If you haven't heard of Jimdo, you might want to give it a look- because although it's not exactly the most popular website builder on the market, the pricing is pretty tempting for the number of features you receive.
Fortunately, there’s even a free pricing plan for users who just want to create a simple personal blogging site. It’s also ideal for people who wouldn’t necessarily be willing to fork over payment information to try out the features.
Online store capabilities are offered as well, but the true standouts are the templates. Jimdo gives you some rather unique themes to select from- which says quite a lot for such a reasonably priced website builder.
That said, let me be clear from the start- if your company is considered any bigger than a small business, sorry but Jimdo is not for you.
However, creatives, small local businesses, and simple bloggers may find Jimdo appealing. Or is it?
After comprehensively test driving it, I’m now going to explain everything you need to know. This unbiased Jimdo review covers not only the primary features, but also its ecommerce capabilities, overall pricing, usability, plus any observable weaknesses.
What is Jimdo?
If you’ve just discovered Jimdo very recently, you’re over a decade late to a party that started back in 2007. But then again, you could argue that you’re joining the bandwagon at the best moment yet- considering Jimdo has repeatedly morphed its structure and services through the years, to align them accordingly with changing customer needs.
Before it came into the scene, its founders had been coding websites for quite some time. And one thing they consistently kept hearing from their clients was this- “we’d create our own sites of the coding part wasn’t so complicated”.
So, the team decided to give it a shot, and they came up with a website builder that eliminates the difficulties of coding. Today, Jimdo is basically a one-stop solution for creating a standard site or setting up an ecommerce store.
More specifically, users can leverage it when it comes to buying a domain, hosting and designing an entire site, setting up a blog, plus managing their online store.
Fair enough, but hang on a minute. Why isn’t Jimdo extremely popular in the website building space? And how many websites even use Jimdo in the first place?
Well, I guess it’s not particularly dominant because it’s a simple solution for small-scale websites. It essentially targets individuals who want to set up personal sites or small online stores.
But, don’t let that fool you. Although it appears to be simple from the front end, it’s a whole different story when we shift to the back end.
In essence, Jimdo is built on a rather complex AI framework that manages the entire site building process, and subsequently helps you achieve a customized website in a matter of minutes. You can leverage its predesigned templates or work with your own HTML and CSS code.
The website builder, combined with the additional hosting solutions the company offers, have seen Jimdo grow fairly well- despite its rather laid-back brand promotional efforts. Come to think of it, Jimdo is not one of those site builders whose banners keep following you around the web.
But get this- so far, it has built and supported more than 20 million sites globally. And to coordinate everything, it relies on a workforce of 200 employees based in the company’s Hamburg and Tokyo offices.
Jimdo Features
Building a Website With Jimdo
When you start off on the site building process, you’ll notice the system fundamentally comes with two modes- Creator and Dolphin.
Creator is the mode that essentially lets you control the site building process from the ground up. After you pick a suitable template, you can proceed by adding elements like a blog, background videos, galleries, and perhaps even an online store.
Dolphin, on the other hand, was developed for users who’d prefer an ultra-simplistic approach. It capitalizes on an AI system to set up a standard site. And to understand your preferences, it throws you a couple of straightforward inquiries, then supplements that with your social media info. Ultimately, you’ll be able to achieve a full site in minutes.
Now, let’s explore the details…
Jimdo Creator Mode
Ok, I’ll admit I prefer this one over Dolphin.
Why?
Well, principally because it offers the highest level of control. In other words, I get to design all the main components of the website.
But, make no mistake. While the Creator mode doesn’t directly use the AI, it’s actually pretty simple and straightforward.
The interface itself, for instance, is well-organized with a minimalistic layout. I found it to be intuitive for all types of users, including novice designers.
A quick glance through the features should reveal the obvious. That this mode provides way more functionalities than the Dolphin mode. In fact, I assume that’s why they called it “Creator” in the first place.
Its drag-and-drop editor does exactly what you’d expect. You can take advantage of it to conveniently move stuff around the site’s layout. And since it’s not precisely as advanced as some of the competitors’ editors, you should get a hang of everything in no time.
To make your webpages exceptionally exciting, you might want to check out the photo editor as well. It’s quite handy when you need to embed videos or slideshows.
Now, if the whole thing doesn’t pan out exactly like you’d have hoped, you can alternatively take a dive into the technical side. It just so happens that Jimdo grants access to its underlying CSS code for extensive website customization. In addition to that, you can introduce some bits of HTML through flexible widgets.
Jimdo Dolphin Mode
The Dolphin mode is as straightforward as you probably assume already.
For starters, you’ll see a pop-up dialog with a couple of inquiries about yourself, the type of website you’re seeking to create, plus the style you’d prefer proceeding with.
Jimdo’s AI subsequently combines the answers with your social media details and voila! It then creates a website that corresponds to its analysis.
Believe it or not, that’s all it takes. But, to be honest, the result might be a partial hit and a partial miss at the same time- like, for example, a perfectly attractive layout combined with somewhat inappropriate content.
In all fairness however, it’s a machine. And last time I checked, they are yet to match up to human-level intelligence. So, let’s cut it some slack, and commend Jimdo for the fairly good attempt. I bet the AI’s overall accuracy will continue improving with time.
