IONOS MyWebsite is a powerful and affordable website building tool for small businesses. It offers two editor options, suitable for both beginners and advanced designers. It includes standard features such as email and traffic analytics, as well as an online store option with inventory management and social media cross-selling. In summary, IONOS MyWebsite is a great choice if you have a small business and want to expand your online presence.
PROS
Very easy to use
Excellent support
Competitive pricing
CONS
The editor is somewhat limited.
Doesn’t allow you to add custom code
How IONOS by 1&1 Works
IONOS is a web hosting and domain registration provider 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 website builder is designed for small businesses. It offers website editors for both beginners and experienced designers, and sells tools that can help your business 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 very smooth. You can sign up, choose a template, and start designing in minutes.
The complexity of the editor will depend on whether you sign up for MyWebsite Now, which is easier for beginners to use, or MyWebsite Creator, which is more advanced. In both cases, it’s easy to customize 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 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. What’s more, all forms added to your site are 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 acceptable, although they can be a bit bland. You can change templates at any time, but if you do, you’ll have to start over 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 little more flexibility in customizing your site. You’re limited to showing or hiding content elements within the blocks already present in the template you’ve chosen. You can’t drag and drop new content elements onto your site or edit its code.
With MyWebsite Creator, you can drag and drop content elements such as text fields, images, buttons, forms, and more. You can customize the layout 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 advanced changes to the basic design.
Regardless of which editor you use, we found MyWebsite very easy to use. You can preview how your website will look on computers, tablets, and mobile devices, and it only takes one click to publish.
Overall, we were very 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 item. Files are stored in a content library, making it easy to reuse them on your site.
One of the IONOS features we liked the most is that the platform automatically resizes images to optimize page load speed. You also have access to thousands of free images that you can use on your website. Overall, the platform’s media management is quite powerful.
Marketing Functionality with IONOS Websites
IONOS offers several features to promote your business online. First, all sites include a built-in email marketing tool that you can use to send news to your contacts. It’s not the most customizable newsletter creation tool we’ve seen, but it’s very useful if you don’t want to pay for a third-party email marketing service.
MyWebsite Creator users also have access to an online appointment scheduling application. Although this application does not integrate with the MyWebsite online store system, it can be very useful for small businesses that provide personalized services.
IONOS offers good blogging support, although you 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 networks or email newsletters.
Finally, IONOS Pro plan users can personalize a visitor’s experience based on how they arrived at your site, whether it’s their first visit, and much more. For example, you can post a coupon code on your homepage that will be visible to new visitors, but not to others.
SEO Functionality & Add-Ons with IONOS Websites
IONOS MyWebsite offers powerful SEO capabilities. To get started, you can add a title and meta description to each page of your website. You can also add alt text to images and videos to help search engines index your site better. In addition, MyWebsite optimizes your content, including images, so that your website loads as quickly as possible.
To analyze your visitor traffic, IONOS offers a built-in analytics tool. You can also integrate Google Analytics.
ECommerce
With IONOS, users can quickly launch their e-commerce site without spending a lot of time on the technical details of setting up their online stores. Users can choose from three subscription levels for eCommerce builders to suit their needs.
All eCommerce 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 mechanism that helps store owners identify fraudulent transactions. Users can receive alerts if transactions meet certain conditions, such as originating from IP addresses called botnets or indicative of malicious activity.
- Sales Tax Calculator. Tax rate changes are calculated automatically. Additionally, users can define their businesses as potential customers for sales tax purposes and designate certain customers as tax-exempt.
- Multilingual shop. Users can submit different versions of their online stores in different languages.
- Instagram/Amazon/eBay. Thanks to the app’s integrated solution, subscribers can sell through Amazon, eBay, and even Instagram Shopping.
Payment Processing
Stores created with Builder can accept payments via PayPal and major credit cards. Additional payment gateways may be configured depending on store 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 devices to their stores), customer wish lists, and B2B support. Stores created with the IONOS website builder are based on expertly designed templates that are easy to use and intuitive for beginners. Automatic tagging of discounted products and drag-and-drop sections ensure that users can sell their inventory online without any technical expertise.
IONOS offers 24/7 customer support via phone, email, and live chat. You can also request a free personal consultant as a single point of contact for all your website questions.
For troubleshooting, IONOS offers a comprehensive online knowledge base with tutorials for MyWebsite Now and MyWebsite Creator. While the tutorials don’t include many screenshots or videos, they are fairly comprehensive.
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 capabilities to any of the three plans for an additional fee.
All plans are billed annually, and you can get a significantly discounted price for the first year. There’s 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 website for small businesses. GoDaddy offers slightly better tools for email marketing and online meeting booking, but we prefer IONOS’s e-commerce capabilities. We think IONOS is a better choice if you’re thinking about opening an online store.
IONOS vs Bluehost
IONOS offers a much simpler design process than Bluehost, and more powerful 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 plugins to expand your e-commerce potential. However, it’s also significantly more expensive than IONOS. As a result, we think Wix is better suited for online businesses looking to boost their marketing and sales efforts, while IONOS is better suited for businesses 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 website builder, you can create a highly customizable website, communicate with customers via email using your domain, and sell products online with local shipping or pickup. There are many things I like about IONOS MyWebsite, and we found a few drawbacks for businesses new to online selling.
However, IONOS MyWebsite isn’t for everyone. The platform doesn’t offer blogging features 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 without spending a lot of money to open an online store.
