Bluehost’s website builder is a basic WordPress-based website builder. You’ll get high-quality managed web hosting from Bluehost, access to over 300 themes, and content blocks that you can use to customize the design of your WordPress site. Overall, Bluehost’s WordPress builder isn’t as flexible or easy to use as a standalone website builder, but it’s one of the best options if you want to create a WordPress site.
Bluehost Pros & Cons
PROS
- Includes managed WordPress web hosting
- Pre-built page sections with multiple layouts
Free email marketing tools
CONS
- Limited design flexibility
- No free trial
Bluehost
Bluehost at a Glance
What Is Bluehost?
Bluehost is a US-based web hosting provider that was founded in 2003. The company is known for its managed WordPress web hosting plans, which come with WordPress pre-installed on your site and automatically updates the software.
Bluehost launched a WordPress website builder in 2021 to make it easy to create WordPress websites, even without coding experience. The builder lets you switch between adding pre-designed page sections to your site and adding content with the standard WordPress editor. It’s not as easy to use as a non-WordPress website builder, but it’s one of the simplest options if you’re going to use WordPress to build your site.
Using Bluehost
Using Bluehost is easy. The company has a reputation for keeping things simple for users, and we found that to be true when we tried to create a website. There’s a checklist of steps to follow when you first log in, and it’s easy to switch between the Bluehost website builder and the standard WordPress editor. However, the website builder does require some training if you’ve never used WordPress.
Features
Managed WordPress Hosting
All website builder plans include Bluehost managed WordPress hosting. This includes unlimited storage and bandwidth, a free SSL certificate, and a free domain for one year. Bluehost automatically updates your WordPress installation and plugins.
Unlimited Websites
One of the best things about Bluehost’s website builder is that there’s no limit to the number of websites you can create. Each website has its own WordPress dashboard and can be connected to its own domain.
How Bluehost Works
How to Create a Website with Bluehost
The process of creating a website with Bluehost is a little more complicated than with other website builders. To get started, Bluehost will take you to your hosting dashboard and ask you to create a new WordPress website. Before you can choose a template or make any changes, you’ll need to log in to your new WordPress dashboard.
With WordPress, you can choose from over 300 pre-installed themes to manage your website. You can also use any WordPress-compatible theme on your site, but only themes provided by Bluehost are compatible with the Bluehost website builder. Unfortunately, changing themes later is not easy, as you will have to rebuild your site from scratch.
You can access the Bluehost website builder from your WordPress dashboard. The editor offers pre-designed page sections, each with different elements such as text fields, image containers, buttons, etc. You can choose which elements to show and hide in each section, and there are several predefined layout options for each section.
We found it much easier to use than the standard WordPress site editor, although you still have access to the WordPress interface if you want to use it. The WordPress editor makes it difficult to divide your site into sections with different backgrounds and even more difficult to arrange content side by side. Bluehost’s editor simplifies these important design tasks.
However, Bluehost’s website builder is not a drag-and-drop editor. Page sections are full-width by default, and you can’t add or rearrange individual content elements. You can edit your site’s HTML code to make detailed changes, but this option is only suitable for experienced web designers.
The great thing about Bluehost’s builder is that once you’ve set up your site, you can migrate it to another provider, just like any other WordPress site. If you migrate, you’ll lose access to the Bluehost site editor, but you’ll be able to keep all the page sections you’ve created up until that point.
Overall, Bluehost’s website builder makes designing a WordPress website a breeze. However, it’s not a drag-and-drop editor and isn’t as flexible as other standalone WordPress website builders.
Adding Multimedia to Your Bluehost Website
Bluehost uses WordPress’ built-in media management system to manage your media content. This is one of the perks of using WordPress, so we’re glad it’s been retained.
You can easily import photos, videos, PDFs, and many other common file types from your computer. Simultaneous uploads are also supported. Once your files are added to WordPress, you can organize them into folders and assign descriptions to make your library easy to search. Bluehost also offers a library of hundreds of images to help you create your designs.
Overall, we were very pleased with the site’s media tools and found them very easy to use.
Bluehost Website Marketing
Marketing Functionality with Bluehost Websites
Functionality
Bluehost offers several important marketing tools. First, the CreativeMail email marketing plugin is included with all Bluehost website builders. It allows you to collect contacts, segment them into groups, and create unlimited email campaigns for free.
Second, Bluehost websites have access to WordPress’s popular blogging tools. You can schedule posts in advance, place ads on them, and share them on social media. It’s worth noting that you can also create posts from the Bluehost editor, which means you can include Bluehost content sections to create them.
SEO Functionality & Add-Ons with Bluehost Websites
Bluehost’s website builder helps improve your website’s SEO by making it easy to add meta titles and descriptions to your pages. You can also add meta descriptions to images and videos using the WordPress media manager.
Bluehost’s website builder lacks a built-in traffic analytics dashboard. However, you can easily measure your website traffic by integrating Google Analytics or using the WordPress plugin.
Ecommerce
Bluehost’s website builder integrates with WooCommerce, allowing you to sell an unlimited number of products, digital downloads, and subscriptions on your website. WooCommerce is extremely flexible and offers built-in tools for customizing your product pages, managing shipping and inventory, and marketing your products.
It’s important to note that many of WooCommerce’s advanced features require paid extensions. The extensions included with your Bluehost website builder plan will depend on your plan tier.
Help and Support
Bluehost offers 24/7 customer support via phone, email, and live chat. The company also has an online knowledge base and resource center. There is no dedicated section for website building in the knowledge base.
Bluehost Pricing
How Much Does Bluehost Cost?
While Bluehost offers some of the most affordable hosting plans among the major providers, the prices you see on the homepage are first-month discounts. After your first month of use, Bluehost hosting plans will cost a few dollars more.
If you’re looking for single-tenant servers and are a little more tech-savvy, Bluehost also offers VPS and dedicated hosting.
Here’s a breakdown of Bluehost’s pricing:
Bluehost vs. Wix
Bluehost’s website builder focuses on WordPress, while Wix’s builder is a standalone content management system. Wix is much more flexible and lets you drag and drop hundreds of content elements anywhere on your page.
Bluehost vs. IONOS
1&1 IONOS MyWebsite website builder is a bit cheaper than Bluehost’s WordPress builder and offers a bit more design flexibility. Overall, IONOS is a great choice to get started with, but Bluehost offers a wide range of features.
Bluehost vs. Site123
Site123 is an easy-to-use website builder that lets you build your website in sections, similar to Bluehost’s builder. It’s fairly affordable, but the marketing, SEO, and e-commerce tools it includes are pretty basic.
Bottom Line
Bluehost’s website builder makes it easy to create a WordPress website. It offers over 300 pre-designed templates and sections that you can add to your pages with a single click.
Ultimately, whether Bluehost’s website builder is right for you depends on whether or not you want to build a WordPress website. Bluehost’s builder doesn’t offer as much design flexibility as standalone website builders like Wix. However, you only have access to WordPress tools for blogging, media management, SEO, and e-commerce, as well as the freedom to move your site to another hosting provider later. Therefore, Bluehost’s website builder can be very useful for individuals and small businesses that prioritize flexibility and growth over design capabilities.