You will not be as worried to start building a blog when you learn that there are many simple tools available on the market to do so.
Furthermore, if you need to create a website for your business, you would also start thinking about the required programming skills, the costs involved, the hosting services and so on.
But what if you were told that it is possible to create your business website without any programming skills or knowledge about security and the legal requirements?
Yes, that is right!
With an effective and business-specific site builder tool like 1&1 MyWebsite, you can create your business website in minutes with the simple drag-and-drop functionality.
You may say that there are some other options available as far as site builder software is concerned. The good thing about 1&1 is that the company has been around for a really long time.
So, there is a reliability factor that comes along with its site building tool. Apart from that, the 1&1 website creator is focused on a wide range of business sectors with the aim of getting every local business online.
It even offers the manpower to build the site for you, in case you cannot spare enough time to create your site.
It claims to allow you to completely focus on your business strategies and sales, by reducing the efforts and time you need to spend to get your ideal professional-looking website created.
So, provide you with an in-depth review of the 1&1 MyWebsite tool to understand what it offers you.
We will look at the 1&1 site builder features, pros and cons, plans and pricing, and so on.
1&1 Company Background
The 1&1 company was founded in 1988, almost 27 years ago. It gradually grew by offering a variety of services, such as domain name registration, web hosting and cloud hosting.
The products offered by 1&1 are available in several countries, including Austria, Germany, the US, Canada, Italy, Great Britain, Spain, France and Mexico.
The employee strength of this company has also grown to around 7,000 worldwide and the company headquarters are located in Montabaur, Germany.
By offering quality services to customers, 1&1 has managed to host more than 19 million domain names so far. They are totally focused on helping a wide variety of specific business sectors, such as construction and real estate, transport, tourism, health and beauty, as well as retail and commerce.
With a huge marketing budget, this company believes in aggressive advertising and so you see a lot of TV and other print ads for 1&1.
1&1 and Jimdo Website Builders
If you have tried out the Jimdo site builder tool in the past, you will find the 1&1 MyWebsite builder quite similar.
The reason for this similarity is that 1&1 was involved in a partnership with Jimdo till 2010, after which they mutually parted ways.
So, the base of the site building platform is the same for both software. Over the last five years, both have added a few features and functionalities which may differ from each other.
However, the resemblance is pretty obvious for even a layman!
In this article, we will focus our attention on studying the features of the 1&1 MyWebsite builder in detail.
1&1 Customer Support
You can access the extensive 1&1 help centre to get answers for or resolutions to all your queries or issues.
You can check out the different FAQs and suggestions offered across the multiple categories which make it easy for you.
You can even have some useful discussions and learn some key tricks to use the 1&1 site builder from other users in the 1&1 forum community.
If you are not able to find an answer from the online knowledge base of 1&1, you can contact their support team via email.
They have separate email addresses for the different departments that handle the specific types of queries.
However, the maximum response time for your emails can be as long as 48 hours. So, if you are facing an urgent issue, you can directly contact the 1&1 technical support staff over the phone.
1&1 MyWebsite User Interface
This tool offers a very intuitive user interface. You will not find it difficult to start using this site builder from the first day when you login to your 1&1 user account for the first time.
It is pretty easy to understand and use for building websites as per your requirements.
1&1 MyWebsite Templates and Layouts
This tool offers a variety of visually great-looking templates for your website. As a business, you will be delighted to see several sector-specific business templates that are made available for your use.
If you are someone who likes to create and customise your own layout, then you will be happy to learn that you can do the same with 1&1, because it allows you to access the HTML and CSS code.
You also get access to several images which adhere to copyright laws and which suit the different layouts and themes made available with the 1&1 site builder.
All in all, there is enough scope to personalise the website as per your dynamic requirements and maintain the branding of your business.
1&1 MyWebsite Editor
The editor is extremely easy to use and helps you to design a professional site without you having to write a single piece of code. You can place the required elements (text, images, and more) on your webpages using the simple drag-and-drop functionality.
In addition, you can even edit or crop the images without having to make use of any external image editing software or tools.
If you happen to make a mistake while building the website, the editor even gives you access to its “Undo” button.
How cool is that?
The 1&1 editor also extends support to a variety of languages and, considering the global reach of the 1&1 company, this is no surprise! It has an integrated document viewer for your convenience.
The 1&1 form builder further allows you to easily add text fields, text areas, and checkboxes and so on. However, it surprisingly lacks options to add radio buttons or select boxes.
Also, with this form builder, the form order is already pre-determined and you cannot change the order of the form elements.
