HostGator is a major player in the web hosting and publishing industry. It has a good reputation for providing fast servers, competitive pricing, and high-quality service. So, when their Gator Website Builder tool was released, we decided to dive in and give it a shot.
The Gator Website Builder, also known as "Gator," is a quick and easy-to-use website builder that uses drag-and-drop features. Its main goal is to offer low prices as well as a fun, easy, and intuitive user experience.
Is it up to snuff? In a nutshell, yes and no. Gator outperforms the competition in terms of price and ease of use, but it does have some upsells and is limited in advanced choices for more professional web designers.
But, before we get into Gator's advantages and disadvantages, let's talk about how to choose the best website builder for you.
Choosing a Website Builder – What You Need to Know
When choosing a website builder, there are several factors to consider and account for. Since the construction of your website and how it is designed can have a wide range of positive and negative effects, the website designer you choose can have a significant impact on your bottom line.
A website builder can not only trigger or mitigate a slew of headaches right now, but it can also have an effect on your online presence and, eventually, the long-term viability of your company.
To be sure, there isn't an absolute "best" website designer, just like there isn't an absolute "best" office space or a "best" home. Simply put, the best choice for your experience, desires, and objectives exists.
So, before you start comparing website builders like Gator, consider how you want your site to look, what you want to accomplish with it, and what features you want to include.
Is a blog section anything you'd like to have? Consider an online shop, a contact form, a reservation system, and other features.
You'll be able to tell right away whether Gator or any other website builder is right for you once you've decided what you want.
Now that that's out of the way, let's look at Gator and see what it has to offer, or more importantly, what it doesn't have to offer.
Gator Website Builder – What Is It?
Gator is a hosted website builder provided by HostGator, a prominent and well-known hosting and domain name provider. HostGator will now deliver hosting, domains, and software services all in one easy subscription thanks to Gator.
Gator is a hosted solution, so unlike other website development tools, it comes with everything you need to get started, create your site, and help it grow. It differs from many other web-building strategies in that it does not require you to buy, install, or handle several pieces of the website puzzle.
Rather than purchasing a house, Gator is more akin to renting a beach condo. It gives you full control over the furniture, décor, and other aspects of your living space. Infrastructure, plumbing, countertops, and other products, on the other hand, are left to the property owner to worry about, manage, and eventually monitor.
This is an important distinction since you must normally choose between ease and power. All can work flawlessly and perfectly with the Gator Website Builder, but it may not be your cup of tea depending on your experience or needs.
In terms of rivals, Gator is close in many respects to other all-in-one site builders such as Squarespace, Wix, Weebly, GoCentral by GoDaddy, and, to some degree, WordPress. Gator, on the other hand, is more concerned with pace and comfort, providing you with all you need to launch your website in under five minutes.
Gator, unsurprisingly, appeals to non-developers with no website expertise or time to suit and handle a large number of items.
Advantages of Using Gator Website Builder
After spending some time with HostGator's Gator Website Builder and putting it to the test, I'm happy to say that this robust site-building solution has a lot of advantages.
Quick and Easy “Onboarding” Process
Gator's best feature is, without a doubt, its simple and painless onboarding process, which is industry jargon for getting the website builder program up and running. For most site designers, there's almost always at least one stage where you're stumped as to what to do next. With Gator, however, this is not the case.
Gator, on the other hand, makes onboarding as easy, straightforward, and fast as possible. You can choose a schedule, a domain name, a website theme, and publish it live on the internet for anyone to see in just a few simple steps.
Gator also offers an in-depth guide that walks you through the various customization options. It also educates you through an informational email drip series during the site-building process.
Complete Website Solution
Unlike several other website builders, Gator is a true all-in-one solution for creating websites. All is included in its all-inclusive platform, from domain registration and hosting to RSS feeds and social media integrations.
To put it another way, something seems to work. There is no HTML, CSS, JavaScript, or any other kind of code. There's no need to waste time looking for compatible applications or extensions. There is no need for troubleshooting or assistance. Tracking and analytics are also available on the platform.
This means less time spent on minor details and more time spent on material, marketing, design, and other important tasks. Gator also gives you access to DNS and domain support, unlimited storage, self-hosting options, and more since it is directly affiliated with one of the largest and most trusted hosting providers (owned by EIG).
Template Options
When you use Gator to create a website, you'll need to choose a template to get started. The good news is that Gator provides hundreds of different template choices.
While many of the models are already attractive, they can all be personalized and modified using Gator's drag-and-drop features. Sure, you could use some software and themes to create a custom site on HostGator, but why would you?
The vast selection of excellent customizable models attracted most people to the Gator Website Builder. Colors can be changed, parts can be added or removed, fonts can be changed, and much more can be done with no learning curve or additional costs.
Step-By-Step Site Building
When it comes to design, one of the biggest benefits of using an all-in-one platform like Gator is the lack of expertise or experience required. Instead of struggling with HTML or CSS code and staring at line after line of letters, numbers, and symbols, you simply point and click to create a website from the ground up. That's what there is to it.
