what their free plan offers in comparison to their premium plans.

Features

SEO: One of Wix’s most outstanding features is their SEO tools. They make SEO super easy and very beginner-friendly. If you’ve never heard of SEO before, it’s known as Search Engine Optimisation. It helps your website to get found on Google and other search engines. Wix has plenty of helpful guides and an SEO wizard. It will create a personalised experience and ensure your website succeeds as it was intended to do!

Drag & Drop: Wix’s drag and drop functionality is super easy to get to grips with. Building your online portfolio has never been easier. It’s a simple case of choosing the elements you want on your website (e.g. a video) and dragging that element and dropping it onto your site! Wix has a wide range of elements for you to play with too, including a blog and forum.

Blog: With the click of a button, you can create a blog on your website. Blogs are a great way of sharing new ideas, updating your content, and keeping your fans engaged with your website and brand. Having a blog is also a bonus for SEO, as long as it contains relevant and updated content.

Create a Website with Wix.com

2. SquareSpace (Best for Templates)

SquareSpace has many advantages as a portfolio builder. You can create absolutely stunning websites that are beautifully designed. It’s one of the most popular website builders for photographers, offering affordable pricing and responsive templates.

Whilst SquareSpace isn’t the easiest website builder to use, it doesn’t require any coding skills to pick it up. It offers plenty of tools and features in order for you to create a professional-looking online portfolio.

SquareSpace Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
SquareSpace's templates are extremely high quality and are highly regarded in the design world	No free plan available unlike most other website builders
Plenty of in-house step by step guides for you to follow	Can be a little more tricky to get the hang of using SquareSpace, so not recommended for complete beginners
Very affordable pricing considering the tools and features on offer

SquareSpace Pricing

	PERSONAL	BUSINESS	BASIC COMMERCE	ADVANCED COMMERCE
FREE CUSTOM DOMAIN	✔	✔	✔	✔
SSL	✔	✔	✔	✔
UNLIMITED BANDWIDTH AND STORAGE	✔	✔	✔	✔
SEO FEATURES	✔	✔	✔	✔
TEMPLATES	✔	✔	✔	✔
CONTRIBUTORS	2	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
MOBILE-OPTIMISED	✔	✔	✔	✔
24/7 SUPPORT	✔	✔	✔	✔
BASIC WEBSITE METRICS	✔	✔	✔	✔
SQUARESPACE EXTENSIONS	✔	✔	✔	✔
PROFESSIONAL EMAIL FROM GOOGLE	✘	✔	✔	✔
PREMIUM INTEGRATIONS	✘	✔	✔	✔
CUSTOMISATION WITH CSS AND JS	✘	✔	✔	✔
ADVANCED WEB ANALYTICS	✘	✔	✔	✔
£80 GOOGLE ADWORDS VOUCHER	✘	✔	✔	✔
PROMOTIONAL POP UPS AND BANNERS	✘	✔	✔	✔
FULLY INTEGRATED ECOMMERCE	✘	✔	✔	✔
TRANSACTION FEES	✘	3%	0%	0%
UNLIMITED PRODUCTS	✘	✔	✔	✔
ACCEPT DONATIONS	✘	✔	✔	✔
POINT OF SALE	✘	✘	✔	✔
CUSTOMER ACCOUNTS	✘	✘	✔	✔
ABANDONED CART RECOVERY	✘	✘	✘	✔
GIFT CARDS	✘	✘	✘	✔
PRICE	£10/mo	£15/mo	£20/mo	£30/mo

In comparison to Wix, SquareSpace is quite a lot more expensive. They don’t offer a free plan and their cheapest plan comes in at £10 per month. However, SquareSpace offer a more premium approach to their services. They don’t have cheaper plans which have adverts on, or subdomains that don’t look professional. They are all about getting your website online and looking great.

If you’re looking at creating your own online portfolio, their personal plan should offer all the features you require. However, if you do want to start selling some of your products (perhaps artwork), then their business plan will give you a taste of what’s to come.

Features

Blog: As well as it being quick and easy to add pages to your website, so is creating a blog. Having a blog is a great way for your visitors to engage on a higher level with you. You can publish fresh and unique content that will get indexed by Google, making your website even more visible online.

Support: SquareSpace’s support is second to none. They offer 24/7 customer service all year round. On top of this, they have a wealth of helpful tutorial videos and guides to walk you through any issues you might encounter. I really like the fact you can watch these videos during your own time and take things at your own pace.