Jimdo Ecommerce
Ecommerce functionalities are only available to users subscribed to either Unlimited or Ecommerce plans. And the good thing about Jimdo is that it’s not just an ecommerce site builder. It also offers features for coordinating sales and managing your online store.
Well, creating the online store, to begin with, shouldn’t take you more than a few minutes. The whole procedure is admirably simple and organized. You’ll even be able to set up automated email responses, define the selling terms and conditions, list an unlimited range of items, plus much more.
When customers start flowing, you can rely on Jimdo’s monitoring system to keep you updated. If an order is made, for instance, you’ll immediately receive a notification email plus a corresponding dashboard note.
Thankfully, your processing options at this point are quite flexible. You can choose to handle everything internally by ticking the order off right from the console. Or, alternatively, export it as part of an XML or CSV format list if you prefer doing things externally.
Whichever method you choose, you can bet that Jimdo will, in the meantime, keep tabs on your stock numbers. Therefore, you’ll be able to determine the levels at all times. And in case customers clear a specific product, the system will automatically attach a relevant indicator next to the relevant listing to notify shoppers that the item is sold out.
That said, you can holistically track all the key traffic parameters by embedding your Jimdo store with Google Analytics. And in the event the corresponding numbers are down, you can leverage features like Facebook ads, gift vouchers, and coupon codes to rally shoppers.
Then finally, when it comes to the payment part, I was pleased to find out that Jimdo doesn’t charge any transaction fees.
However, since it doesn’t have its own in-house payment processor, don’t expect the likes of Stripe and PayPal to let you off scot-free. They’ll certainly deduct their share from the funds you receive. But that’s beyond Jimdo’s control.
It’s also worth noting that Jimdo supports multiple global currencies. So, of course, you shouldn’t have any difficulties expanding your store beyond your country’s borders.
Jimdo SEO
From the look of things, Jimdo doesn’t play around when it comes to Search Engine Optimization. It’s pretty serious about helping your store secure favorable rankings.
Apart from the free package, each Jimdo user package comes packed with all the critical SEO modules. Consequently, you’ll be able to format your content headings for search engines, introduce alt text, edit your pages’ URLs in line with Google’s recommendations, plus of course, set up appropriate page titles and their corresponding meta-descriptions.
But that’s not all. You can also use Jimdo to direct search engines through your site. Its 301 redirects provision, for instance, comes in handy when you need to communicate to crawlers about a web page you’ve transferred to a different location.
Then when you want to exclude a part of your site from the search results, you can rely on the robots.txt.
Jimdo Pricing
To serve a wide array of users with varying sets of needs, Jimdo avails its features in five subscription plans- Unlimited, E-Commerce, Grow, Start, and Play.
The cheapest and most basic option is certainly Play, which thankfully, is permanently free. It essentially offers the basic functionalities on a jimdosite.com subdomain.
But, if you desire your own unique domain, you have no option but to commit to one of the four premium plans.
Start, which provides features for setting up and hosting personal sites, will set you back $9 a month. Then a typical professional business site, on the other hand, is best achieved on the Grow package at $15 a month.
However, if you’re planning to sell products through an online store, the least you can settle for is the Ecommerce plan, which costs $19 a month. Alternatively, you can go for the Unlimited plan, which is by far the most comprehensive option at $39 a month.
Now, although the pricing is quoted based on the respective monthly costs, Jimdo bills all its users annually. That fundamentally means you’ll have to pay the cumulative amount for a 12-month subscription period before you start the service.
That said, the basic features you’ll find on each plan include:
- Photo galleries
- Blogging capabilities
- Automatic layout resizing based on user device
- HTTPS security
- Site templates
Then here are the distinctive details:
- Play- Completely free
- com subdomain
- All the basic features
- 5 web pages
- 2GB bandwidth
- 500MB storage
Start- $9 per month billed annually
- All the basic features
- Ad-free
- Analytics
- Advanced SEO
- 10 web pages
- 10GB bandwidth
- 5GB storage
- 1-2 business days support response time
- Email address connection
- 1 forwarding email address
Grow- $15 per month billed annually
- All the basic features
- Ad-free
- Analytics
- Advanced SEO
- 50 web pages
- 20GB bandwidth
- 15GB storage
- 1-2 business days support response time
- Email address connection
- 5 forwarding email address
Ecommerce- $19 per month billed annually
- All the basic features
- Ad-free
- Analytics
- Advanced SEO
- 50 web pages
- 20GB bandwidth
- 15GB storage
- 1-2 business days support response time
- Email address connection
- 5 forwarding email address
- Convenient payment methods
- Unlimited store products
- Online store functionalities
Unlimited- $39 per month billed annually
- All the basic features
- Professional design analysis
- Ad-free
- Analytics
- Advanced SEO
- Unlimited web pages
- Unlimited bandwidth
- Unlimited storage
- Less than 1 hour support response time
- Email address connection
- 20 forwarding email address
- Convenient payment methods
- Unlimited store products
- Online store functionalities
Conclusion: Who Should Consider Using Jimdo?
If you're looking to blog about your days at school, the free version of Jimdo would be ideal for you. And in case you're planning to finally give your small business an online platform, Jimdo would be a good place to start. We’ve established that it indeed provides some solid templates and design features for a reasonable amount of money.
But remember once again- it’s not recommended for large companies or extensively experienced developers.
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