Website Builder Review: uCoz

I read somewhere that uCoz website builder is the top website builder in Eastern Europe. That’s a first :)

My initial impression is that this uCoz really could be the top website builder in Eastern Europe. Why? Because they understand what they need to communicate on their home page to get someone to look a little further into their product. The things that I notice right off are all of their features, with top ones such as email forms, blogs, and photo albums being called out on their home page. They have readily available examples of sites that have been built with their tool.  And they have some sort of free offering as well.

So my point is, at first glance they really appear to get it. They get what people need to see when they are shopping around for a website builder and they aren’t going to make you dig for the information.

Industry Specific?
No. This tool can be used for any industry.

Pricing
I highly believe in a way to try before you buy, especially with technology tools.  uCoz’s website builder can be had for free, or for $3.09, or for $5.49, or for $6.49, or for $8.99 or for $10.99 a month. Whew! Now, that’s a lot of choices. (Dear uCoz, may I direct you to read How People Decide.)

Whether you agree with me or not about too many choices, I would think you would agree that they are nifty to offer a totally free option. They will post ads on your site but really, a person could get a decent website for free from them. Impressed.
Would you like some free help preparing for your site? Cool. Here’s a free download I created just for you.
Mobile?
Well here’s where the party ends. I don’t see any talk about mobile sites on the main portion of their site. Upon digging in the forums, I see that there is some sort of PDA template that can be customized. This sounds cumbersome, especially upon reading some of the posts about the feature.

In What Browser Does the Website Builder Work?
They don’t say specifically. Most don’t mention this, so we’re going to assume their product works in the most recent version of the IE, FF, and Chrome. If anyone finds out otherwise, please let me know.

Search Engine Optimization?
uCoz’s website doesn’t talk about search engine features except for statistics. From their sample sites it appears some custom meta information can be entered. I am not sure about whether Google Analytics code can be used.

Blog Features?
While they don’t spell out exactly what sort of blog features they offer, I looked at a number of sites built using their tool and found that blogging can be accomplished from within the tool.

Ease of Use
The home page states “managing a website is as easy as managing BLOCKS.” Below this you will find parts of the site that can be moved by dragging them on the page. That’s really neat and makes me believe that working within their builder will be just as easy.

What wasn’t so neat was their Control Panel, which looks overwhelming.

Use Your Own URL?
Yes.

My Initial Impression
uCoz has good and bad going for it. I see from their customer sites that some seriously big, robust sites have been built using the tool. This is rare to see with a drag and drop website builder tool, and I think it speaks to the stability of the system. But I think where this tool scares me a bit is it is so robust it might blow away someone who has never had a site before and needs to build a simple site quickly for their business without suffering through a large learning curve.
Click here to grab my free download to help you get all your ducks in a row before your build your site.
Even though I made it for people who are getting ready to hire a web pro, 80% of it will help you if you are building your site on your own.