Editing: SquareSpace’s editor is extremely easy to use. Everything is driven from a sidebar menu which is easily accessible at any time. As opposed to Wix’s slightly intrusive floating toolkit, I find SquareSpace quite simple to work with. The only trouble is they offer so much, it can be a little overwhelming.

Create a Website with SquareSpace.com

3. Weebly (Best for Budget)

Weebly is a great choice for beginners or those that are conscious about their budget. Weebly’s online portfolio creator makes building a website simple, whilst offering some pretty awesome features. Even on its low-cost plans, you won’t feel like you’ve missed out as their value for money is incredible.

Whilst it may not offer the best templates around, Weebly’s designs have certainly improved of late. They might not be as in-depth as those that SquareSpace offer, but they’re certainly eye-catching whilst offering a level of simplicity that’s hard to find elsewhere.

Weebly Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Weebly offers high levels of customisation across the board. Whether you're looking to redo an entire template or just edit elements, their editor is simple to use	A lot of Weebly's apps and extensions require a premium plan
Weebly offers developers a space to edit code directly	Weebly's personalisation can lack somewhat unless you know how to code
There's plenty of pricing plans to suit most budgets and customers

Weebly Pricing

	FREE	CONNECT	PRO	BUSINESS
FREE SSL	✔	✔	✔	✔
STORAGE	500MB	500MB	Unlimited	Unlimited
CUSTOM DOMAIN	✘	✔	✔	✔
REMOVE WEEBLY ADS	✘	✘	✔	✔
SITE SEARCH	✘	✘	✔	✔
SEO	✔	✔	✔	✔
LEAD CAPTURE AND CONTACT FORMS	✔	✔	✔	✔
ADVANCED SITE STATS	✘	✘	✔	✔
ADVANCED ECOMMERCE STATS	✘	✘		✔
SHOPPING CART	✘	✘	✔	✔
ACCEPT PAYMENTS THROUGH SQUARE	✘	✘	✔	✔
ACCEPT PAYMENTS THROUGH 3^RD PARTIES	✘	✘	✔	✔
ITEM BADGES	✘	✘	✘	✔
ITEM OPTIONS	✘	✘	✘	✔
INVENTORY MANAGEMENT	✘	✘	✘	✔
AUTOMATIC TAX CALCULATOR	✘	✘	✘	✔
COUPON CODES	✘	✘	✘	✔
SQUARE GIFT CARDS	✘	✘	✘	✔
ITEM REVIEWS	✘	✘	✘	✔
SHIPPING CALCULATOR	✘	✘	✘	✔
INTEGRATED SHIPPING LABELS	✘	✘	✘	✔
GOOD SHIPPING DISCOUNTS	✘	✘	✘	✔
COMMUNITY FORUM	✔	✔	✔	✔
CHAT AND EMAIL SUPPORT	✔	✔	✔	✔
PHONE SUPPORT	✘	✘	✔	✔
PRICE	£0/mo	£4/mo	£9/mo	£18/mo

Weebly’s pricing is quite broad. They offer something for everyone, even boasting an entirely free for life plan. Their free plan does have some drawbacks though; there’s limited storage space, you won’t be able to connect a custom domain, and your website will have Weebly branded adverts on it.

If you’re looking to display your online portfolio in a professional sense, you’re going to have to pay for their £9 per month plan, else you’ll have Weebly adverts. If you don’t mind this, then, by all means, go for their Connect plan, however, I personally don’t think it looks very professional.

Features

Apps: Weebly offers a big selection of apps in its App Center. These range from SEO apps to image uploaders that help with meta tags. Their apps are great for boosting your presence on Google and other search engines, offering higher rankings for relevant keywords and more. However, most of these apps are only available to premium customers.

Simple Editor: Weebly’s editor is really simple and easy to use. It’s enabled with drag and drop functionality so you literally just move elements onto or off of your page. It’s an ideal solution for those who want to get a little creative, but also for developers who want to edit code directly.

SEO Options: Weebly’s basic SEO covers most of the essentials. However, if you’re on a premium plan, their SEO-boosting apps are pretty incredible. As I mentioned earlier, they offer apps that automatically prompt entering metadata, descriptions, and tags. Although this sounds like a simple feature, it’s essential if you are looking to boost your SEO.

