Zoho Sites Website Builder Review

Zoho – is a brand present in the market for over two decades. It has become a reputable provider of ready-to-use software for businesses. This is a Saas platform with a multitude of solutions. That is, you may fully organize your online activities uniquely by using ZOHO.

ZOHO is widely known for its Office Suite containing CRM options, databases, spreadsheets, email management tools, project management tools, invoicing instruments, analytics, and many more. Its top-popular solutions include ZOHO CRM, ZOHO People, ZOHO Inventory, and others. ZOHO Sites is surely among them, too.

This is a cloud-based solution for website development, and this is the subject matter of our review. We will observe the main features and characteristics of ZOHO Sites so that you can judge whether it can turn your website project into reality and ensure its stable growth. Both strengths and weaknesses of the platform are to be disclosed.

Convenient editor. A part of Zoho Corporation product list. Offers a nice feature set.

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Ease of Use

One of the key benefits of ZOHO Sites that have made it a name is its excellent usability. You easily join the platform and proceed with the editor. You do not need any coding skills, and your website may be completed in minutes. You simply pick a template, supply it with the necessary blocks, refine the design, empower your website with useful features, and connect it with ZOHO business/marketing extras. That’s it! Your site is ready to be published.

All actions are easily implemented through the editor’s well-thought-out interface. It takes only a small part of the working window – the best part of it will be occupied by your site under construction – but it has all the necessary tools, the purpose, and the modus operandi of which are simple to understand. Everything is based on the drag-and-drop mechanism, so the editor is beginner/non-coder friendly and extremely easy to use.

ZOHO Sites Features

In terms of design and basic elements, you may build your ZOHO site within a couple of minutes. However, you will need to provide it with various extras to make a truly professional website ready to operate in the global digital arena or in a certain market/business sphere. ZOHO offers enough features and a variety of solutions for any aspect of business activities of whatever type.

Dashboard

ZOHO Dashboard allows the smooth maintenance of your website or a couple of them. By creating it, you can integrate your website with other ZOHO applications like ZOHO CRM, ZOHO Campaigns, ZOHO PageSense, ZOHO SalesIQ, and more. Your team can cooperate in building and other processes – you are free to invite people, create blogs, interact with colleagues and customers, etc.

In fact, no matter which ZOHO app you use, ZOHO Dashboard remains your starting platform, with the help of which you can quickly navigate through various applications, watch reports, and monitor statistics. This makes ZOHO a truly universal solution for businesses.

Website Editor

The main idea of the ZOHO website editor is to allow customers to create beautifully arranged websites fast and in a comfortable way. You won’t need to deal with code at any stage of the developing process. At your disposal will be a set of templates, the ability to customize their designs and add elements, sections, apps, and forms, all adjustable to your personal needs.

The ZOHO Sites panel occupies the minimum space, but it has everything you need to create a site. You start by clicking on “+.” You choose a template and define which elements to add. These can be textual blocks, images, audio files, and videos. You can customize each element’s shape, style, background, etc., as well as define its exact place on your website, thanks to the drag-and-drop option. All blocks are movable, and the whole process runs before your eyes.

Via the Pages menu, you can manage all the pages present on your website. You can observe, add, delete, and edit each of them. Here, SEO manipulations are available since you can edit URLs, metadata, etc. You can do this through the Settings menu as well. In this section, you can get access to numerous extra features necessary for your website. There are also Redo and Undo options here.

The ZOHO website editor’s extra features include the following:

• HTML & CSS customization (for coding pros);
• the custom class names option to modify a certain block;
• smart templates – you can change your chosen one to another at any time without content loss;
• the auto-save option;
• page versions supported;
• an SSL certificate included;
• the pre-set GDPR compatibility;
• custom domain name;
• hosting plans, and others.

The Preview button will let you watch your website the way it will appear to a visitor before publishing it. At this stage, you are free to make extra alterations. By clicking the ‘?’ icon, you can access the Knowledge Base and tutorials and join the ZOHO Forums, where you can find answers to popular questions or ask a specific one.

Thus, the website builder is a perfect solution for beginners and non-coders. Opt for this site constructor when you need a pro-looking site ready to fulfill the most common tasks a simple online store, blog, or other business may have and do not wish to spend much time and effort on the development process. This is a great tool for small- and medium-scale businesses. However, large companies or complex-website projects might need more powerful – and therefore more expensive – solutions from ZOHO.

eCommerce

Do you plan to launch an online store? There’s a dedicated solution for you from the platform – ZOHO Commerce. This app will let you easily build a site as well. However, your ready-made product will be fully equipped for commercial activities online. That is, you will be able to manage inventory and personnel, accept orders and payments, control deliveries, and many more. There are other specialties offered within ZOHO Commerce, which might be indispensable for any eCommerce.

ZOHO Commerce Website Builder

An online store is easily created via ZOHO Commerce – this app’s website editor is based on the same drag-and-drop mechanism. The developing process is quite common: you choose a template, add eCommerce-specific blocks, purchase a domain, and host your website already optimized for successful trading.