Despite having a plethora of customization choices, Gator is incredibly simple to use. Anyone with little to no website building experience can do everything from customize their theme to completely redesign their site thanks to its drag-and-drop features.
Gator's interface is not only quick and simple to use, but it's also highly intuitive and pleasing to the eye. Rather than seeing an infinite list of choices, it gradually shows more options as you dig deeper into and method. Although it can seem straightforward at first, the more you use it, the more power and customization options it provides.
Pages, Elements, Design, Sections, Store, Blog, Manage, and Stats are all shown by large icons along the left rail. When you tap or click on each, a menu of many sub-options appears.
If you click on the Elements icon, for example, you'll see options for files, charts, navigation, text, social, images, buttons, and PayPal, all of which have sub-options. Gator allows you to move any element to any location on any tab, or you can click the plus sign to create a new section with any combination of elements and layout options.
Gator allows you to customize the overall design of the site in addition to customizing components. You can either click here on the page you want to customize or pick "Design" from the right-hand side.
You'll have access to a massive library of color palettes and background textures once you've done so. Text animations, parallax backgrounds, flying or bouncing objects, and more are all fun choices.
You can always revert to the design defaults if you find yourself going a bit too far in your customizations. Also, if you make a mistake when editing your site, the “Undo” button is right there waiting to be used. This is a useful function that not every website designer provides.
Friendly Features
When it comes to features, the Gator Website Builder has a lot of them. Not only does it have all of the standard features you'd expect from a good website creator, but HostGator even threw in a couple of extra cool bonuses.
Among the most prominent features are the following:
Link your social media pages to all of the big social media platforms.
• Add Google Analytics to get more stats
• Collect payments via PayPal
• Configure page redirects
• View your saved items and go back to an earlier version of the website.
• Check the status of your form submissions and your mailing list.
• Use the "Advanced" option to add simple SEO meta tags.
Gator comes with ample configuration options to meet the needs of most hobbyists and small businesses. A good touch is a built-in feature to accept PayPal payments and collect email addresses. Although Gator provides these features for free, some site builders need the use of a separate product, which adds another expense and hassle to the equation.
Every Gator Website Builder pricing package also includes:
• Registration of a domain name – A domain name is the name of your website, such as ‘mywebsitename.com.' You can save both time and money by not having to buy a domain elsewhere.
• SSL certification – An SSL certificate ensures that your website is safe. With an SSL certificate, your website will display a padlock icon next to the URL, indicating that it is stable. If you don't have one, the URL will be labeled as "not safe," which will cause visitors to abandon your site.
• Social media integration – You can use social media integration to add content from Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to your website. By linking all facets of your online presence, social buttons, picture galleries, and live feeds would increase consistency.
• Responsive mobile models – People are increasingly using mobile devices to access the internet, rendering mobile responsiveness a requirement in today's world. The ability to automatically adapt your web pages to suit seamlessly on smartphone screens is known as mobile responsiveness. You can save time and money by not having to build a separate mobile-friendly version of your site.
• Website Analytics – Website analytics enables you to monitor important stats and track details such as the number of visitors to your site and how long they spend on each page. You'll be able to see which pages are doing the best and make small changes to boost traffic, dwell time, and conversions by monitoring these figures.
Let's get to those fun bonus features we discussed earlier now that we've covered those bases. Since HostGator is a leading hosting company, it offers unlimited storage and bandwidth to Gator Website Builder customers.
That's right, you read that correctly. There are no restrictions on the number of users or the amount of content that your website can accommodate. As a result, Gator is an excellent option for websites with massive image galleries and those that have a lot of traffic.
👉 Also, you can read : HostGator Web Hosting Review
E-Commerce Ready
Did you think Gator was just for simple websites? Reconsider your place. Gator's 'eCommerce' plan is designed specifically for this. It allows you to sell goods, accept payments, and keep track of all of your statistics through a comprehensive analytics suite.
Though there are many e-commerce platforms to choose from, Gator is a good alternative. It helps you to add a user-friendly online store to your site that supports both digital and physical goods.
Excel, CSV, Ecwid, and Google Sheets can all be used to import product catalogs. If your goals are more modest and you have fewer goods to offer, you can always manually enter the details.
Unfortunately, there isn't much influence on how goods are presented with the Gator Website Builder. Product descriptions are also a little simplistic, but for simpler pages, this shouldn't be an issue.
Drag and drop one or more images, paste some formatted text, and enter a price to get started. After that, you can build product variations to show off various sizes and colors. For a more convenient shopping experience, you can group items into categories such as jeans or shirts.
Gator also lets you set up deals, which is a pleasant touch that customers can appreciate. There's not much it can't do, particularly since it can measure shipping rates based on weight.
However, the Gator Website Builder pales in comparison to the influence of advanced e-commerce platforms such as WooCommerce and Shopify. Gator, on the other hand, is significantly less expensive and unquestionably easier to use.