Create a Website with Weebly.com

4. GoDaddy (Best for Simplicity and Speed)

Whilst you may recognise GoDaddy for offering web hosting and domain names, they also offer a great website builder. If you’re looking to create an online portfolio in record time, GoDaddy is definitely a go-to option.

It won’t offer as many features or as complex tools like Wix or SquareSpace, but it certainly does the job at an affordable price. GoDaddy’s Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) means you can answer a small set of questions and your website will be designed for you. It’s a pretty neat feature!

GoDaddy Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Extremely easy to use with drag and drop functionality	Offers limited design features compared to other website builders
24/7 support, offering a reliable and well-known brand	GoDaddy doesn't offer many features or feel as personal as it's competitors
GoDaddy offers an all-in-one solution, with web hosting, domain names and a website builder in one place

GoDaddy Pricing

	BASIC	STANDARD	PREMIUM	ECOMMERCE
FREE SSL	✔	✔	✔	✔
CUSTOM DOMAIN	✔	✔	✔	✔
ON-THE-GO EDITING	✔	✔	✔	✔
24/7 SUPPORT	✔	✔	✔	✔
PAYPAL BUTTON	✔	✔	✔	✔
SEO	✘	✔	✔	✔
GODADDY INSIGHT	✔	✔	✔	✔
INSIGHT SCORE	✔	✔	✔	✔
SOCIAL MEDIA LISTING PLATFORMS	1	3	Unlimited	Unlimited
SOCIAL POSTS AND RESPONSES	5/mo	20/mo	Unlimited	Unlimited
EMAIL MARKETING SENDS	100/mo	500/mo	25,000/mo	25,000/mo
BOOK ONE-TIME APPOINTMENTS	✔	✔	✔	✔
ONE-TIME GROUP EVENTS	✘	✘	✔	✔
RECURRING GROUP EVENTS	✘	✘	✔	✔
SMS ALERTS	✘	✘	✔	✔
EMAIL AND TEXT REMINDERS	✘	✘	✔	✔
ACCEPT ONLINE PAYMENTS	✘	✘	✔	✔
ADD AND EDIT PRODUCTS	✘	✘	✘	✔
SETUP FLEXIBLE SHIPPING	✘	✘	✘	✔
SELL PRODUCTS DIRECTLY	✘	✘	✘	✔
MANAGE DISCOUNTS AND PROMOTIONS	✘	✘	✘	✔
PRICE	£6.99/mo	£9.99/mo	£14.99/mo	£19.99/mo

GoDaddy’s pricing plans start from £6.99 per month. However, they do offer a 1 month free trial on all of their pricing plans. I’d definitely recommend signing up for their free trial so you can get a taste of whether you like their website builder or not.

For £6.99 per month, you’ll get a free SSL, custom domain connection, and access to GoDaddy Insight. However, you won’t be able to use their SEO tools which will be essential to getting your online portfolio found online. If I were setting up an online portfolio, I would opt for their £9.99 per month plan.

Features

ADI: Once you’ve answered a few basic questions, GoDaddy will create a template just for you. You are free to put your own content straight onto the template or edit it to your heart’s content. You can choose which theme you prefer, alter the colours, change images, and make it your own. However, their ADI tool gives you the ability to have the basics laid out on a plate for you.

Templates: GoDaddy offers well over 300 professional templates. The designs are pretty good in my opinion, and may even outdo Weebly’s. After looking through their selection, there’s plenty of suitable templates for an online portfolio, with specific templates offering social media integration which is a great platform to show off your flair.

Customer Support: Whilst GoDaddy may not offer the extensive list of features other website builders do, their customer support is hard to beat. In my personal experience, having support options 24/7/365 is well worth it. I’ve never been let down by GoDaddy and it’s great to speak to someone for support and advice when needed.

Create a Website with GoDaddy.com

5. Strikingly

Strikingly is a great website builder that caters to a wide market. Everyone and anyone can use Strikingly to create a website or online portfolio. It offers a simple editor and plenty of helpful and useful resources.

Strikingly offers a free plan to all of its customers which we will go into more later on. It’s a great platform for scalability, starting small and allow you and your website to grow with their services.