ZOHO Commerce Features

Your website, developed with the help of ZOHO Commerce, will be supplied with a smart dashboard containing all instruments to manage your products, organize shipping and deliveries, interact with customers, monitor their activities on the site, and many other things. The key features needed for all this include:

• a built-in Dashboard to control the entire work of the website;
• the Product Management menu to organize your goods and improve their SEO characteristics;
• Batch & Serial Tracker to categorize differently manufactured items;
• the Customer Management menu to let your clients have their personal page with the ability to track their recent buys and order statuses, as well as make returns, claim discounts, and so on;
• Shipping Zone Management;
• Delivery Management;
• the Payments menu to associate your website with such gateways as Stripe, WorldPay, PayPal, and others;
• the Role Management menu to streamline your teamwork;
• the ability to integrate your website with ZOHO Books to control your transactions and automatically calculate taxes;
• the Landing Page option to launch campaigns and actively promote your brand or service;
• Buy Buttons;
• Reports & Analytics;
• the Abandoned Cart feature, and many more.

So, you see, this set of tools is much broader here than that with the basic ZOHO Sites website builder. You still cannot and do not need to write a line of code, but this might be the exact way of creating the eCommerce website you are searching for.

ZOHO Commerce Design & Templates

The only way to build an online store via ZOHO Commerce is to use its pre-designed templates. These are professional, marketing-oriented templates, all mobile-optimized and ready for customization. At your disposal will also be Visual Editor and Custom CSS Editor. With their help, you can create your unique storefront by drag-and-dropping all the necessary sections and arranging them just the way you wish.

ZOHO Commerce Pricing

There are three ZOHO Commerce Plans on offer – Starter, Professional, and Advanced. The cheapest is €22 per month (with a 20% discount on annual billing.)The other two are €60 and €140 (also billed annually.) Surely, for a big commercial site, Starter might be a weak solution, and the optimal plan for it might be Professional.

This is, by the way, the most popular package within ZOHO Commerce. The best thing is that the company offers a 30-day free trial for each of the packages, so you can try any and feel free to join or leave after the cost-free period.

Landing Page

Creating landing pages for your eCommerce website is extremely easy, thanks to the ZOHO LandingPage app. It is also fully drag-and-drop, so a total beginner to site-building can successfully run whatever promo campaigns and advertise your brand. The toolset at your disposal will include the following:

• Landing Page Builder (fully drag-and-drop);
• HTML/CSS/JS code customization tools;
• pre-built elements (images, textual blocks, buttons, maps, etc.);
• image library;
• customizable sections;
• Form Builder;
• Popup Builder;
• the Duplicate Pages option;
• SEO tools;
• Page Analytics;
• A/B Testing;
• timers;
• Zapier integrations, and more.

Besides these features, be sure to supply your landing pages with enough security and integration options. Thus, you can connect them to a definite payment gateway, a CRM, etc. ZOHO will provide each of your landing pages with a free SSL certificate (Lets Encrypt) and advanced privacy instruments.

Business Website

For a business website, the ZOHO One solution might be the fastest and the most secure way to successful growth. It contains 40+ apps gathered on one single platform. Through this platform, you will be able to organize the streamlined work of your team and run all business activities in one place. Let’s list some of the top-popular components present in ZOHO One:

• CRM / Simple Small Business CRM;
• Appointment Scheduling & Event Management apps;
• Email & Social Media Marketing apps;
• ZOHO Forms;
• Website Builder;
• eCommerce Platform included;
• Customer Support;
• Remote Support/Access;
• ZOHO Chat;
• Internal Social Network;
• Web Conferencing & Webinars;
• File Management;
• Word Processor;
• Spreadsheets;
• Slide Decks;
• Project Management;
• Digital Signatures;
• Inventory Management;
• HR & Recruitment;
• Accounting;
• Payment Forms & Payroll, and many more.

Having all this in your hand, you can forget about the chaos of ruling different aspects of your business through different applications. ZOHO One is the business website solution preferred by over 80 million customers from all over the world.

ZOHO Sites Integrations

The ZOHO Integrations tools are designed to let you effectively turn your website visitors into your product/service buyers. Thus, you can track and maintain your visitors’ data by connecting ZOHO CRM to your website. Via the ZOHO SalesIQ app, your customer support will easily access this info and be able to interact with your prospective customers in the most efficient way.

Such tools as ZOHO Marketing Automation and ZOHO PageSense are indispensable for analyzing your customers’ buying habits and behavior. They will let you improve your website’s layout according to the collected data. You can also plug in your Mailchimp account to your lead-generating site. The same is true for ZOHO Campaigns. Thus, you will be able to send newsletters to your clients-to-be.

Design and Templates

There are nine categories and 35 templates you can use for free while building your website with ZOHO Sites. The categories include Businesses, Services, Restaurants, Architecture & Interior, Well-Being, Health, Events, Photography, and Blogs. The templates are of great quality. However, the supply of five templates for a business and four of them for services are by no means sufficient, and this might be the main drawback of ZOHO Sites.

On the other hand, ZOHO Sites incorporates CSS & HTML Editor. With its help, you can customize this or that template by modifying its code. For instance, you can change definite parts of your chosen template. Moreover, you are free to create a completely new and original template on your own. Of course, you have to know how to code in this case.

