Vistaprint is popular for its custom printing services. However, the company also has a website builder aimed to help beginners. Here is a review of the Vistaprint Website Builder for you to get a better idea about the service.
What you will see?
Vistaprint Website Builder
Vistaprint is a well-known company that specializes in custom printing business cards, calendars, invitations, posters, picture gifts, t-shirts, and other items. The company also offers some unique digital services, such as website building platforms allowing anyone to easily develop their own professional website.
Vistaprint is designed to help anyone create a simple website and includes all of the essential features. This includes a drag-and-drop editor, unlimited pages, support for all common content types (text, images, videos, maps, contact forms, menus, and more), and responsive templates that ensure your site looks great on any device. For anyone who already utilizes Vistaprint to create other commercial products, there’s a unique benefit. The website builder has access to any images or logos you’ve previously supplied. Thus, making it easy to match the website to other marketing materials.
VistaPrint is the all-inclusive end of a wide spectrum of website development solutions. It provides everything you need to get started and grow your website. It differs from systems in which you purchase, install, and manage all of the “parts” of your website independently. With website builders, there’s always a clear tradeoff between ease and control. With a website builder like Vistaprint, everything may come together perfectly, but that may or may not be what you’re looking for. It focuses on speed and ease of use to cater to small business owners with little website knowledge.
The Vistaprint site builder, rather than working as a standard drag-and-drop website builder, employs website “blocks” that you can drag and drop into your template to alter it. They also provide a “done-for-you” service. In this, they create your website for you. It’s a very user-friendly platform, so it’s ideal for anyone who wants to make a website quickly but doesn’t have any prior knowledge.
Plans and Pricing
Vistaprint offers three different options, all of which are paid plans. You can try any of the plans for free for up to 30 days. After this, you must choose a plan and begin paying monthly or annually. If you purchase annually, all plans are less expensive.
- When you join up for the yearly plan, the Get Personal plan costs $2.81 per month. It comes with a Vistaprint subdomain, a bank of free stock photos, an SSL certificate, and Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools access. This design is ideal for putting together a résumé website or sharing a personal portfolio or blog.
- The Get Professional plan is ideal for small businesses that require assistance with SEO. When paid annually, this plan costs $10.12 per month. You get better SEO tools, website activity data, and email address, and your own domain.
- The Get Paid plan provides a lot more features than the other plans, and it’s also shockingly cheap. When you purchase a yearly subscription, it costs $14.06 each month. This package contains everything in the other options, plus eCommerce features. You may set up an online store, add shopping carts, and even include a donation section. This package includes everything you’ll need to sell items and services online, as well as market your company to a large audience. Moreover, you can add an infinite number of products to your website with this package. You have complete freedom to alter your plans at any time.
Interface
Vistaprint’s design is straightforward and easy to use, making it quick to compare plans and see what you’ll get. You’ll be asked to provide your contact information, including your name, email, and physical addresses, as well as your phone number. Or you can simply log in if you already have a Vistaprint account. Choosing a template is the first step in the Vistaprint design process. These are divided into 24 types, many of which are further subdivided into subcategories. All these appear to be quite impressive at first glance. Boarding Kennels & Catteries, Animal Grooming, Dog Breeder, Pet Sitting & Dog Walking, Pet Supply Shop, Pet Training, and Veterinary are all subcategories of the Animals & Pet Care industry.
Features
Rather than using individual widgets, the editor allows you to create web pages using pre-formatted content blocks. If you go to Add Content and then to Text, you’ll see a total of 16 layouts. You will find text with icons, captions, photos, quotes, boxes, grids, and more. When you drag your favorite option onto the page, the editor will show you where it can go, and when you drop it. After you drop it, the block will take up the entire width of the page. Headers, photos, videos, a calendar, social links, a contact form, a web store, and more are among the other content blocks. These provide the essentials but not much more. Moreover, there is little connection with other services.
You can show a bar with links to your social media accounts, but you can’t insert anything like a tweet or a Facebook post. Building a site is a breeze with this block-based method. Because the content block has everything you need built in. So, you don’t have to drag in a layout widget, establish a number of rows or columns, input whatever text or images you need, and configure their values manually.