Strikingly Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Great for beginners, offering simplicity and support 24/7	Limited creative control may mean customers outgrow the platform
Strikingly offers some brilliant blogging tools making it a good option for those wanting to boost SEO	Free plan offers one-page websites only making it very limited for online portfolios
Free plan means there's something for everyone and gives you a taste of more to come

Strikingly Pricing

	LIMITED	PRO	VIP
CONNECT CUSTOM DOMAIN	✔	✔	✔
WEBSITES	2 Limited	3 Pro	5 Pro
FREE SITES	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
BANDWIDTH	50GB	Unlimited	Unlimited
FREE DOMAIN	✔	✔	✔
PRODUCTS	5 per site	300 per site	500 per site
SUPPORT	✔	✔	✔
SITE MEMBERSHIP	✘	✔	✔
MULTIPLE PAGES	✘	✔	✔
STRIKINGLY APP STORE	✘	✔	✔
MOBILE ACTION BUTTONS	✘	✔	✔
EMBED HTML/CSS/JS	✘	✔	✔
REMOVE STRIKINGLY BRANDING	✘	✔	✔
PASSWORD PROTECT	✘	✔	✔
SITE SEARCH	✘	✔	✔
INVITE COLLABORATORS	✘	✔	✔
CUSTOM FONTS	✘	✔	✔
NEWSLETTERS	✘	✘	2000 contacts/month
PRIORITY SUPPORT	✘	✘	✔
ENGLISH PHONE SUPPORT	✘	✘	✔
ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT	✘	✘	✔
PRICE	£6.10/mo	£12.20/mo	£37.36/mo

Strikingly’s pricing seems a tad expensive compared to its competitors. When you compare what features are on offer, their pricing plans seem quite limited. However, they do offer a free plan which includes unlimited free sites, a strikingly.com domain, 5GB bandwidth, and 24/7 support.

If you do opt for their free plan, you will only be able to build 1-page websites. Whilst this might suit some customers, I wouldn’t recommend it for online portfolios. It will definitely limit what you can show off, whereas other website builders like Weebly won’t.

Features

Customer Support: Strikingly’s customer support is really good. Their live chat option is easy to use and very responsive. I was able to talk to someone within 1 minute of connecting and they were very friendly and helpful.

Easy to use: Strikingly’s platform is very easy to use. The drawbacks of this are there aren’t many features on offer compared to Wix and SquareSpace. However, if creating a basic website in no time at all is suitable for you, then you should have no trouble getting to grips with their tools.

Newsletters: Although this option is only available on their VIP plan, it is a great feature that shouldn’t be overlooked. You’ll be able to send up to 2000 contacts per month, engaging with customers and building your brand.

Create a Website with Strikingly.com

04 Jan 2020

Weebly Pricing Plans: How Much Does it Cost to Sign Up?

In this article, we’re going to be talking about Weebly pricing plans. Weebly offers 4 pricing plans (Weebly Connect, Weebly Pro, Weebly Business, and Weebly Business Plus). They range from £4 per month to £28 per month, so we will be discussing the differences.

Many people focus on the price of a product before taking into account what the product actually offers. For example, if I told you that Weebly’s Business Plus plan costs £336 per year, you’d probably run a mile.

And the thing is, I totally get it. I’ve been that person, but since starting UKWebHostReview, I’ve learned a lot about value for money.

Most companies, whether they’re web hosts, website builders, or domain registrars, offer multiple pricing options. That’s because not everyone wants the same thing. An individual starting a blog is going to need a lot less in terms of resources compared to a small business.

That’s why I created this Weebly pricing review to help people like you.

Weebly Pricing Overview

Weebly Pricing Plan	Annual Cost	Monthly Equivalent
Connect	£48	£4
Pro	£108	£9
Business	£216	£18
Business Plus	£336	£28

Weebly does have a free plan, however, it only offers basic features. Weebly’s four premium plans range from £4 to £28 per month when billed annually. All plans allow you to connect a custom domain to them, but only the Pro plan onwards offers eCommerce functionality.

What’s great about Weebly is that you can upgrade at any time. If you think in 6 months time you’ll be expanding into selling online, you can simply upgrade from the Connect to the Pro plan. If you’ve already paid your £48 fee upfront, you won’t have to pay for the Pro plan on top of that. For example, if you’ve paid £48, you’ll subtract that from the £108 the Pro plan costs, leaving you with £60 to pay.

Visit Weebly.com (£4/Month)

Weebly Pricing Plans – What’s Included

It’s time to talk about what’s actually included in Weebly’s pricing plans. We know how much they cost monthly and annually, so let’s explore the features that are on offer. First I want to show you the key differences between their free and paid plans.

