Godaddy Website Builder vs WordPress: Which is better?

May 18, 2023

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Are you trying to decide between godaddy website builder vs wordpress? WordPress works with over 43% of all websites, but GoDaddy is also famous. You can use either of these tools to create your website or online shop.

In this article, we will compare the GoDaddy website builder with WordPress with its advantages and disadvantages so you can decide which is the right choice for your next project.

We will look at GoDaddy vs WordPress website builder from different angles, and you can use the links below to jump to a specific area.

Godaddy Website Builder vs WordPress: Overview

GoDaddy Website Builder is a complete solution that includes web hosting. You can easily create a website with the GoDaddy editor and then click publish to activate your website.

However, this ease of use comes at a price. Because your website resides on GoDaddy’s servers, you must follow their rules, restrictions, and terms of service. You are also limited by the features and resources provided by GoDaddy.

If you ever want to switch platforms, moving your website from the GoDaddy website builder to WordPress is difficult. This can be a big problem if you need advanced features or flexibility as your business grows.

However, if you want to create a simple website quickly, the GoDaddy Website Builder is an all-in-one solution that can help you create a website in minutes.

In contrast, WordPress is free software you can install on your web hosting account.

Note: In this guide, we are comparing GoDaddy to WordPress.org self-hosted sites, not WordPress.com blogs. See our guide on the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org for more information.

WordPress lets you choose the hosting plan and provider that can offer the most for your specific project. If your needs change, most of the best WordPress hosting providers make upgrading your plan easy or even moving WordPress to a new host.

As the world’s most popular content management system, there are all kinds of hosting plans you can use for a WordPress project. With that in mind, you should have no trouble finding a provider that fits your needs and budget.

WordPress is an excellent choice if you want a flexible and customisable website builder.

Godaddy Website Builder vs WordPress: Ease of Use

Most people who want to create a website are not developers, so ease of use is important when choosing a website builder.

WordPress is used by more than 43% of all websites. That’s millions of people with different capabilities. As you would expect, WordPress is fairly easy to use and beginner friendly.

There is a slight learning curve, as you must familiarise yourself with new concepts such as themes, plugins and the differences between posts and pages.

Each plugin and theme in the official WordPress repository also has its support forum, so you can often get help directly from the developer.

Adding content to WordPress is quite easy, thanks to an intuitive and easy-to-use visual editor for beginners called Block Editor.

You can easily add blocks to your pages and posts to create beautiful layouts without writing code.

If you don’t like the default WordPress editor, you can use many drag-and-drop page builders instead. These page builders are available as plugins; most have free versions, so you can try them out and see which one you like best.

Most of these page builders come with ready-to-use templates that you can use on your website or start from scratch and create a unique design.

While WordPress has a slight learning curve, GoDaddy’s website builder is designed with ease of use in mind. There is also a free trial version to try and see if it’s right for you.

Here you can build professional-looking websites without the help of a professional designer/developer. Godaddy templates are available for almost every niche website, and the WYSIWYG website-building system works perfectly.

You must click on the page element and change its content from the left sidebar. This is a very convenient way of working for people who want to publish their site immediately – and can proceed.

“GoDaddy Studio” is an excellent tool for image attachment and editing. You can also place cookie warnings, GDPR consent, and Google Analytics and integrate Facebook pixels through this builder.

GoDaddy specialises in creating business websites or profiles. If you are creating a website that no longer requires regular maintenance – GoDaddy is a good choice. However, this is not a wise choice when it comes to publishing content regularly.

With templates, it is easy to create pages and add content such as timers, text blocks, images, etc. In addition, you can quickly develop ‘About’, ‘Contact’ and ‘Profile’ pages.

The GoDaddy builder is very simple, but setting up a blog profile here is difficult. You can access the “My Blog” option in the blog dashboard and create a blog page first.

Open a landing page and add a new blog section from the menu, then navigate to the dashboard and select Create a post to get started. Rest is very basic but practical. You can also add categories and feature images.

Creating a blog site on GoDaddy is not a great experience. It doesn’t offer anything special, but it takes a lot of time and effort to create a simple one, and WordPress is ready to do this effortlessly.

As you can see, GoDaddy allows you to create a simple website in minutes. However, you can only use the tools, themes and settings GoDaddy provides. This can feel restrictive, especially if you already have a clear website design.

Godaddy Website Builder vs WordPress: Maintaining your website

As an all-in-one solution, GoDaddy does most of your website maintenance. You don’t have to worry about installing updates or the tools you use to build your GoDaddy website.

This is perfect for busy business owners who don’t have time for daily website maintenance. Or for beginners who aren’t sure how to properly maintain a website.

