IONOS MyWebsite is a powerful and affordable website builder for small businesses. It offers two versions of its website editor, one for beginners and one for advanced designers. Features like email and traffic analytics are standard, while the online store option offers inventory management and social media cross-selling. All in all, IONOS MyWebsite is a great choice if you’re a small business owner looking to grow your online presence.

PROS

• Very easy to use
• Excellent technical support
• Competitive pricing

CONS

• The editor is somewhat limited.
• Can’t add custom code

How IONOS by 1&1 Works

IONOS is a web hosting provider and domain registrar that was founded in 1988. The company offers everything from shared hosting to cloud computing. Its MyWebsite website builder includes IONOS shared hosting with unlimited storage and bandwidth.

The IONOS MyWebsite builder is designed for small businesses. It offers website editors for both beginners and experienced designers, and sells tools that can help you grow. It’s ideal for small businesses that want to create a large online store but don’t want to spend a lot of money on a more advanced, e-commerce platform like Wix or Shopify.

Using IONOS

We found the overall experience with IONOS MyWebsite Builder to be pretty seamless. You can sign up, choose a template, and start designing, all within minutes.

The complexity of the editor will depend on whether you sign up for MyWebsite Now, the beginner-friendly version, or MyWebsite Creator, the more advanced version. Either way, it’s easy to customize your template styles, drag and drop content elements, and preview your site.

Hosting

All IONOS MyWebsite plans include IONOS shared hosting with unlimited storage and bandwidth. You’ll also get a free SSL certificate, a free domain name for one year, and a free email address on your domain.

Privacy Tools

IONOS helps you let your visitors know that you take privacy seriously. You can easily add a banner to your site that explains your cookie policy. Plus, any form you add to your site is GDPR-compliant by default.

How to Create a Website with IONOS

The process of creating a website with IONOS MyWebsite starts with choosing a template. There are only 18 templates available, far fewer than with other similar website builders. The designs are nice, although they can be a bit bland. You can change templates at any time, but doing so will require you to restart the design process.

Once you’ve chosen a template, you can customize it and add content elements to your site. The level of control you have over this process depends on whether you choose MyWebsite Now or MyWebsite Creator.

With MyWebsite Now, you have a bit more flexibility in customizing your site. You’re limited to showing or hiding content elements within the blocks that already exist in the template you’ve chosen. You can’t drag and drop new content elements onto your site or edit the code.

With MyWebsite Creator, you can drag and drop content elements such as text fields, images, buttons, forms, and more. You can customize the design of these elements and add effects such as video backgrounds. MyWebsite Creator also lets you edit your site’s CSS code, so users with programming experience can make more in-depth changes to the basic design.

Regardless of which editor you use, we found MyWebsite to be fairly straightforward. You can preview how your website will look on computers, tablets, and mobile devices, and it only takes one click to activate it.

Overall, we were quite happy with the IONOS MyWebsite web development process. We think most users will appreciate the flexibility of MyWebsite Creator, although MyWebsite Now can be useful for novice designers who want to get their website up and running as quickly as possible.

Adding Multimedia to Your IONOS Website

IONOS MyWebsite supports photos, videos, audio files, and PDF files. You can upload files by simply clicking on an existing media element. The files are stored in a content library, making it easy to reuse them on your website.

What we particularly liked about IONOS is that the platform automatically resizes images to optimize them and speed up page loading. You also have access to thousands of free images that you can use on your website. Overall, the platform’s multimedia content management is quite powerful.

Marketing Functionality with IONOS Websites

IONOS offers several features to promote your business online. First, all websites include a built-in email marketing tool that you can use to send updates to your contacts. It’s not the most customizable newsletter editor we’ve seen, but it’s a great option if you don’t want to pay for a third-party email marketing service.

MyWebsite Creator users also have access to an app for scheduling online meetings. While this app doesn’t integrate with the MyWebsite online store system, it can be a big help for small businesses that offer personalized services.

IONOS offers good blogging support, although you’ll need to use MyWebsite Creator to create a blog. You can schedule posts in advance, create accounts for multiple bloggers, and add your posts to an RSS feed. You can also easily promote your new posts on social media or in email newsletters.