Website Builder	Features	Free Plan	Paid Plan
WEEBLY	Free SSL	✔	✔
	Custom Domain	✖	✔
	Remove Branding	✖	✔

The main differences between the free and paid plan are that you can connect a custom domain, and you won’t have annoying Weebly branding on your website. If your aim is to look professional or you’re starting a small business, it’s vital that your website doesn’t have Weebly’s branding on it.

Think of it this way, would you feel more comfortable and have more confidence in buying from a website that looked like this: www.myshop.weebly.com or this: www.myshop.com – hopefully you’ll agree the latter.

Site Features

Now that we agree Weebly’s paid plans are going to offer more in terms of features, let’s explore them in more detail. Weebly’s pricing plans are divided up into categories. The first of these being site features which are the essential and baseline features of your website.

Site Features	Connect	Pro	Business	Business Plus
Free SSL	✔	✔	✔	✔
Storage	500MB	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
Custom Domain	✔	✔	✔	✔
Remove Weebly Ads	✖	✔	✔	✔
Site Search	✖	✔	✔	✔

eCommerce

If you’re planning on selling products using Weebly, you’ll need to consider their eCommerce features. The Free and Connect plan don’t offer any eCommerce features. It’s for this reason I’m going to exclude them both from the table below so as not to confuse things.

eCommerce	Pro	Business	Business Plus
Shopping Cart	✔	✔	✔
Accept payments through Square	✔	✔	✔
Accept payments through third parties	✔	✔	✔
Item Badges	✖	✔	✔
Item Options	✖	✔	✔
Inventory Management	✖	✔	✔
Automatic Tax Calculator	✖	✔	✔
Coupon Codes	✖	✔	✔
Square Gift Cards	✖	✔	✔
Item Reviews	✖	✔	✔
Shipping Calculator	✖	✔	✔
Integrated Shipping Labels	✖	✔	✔
Shipping Discounts	✖	Good	Best
Abandoned Cart Emails	✖	✖	✔
Real-time Shipping	✖	✖	✔

If you’re a start-up business or small business, I’d definitely recommend the Pro plan at £9 per month. There’s a lot of features included that will probably keep you going without having to spend double per month on the Business plan.

Marketing

Certain aspects of marketing are great for individual websites and blogs. SEO is a key factor in generating traffic to your website. We have to remember that not all customers will want to sell products online. That’s why Weebly’s pricing plans are so great; they’re versatile and cater to a wide audience.

Marketing	Connect	Pro	Business	Business Plus
Search Engine Optimisation	✔	✔	✔	✔
Lead Capture and Contact Forms	✔	✔	✔	✔
Advanced Site Stats	✖	✔	✔	✔
Pop-up Notifications	✖	✖	✔	✔
Advanced eCommerce Statistics	✖	✖	✔	✔

Customer Support

Customer support is another key factor when deciding to buy a product or service. Most people who opt to use a website builder either aren’t a web developer or have limited web development skills. It’s for this reason, amongst others, that support is so important. If you come across tools or features you don’t understand or have burning questions that need answering, support should be on-hand and brilliant, every step of the way.

Support	Connect	Pro	Business	Business Plus
Community Forum	✔	✔	✔	✔
Chat & Email Support	✔	✔	✔	✔
Phone Support	✖	✔	✔	✔

Weebly Pricing Plans – A Different Perspective

A lot of people find it frustrating that companies advertise their cheapest price on their pricing plans. Whilst I do understand this is annoying, I want to put things into perspective a little. Let’s take a look at Weebly’s pricing plans with and without the yearly and 2-yearly discounts.

Term Length (monthly equivalent)	Pro	Business	Business Plus
1 month	£14	£26	£32
1-month savings	£0	£0	£0
1 year	£9	£18	£28
1-year savings	£60	£96	£48
2 year	£7	£16	£26
2-year savings	£168	£240	£144

The longer you sign up to Weebly, the cheaper it becomes. The savings are massive, reaching up to a whopping £240. I know that’s a lot of money to pay upfront, but if you’re serious about signing up to Weebly, it’s well worth it.