Together with this, the application provides you with a set of 190 sections, that is, various blocks for text, images, videos, slideshows, etc. You are free to customize their shapes, styles, and positions on your website. Your website’s design can also be improved with the help of 25+ shapers and the dynamic background option.

There’s also the Visual Editor at your disposal within ZOHO Sites. This toolkit will let you make your website’s view more personalized and original. Mind that you won’t need to deal with code here.

Other tools important for your creative process include Page Versions. That is, you can create several versions of your website. All of them will be saved and ready to be revised so that you can choose the right one in the end.

Customer Support

Although ZOHO services are available all across the globe, its support is great. The company has its representatives in a dozen countries, so you’ll be able to communicate with the team in 12 popular languages. There are three support plans you can opt for:

You get the Classic Support plan together with the subscription to any of the ZOHO packages without any extra cost. The Premium Support package will cost you 20% of your plan fee. The Enterprise plan is 25% of your subscription fee.

ZOHO Sites Plans and Pricing

You can subscribe to the ZOHO Sites website builder by opting for one of the two available plans, Starter and Pro. The price will depend on the type of billing. Thus, with the annual model, the Starter plan will cost you €5 per month, while the price of the Pro package will be €17. When preferring to pay month by month, expect these prices to rise to €8 and €23 per month, respectively.

Within your Starter plan, you will get a great package with the following options:

• up to five pages;
• storage of 500Mb;
• 10GB bandwidth per month;
• five forms;
• a custom domain;
• a free SSL certificate;
• no ads.

At least, it will be great to start with. When looking for a more powerful solution, consider choosing the Pro plan with the options like these:

• up to 50 pages;
• storage of 100Gb;
• unlimited bandwidth;
• a photo library with up to 200 images;
• up to three contributors;
• the ability to subscribe to numerous ZOHO add-ons;
• all the freebies of the Starter plan & no ads.

The benefit of Pro is that you can extend your capabilities on a paid basis. Thus, you can connect up to 1,000 members at an extra cost of €60 per year. A larger group of contributors will cost you an additional €24 per year. For adding up to 200 pages to your website, you’ll need to pay €60 per year.

However, the biggest plus of ZOHO Sites is the free trial option available for all the plans. You can try any of them for free for 15 days.

ZOHO Sites vs. WordPress

WordPress is an extremely popular website-building solution. So, it’s natural to compare all the others with WordPress. The popularity of ZOHO continues to grow, thanks to its numerous solutions for businesses. However, it is far from the one of WordPress.

When a comparison of the WordPress and ZOHO Sites website builders is needed, we should bear in mind the factors of usability, functional supplement, and pricing in the first place.

From an ease-of-use perspective, ZOHO Sites does not have many competitors, and it seems that WordPress cannot beat it here either, although the two competitors are very close. The ZOHO Sites builder is absolutely beginner-friendly, no matter at which stage of working with it you are. The constructor’s main advantage is in its intuitively-manageable interface with the whole development process based on the drag-and-drop option.

In terms of functionality, WordPress gets the palm. The platform offers several features which are absent within ZOHO Sites plans and can be obtained as free/paid add-ons. Moreover, WordPress offers 10 thousand themes and over 6,000 plugins. Against this background, the ZOHO Sites’ 35 templates represent more than a modest choice. WordPress ideally integrates with a multitude of side apps while the ZOHO Sites software is designed to ideally integrate with ZOHO’s own products.

When it comes to pricing, WordPress beats ZOHO Sites because it has a free plan together with four paid packages, while there’s no free plan with ZOHO, and it offers only two paid packages. The cheapest WordPress paid plan will cost you $4 per month. ZOHO Sites Starter is offered at €5 per month. An advantage of ZOHO is that a 14-day free trial is available for both website builder plans.

In other respects, the platforms are more or less equal to each other. In both cases, the more you want, the more you have to invest. Both WordPress and ZOHO Sites have a good ratio of money to value.

ZOHO Sites Website Examples

ZOHO Sites cannot boast the popularity of WordPress or WooCommerce. However, the website builder also has success stories. Today, the number of sites built with the help of ZOHO Sites is constantly growing. We invite you to visit some of the largest ZOHO-based websites to evaluate their performances:

Micro Site Campaings

Pickcel Digital Signage

Yealink Marketing

Verdict: How Good Is ZOHO Sites

Let’s summarize. ZOHO Sites is a workable solution when you need to launch your website project quickly and easily. You can create a serviceable, beautifully designed website without spending much time and effort on it. The site constructor is optimal for small companies ready to start with well-designed but simple websites without too many extra features.

When planning a more complicated website oriented on eCommerce activities, the ZOHO Sites Pro or ZOHO Commerce plans with a more advanced website builder might be better solutions for you. Using any of them will require more investment, but together with all freebies, hosting, and the ability to connect piles of add-ons, ZOHO Sites represent a reliable website builder that offers value for the money spent on it. ZOHO Sites is not the cheapest software in the market, but you will have the free trial option available for any ZOHO plan.