In reality, you can manually add a dozen products to Gator in less than 10 minutes. It's a good choice for creating simple web stores because it includes tax and shipping estimates, PayPal integration, Stripe card support, and a cash-on-delivery option.
Reporting and Analytics
The site statistics and analytics provided by Gator are shockingly impressive. You will see cumulative visits, page views, bounce rate, and all unique visitors to your site in the last 30 days right from your account dashboard.
If you go to the full traffic tab, you'll see more information like the average time spent on the web and a map with visitor data by location. There's also a rundown of each website to see how the site is doing on a page-by-page basis, as well as additional useful information including browsers and devices used, visitor language, and whether a visitor is returning or visiting for the first time.
Gator's analytics also divides the site's traffic into desktop and mobile groups, which is useful information for paid traffic campaigns.
Help and Support
HostGator is well-known for its helpful customer service. So it's no surprise that you'll have access to live chat, email, and phone support with the Gator Website Builder.
Gator also has a helpful aid center in addition to these service options. It is, however, very simple and not suitable for complex search queries.
Although HostGator's customer service is excellent and you can get assistance in a variety of ways, bear in mind the company's size. With hundreds of thousands of customers, the support staff is often swamped with inquiries, so you may have to wait a while for a response.
Nonetheless, if you sign up for any of the mid-range or higher plans, you'll get immediate access to support staff. It's similar to purchasing a "Quick Pass" at an amusement park – you'll pay more, but you won't have to wait in line.
However, because of Gator's user-friendly interface and intuitive nature, you can never need assistance or support. However, knowing that you have access to resources 24 hours a day, seven days a week is comforting.
Pricing
While HostGator does not offer a free subdomain option like Wix, the Gator Website Builder's overall pricing is very competitive as compared to many other site builders. When you consider the included domain and hosting, it's easily one of the best deals out there.
All are unlimited and bundled with Gator for cost savings and convenience. There are no capacity or page limits, and the only differences between plans are e-commerce and priority support.
Gator's pricing is affordable as compared to other all-inclusive site-building tools or building your own self-hosted website. While there are plenty of other factors to consider aside from costs, it's definitely one to consider, particularly if you're just getting started and want to keep your costs low.
Disadvantages of Using Gator Website Builder
The Gator platform, as you can see, has a lot going for it. No piece of software, however, is without defects. Let's take a look at some of the flaws I discovered with the Gator Website Builder.
Lack of Apps, Extensions, and Marketing Tools
Gator's all-in-one site-building software is a good option for website owners who value simplicity and ease of use, but it lacks support for advanced marketing tools and third-party applications and extensions.
True, Gator has some apps and extensions, but there aren't many of them and their functionality is minimal. There's also no way to edit code pages, limiting your ability to incorporate a variety of advanced marketing tools.
Once again, you're choosing ease to overpower with the Gator Website Builder. It's easy to use and works well, but it comes at a cost in terms of control and customization. For others, it's a worthwhile tradeoff. It may not be the case with others.
Pricing Structure
Yes, Gator's pricing is both an asset and a disadvantage, believe it or not. Allow me to demonstrate. Although the company's pricing choices are competitive, they're also a little perplexing.
For instance, the 50% off sale, which is obviously fantastic, is only valid during the payment period. So, if you lock in a two-year price for the premium "eCommerce" package, the price will go up after two years.
The domain with the up-sell of marketing software is still a little muddled and confusing. It appears that you must purchase a domain name during the checkout process. You can, however, buy a domain separately and use a subdomain if you prefer.
Several upsells will be shown to you during the checkout process. Fortunately, the onboarding method is still pretty quick and straightforward.
Blog Integration
Gator does have a blog integration add-on that you can use on your web, but it isn't included in your theme. Instead, you must build the blog on your own and decide how you want it to appear.
While having the ability to customize how your blog looks and sounds are appealing, having to use a separate theme produces a disjointed appearance. Rather than fitting in with the rest of the web, this makes the blog sound like an afterthought.
As a result, if you want to build a website specifically for blogging or if you want to make a blog an essential feature of your site, the Gator Website Builder will not be for you.
Summing It Up
Gator, like all website designers, has a set of tradeoffs. It has good usability and support, but it lacks the customization capabilities of more advanced site-building solutions like WordPress. It also has less advanced options and template designs than other well-known website builder software solutions.
Gator, on the other hand, has better pricing and usability than most website builders, making it a good option for those looking for a well-priced, well-designed website builder without all of the bells and whistles.
In other words, Gator is the epitome of simplicity. The drag-and-drop editor, though simple on some levels, is extremely user-friendly and provides a comprehensive solution for having a site up and running in no time.
Overall, it's a fantastic choice for someone looking for an easy DIY solution who doesn't have much experience with web design.
Are you on the fence? Why not take Gator for a spin and see what you think? You'll be able to say if it's the right website builder for you within minutes of signing up and getting started.
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