GoDaddy has recently launched GoCentral, a website builder designed from the ground up for mobile, allowing users to build a website on their phone in under an hour. It combines an integrated set of marketing and e-commerce tools which will allow users to build an audience for their idea or business to aid their success.
The new product supports more than 1500 ideas or industries, allowing users to easily create a near complete website, pre-made with relevant sections and images allowing the user to be up and running in hours. It is, of course, much easier to tweak or update an existing website with dummy content, than design one from scratch.
GoDaddy was inspired to create GoCentral after a 2015 Small Business Survey conducted by the company had shown 59 percent of very small businesses still did not have a website.
Lauren Antonoff, GoDaddy’s Senior Vice President and General Manager, said:
Traditional DIY website builders got it wrong by forcing people to focus their time on tweaking page layout instead of generating results.
GoDaddy’s aim was to create a website builder that focused less on design and more on attracting visitors and creating a mobile friendly experience, as it found that most small business websites were accessed on mobile devices.
Easy to Use Website Builder
Moving away from the popular model of website builders that are focused on building complex layouts, GoCentral is focused instead on simple designs targeted toward user needs, coupled with the flexibility to make it your own. Some of the key features are as follows:
Professional imagery
It provides access to a library of Getty photography, so you can add stunning images that reflect your business.
Swipe-to-style interface
GoCentral was designed from the ground up with the mobile user in mind. GoDaddy claims that you can build a fully functional website in under an hour anytime from your phone, tablet or computer.
Mix-and-match website sections
While it has over 1,500 categories to choose from and featuring aa vast range of templates to suit many different business types, you are not restricted to preset layouts and designs. You can customize every part of your website’s pages by combining content and blocks to suit your needs.
Professionally crafted foolproof styles
If you have ever started to customize a website, adding different colors to various widgets, text, or sections, you will know how quickly things can get out of control and start to look hideous. Thankfully, GoDaddy’s GoCentral takes out all the guesswork with professionally designed styles, and coordinated color sets meaning that the website will look good no matter what customizations you make.
Drives Results with integrated marketing
Integrated marketing features populate GoCentral; all focused on driving traffic to its users’ websites. These include built-in email marketing, SEO tools and the ability to launch a Facebook page from the GoDaddy dashboard.
- Facebook - The website builder will automatically create you a Facebook page, or, if you already have one, it will manage it for you.
- Search Engine Optimization - The website builder will automatically review and optimize your website for the search engines, resulting in increased traffic to your website.
- Email marketing - The website builder will utilize the design of your website to automatically create “eye-catching” email marketing campaigns, including analytics to track their success.
Its’ smart learning system is geared toward driving traffic by providing engagement and activity updates upon logging in and recommending key ways in which users can improve results, such as creating a geographically-targeted Facebook advertising campaign.
Users can jump-start email marketing campaigns, even if they have little or no marketing experience, engaging existing contacts and collecting new ones.
For a product, targeted at complete beginners, we cannot help but think this is a very powerful set of tools that will help jump-start any business.
Online Store
GoCentral also includes an Online Store, which includes features users need to sell online, allowing customers to check out fast with a streamlined mobile checkout with reduced taps and swipes.
Apple Pay support is included in the product, as are major credit cards and PayPal. The Online Store also includes integrated product and inventory management and customizable shipping.
We suspect that the online store is a relatively simple solution, which depending your requirements may or may not be a good thing. If you have a greater need for features or customization, then you may want to check out some of the more specialist online stores, such as Shopify. That being said, the all-encompassing marketing tools offered by GoDaddy would be ideal for novices.
GoDaddy’s Growth Continues
Web hosting is a growing part of GoDaddy’s business, representing 37 percent of GoDaddy’s total revenue in Q3 of 2016. This was up more than 15 percent from the previous year. With a focus on driving traffic and a mobile friendly experience, GoDaddy hopes to make further strides in 2017. GoDaddy now has more than 14.5 million customers worldwide and manages more than 63 million domain names.
GoDaddy will give GoCentral the center stage in this year’s Super Bowl commercial. A special thirty-second TV spot is being created to kick-off a fully integrated GoCentral marketing campaign and could see this product gain significant traction.