Small Business Favorite – Web.com vs. GoDaddy

Want to make your own website, but haven’t decided which platform to use yet? Choosing the right website builder for your small business needs is not an easy job, and picking between two of the market leaders is certainly even harder. Both brands have earned the trust of millions of subscribers from all around the world, and for very good reasons indeed: both offer professional website building tools at highly competitive prices. So, let’s dig deeper into this, and see why Web.com and GoDaddy are the preferred website builders of many small business owners.

How Web.com and GoDaddy Compare

Web Design

Web design is very important for your small business website. Think of your website as being like your professional face for the world. You want it to appear attractive to visitors yet also be useful and easy to navigate. If your website’s visitors aren’t able to find what they are looking for quickly or think that your site appears unprofessional or even untrustworthy, they are likely to leave. Unless you want to code a website from scratch, you likely want a website builder that offers appropriate, professional-looking templates and easy customization so you can attract the customers that you desire.

With a drag-and-drop web page editor, Web.com certainly provides you with the comfort you are looking for. No need for coding, no complex settings. Inserting visual files and tweaking a page’s layout is as easy as pie. Moreover, when you subscribe you gain access to thousands of professional website design templates and a sizeable library of professional royalty free images that you can use free of charge.

GoDaddy’s website editor certainly matches all Web.com’s level of professionalism. Depending on the plan you choose, you get access to a number of business and personal website themes that are fully customizable, so you can edit them to make your pages look exactly the way you want. GoDaddy offers thousands of designs tailored with specific industries in mind such as real estate, wellness, landscaping, restaurants, and retail. Web.com likewise offers templates that are divided into specific industry categories, or you can choose to build your website from scratch with a blank template. Both also make available to their subscribers a gallery of stock images to customize your website with.

Mobile Optimization

More and more people are doing their website browsing and online shopping via smartphones and tablets these days, so it is crucial that your website design is also optimized for mobile. What do Web.com and GoDaddy provide for our mobile shoppers? Web.com offers a mobile site as part of a package – in other words, it comes at an additional cost. The mobile site options don’t offer much design control. With the GoDaddy website builder, the Business and Business Plus plans offer a mobile website. The mobile site is generated to be optimized for smartphones and tablets but, like Web.com, doesn’t offer further customization.

E-Commerce Website Builder

Taking into consideration that e-trade has become increasingly popular during the last years, both brands offer eCommerce platforms that any small business owner can use to create an online store quickly and efficiently. Web.com focuses on design, allowing you to build visually appealing pages that would boost your brand’s images. Web.com has different plans that you can choose among depending on your business needs. The two most popular plans offer up to either 20 or 500 product listings, but there are other choices available. You can sell physical as well as digital products on the site. Web.com also provides you with tools such as inventory management, secure payments, sales reports and analyses, and email marketing tools. When users make their purchases on your site, they can do so both via PayPal and credit card.

GoDaddy offers several business plans, however, if you plan on having a full-on e-commerce site where people can make purchases for your products online, we recommend the Online Store plan. You can add up to 5,000 products and up to 10 images of each of those products.  Show off your goods from a number of different angles so customers will feel more comfortable buying from you. Abandoned shopping cart reminders bring browsers back to your site. If you offer services (haircuts, lawn care, etc.), your customers can also book those appointments straight from your site and you’ll receive a notification in your calendar. In addition to major credit cards and PayPal, GoDaddy has Web.com beat by also offering Apple Pay. Manage your inventory and use the sales reports to better understand both your business and clientele. Your online store comes with SSL included – versus Web.com, where it costs extra -- so your customers can feel secure while shopping.

Security

SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer, and it is a security measure that your customers are going to look for prior to making a purchase from you. It is vitally important for you to have. You don't want to be the next news story about hackers stealing your customers' private information from your business website! Luckily, both Web.com and GoDaddy offer SSL protection. On GoDaddy, your online store comes with SSL included (no extra cost) so your customers can feel secure while shopping. Web.com offers a variety of SSL certificate packages, from $28 per year to $480 per year.

Pricing

Regarding Web.com and GoDaddy pricing, it is rather difficult to say which of the two has a better offer. Web.com offers their most basic plan starting at $1.95 per month for the first month. Keep in mind, however, that there are additional costs that can raise the price, like paying for SSL. GoDaddy has plans starting at $5.99 per month. For a business, you’re most likely going to want one of the pricier plans to better manage your e-commerce site. The Online Store plan is the most expensive, costing $19.99 per month with a free trial offer. While this may seem more expensive, remember that GoDaddy doesn’t require an additional payment for SSL.

Customer Support

When designing your small business website, you’ll likely feel reassured knowing that there is customer support available to you should you experience any difficulties. Web.com has both email and phone support. You can also peruse their library of guides, tutorials, and articles on a wide range of topics. GoDaddy tops all this with professional customer support available to help 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This comes in handy especially if you are a novice to website building. Having a go-to address for technical issues you cannot solve on your own is a great relief.

Conclusion

To sum it up, both Web.com and GoDaddy are terrific website builders any small business owner can make use of to create an attractive, professional, and successful website. The choice lies in the fine-tuning. Web.com makes it easy to upload new content and design a website even if you have no coding skills at all. GoDaddy brings along a strong brand reputation and outstanding records, not to mention plenty of extras.

No matter which site builder you choose, both GoDaddy and Web.com can benefit your small business.

This article was originally published on September 3, 2015. Its content has since been updated.