Jimdo Review

What Is Jimdo?

Jimdo is a web development platform enabling novices to build and host attractive websites. It includes helpful features such as Jimdo Creator, a drag-and-drop website builder, and Dolphin, an AI-powered website builder. 

Three European entrepreneurs – Matthias Henze, Christian Springub, and Fridtjof Detzner started Jimdo in 2007. It is a privately-held company headquartered in Hamburg, Germany, with other offices in Munich and Tokyo, Japan. 

We tested its ins and outs to give you a rigorous, impartial Jimdo review to help determine if it's for you. 

Jimdo Features

Jimdo has many features that enable users to create functional, responsive websites despite little web development experience. They include:

Jimdo Creator

This visual website builder enables users to create fully responsive websites, including e-commerce pages, blogs, personal websites, and others. 

Creating a website with Creator is a quick and straightforward process. You first need to create a Jimdo account and verify it. Afterward, there are three main steps;

• Choose the site type you’d like to create
• Pick a template
• Select a plan

Jimdo offers many options for the type of site you’d like to create. Examples include health and wellness, fashion, e-commerce, blog, and consulting. The idea is to pick a category, and Jimdo will insert related pre-made content on your website. You can skip this step if you prefer more manual content development. 

After choosing your category, the next step is to pick a template. Jimdo offers 15 web templates for free users and many more for premium subscribers. You can switch templates later if you’re not satisfied with the one you selected. 

The third step is picking a plan. Jimdo offers four subscriptions ranging from free to $39 monthly. The priciest ones have advanced features, like unlimited storage and premium support. Select the best suiting plan and start building your website. 

Jimdo Dolphin

This is the other website builder Jimdo offers. The difference is that this one uses artificial intelligence to guide users throughout the process. It’s perfect for users who lack any web development experience. 

Creating a website employing Dolphin is a comprehensive step-by-step process. This AI-powered tool uses a question-answer approach to provide a suitable pre-formatted website. Afterward, you can edit the site to your preference and publish it.

Dolphin’s first question is, “what are you creating a website for?” A personal website or a business one? Then you name your website and provide a physical address for the tool to include on it. 

The next question is about your website’s goals. Maybe you wish to promote your content, share your portfolio, sell goods online, and something more specialized. After this step, you can import photos from Facebook or Instagram. Subsequently, you pick your website's category, style, and colors. 

Finally, Jimdo Dolphin asks you to select pages you want to include on your website, such as “About Me” or “Contact Us.” The wizard considers all your answers to give you a suitable pre-made site that serves as a baseline. You can then edit and publish it when satisfied.

You can skip some questions from the Dolphin wizard if you’re indecisive.

Dolphin lets users with no web design experience build fitting websites. It’s a valuable feature that sets Jimdo apart from the competition.

Jimdo Domain

You can host your website with a Jimdo subdomain (e.g., mywebsite.jimdosite.com) or a custom domain. You can buy a new custom domain or transfer an existing one to your website.

Jimdo offers a lot of domain name extensions, including the most common ones like .com, .net, and .org. The company gives significant discounts to first-time domain buyers. Custom domain use is available only to premium plan subscribers. 

Transferring an existing domain from another registrar isn’t tricky using Jimdo nameservers. 

A custom domain name looks more professional for an individual or business. Hence, it’s advisable to use one.

Jimdo Email

Jimdo lets you create a custom email address with your domain name. It integrates directly with Google Workspace for this purpose. 

Otherwise, you can use another email provider by adjusting your domain’s MX records to the external provider's. It’s a more complicated step than using Google Workspace, which Jimdo natively supports. Ensure you use accurate MX records, or your custom email won’t work.

Jimdo also supports email forwarding, allowing you to create a forwarding address or alias that matches your domain name. Any message to this email address will automatically forward to your existing email account on Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Outlook, etc.

A custom email looks more professional than bland emails, especially for businesses. As such, Jimdo mail is a valuable tool. 

Jimdo E-commerce

Jimdo offers comprehensive tools for setting up a professional online store that sells less than 100 products. 

To start, you have access to numerous Jimdo templates to build responsive e-commerce sites with little effort. Just imagine having to create an e-commerce site from scratch. This is way too much work when instead, you can just pick and edit an existing template.

Jimdo’s templates work as you’d expect in any online store. You can create a product, set the price and shipping terms, and start selling it. You can offer different variants, colors, and sizes for each product.

Jimdo also helps facilitate the sales process. It integrates with a broad range of payment options such as PayPal, Stripe, EPS, MyBank, etc. And while you may need to pay fees to the payment platform, Jimdo doesn’t charge any.

Jimdo e-commerce includes additional features such as social media integration, customized legal pages, Facebook and Instagram integration, etc.

If looking to sell thousands of products from your site, a more capable e-commerce setup may be necessary.  

Jimdo SEO

Jimdo offers search engine optimization (SEO) tools to help your website rank higher on search engines like Google and Bing. SEO refers to specific practices that make search engines notice your website. It’s an ideal way of generating free and organic traffic.