Hands-Free Designing
You don’t have to learn how to design a website if you don’t have the time or desire to. Your website will be created for you using VistaPrint’s Agency plans. You’ll first meet with a consultant to discuss the website you want, and he or she will collaborate with you on the design. You can also obtain monthly revision services, where VistaPrint will make changes to your website based on your requests. VistaPrint also employs expert copywriters to generate the written material for your website. You can also put up a 30-item web store with the Premium Agency plan if you wish to sell something.
Match Your Brand
VistaPrint provides a comprehensive range of marketing services, including business cards, marketing brochures, and more. When you create a website with VistaPrint, you can use the same photos and logos that you use for the rest of your VistaPrint goods to create a website. In many circumstances, you can match your website’s background colors, fonts, and layouts to your printed materials. Many individuals consider their website to be a digital business card, and you can customize it to match the rest of your marketing materials.
Free Library of Images
Most website builders require you to create all of your own content, including your website’s photos. Most beginners don’t have the funds or the time to create an image library. VistaPrint, fortunately, has a fully searchable stock picture library that you may utilize to add images to your website. These photos can be used without paying royalties. You can also add your own photos or mix in some of your own with the stock photos.
Social Media Marketing
VistaPrint can help you maximize the potential of your website through social media marketing if you have a social media presence. Its most expensive subscriptions include the ability to create posts, share them on social media, and even schedule them across various platforms. This bonus feature is a fantastic method to publicize your website and company.
Templates
VistaPrint offers over 600 templates divided into 24 distinct businesses. Within each industry, there are subcategories of specialty. There are other alternatives for “generic” designs and even a “blank design” template if you don’t want to choose a specific sector. While many templates are free to use on any plan, others are only available for certain plans. The templates include a list of any restrictions. VistaPrint designs include a responsive design. This gives them an advantage over other website builders like Wix. That implies that once you’ve put up your website, it’ll be mobile-friendly and run on any mobile device. To ensure mobile compatibility, some providers need you to build or change a mobile version of the template.
You can replace the photos with ones from VistaPrint’s stock image collection or upload your own. All of the text, backgrounds, and colors can be changed. If necessary, you can even adjust the color palette using Hex code. Multimedia elements such as photos, image grids, and videos can be included in templates. Currently, they do not allow video backdrops. The bad news is that using VistaPrint’s templates, you’re locked with the basic block layout.
You can add blocks to the game, but you can’t move them around. For instance, if you wish to put a video in one block next to a text block, you won’t be able to do so because blocks take up the entire width of your webpage. The changes you make must adhere to the blocks’ parameters, which are quite tight. Furthermore, the HTML or CSS code of the blocks is unchanging. This means you won’t be able to integrate third-party apps or code into your website. You can still construct a great-looking website with these templates, but you must follow the template’s limits.
What you would like?
Ease of Use
The main advantage of Vistaprint is how simple it is to use. Vistaprint’s templates are various and the selection is fairly big after a relatively brief sign-up process. All templates can be changed by dragging and dropping “blocks” into the page. It’s worth noting that while you may drag and drop multiple pre-made content blocks into your sites, you can’t drag individual pieces onto portions of the page. For example, you can’t add a single button or change the layout of the pre-made block. No matter what you do with the design options, the site layout is mobile-friendly and retains an appropriate look/style. This is fine for DIYers who want the simplest approach to get their material onto a nice-looking design. However, if you need more freedom and extensive design customization, this website builder may be too limited for you.
Customized Templates
Vistaprint’s ability to modify its products for existing customers is another unique feature. When you join up for their Website Builder, they’ll immediately display you themes that match your existing branding if you’ve ordered a business card from their printing service. This is ideal for DIYers who want to keep their logo constant but don’t need many modification options that take a lot of time. It’s a cost-effective technique to ensure that all of your marketing materials are “on brand” without having to hire a designer to modify everything.