Let’s break Weebly’s pricing down even further for another perspective. This is how much each plan would cost you on a daily basis if you signed up for an initial 1-year term:

Pro: 29p per day
Business: 59p per day
Business Plus: 92p per day

When you look at it like that, it’s costing you barely anything. I can guarantee that you spend more on your lunch per day (probably quadruple those figures)!

Visit Weebly.com (£4/Month)

Weebly Pricing Plans – Is Premium Really Worth It?

We know that Weebly offers a free plan, so why would you want to upgrade to their premium plans? Granted, there are a lot of website builders offering freebies, as well as free web hosts. However, it’s often the case that free limits what’s on offer.

With Weebly, I’m confident that I can put my money where my mouth is. Their premium plans are worth every penny in my opinion. Whether you’re a blogger, small business, or entrepreneur, they cater to a wide audience and do this well.

I have every confidence that Weebly invests the money their customers spend. They’re always upgrading their services, improving the tools on offer, and provide a great level of customer support.

The United Kingdom is the leading country in Europe in terms of online shopping penetration. By now a mature market, UK e-commerce sales reached a value of 688.4 billion British pounds in 2018. Between 2016 and 2017 alone, e-commerce sales went up by 80 billion British pounds.

If I still haven’t managed to convince you, think of it this way… how much would it cost to open up a physical store for your business? I can assure you it would be an awful lot more than what you’d spend with Weebly.

Weebly Pricing – Conclusion

I hope by now I’ve made Weebly’s pricing plans clear. Let’s have a quick recap of how much each of their plans are when paying annually:

Weebly Connect: £4 per month
Weebly Pro: £9 per month
Weebly Business: £18 per month
Weebly Business Plus: £28 per month

If you aren’t sure whether Weebly is worth it, you can always try their free plan. This should give you enough of an idea of what they’re like as a company, their services, features, and customer support.

For individuals and bloggers, I highly recommend the Connect or Pro plan. They’re both reasonably priced and will offer you a lot in terms of features. Small businesses and growing businesses would be wise to choose the Pro, Business or Business Plus plans.

Remember, you can always upgrade your plan with Weebly, simply paying the difference.

Visit Weebly.com (£4/Month)

24 Dec 2019

How to Start Selling on Facebook in 3 Easy Steps

If you already sell products or services online, you may consider selling on Facebook via the Facebook store too. Why? Because it’s a great way of boosting your sales revenue.

The Facebook Store is essentially a place you can sell products online. You may have seen it referred to Facebook Shop or Shop Now.

For those of you who are already making a decent profit from your eCommerce website, you may be wondering why you’d want to sell via a Facebook Store. As of Q3 2019, Facebook had 2.45 billion users worldwide. It’s a great market to tap into if you haven’t already.

Now that we’ve learned it’s a great market to tap into, how exactly do you go about creating a Facebook Store. Well, that’s exactly what I’m going to show you!

How To Sell on Facebook

There are two main ways you can sell on Facebook.

Use Facebook’s Platform: Here you can create your very own Facebook Store. You’ll be able to list products and set up payment methods. It’s a fairly simple way of selling and doesn’t require much time or effort.
Use an eCommerce Website Builder: Using this method, you can link your existing online store’s products to your Facebook Store. It’s a bit more complicated than method one but works really well when it’s set up.

My Recommendation – Option 2

I personally recommend using option 2. If you already have an eCommerce website created, it’s much simpler. If you haven’t, don’t worry, we have a helpful guide to show you how to create an online store in a few easy steps.

Let’s take a look at some of the reasons why I suggest using this method:

Easier to sell online
Extends online presence
Website builders offer extensive features and functions
More payment options by linking the two platforms
Sell a wider range of products and services

What is a Facebook Store?

A Facebook Store or Facebook Shop lets you sell products via your Facebook Business Page. Creating a Facebook Page is simple; their templates allow you to select options that include a Shop option.

The Store or Shop tab allows customers to buy directly from your Facebook page. It’s a brilliant way of extending your audience reach and engaging with your customers. You can easily use Facebook Ads to create marketing plans and target specific people in specific areas.

1. Start Selling with Shopify

Shopify is one of my favourite eCommerce website builders. Connecting your Shopify website with your Facebook Store is really easy to do, and I’m going to show you how.