However, since everything is handled automatically, you cannot customise the maintenance of your website. This can be a problem for site owners who prefer a hands-on approach.

If you choose WordPress, you may be responsible for performing some or all of these website maintenance tasks, depending on your hosting provider.

The good news is that most popular WordPress hosting companies make these tasks easy. Many companies offer one-click WordPress installation, or you can follow our beginner’s guide on installing WordPress correctly.

Some hosting providers automatically install new versions of WordPress, while others offer one-click updates. Another option is to enable automatic updates in WordPress for major versions so that new versions are installed automatically.

As you can see, with a bit of planning, there are ways to maintain your WordPress website without investing much time and effort.

Godaddy Website Builder vs WordPress: e-commerce features

If you accept bookings or sell your services, visitors can make a one-time booking through your GoDaddy website, regardless of your plan. However, you must purchase GoDaddy’s eCommerce plan for $18.69 monthly to collect payments.

When you upgrade to the eCommerce plan, you can accept payments using credit cards, PayPal, Apple Pay and Google Pay.

You can also publish product listings and create an online shop.

GoDaddy Site Builder offers flexible shipping options and allows you to add banners to your site, which are perfect for promoting your sales and special offers.

You also have access to hundreds of professionally designed website templates.

With WooCommerce, you can quickly and easily create an online shop and sell any product, including physical products, membership schemes and affiliate products.

WooCommerce is already a powerful eCommerce platform in its own right, but you can add even more functionality by installing the best WooCommerce plug-ins. Plenty of WooCommerce themes exist, so you can create a shop that perfectly reflects your brand.

Once you have set up your online shop, you can use WordPress plugins, extensions and services to promote your shop and generate more sales. For example, you can create smart coupons, use page builder plugins to design convertible sales pages and use WordPress pop-ups to grab your customers’ attention.

If you want to create an online shop, the wide range of ecommerce plugins, add-ons, and themes gives WordPress a big advantage over GoDaddy.

Godaddy Website Builder vs WordPress: SEO

You must choose an SEO-friendly website builder to get traffic to your website.

GoDaddy has a built-in SEO tool that will help you identify keywords that people use to find websites similar to yours. All you need to do is answer a few simple questions, and GoDaddy will suggest keywords that will attract more visitors to your site.

Once you have selected your keywords, GoDaddy will help you add them to different areas of your website.
This includes adding the keywords to your page titles and editing the site description. The GoDaddy dashboard also shows suggestions for improving your site’s search engine optimisation. Click on any of these options, and GoDaddy will show you how to make the changes.

These SEO tools are fairly simple but easy to use. Even if you are new to SEO, GoDaddy will show you how to do some important optimisations.

In contrast, the SEO tools built into WordPress are more advanced and powerful.

You can create custom permanent links, organise your content by category, add tags to your blog posts, add images instead of text, and use the built-in settings to make it easier!

In addition, many WordPress SEO plugins can help you fine-tune every part of your website.

For example, you can use a complete WordPress SEO plugin such as All in One SEO (AIOSEO) to optimise your website without hiring an expert.

With AIOSEO, you can add title tags, meta descriptions, focus keywords and get on-page analytics recommendations that can be used to optimise posts. You can even use the plugin to manage and track redirects.

For more information, see our final guide on how to set up All-in-One SEO.

Even if you don’t use the SEO plugin, WordPress has some advanced tools that can help you improve your site’s rankings. Having said that, if you want to create an advanced website, WordPress is the winner.

Godaddy Website Builder vs WordPress: Pricing

GoDaddy offers four pricing plans, ranging from $11.99 per month to $44.99 per month.

Their plans come with SSL certificates, 24/7 support and the option to connect to custom domains. However, GoDaddy’s basic plan lacks e-commerce features or SEO tools.

The basic plan also limits the number of marketing emails you can send, making it difficult to grow your website.

With this in mind, you’ll usually want to go with GoDaddy’s Standard ($11.99) or higher-level plan. If you want to sell products or services, you’ll need to go further and invest in their special e-commerce plan, which costs $24.99 per month.

If you choose the GoDaddy website builder, we recommend double checking what is included in each plan to ensure that it contains everything you need.

WordPress, on the other hand, is a free and open-source platform. However, you must purchase a domain name and web hosting provider.

Prices can vary, so it can be difficult to accurately calculate the cost of building a WordPress website. Thankfully, special offers and deals are available to help you create a WordPress website for less.

You can also use any other WordPress hosting provider, such as Hostinger, Dreamhost or SiteGround, which are more affordable than GoDaddy.

To control costs, you can also use free themes and WordPress plugins.

While the cost of creating a WordPress website may vary, there are many hosting providers, themes, plugins and other available plugins, so you should be able to create a website no matter your budget.