Bluehost website builder is a basic website editor built on top of WordPress. You get high-quality managed WordPress hosting from Bluehost, access to over 300 themes and content blocks that you can use to customize the layout of your site in WordPress. Overall, Bluehost’s WordPress builder isn’t as flexible or easy to use as a standalone website builder, but it’s one of the best options available if you’re looking to build a website using WordPress.
Bluehost Pros & Cons
PROS
- Includes managed WordPress hosting
- Pre-designed page sections with multiple layouts
- Free Email Marketing Tools
CONS
- Limited design flexibility
- There is no free trial
Bluehost
Bluehost at a Glance
What Is Bluehost?
Bluehost is a US-based web hosting provider founded in 2003. The company is best known for its managed WordPress hosting plans, which come with WordPress pre-installed on your site and automatically update your software.
Bluehost launched a WordPress website builder in 2021 to make it easy to build websites on WordPress, even if you have no coding experience. The builder lets you switch between adding pre-designed page sections to your site and adding content using the standard WordPress editor. It’s not as easy to use as a website builder that isn’t designed around WordPress, but it’s one of the simplest options if you’re going to use WordPress software to build your website.
Using Bluehost
Using Bluehost is simple. The company has a reputation for keeping things simple for users, and we found that to be the case when trying to build a website. There’s a checklist of things to do when you first log in, and it’s easy to switch between Bluehost’s website builder and the standard WordPress website editor. That said, the website builder has a bit of a learning curve if you haven’t used WordPress before.
Features
Managed WordPress Hosting
All website building plans include WordPress hosting managed by Bluehost. This includes unlimited storage and bandwidth, a free SSL certificate and a free domain for one year. Bluehost automatically updates your WordPress installation and plugins.
Unlimited Websites
One of the best things about the Bluehost website builder is that there is no limit to the number of websites you can create. Each site has its own WordPress dashboard and can connect to its own domain.
How Bluehost Works
How to Create a Website with Bluehost
The process of creating a website with Bluehost is a bit more complicated than with other web builders. To get started, Bluehost will take you to your hosting dashboard and ask you to create a new WordPress site. Before you can choose a template or make changes, you’ll need to log in to your new WordPress dashboard.
In WordPress, you can choose from over 300 pre-installed themes to run your website. You also have the option to apply any WordPress-compatible theme to your website, but only themes provided by Bluehost are compatible with the Bluehost website builder. Unfortunately, it’s not easy to change themes later because you’ll have to rebuild your site from scratch.
You can open the Bluehost website builder from your WordPress dashboard. The editor offers pre-designed page sections, each of which includes several elements such as text boxes, image containers, buttons, and more. You can choose which elements to show and hide in each section, and there are several predefined layout options for each section.
We found this to be much easier to use than the standard WordPress site editor, although you still have access to the WordPress interface if you want to use it. The WordPress editor makes it difficult to divide your site into sections with different backgrounds, and even more difficult to organize content side-by-side. Bluehost’s editor simplifies these important design tasks.
However, the Bluehost website builder is not a drag-and-drop editor. Page sections are full-width by default, and there is no way to add or rearrange individual content elements. You can edit your website’s HTML code to make detailed changes, but this option is only suitable for experienced website designers.
The nice thing about Bluehost’s builder is that once your site is set up, you can move it to another host just like any other WordPress site. If you move, you’ll lose access to the Bluehost site editor, but you’ll be able to keep all of the page sections you’ve created up to that point.
Overall, the Bluehost website editor greatly simplifies the process of designing a website on WordPress. However, it’s still not a drag-and-drop editor and isn’t as flexible as other WordPress standalone website builders.
Adding Multimedia to Your Bluehost Website
Bluehost relies on WordPress’ built-in media management system to handle multimedia. This is one of the highlights of using WordPress, so we were happy to see this system preserved.
You can easily import photos, videos, PDF files and many other common file types from your computer. Simultaneous uploads are also supported. Once your files are added to WordPress, you can organize them into folders and give them descriptions so that your library is searchable. Bluehost also provides you with a library of hundreds of stock images to help you realize your designs.
Overall, we were very happy with the site’s multimedia tools and found them very easy to use.
Marketing Functionality with Bluehost Websites
Bluehost offers several important marketing tools. First, the CreativeMail email marketing plugin is included with all Bluehost website builders. It allows you to collect contacts, divide them into groups and create an unlimited number of email campaigns for free.
Second, Bluehost sites have access to popular WordPress blogging tools. You can schedule posts in advance, place ads on your posts and share them on social networks. Notably, you can also create posts from the Bluehost editor, which means you can include sections of Bluehost content to create your posts.
SEO Functionality & Add-Ons with Bluehost Websites
Bluehost’s website builder helps boost your website’s SEO by making it easy to add meta titles and descriptions to your pages. You can also add meta descriptions to images and videos using the WordPress media manager.
One thing missing from the Bluehost website builder is a built-in traffic analysis panel. However, you can easily estimate your website traffic by integrating Google Analytics or using a WordPress plugin.
Ecommerce
Bluehost’s website builder integrates with WooCommerce, allowing you to sell an unlimited number of products, digital downloads, and subscriptions on your site. WooCommerce is extremely flexible and offers built-in tools to customize your product pages, manage shipping and inventory, and market to customers.
It’s important to note that many of WooCommerce’s advanced features require paid extensions. The extensions included in your Bluehost website builder plan will depend on your plan level.
Help and Support
Bluehost offers 24/7 customer support via phone, email, and live chat. The company also has an online knowledge base and resource center. There is no dedicated website builder section in the knowledge base.
Bluehost Pricing
How Much Does Bluehost Cost?
Although Bluehost offers some of the cheapest hosting plans among the major providers, the prices you see on the homepage are discounted “first month” rates. After the first month of use, Bluehost hosting plans will cost a few dollars more.
If you’re looking for single-tenant servers and are a little more tech-savvy, Bluehost also offers VPS and dedicated hosting.
Here’s a breakdown of Bluehost’s pricing tiers:
Bluehost vs. Wix
The Bluehost website builder focuses on WordPress, while the Wix builder is a standalone content management system. Wix is much more flexible and allows you to drag and drop hundreds of content elements anywhere on your page.
Bluehost vs. IONOS
The 1&1 IONOS MyWebsite builder is slightly cheaper than the Bluehost WordPress builder and offers a bit more design flexibility. Overall, IONOS is a great option for first-time businesses, but Bluehost offers extensive features.
Bluehost vs. Site123
Site123 is an easy-to-use website builder that lets you build your website in sections, much like the Bluehost builder. It’s pretty affordable, but the marketing, SEO, and ecommerce tools included are pretty basic.
Bottom Line
The Bluehost website builder makes it easy to create a website with WordPress. It offers more than 300 pre-designed templates and sections that you can add to your pages with one click.
Ultimately, whether the Bluehost website builder is right for you depends on whether you want to build a website on WordPress or not. Bluehost’s builder doesn’t offer as much design flexibility as standalone website builders like Wix. However, you get access to exclusive WordPress tools for blogging, media management, SEO, and e-commerce, as well as the freedom to move your site to another host later. Therefore, Bluehost’s website builder can make a lot of sense for individuals and small businesses that prioritize flexibility and growth over design capabilities.