This Site123 review will show you why Site123 is perfect for individuals who want to showcase their work, portfolio, or blog. It’s also great for small businesses who need a website up and running in as little time as possible. When you sign up for Site123 you get asked a few questions.
Once answered, Site123 will create a bespoke template for your needs with the features that you require. Whilst Site123 may not rival the power behind the likes of WordPress, it’s a solid choice for beginners who want a no-fuss approach.
Site123 Pros & Cons
Pros | Cons |
Live chat support available with helpful agents | Limited features with a decent amount of customisability |
Easy to use and extensive app market available | Once your site is live, you can’t change your template |
Mobile-friendly and responsive website templates |
Ease of Use
If someone were to ask me “how easy is Site123 to use”? my reply would be very! As I touched on in the introduction, Site123 poses a few questions when you first sign up to generate a template that is suitable for your needs.
By selecting the type of website you want, Site123 can generate the right website template on the backend with the correct features.
For example, an eCommerce template would be very different from a CV or portfolio template. Next, Site123 asks you the name of your website or business, followed by a few personal details like your name, email, and password to log in.
Alternatively, you can sign up using Facebook or Google which makes things even easier and quicker. Using Site123’s editor continues the theme of ease, with drag and drop functionality, text editing, uploading images, etc.
It’s also really easy to customise your website, so if you want to change the header or add a map, you won’t run into any trouble figuring it out.
Tools & Features
Social Media Integration
Security
All of Site123’s plans come with an SSL certificate free of charge. SSL makes your website confidential and safe, so if your visitors are entering any personal or sensitive information like their credit card details, they are protected.
An SSL not only protects your website and visitors, but it is also recognised by search engines like Google and will rank you higher than a website without SSL.
SEO
Site123’s SEO tools help you to get your website seen and rank highly on Google. You can edit your website’s metadata like meta description, meta title, customise your URLs, add alt text to images, and so on.
If you’ve never heard of SEO before or aren’t sure what to do, Site123’s SEO guide will help you through the process and explain everything for you.
The only downfall of Site123’s SEO tools is that there isn’t much support around keywords and no SEO apps or plugins like WordPress offers.
Analytics
If you want to find out more about how your site is performing, which pages are popular, and what’s not working well, website analytics are essential to your research.
Site123 offers analytics via Google Analytics, which you can sign up to for free. Google Analytics is well known, so if you come into any issues, you can easily find the answer.
Site123 Review Pricing
Free | Premium (£10.10/mo) | |
Storage | 500MB | 10GB |
Bandwidth | 1GB | 5GB |
Domain | Subdomain | Free for 1 year |
Site123 Floating Tag | Yes | Removed |
Connect Domain | No | Yes |
eCommerce Features | No | Yes |
If you navigate to Site123’s pricing page, you’ll see two pricing plans; free and premium. However, Site123 actually offer four paid pricing plans which are listed below.
Basic (£10.10/mo) | Advanced (£15.62/mo) | Professional (£22.72/mo) | Gold (£27.45/mo) | |
Storage | 10GB | 30GB | 90GB | 270GB |
Bandwidth | 5GB | 15GB | 45GB | 135GB |
Domain | Free for 1 year | Free for 1 year | Free for 1 year | Free for 1 year |
Site123 Floating Tag | Removed | Removed | Removed | Removed |
Connect Domain | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
eCommerce Features | No | No | Yes | Yes |
Mailing List Messages | 100 | 1000 | 2500 | 10000 |
Mailboxes | 0 | 2 | 5 | 10 |
Additional Languages | 0 | 1 | 3 | 5 |
Remove Site123 Footer Tag | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Orders Per Month | 0 | 0 | 500 | Unlimited |
Credit Card Gateways | No | No | Yes | Yes |
Website Stats | No | No | Yes | Yes |
Advanced eCommerce | No | No | No | Yes |
eCommerce Wish List | No | No | No | Yes |
eCommerce Reviews | No | No | No | Yes |
Abandoned Cart | No | No | No | Yes |
SEO Advisor | No | No | No | Yes |
The pricing plans above are based on the monthly equivalent of an annual pricing plan. The Basic plan is ideal for personal use and blogs, whereas the Advanced plan is tailored more towards small businesses.
The Professional plan introduces eCommerce features so is suitable for small online stores, whereas the Gold plan includes all features like abandoned cart and website statistics which are essential when marketing an online business.
Customer Support
Site123’s support process is really detailed. From the moment you sign up, Site123 takes you through their onboarding process, along with a tour of their editor so you know how everything works.
If you need help after this, they have 24/7 live chat support.
‘Not enough? Site123 also have a support center with plenty of categories to choose from, or you can use their innovative search bar to find the answers to the questions you have.
Site123 Review Summary
Site123 is all about making things simple and easy. The design-assisted approach with the editor means you can create a website in a matter of minutes, making Site123 an ideal platform for personal websites and small businesses.
All of the templates that Site123 generates are mobile responsive and offer eCommerce functionality if you require it.
However, if you’re really looking to get creative and customise your website, you’re going to struggle to take the templates beyond their means.
Site123 is designed for simple websites so don’t expect too many advanced features. Whilst they are bringing in new features slowly, Site123 isn’t a match for other website builders like Wix and SquareSpace.
If you’re looking for a website builder that’s going to provide ample support and help you through the process of getting your website setup, Site123 certainly provides this and excels in this area.
Who is Site123 Suitable For?
Blogging
Site123 is great for people who want to create and maintain a blog. The blog tools they have are easy to make a blog with, as well as managing your blog’s analytics, RSS feed, etc.
However, if you’re looking for the full blog experience, you may find Site123 lacks in some areas. For example, you can’t incorporate a comments section, display categories, or archives. WordPress may be a suitable alternative.
eCommerce
If you want to quickly build an online store with ease, you can do the basics with Site123. However, if you want to customise your eCommerce site beyond the limits of what’s available, you’re going to run into a bit of trouble.
There are limited eCommerce features on Site123’s premium plans, but if you want some more advanced features, you’ll need to sign up for the Professional or Gold plan. The advanced features will allow you to sell digital products, add coupons, and a few other things.
However, if you’re looking for an eCommerce builder, Site123 is no match for the likes of Shopify of WordPress. It’s great for the basics, but not for anything on a large scale.
Personal Websites
Site123 is great value for money for those looking to build a basic personal website. It’s easy to use and suitable for beginners, especially as there are no technical or coding skills necessary.
The support that’s on offer from Site123 is really great, whether you’re looking to build a website to showcase your work, build a CV, or just a basic blog, Site123 can cover the basics.
Site123 Review FAQs
Is Site123 better than other website builders?
It’s really down to personal preference. If you’re looking to get a website built quickly and easily, Site123 offers the tools to get this done. You’ll be asked a few questions to get started then a template will be generated for you based on the answers you’ve given. For example, if you’ve selected a blog, it will have different features to an eCommerce site.
However, there are other website builders available that offer different things. SquareSpace is great for professional and modern templates but isn’t as easy to use as Wix. Shopify offers some great eCommerce features, but maybe more complicated than starting a website on WordPress.
What’s the best thing about Site123?
Site123’s support is hands down one of the best things they offer. Their live chat function is really helpful for anyone needing assistance immediately, and it’s available 24/7 which is super handy.
The support center has plenty of articles that answer lots of questions, and the search feature is useful if you can’t find what you’re looking for.
Will Site123 improve its features?
Site123 are constantly making improvements to their website builder which shows that they are committed to the cause. They take on customer feedback and try to implement new feature as and when they’re able to.