There are a tremendous variety of options when it comes to choosing a webhosting and web-building company. How do you select the right one? It can certainly be overwhelming. One good option is Duda – a website builder originally founded by programmers who foresaw the impact that the advent of the iPhone would have on web browsing. Accordingly, the site helps clients to produce sites that adapt to fit both large desktop monitors, as well as small mobile screens. It’s a great fit for design in today’s digital world!
Design Tools
As users begin the process of designing their site, they can choose from more than 90 templates, sorted into categories such as “business,” “portfolio,” and “restaurant”. By clicking on a template thumbnail, users can view how its look changes for both tablet and phone viewing. After choosing a template, users can begin customizing their particular site.
The Duda site builder interface includes an intuitive left sidebar, which includes tools for managing and designing your site. Users can customize their website colors, text, and navigation, and can add pages and site settings form choices on the left panel. The interface also includes an arrow, allowing the designer to collapse the sidebar for a full view of the page. It also includes “undo” and “redo” buttons that work at all times as you’re designing your site.
All of the basic page elements – including buttons, dividers, text boxes, and images – these appear when users click the “widgets” button. After doing so, users have the option to drag the elements onto the webpage and drop them into the allowed areas.
Layout changes are fairly intuitive on Duda, and users shouldn’t have much trouble doing things like adding columns, changing spaces, adding rows, or otherwise customizing the layout to their taste. The top of the design page includes a design toolbar that gives designers a variety of options, including switching pages, undoing your last edit, saving your work, viewing your site in a variety of sizes, and publishing your site.
Duda also offers some third-party integrations like Facebook comment modules, and also integrates with various other services such as Yelp, OpenTable, PayPal, and others. It also allows users the option of sharing their sites easily by incorporating social sharing buttons, such as Facebook “likes”, comments, and albums, a WordPress feed, or a Twitter feed.
Duda also includes a Dashboard page for its users, from which its users can access all of the sites that they manage or are building through Duda, and from which they can begin designing new sites and connect them to their personal domain.
Duda users can use a custom domain name obtained from a major domain name registrar, for which Duda offers specific integrated help. If users choose not to do this, Duda will assign their site a URL. Duda also allows its users to use SSL for free throughout its site.
Pricing Options
Like some other website building services, Duda allows users to create an online presence free of charge. It doesn’t limit the number of free pages a user can create, nor the bandwith of the free sites, and it even allows users of its free accounts to sell up to ten products through free sites that include Duda adds.
For users who want enhanced services though, Duda begins its offerings with a Basic package at $14.25 per month, which allows users to create their own domain as well as multilingual websites. A little higher on the scale is the $22.50 Team package, which allows users to create online stores with more than ten products. That package is followed by the $74 Agency package, with which users can create up to eight websites with ten members. Finally, at the top of its price range, Duda offers the $299 Site for Life package, which is a lifetime subscription.
Customer Service and Conclusory Thoughts
Duda’s design site includes a helpful chat bubble icon at the bottom right of the page that gives users the option of getting help whenever they need it. Customer service is generally responsive, and Duda offers its users site traffic statistics that offer a number of details to get an idea of the visits your site is receiving. You also have the option to send specific messages to your website visitors, or customized offers based on their location. Duda also offers its users a risk-free 30-day trial period with no strings attached.
Ultimately, Duda offers all that users need to easily create and host a well-designed, well-integrated, mobile friendly website at a reasonable price. It’s a great choice for those who want a user-friendly design site without an excessive price tag. Check it out today to see if it’s right for you!