	BASIC SHOPIFY	SHOPIFY	ADVANCED SHOPIFY
ONLINE STORE	✔	✔	✔
PRODUCTS	✔	✔	✔
STAFF ACCOUNTS	2	5	15
SUPPORT	✔	✔	✔
SALES CHANNELS (SOCIAL MEDIA)	✔	✔	✔
MANUAL ORDER CREATION	✔	✔	✔
DISCOUNT CODES	✔	✔	✔
FREE SSL	✔	✔	✔
ABANDONED CART RECOVERY	✔	✔	✔
GIFT CARDS		✔	✔
PROFESSIONAL REPORTS		✔	✔
ADVANCED REPORTS			✔
THIRD-PARTY SHIPPING RATES			✔
FRAUD ANALYSIS	✔	✔	✔
ONLINE CREDIT CARD RATES	2.2% + 20p	1.9% + 20p	1.6% + 20p
IN-PERSON CREDIT CARD RATES	1.7% + 0p	1.6% + 0p	1.5% + 0p
ADDITIONAL FEES	2.0%	1.0%	0.5%
SHOPIFY POS APP	✔	✔	✔
REGISTER SHIFTS		✔	✔
HARDWARE PERIPHERAL SUPPORT		✔	✔
STAFF POS PINS		Unlimited	Unlimited
THIRD-PARTY POS APPS	✔	✔	✔
STORE LOCATIONS		1-5	Up to 8
PRICE (MONTHLY)	£21.76	£59.29	£224.39

All of Shopify’s paid plans include the ability to sell on Facebook. You’ll need something called the Facebook Channel app (which is free), once you’ve signed up to Shopify.

Install the Facebook Channel app
Facebook will create a Store section on your Facebook page
Your Shopify products will display on your page

There’s some pretty cool features included which I’ll go over below:

1 click add products
Sell via Facebook messenger
Visual editing and organisation
Sell specific items via Facebook
Real-time updates

Visit Shopify.com

2. Start Selling with BigCommerce

BigCommerce is another popular eCommerce website builder. Much like Shopify, you won’t need any coding knowledge to create an online store, nor will you need any to link up to your Facebook shop.

	STANDARD	PLUS	PRO
PAYMENT GATEWAY INTEGRATION	✔	✔	✔
BUILT-IN FEATURES	✔	✔	✔
TRANSACTION FEES	0%	0%	0%
SUPPORT	✔	✔	✔
CHECKOUT	✔	✔	✔
COUPONS, DISCOUNTS, GIFT CARDS	✔	✔	✔
MARKETPLACE & SOCIAL MEDIA INTEGRATION	✔	✔	✔
POINT OF SALE	✔	✔	✔
ONLINE SALES PER YEAR	Up to £37k	Up to £112k	Up to £299k
SSL	✔	✔	✔
BRANDED ONLINE STORE	✔	✔	✔
FACEBOOK/INSTAGRAM	✔	✔	✔
PINTEREST	✔	✔	✔
BLOG	✔	✔	✔
PRODUCT RATINGS	✔	✔	✔
PROFESSIONAL REPORTING	✔	✔	✔
REAL TIME SHIPPING	✔	✔	✔
RESPONSIVE WEBSITE	✔	✔	✔
SHIPPING LABEL DISCOUNTS	✔	✔	✔
STAFF ACCOUNTS	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
PRODUCTS, FILES AND BANDWIDTH	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
APPLE PAY, GOOGLE PAY, AMAZON PAY	✔	✔	✔
AMAZON	✔	✔	✔
GOOGLE SHOPPING	✔	✔	✔
EBAY AND AMAZON	✔	✔	✔
HTTPS	✔	✔	✔
SHIPPERHQ	✔	✔	✔
CUSTOMER GROUPS AND SEGMENTATION	–	✔	✔
ABANDONED CART RECOVERY	–	✔	✔
PERSISTENT CART	–	✔	✔
STORED CREDIT CARDS	–	✔	✔
GOOGLE REVIEWS	–	–	✔
FACETED SEARCH	–	–	✔
CUSTOM SSL	–	–	✔
PRICE (MONTHLY)	£22.39	£59.76	£186.83

BigCommerce pricing plans are all quite similar, bar a few features which are outlined above. All of them have the option to be able to link up (integrate) and sell on Facebook. The BigCommerce free Facebook Shop app is available to install to your store.

Once installed, your products will be available through your Facebook business page. However, the option to checkout via Facebook directly is only available to U.S. customers on BigCommerce.