Fortunately, Jimdo has your back. The platform lets you connect a custom domain to help search engines index your site better. It also allows you to add alternative text (ALT tags) to your images for search engine indexing. Likewise, Jimdo has an in-built blogging tool you can use to create marketing posts to help draw visitors to your site.

Jimdo Backup

Backups should be a primary consideration for every website owner. You don’t want to lose your website because of a data loss incident.

When developing and editing your Jimdo website, it keeps backups of your changes within a single user session. You can undo changes if you delete or replace any content by mistake. Unfortunately, you can’t revert once a user session ends, so best to take care.

Jimdo claims to regularly back up all websites hosted on its platform and securely store them. 

Jimdo API

Application programming interfaces, or APIs, are tools, definitions, and protocols that let different software communicate. You can use APIs to add features that Jimdo doesn’t typically support to your website.

For example, you can use the Google Analytics API to monitor your website’s visitors and collect user data. 

Jimdo Live Chat

Live chat is an essential tool for businesses to converse with customers. Jimdo had a native live chat app but stopped supporting it in 2020. This no longer available Jimdo feature will hopefully resurrect soon. Till then, you can still use third-party tools like Smartsupp to employ live chat on your website. 

Jimdo Multilingual

We live in a globally-connected world, so it’s vital to have a multi-lingual website.

You can easily build one with Jimdo. The first way entails writing your content in different languages and organizing them into different navigation menus. Therefore, any language a visitor picks from the navigation bar takes them to the related content.

Another way is to use a third-party tool, like Weglot, to translate your website into different languages. This method is much easier but not necessarily better. Such tools may fail to translate your content accurately, especially where context matters. They’re robots, not humans.

On the other hand, you can hire a linguistics expert to translate your content. This method brings even better results but is likely more expensive. 

Jimdo App

In addition to its cloud-based version, Jimdo offers native mobile apps for its on-the-go users. They’re available on Android and iOS platforms.

While Jimdo's mobile apps include many functionalities to create and modify your website, it is not as comprehensive as its website version. As such, we advise first-time users to start with the desktop tool.

Security

Security is a paramount consideration for every website. The Jimdo platform has effective protocols to keep your website secure. It starts with basic account security measures like strong passwords and two-factor authentication. 

Two-factor authentication strengthens security by requiring two verification methods to log in to your Jimdo account. The first could be your email and the other your phone number. It helps prevent unauthorized access to your account.

The Jimdo platform lets you implement Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption on your website. SSL ensures secure communication between a user's browser and the server hosting your website. Without this standard security protocol, your data is at risk.

Jimdo also uses firewalls and data encryption to prevent hackers from compromising its platform. Likewise, the company's data centers have physical access restrictions and strict data access authorization requirements.

Finally, Jimdo is a European company subject to strict GDPR data protection regulations.

Ease of Use and Interface 

The Jimdo dashboard is user-friendly, a significant advantage over competitors. Even for people without much technical expertise, it is intuitive. As such, a web design newbie can use Jimdo to create appealing websites quickly. 

And while it is easy to find whatever features you want to add to your website on the Jimdo dashboard, there’s a significant learning curve for users looking to customize their site extensively. Customizing third-party tools or inserting custom HTML, JavaScript, PHP, and CSS codes may prove challenging. 

How To Create A Website

Creating a website with Jimdo tools is a quick and straightforward process. The main steps include;

Create a Jimdo account

Signing up on Jimdo is entirely free. Payment comes later if you need to upgrade to a premium plan.

Answer a few questions about your business

Jimdo requires you to answer a few questions to help outline an appealing pre-formatted website for you.

Customize the website

You can extensively customize the pre-formatted website Jimdo creates for you. You may add photos, videos, music, social media links, and other types of content.

Add new web pages

Organize your website however you like by adding and arranging web pages. 

Publish your website and go live!

Once satisfied with your edits, you can publish your website and go live immediately. You may use a Jimdo subdomain or a custom one you own to host your website. A custom domain looks more professional than a widely used subdomain, so better to choose that option. 

Jimdo Pricing

There are four main Jimdo plans; Play, Start, Grow, and Unlimited.

Jimdo offers a 14-day money-back guarantee on its premium plans.

Customer Support

Jimdo support is available by email 24/7. However, Jimdo prioritizes response time according to customer plans. Free users typically wait 24 hours for a response. In contrast, Grow plan subscribers can expect a response within four hours and Unlimited subscribers within just one hour.

Jimdo also has a FAQ page and comprehensive manuals on its website. You should find solutions to any issues you face via these channels, but customer service is a competent backup if you are still at a loss. 

Jimdo Pros and Cons

Jimdo has many advantages but also disadvantages in specific areas. 

Easy to use - Pro

Jimdo is an intuitive tool. Any web design beginner can pick it up and build an alluring website. The platform enables individuals and small businesses to create professional websites without considerable web development resources.

Comprehensive website builder - Pro

The Jimdo website builder has many features that help create functional, striking websites. Notable features include custom domains and emails, e-commerce, SEO, and mobile apps. The feature set offers considerable help to web design newbies. 