Product Integrations
Vistaprint’s built-in product connections and functionalities are another advantage. Aside from DNS and hosting, Vistaprint also provides additional features for your website. You get an eCommerce website, SSL certificate, custom domain, analytics, and more. One thing to keep in mind is that you’ll need to be on a subscription plan to use the integrations. Vistaprint also has several digital marketing add-ons that you may purchase independently. It’s worth repeating that these add-ons do come at an additional fee.
What you might not like?
Vistaprint Website Cost
The Starter package at Vistaprint is $5, but it doesn’t get you very far. Until you upgrade to their Standard plan, you won’t have access to site analytics, and you won’t be able to effectively optimize your site for search engines until you upgrade to their Premium plan. Vistaprint is far more expensive and offers significantly less than direct competitors. Moreover, it’s not a fantastic deal when compared to creating your own WordPress website. Vistaprint will be more expensive than a competitor if you use it for more than a few months.
Limited Feature Set – Design
There is virtually always a trade-off between convenience and control with every technology product. With the Vistaprint website builder, you can clearly see this trade-off. Their design arrangement is quite convenient. It’s simple, quick, and easy to understand. It focuses your attention entirely on getting your material into the predefined template and allows you to customize their blocks to some extent. But switching things up is a nuisance if you don’t like the blocks that are offered. Vistaprint’s design capabilities are severely limited if you wish to go beyond the basics. You can modify your color palette, navigation styles, and font pairings at the theme level.
But, for the most part, you’re stuck with the theme’s overall appearance and feel. You can add and remove blocks using pages. The layout of the physical blocks, however, cannot be changed. You can move the items they’ve provided around, but that’s it. It’s nice to have the essentials, but you’re out of luck if you want to do anything additional or out of bounds. The design limits can be catastrophic if your website is developing or becoming a larger aspect of your business. And, unlike other website builders, there is no way to fix this problem using apps, extensions, or access to the website code or HTML, there is no outlet for a Vistaprint website builder website.
Limited Feature Set – Technical
Technical constraints are features and functions that you don’t realize you desire until you need them and then discover you can’t have them. Integrations with Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Google Ads, social sharing options, blogging, and a slew of other intermediate to advanced SEO tools are just a few examples. Vistaprint does offer additional features through built-in functionality and add-on apps. However, you’re limited in how much you can integrate, add on, or even alter within the tools supplied. You can add a page description and keywords to Vistaprint, but that’s about all you can do. Even basic SEO necessitates more. For starters, title tags are crucial and that’s before considering other beneficial parts such as sitemaps, Open Graph features, and Schema for local businesses.
Customer Support
Customer service at VistaPrint is above average. Support can be reached via toll-free phone,
Alternatives
There are several alternative website builders to choose from. You can choose from Wix, Squarespace, and Webnode. When you compare Vistaprint website builder to other web providers on the market, it’s clear that it’s a beginner’s web host. Vistaprint, on the other hand, provides a number of additional things that few other web hosts don’t. This includes the ability to design your own business cards, put your company’s logo on T-shirts, and personalize your website. Vistaprint differs from other website builders in that it offers a wide range of marketing tools for your business.
Conclusion
If you want to create a basic website you can use the Vistaprint website builder. This can be helpful if you are still learning how to design a website, you can easily get started without wasting too much time. You can even try it out for free for 30 days to see if it’s the appropriate platform for you. Vistaprint makes it simple to get a website up and operating, especially if you need something done for you. They have a simple user interface and an easy-to-use editor with drag-and-drop blocks. This makes designing and customizing your site a breeze. With an all-inclusive website builder, however, there are trade-offs to consider. When compared to other all-in-one website builders, Vistaprint falls far short on this front.
Vistaprint is definitely not your best pick if you want to create a website with a base template but yet have some design and functionality flexibility. The platform is best suited for personal websites and small businesses with a restricted product line or who seek a simple website presence. You can also hire VistaPrint to build your website for you if you’re willing to pay a premium for the convenience. VistaPrint is not a good fit if you have experience constructing websites. Or if you need to incorporate your own code or apps, or want a website builder that will expand with your business. The platform’s layouts and functionality are too limited to enable complex websites. There are lots of better options out there for everyone else.
Which website builder do you use? Tell us in the comments section below.