Finally, IONOS Pro plan users can personalize the visitor experience based on how they arrived at your site, whether they’re a first-time visitor, and more. For example, you can place a coupon code on your homepage that will be visible to first-time visitors but not to others.

SEO Functionality & Add-Ons with IONOS Websites

IONOS MyWebsite offers powerful SEO features. To start, you can add a meta title and description to every page of your website. You can also add alternative text to images and videos to help search engines rank your site better. In addition, MyWebsite optimizes your content, including images, so that your site loads as quickly as possible.

To analyze visitor traffic, IONOS offers an integrated analytics tool. You can also integrate Google Analytics.

ECommerce

With IONOS, users can quickly put their e-commerce website online without having to invest a lot of time in the finer technical details of setting up their online stores. Users can choose from three subscription levels for e-commerce developers to suit their needs.

All e-commerce templates include drag-and-drop sections such as:

• Fraud Detector: Any major e-commerce site can be targeted for fraudulent purchases. IONOS has a fraud detection engine that helps store owners identify fraudulent transactions. Users can receive warnings if transactions trigger certain conditions, such as when they originate from certain IP addresses known as botnets or represent malicious activity.
• Sales Tax Calculator: Changes in tax rates are determined automatically. Additionally, users can set up their businesses as sales tax leaders and mark certain customers as tax-exempt.
• Multilingual Store: Users can present different versions of their online stores in different languages.
• Instagram/Amazon/Ebay: With the app’s integrated solution, subscribers can sell on Amazon, eBay, and even Instagram Shopping.

Payment Processing

Stores built with the Builder accept payments via PayPal as well as major credit cards. Additional payment gateways can be configured depending on the store’s location. Some users may prefer options like Stripe and Bitcoin.

Scalability

IONOS e-commerce websites are also scalable, with features that allow users to expand their store as their business grows. This includes comprehensive inventory management (members can add up to 10,000 products and electronics to their stores), customer wish lists, and B2B support. Stores built with the IONOS website builder are based on expertly designed, easy-to-use, and beginner-friendly templates. Automatic labeling of discounted products

IONOS by 1&1 Pricing

IONOS offers three plans: Starter, Plus, and Pro. The Starter plan includes access to MyWebsite Now, while the Plus and Pro plans use the more advanced MyWebsite Creator software. You can add e-commerce functionality to any of the three plans for an additional fee.

All plans are billed annually, and you can get a significantly lower price for the first year. There is no free trial, but you can request a refund if you cancel within the first 30 days of your subscription.

IONOS vs GoDaddy

IONOS and GoDaddy are very similar when it comes to building a small business website. GoDaddy offers slightly better tools for email marketing and online meeting booking, but we prefer IONOS’s e-commerce functionality. We think IONOS is a better option if you’re thinking about opening an online store.

IONOS vs Bluehost

IONOS offers a much smoother design process than Bluehost, and more comprehensive e-commerce features. However, Bluehost is based on WordPress, so it’s worth considering if you’re looking to start a blog rather than an online store.

IONOS vs Wix

Wix is ​​more customizable than IONOS, and offers paid add-ons to expand your e-commerce potential. However, it’s also much more expensive than IONOS. Therefore, we think Wix is ​​the best option for online businesses looking to boost their marketing and sales efforts, while IONOS is better for companies just starting out selling online.

Bottom Line

IONOS MyWebsite is a powerful and affordable website builder that offers a lot of the tools small businesses need. With this builder, you can create a highly personalized website, market to your customers on your domain, and create email lists. mail order and sell products online with local delivery or pickup. There are many things to like about IONOS MyWebsite, and we find some drawbacks for businesses new to online selling.

However, IONOS MyWebsite isn’t for everyone. The platform doesn’t offer blogging functionality in its most basic plan, and it’s not as scalable as e-commerce-focused website builders like Wix. Overall, we think IONOS is ideal for businesses looking to expand their online presence and don’t want to spend a lot of money on opening an online store.