Unlimited storage - Pro

Jimdo offers storage with all its plans. And if you subscribe to its top-tier plan, you will receive unlimited storage. Subscribers can include as many files as they wish on their website without storage space concerns.

Mobile optimization - Pro

Jimdo themes are compatible with mobile devices straight out of the box. Whatever content you develop on the desktop web builder will optimize for mobile screens.

Limited customization - Con

Jimdo isn’t as customizable as rival web hosting tools like WordPress. It currently lacks a developer network to create additional features.

Expensive - Con

Despite Jimdo having a free version, its premium plans tend to be more expensive than some competitors. The pricing may drive customers with low budgets away from Jimdo plans, primarily individuals.

Limited SEO tools - Con

Jimdo SEO tools are not as robust as those offered by competitors like WordPress and Wix. With that said, its limited support can assist new pages to get noticed.  

Limited customer support - Con

Jimdo provides only email customer support. It’d be great if the company also offered live chat or phone support. 

Jimdo vs. Wix

As a formidable Jimdo alternative, Wix is one of the world’s most popular website builders - letting novice users build appealing websites. 

Both are all-in-one website builders. However, they differ in several areas, and we should examine that.

Pricing

They have similar pricing plans. Jimdo costs between $9 and $39 monthly, while Wix is $16 and $45. Wix also has a free plan like Jimdo.

Customer Support

Jimdo provides direct customer support through email only. On the other hand, Wix offers numerous channels including email, live chat, and telephone support. Additionally, you can expect to receive instant answers, while you may have to wait 24 hours to get an email response from Jimdo.

Both also have extensive FAQ pages and online user guides for consulting.

E-commerce

Like the Jimdo app, Wix enables users to set up online stores with ease. Its system is packed with features to help customers facilitate online purchases. 

Wix has more comprehensive electronic commerce features than Jimdo. For example, it provides over 500 ready-made e-commerce templates, compared to 100 on Jimdo.

Wix e-commerce is suitable for stores with hundreds of products, while Jimdo is better suited for stores with less than 100. Also, Wix supports more payment gateways than Jimdo. And you can dropship from other retailers with ease. Likewise, you can offer subscription sales with Wix but not Jimdo. 

Jimdo vs. Squarespace

Squarespace is an all-in-one website building and hosting service and a popular alternative to Jimdo hosting. You can use it to create e-commerce sites, landing pages, school ad personal websites, and more. 

Pricing

Squarespace and Jimdo cost similarly. Squarespace costs between $14 and $49 monthly, compared to $9 and $39 for Jimdo. However, Squarespace also charges additional transaction fees for online stores, while Jimdo doesn’t.

Customer Support

Squarespace’s customer support beats Jimdo support by a considerable margin. It offers 24/7 customer support through email or live chat but no telephone. While you are limited to email-only customer support with Jimdo. 

Both have extensive online Help Centers that contain user manuals and a FAQ section.

Squarespace’s center also includes webinars and tutorial videos, unlike Jimdo’s.

E-commerce

A Jimdo webshop has less functionality than a Squarespace online store. For example, the latter allows you to sell unlimited products and offer subscriptions, while with Jimdo, you can’t. 

Squarespace lets you automatically calculate shipping rates for your customers. You can also create advanced discount programs right from the web builder. Also, the native analytics tool for Squarespace online stores is much better than Jimdo’s.

Jimdo vs. WordPress

WordPress is globally the most popular content management system for websites. It powers 43% of online websites, showing its unmatched influence. You can use it to build and host most types of sites. 

Jimdo is overall less sophisticated than WordPress. For example, Jimdo themes aren’t as flexible as those found with WordPress. 

While WordPress requires some basic technical knowledge, any newbie can easily create a website with Jimdo.

Pricing 

WordPress has very flexible pricing compared to Jimdo. 

You can get WordPress hosting for as low as $5 monthly. Jimdo pricing is more rigid and costly.

E-Commerce

WordPress offers more advanced functionality than Jimdo. You can use many plugins to add any e-commerce feature to a WordPress store. Jimdo has plugins too, but nowhere near WordPress’s scale. 

SEO

WordPress offers more search optimization features than Jimdo. You can use special WordPress plugins to help your website realize its full SEO potential. The most popular ones include Yoast SEO, Ahrefs, and Google Search Console. 

Jimdo lets you add meta tags, custom URLs, alt text, and other related SEO features. And while these are commendable, they are lacking in comparison with WordPress. 

Ease of Use

Jimdo is easier to use than WordPress because of its less cluttered interface. Hence, Jimdo is preferable for web design newbies. 

Jimdo Review - Verdict

Many Jimdo reviews consider this tool most suitable for amateur web designers. And we can’t disagree, as the platform is easy to use and automatically handles a significant chunk of the web design work. Its pre-formatted templates provide a solid foundation for website development. For sure, a great alternative to building a site from scratch. 

However, Jimdo may not be the best tool for users with technical expertise. It lacks the flexibility many competitors offer. Also, its SEO tools aren’t very advanced. 

With that said, the Jimdo free plan is one of the best we’ve come across. Most rival web builders don’t offer as many free features as Jimdo.