Is GoDaddy the Right Solution for Small Businesses? What you should know about GoDaddy's website builder

Most people know GoDaddy as a hosting and domain registering service -- or, perhaps more infamously, for the company's outrageous commercials. While it is primarily a domain registrar, GoDaddy also offers a website building tool for users.

While the service exists, it's not the company's primary business, and small business owners may find that the tool is difficult to use or even require the help of a website developer -- which can be costly. Yes, you'll be able to build a basic homepage, but if you need more bells and whistles, you might be in a bind.

As you consider which tools will best suit your small business's website needs, let's take a closer look at the pros and cons of using GoDaddy's website builder.

Pros

GoDaddy focuses on homepage development, and offers its users a number of templates that allow them to customize the look and feel of their website. A basic online storefront is available for e-commerce purposes, and GoDaddy does, of course, provide hosting services. Questions can be answered and problems addressed with phone and online support services, and a very basic version of the tool is available at no cost.

Cons

The templates GoDaddy users can install will let them personalize their website, but they may not be optimized for search engines, like Google, or mobile devices like phones or iPads. Plus, traffic-driving tools like maps, newsletters, and other services are supported via third parties, which means you must manage them separately from your site.

The only e-commerce solution offered is for product sales, and third-party apps are needed for things like appointment scheduling, discount management, and messaging. GoDaddy does not support complex transactions, such as partial payment and offering quotes before payment, or document creation (for things like printable receipts) at all.

While there is a free, basic version of the tool, most small business owners will need more options and choose the $10 per month version. Even so, if they need standard e-commerce solutions added to their site, they will likely have to hire a developer.

The Solution

Even the least tech-savvy small business owner deserves a website that's easy to manage and features an array of e-commerce options to bolster their business. One solution is to use a platform, like Ocoos, when building your website.

A platform is basically the underlying technology on which your website runs, which is managed behind the scenes: its technology is kept updated and supported without you having to do a thing.

The Ocoos platform give you the option to have an interactive calendar, schedule appointments, accept payments, create maps, and manage customers without needing third-party apps. The technology already exists … on the platform.

Thanks to the platform remaining up-to-date with tech standards, your site will always be optimized for search engines, browsers, and hand-held devices -- even as technology changes in the future.

Plus, Ocoos offers a patented B2B recommendations engine that helps connect the websites of partner businesses, which can send traffic back-and-forth between the two -- for instance, a golf instructor and a sporting goods store.

Still, some small business owners may find they don't have the time or knowledge to manage their own website. Not a problem. Ocoos has a fee-based concierge service that maintains your website and has 24-hour support, should questions or troubles arise.