Bluehost’s website builder is a basic WordPress-based web editor. With Bluehost, you get high-quality managed WordPress hosting, access to over 300 themes and content blocks to customize your site’s design. Overall, Bluehost’s WordPress builder isn’t as flexible or user-friendly 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 hosting
- Pre-designed 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 best known for its managed WordPress hosting plans, which come with WordPress pre-installed on your site and automatically updated software.
Bluehost launched a WordPress website builder in 2021 to make it easier to create WordPress websites, even for those with no coding experience. The builder lets you switch between adding pre-designed page sections and adding content using the standard WordPress editor. It’s not as user-friendly as a website builder that isn’t specifically designed for WordPress, 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 making things simple for users, and we found that to be true when we tried to create a site. 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 have a learning curve if you’ve never used WordPress before.
Features
Managed WordPress Hosting
All website builder plans include managed WordPress hosting from Bluehost. 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 website builder is that there is 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 control panel and prompt you to create a new WordPress website. Before you can choose a template or make any changes, you need to log in to your new WordPress dashboard.
With WordPress, you can choose from over 300 pre-installed themes for your website. You also have the option to 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 which to hide in each section, and there are several predefined layout options for each.
We found it much easier to use than the standard WordPress editor, although you can still access the WordPress interface if you prefer. The WordPress editor makes it difficult to divide your site into sections with different backgrounds, and it’s even harder to arrange content side by side. The Bluehost editor simplifies these important design tasks.
However, the Bluehost website builder is not a drag-and-drop editor. Page sections are full-width by default, and there’s no way to 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 the Bluehost builder is that once you’ve set up your site, you can move it to another server, just like any other WordPress site. If you move, you’ll lose access to the Bluehost editor, but you’ll be able to keep all the page sections you’ve created up until that point.
In short, the Bluehost website editor greatly simplifies the process of building a website in WordPress. However, it’s still not a drag-and-drop editor and it’s not as flexible as some other standalone WordPress website builders.
Adding Multimedia to Your Bluehost Website
Bluehost uses WordPress’ built-in media management system to manage media. This is one of the benefits of using WordPress, so we were happy to see that this system has been retained.
You can easily import photos, videos, PDFs, and many other common file types from your computer. Simultaneous uploads are also supported. Once you’ve added your files to WordPress, you can organize them into folders and add descriptions to make your library easy to find. Bluehost also provides a library of hundreds of images to help you bring your designs to life.
Overall, we were very pleased with the site’s media tools and found them very easy to use.
Marketing Functionality with Bluehost Websites
Bluehost offers several important marketing tools. First, the CreativeMail email marketing plugin is included with all Bluehost website builders. It lets you 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, and share them on social media. What’s more, you can create posts directly from the Bluehost editor, which means you can embed Bluehost content into your posts.
SEO Functionality & Add-Ons with Bluehost Websites
Bluehost website builder helps improve your website’s SEO by making it easy to add meta titles and meta descriptions to your pages. You can also add meta descriptions to images and videos using the WordPress media manager.
One feature that’s missing from the Bluehost website builder is a built-in traffic analytics dashboard. However, you can easily measure your website traffic by integrating Google Analytics or using a 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 to customize your product pages, manage shipping and inventory, and promote your products to customers.
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 the plan level you choose.
Help and Support
Bluehost offers 24/7 customer support via phone, email, and live chat. The company also has a knowledge base and online resource center. The knowledge base does not include a dedicated section for the website builder.
Bluehost Pricing
How Much Does Bluehost Cost?
While Bluehost offers some of the most affordable hosting plans among the major providers, the prices shown on the homepage are discounted prices for the first month. After the first month, Bluehost hosting plans will incur additional costs.
If you’re looking for single-tenant servers and have advanced technical skills, Bluehost also offers VPS and dedicated hosting.
Here’s a breakdown of Bluehost’s pricing plans.
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 the page.
Bluehost vs. IONOS
1&1 IONOS MyWebsite website builder is a bit cheaper than Bluehost’s WordPress builder and offers more design flexibility. Overall, IONOS is a great option for those just starting out in the business world, but Bluehost offers more comprehensive features.
Bluehost vs. Site123
Site123 is an easy-to-use website builder that lets you build your website in sections, just like Bluehost’s builder. It’s fairly affordable, but the included marketing, SEO, and e-commerce tools are pretty straightforward.
In short, 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.
Bottom Line
whether or not 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’ll get WordPress-exclusive tools for blogging, multimedia content management, SEO optimization, and e-commerce website creation, plus the freedom to move your website to another web hosting provider later. Therefore, Bluehost’s website builder can be a great option for individuals and small businesses that value flexibility and scalability over design capabilities.