1&1 Website Mobility
You need not be told that this is the age of mobile devices. Due to the increased use of smartphones and tablets these days, your business website is likely to be seen on them first.
With the 1&1 website creator, the mobile version of your website will be created automatically. This is possible by simply enabling the “MyWebsite Mobile” option.
You would also be happy to learn that this mobile version makes use of the same style used by the desktop version of your site.
In this way, you are able to maintain consistency across the different versions of your site for easy identification by your customers or viewers.
1&1 Additional Features
Everyone likes to have some additional features for their website. With 1&1, it is possible to do this with the help of widgets.
You can use them to add or modify photos, add YouTube videos or embed your business social networking accounts, for example, Facebook or Twitter.
You can also get third-party tools integrated by using their web apps directory.
You can even create a simple blog with this tool. You just need to be ready with your domain name and choose a colour option. That is it!
Your blog will be ready even before you are ready with the topic of your first article.
You also get the advantage of the support for guestbook and comments to communicate with your blog readers.
With the 1&1 WordPress setup wizard, you can even integrate your existing WordPress blog with your business website.
The eCommerce features offered by this tool are pretty limited. However, you can have a small online store running on PayPal.
Also, if you want to build better functionalities for your online store, you can make use of the various eCommerce applications available in the 1&1 app store.
Even so, considering the great options available on the market today, this tool is not the ideal eCommerce site builder.
Once your site is built, this tool offers you with the capability to get your site noticed among popular search engines.
It gives you SEO capabilities to modify meta tags, image ALT tags, title description and more. With one of the premium packages, you even get access to the SEO tool for better search engine optimisation.
Also, you are able to keep track of the statistics related to your site’s visitors with a basic analysis tool provided by 1&1.
1&1 MyWebsite Pricing and Plans
This site builder does not offer any free plan, but it offers three paid packages. The common features available with all these plans are listed below:
- Online photo editor
- 10GB web space
- Automatic mobile optimisation
- 1&1 SiteAnalytics to keep track of site statistics
- One domain name with the annual plan
- 200 email addresses matching your domain name
Below, we look at the unique features available with all these plans:[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]
| Pricing | Online Store | SSL Certificate | Access to 1&1 Image Archive (20,000+ Photos) | Online Marketing Tools | |
| Basic | $9.99 per month (annual subscription) or $12.99 per month (monthly subscription) | No | No | No | None |
| Plus | $14.99 per month (annual subscription) or $19.99 per month (monthly subscription) | No | No | Yes | 1-click Facebook page creation and synchronisation, newsletter tool and SEO Assistant |
| Premium | $19.99 per month (annual subscription) or $29.99 per month (monthly subscription) | Yes | Yes | Yes | 1-click Facebook page creation and synchronisation, newsletter tool and SEO Assistant |
1&1 Website Builder Advantages
1&1 has servers in the US and Europe (Germany), which allows it to cater to a wide variety of international audiences while keeping the performance, levels high.
This tool has a unique built-in support feature that alerts you about any reported service interruptions. This helps you avoid lengthy phone calls with the support staff while you try to identify a solution for your reported issue.
The layouts on offer are extremely detailed for most types of businesses. You could not ask for better design options for a business website.
With this tool, you can enjoy a free trial period of 30 days, which is more than enough time to understand all its features and advantages.
1&1 Website Builder Disadvantages
With this tool, you are restricted to the default 12 fonts that come with web browsers, as it does not support web fonts (additional fonts).
Many of the good-looking 1&1 layout templates do not allow you to change the style and this restricts you a lot.
You will find it difficult to change your site’s footer with this tool because it does not provide such an editing option.
You will find the cancellation of your 1&1 account to be an extremely tedious process. It is not at all user-friendly and consumes a lot of time.
Verdict
If you plan to design a simple business website with a great look to impress your customers, then 1&1 MyWebsite is probably a great choice!
However, it is certainly not the best option as far as eCommerce websites are concerned.
This website builder’s 30-day free trial period offers you a great advantage and if you do not like it, you can opt for some other site building platform.
One thing is sure from the design and ease of use perspective: this simple drag-and-drop site builder fits the bill!
We hope that the information shared above enables you to decide whether 1&1 MyWebsite is worth a try for your business website.
Do you have any questions? Please feel free to share your comments below and thanks for reading!
How does 1and1 Rank?
11th out of 16 – Overall
WHAT WEB BUILDERS DO YOU RECOMMEND?
Wix (Best Overall)
Shopify (Best eCommerce)Weebly (Best WYSIWYG)
Why not give 1&1
Web Builder a go!
TRY 1&1 Builder
go/1and1builder