Zoho Free Website Builder Review – Is It The Right Fit for Your Business?

Zoho is a software company founded in 1996 that currently has offices all over the world. The Zoho free website builder is one of the many applications that they provide for personal and business services. Any kind of niches can use this platform, but how far can it influence your online presence? Let’s dig into some technical elements.

How Does It Work

After creating a user account, you can log straight into the website editor. All the editing commands are located on the top panel where you can change your text elements and themes or upload products online. The software uses the drag-and-drop technology where you can drag an element and place it to wherever you want on the webpage. It’s as simple as that.

How Much Does It Cost

Zoho used to have 3 types of pricing plans, but as of September 2014, the platform has become officially free as the company strives to offer freemium products through their services.

The website builder is totally free and it comes with unlimited pages, galleries and slideshows. Fees are charged between $4/month to $48/year for certain features such as PayPal integration, newsletter subscription and product add ons.

What I Like About Zoho

From my experience reviewing a variety of simple website builders, I found that Zoho stands out in several ways.

• Out of the box, the website is already mobile-responsive, meaning, it will ‘fit nicely’ into mobile devices.
• Their social media widgets include Google Plus, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
• Although not spectacular, their selection of themes is way better than those in Blogger.
• It comes with an online form builder which means you can conduct surveys, post job application or set appointments for your business. I find this to be a very helpful feature if you are running a local business.
• All pages can be optimized for SEO using meta-title and meta-description. It also automatically generates a sitemap file that enables the search engine to crawl your site with ease.
• It even allows you to add a favicon, which is a simple graphic representation of your business that appears on the reader’s browser whenever they are checking out your site.
• For advanced users, you can also dig into the HTML/CSS feature for more personal customization.
• You can easily integrate with Google Analytics and Search Console to check your website traffic.
• Their custom domain fee is reasonably priced at $15 which comes with a privacy protection

Overall, it’s a very intuitive builder, nothing too technical and the editing interface is easy to navigate.

What I Find Lacking In Zoho

There isn’t much except, I find that their eCommerce solutions are pretty basic stuff. You would probably get more integrated features such as tracking cart abandonment, inventory check and better shopper experience using professional platforms such as Shopify or BigCommerce.  

Apart from website building tips, the Zoho knowledge base doesn’t offer a lot in terms of how to drive traffic to a site. They barely touch on keyword research or show you techniques to engage with your readers.

Is Zoho The Right Fit for Your Business?

Given the features provided, Zoho is more suitable for a local business set up. The galleries, the map, the forms; these are the things that can show readers where and what your product/services is all about – if they already know the name of your website/company.

For affiliate marketers who don’t usually have a physical location, this website builder might not be suitable because the platform design is somewhat old-fashioned and you really need a secured hosting (not a free one) to keep your business running 24/7.

Although thousands of business websites are being created every day, most are never found online. Why is that? There are a few things that could cause this to happen;

• You don’t have a custom domain name, a.k.a a business URL name.
• You are merely listing products, but not making any effort to promote them.
• You are not creating enough unique content for the search engines to discover your business.

As a result, you can’t drive traffic – whether it is local or global – to your site. No traffic = no customers = no sales. Building traffic is one of the key aspects that a lot of website builders don’t/fail to teach business owners. However, SiteRubix is different.

Founded by two successful online entrepreneurs, SiteRubix takes your business to a different level. It teaches you how to build powerful websites from WordPress AND how to use the search engines effectively to promote your business – whether they are local or affiliate marketing.

Since it is also linked to the online program at Wealthy Affiliate, you will be able to get access to the following tools and training.

I hope the Zoho free website builder review has provided some beneficial information about building an online presence for your business. If you need more information, find out how you can create a free WordPress website here or simply leave a comment below and I’ll get back to you the soonest.