If you are looking to create a website of your own but don’t know where to go or how to start, then this review might help you out. Every business owner or entrepreneur needs a website that can be a central platform to promote, market, and manage their business. Website builder platforms can be exactly the solution you need here.
Website builders are SaaS (Software as a Service) platforms that are designed to help people build websites without the use of advanced technical skills or hiring a web development team. They eliminate some of the major challenges faced by non-coders in website creation.
In this review, I'll be taking a close look at Pixpa, a website building platform that is especially geared towards creative professionals and small business owners. This review evaluates all of the features offered by the platform as well as goes into some of its pros and cons.
Pixpa Review | ||
Product Name: | Pixpa | |
Website URL: | pixpa.com | |
Type: | Website builder | |
Owner: | Idea Zinc Design LLP | |
Price: | Start from $7 per month | |
Rating: | ||
What is Pixpa?
Pixpa is an easy-to-use, all-in-one, DIY website building platform which has been specially designed keeping in mind the needs of creative professionals and small businesses. Features like multiple gallery options, client galleries, e-commerce galleries, blogging tools, etc, will make it well suited for online portfolios. At the same time, the platform also has extensive e-commerce builder tools and capabilities which makes it ideal for business owners looking to create an online store or business website.
Pixpa makes website building super easy. Once you have signed up for the 15-day free trial, you can take your pick from the range of modern, minimalist, mobile-friendly templates on offer from Pixpa. The templates are all fully customizable and you can edit them to your specification by using the simple but powerful visual editor and drag and drop page builder. Pixpa is a no-code platform which means that it seeks to simplify website building for non-coders through the use of an intuitive, easy-to-use website building interface.
The best thing about Pixpa is the proactive customer support team. You get 24x7 support through email and live chat. Additionally, there is a comprehensive help website with a range of help articles and tutorials to help you out in a pinch.
Some other features offered by Pixpa are:
- Pixel perfect, mobile-optimized and responsive templates.
- Affordable pricing plans.
- Built-in online store options.
- Client galleries for photographers.
- Blogging tools.
- Built-in marketing features including announcement bars and marketing pop-ups.
- SEO manager and other SEO tools.
Who is Pixpa For?
Despite being a fairly versatile platform, Pixpa is most effective in online portfolios and eCommerce sites are where it truly shines. Pixpa is most ideal for these users:
- Creative professionals: Pixpa offers extensive portfolio building and client proofing tools for creative professionals like photographers, designers, architects, artists, etc. You get multiple gallery options including client galleries, the ability to sell your artwork or designs as prints or digital downloads through eCommerce galleries, blogging, marketing and SEO tools, and more.
- Small and medium businesses: The platform comes with a built-in online store builder and integrated marketing and SEO tools which allows you to create a full-featured eCommerce website.
- Students and educators: Pixpa offers students and educators a discount of up to 50% to build their online student portfolio or educator website. Affordability can be a big factor for students who are looking to create a website for academic or professional reasons.
- Fashion industry professionals: Pixpa also offers templates and services specifically targeted towards fashion industry professionals, including but not limited to models, fashion designers, fashion photographers, fashion stylists, etc.
Pixpa Templates
Let us take a look at the templates offered by Pixpa. Templates are preset visual themes that you can use as a starting point for building your website.
Pixpa’s templates are mobile optimized and responsive. This means that they are coded well and load fast on both desktop and mobile devices. Fast loading websites are important because they ensure that your website performs well on search engine result pages. Slow-loading websites are poorly ranked and may cause a loss of organic internet traffic.
In terms of look, the templates are modern and have a rather minimalist aesthetic which is great.
Pixpa offers specially designed templates for the following categories:
- Online portfolios
- Photography websites
- Wedding & wedding photography websites
- eCommerce websites & online stores
- Design portfolio websites
- Art portfolio websites
- Fashion websites
- Business websites
- Blogs
- Personal websites
No-Code Website Building Platform
Anyone with no programming skill can build a website nowadays. Pixpa is no exception, it does not require anything technical. Instead of writing complex code, users can use a simple visual editor to customize the fonts, headers and footers, colors, menus and menu items, etc. There is also a page builder tool that lets you add more pages to your website and customize the elements on those pages by using a drag and drop interface.
While it is a no-code platform, Pixpa does allow for the use of custom code. This is for the benefit of users who do have some development knowledge to stand out from other Pixpa users. By adding custom HTML or CSS code, users can modify the existing templates and create more personalized web space.
If you don't have time to build your own site or would rather rely on a professional to do it all, there is a website setup service that is available with the upper tiers of paid plans. A Pixpa expert will set up your website for you according to your specifications. This way you can have the bones for your website set up for you by an expert and you can continue to build on and flesh out your website from there.
Client Proofing Platform
This feature is designed for the benefit of creative professionals, in particular photographers. Photographers need extensive client proofing tools to ensure a seamless workflow for their business. Clients need to look at shots, give their suggestions, shortlist the photos they want in the final album and order prints of specific pictures. All of this can take quite a bit of time and effort to manage and keep track of. Pixpa’s client galleries are the perfect solution to these problems.
Client galleries enable you to create public or password-protected, private galleries for individual clients. The galleries are exclusive to each client and come with a custom-built landing page. Your clients can log into their gallery to see, share, select and shortlist which pictures they would like to include in their final album. They can also download or order prints of their pictures directly from the gallery. Client gallery activity can be tracked by the website owner and access can be managed accordingly.
E-commerce Builder
Pixpa is a great e-commerce website builder. The platform comes equipped with an online store builder as well as e-commerce galleries for creative professionals to sell their work. You can sell both physical products and services as well as prints and digital downloads. The online stores also come with product and inventory management tools, order processing, shipping, tax and discount management capabilities and abandoned cart recovery services.
Perhaps the best thing about Pixpa’s eCommerce builder is the fact that the platform charges no commissions on sales. Your earnings are all yours.
SEO Marketing Tools
SEO marketing tools are important for any website. At the end of the day, you need your website to promote your business and attract new clients and customers. Pixpa surely delivers what it promises in this regard.
The platform has a central SEO manager which lets you manage all the settings to optimize for search engines including metadata, URLs, sitemaps, etc for your entire website. There are also integrations with Google Analytics and Google Webmaster tools that can help you understand and analyze your website’s performance.
Integrated marketing tools including announcement bars, marketing pop-ups and email marketing tools are an incredibly useful addition to the eCommerce capabilities of your website.
Pixpa Pricing Plans
The affordability of Pixpa is one of its main strengths. Plans start at as little as $7 a month which is on the low end when it comes to website builder platforms and especially given the features Pixpa offers. There are no free plans, however, you can test drive the service with a 15-day free trial. You don’t need to enter any credit card information to sign up for this trial.
These are the pricing tiers available at Pixpa:
- Personal - $7 per month (billed annually)
- Expert - $10 per month (billed annually)
- Business - $16 per month (billed annually)
Pixpa Pros and Cons
Pros
Cons
Pixpa Review - Conclusion:
If you are looking for an easy and affordable solution for your website building needs then Pixpa might be the service for you. They have a host of well-designed templates and tools for creating a full-featured website without ever having to write a single line of code. The customer service is fast and responsive and if you are unsure about your web design skills, you can make use of their free one-time, website setup service by signing up for the Expert or Business tier plans.
All in all, Pixpa is a very comprehensive and intuitive website builder. You have to see to believe so sign up for a free trial and check out the platform for yourself. No credit card information is required for the signup.
Author Bio: Anisha Singh
Anisha Singh is the content marketing manager at Pixpa - a DIY website builder.