Visit BigCommerce.com

3. How to set up a Facebook Store

If you’d rather not integrate your online store with Facebook, you can set up a Facebook store without a website builder. It’s really simple to do and I’m going to show you how below:

Create a Facebook Page

First, navigate to your Facebook account. Select Pages then Create a Page. You can choose whether you want to set up a page for a business or brand (recommended) or a page for a community or public figure (you won’t be able to sell using this method).

Select Business or Brand

Get started with a business or brand page by selecting the option. Fill in your desired page name (ideally your business name) and which category your store falls under.

Select Template

Your Facebook page will be created. Here you can updated your page name, profile picture, and cover photo. You can also customise instant messaging options and invite people to like your page.

Navigate to Settings then Templates and Tabs. Edit the Standard template and select Shopping.

Your business page will be transformed into a Shop where you can start selling products.

4. Selling on Facebook FAQs

Which eCommerce website builder should I use?

As discussed above, my recommendation would be to use Shopify to set up your online store. There pricing is reasonable and their features are very good. Their free app is super easy to use and links all of your products through to your Facebook store within a few easy steps.

How should I sell through Facebook?

We’ve gone over a few methods whereby you can sell on Facebook. Again, my recommendation here is to use an eCommerce website builder. This gives you the option to create a professional online store, as well as having the Facebook store covered too.

When you update your products via the website builder, these automatically get updated on Facebook. This means your social media platform doesn’t require any intervention from you, unless of course you want to customise it separately.

How can I increase conversions via my Facebook Store?

Social media is all about growing your audience and reaching out to new potential customers. Facebook Ads is a tool where you can promote your Facebook posts to reach a specific target audience. You don’t need a large budget either, and often Facebook offers promotions with £3.70 free to get you started.

Do I need a Facebook Store?

You don’t need a Facebook Store to sell online, but it’s definitely worth it. It allows you to extend your reach into new audiences you may not have been able to tap into otherwise. It’s a great way to offer promotions and share your content in a few simple steps.

Can I sell physical and digital goods on Facebook?

Facebook allows you to sell physical goods, but not digital goods. This is why it’s a good idea to have both a Facebook store and an online store using a website builder. BigCommerce, for example, lets you sell physical and digital goods.

24 Dec 2019

Archives:

1. Pricing

2. Ease of Use

3. Themes and Design

4. Tools and Features

5. Customer Support

6. What Customers Think

7. Pros and Cons

8. Conclusion

Volusion Pricing – Is it Worth it?

Volusion – Ease of Use

Volusion – Tools and Features

Volusion – Templates and Design

Volusion – Customer Support

Volusion – Conclusion

#1: Upwork (Best overall portal for Freelancers)

Overall:

#2: Fiverr (Best for those on a budget)

Overall:

#3: Shopify Experts (Best for Shopify eCommerce websites)

Overall:

#4: 99designs (Best for Graphic Designers)

Overall:

#5: Toptal (Best for expert freelancers)

Overall:

1. Where to sell online

Using an eCommerce builder to sell online

Using a marketplace to sell online

2. How to sell online

What do you want to achieve?

Profit vs spend

Look at your competition

Market research

Marketing

3. Which products should you sell

Dos and Don’ts of selling products

4. How to attract customers

5. Conclusion

WordPress

Squarespace

#1. Squarespace Vs WordPress: Pricing

Overall:

#2. Squarespace Vs WordPress: Features

SquareSpace Features:

WordPress Features:

Overall:

#3. Squarespace Vs WordPress: Ease of Use

SquareSpace Ease of Use:

WordPress Ease of Use:

Overall:

#4. Squarespace Vs WordPress: SEO

SquareSpace SEO:

WordPress SEO:

Overall:

#5: Squarespace vs WordPress: Security

SquareSpace Security:

WordPress Security:

Overall:

SquareSpace vs WordPress: Conclusion

How Does it Work?

What is SquareSpace?

SquareSpace Features

SquareSpace Pricing

SquareSpace Pros and Cons

What is SquareSpace Best For?

1. Wix (Best Overall Portfolio Builder)

Wix Pros and Cons

Wix Pricing

Features

2. SquareSpace (Best for Templates)

SquareSpace Pros and Cons

SquareSpace Pricing

Features

3. Weebly (Best for Budget)

Weebly Pros and Cons

Weebly Pricing

Features

4. GoDaddy (Best for Simplicity and Speed)

GoDaddy Pros and Cons

GoDaddy Pricing