Jimdo is a website editor that claims to be the easiest to use. Since its launch in 2007, the German start-up has come a long way. Today, the company has a strong presence on the European continent and is expanding internationally with a presence in Japan and Australia. By 2021, there will be more than 25 million websites created with Jimdo and 8 languages available.
Whether it’s for the creation of a website dedicated to a personal project, to a business or to the development of an online shop, the editor Jimdo seems to meet many needs. All this with a practical and intuitive tool – at least that’s what the company claims. But is it really the easiest editor to use? To find out for sure, we tested it from A to Z by creating our own website and we give you our opinion on Jimdo in this article.
The objective of its CEO Matthias Henze is clearly stated: to make website creation accessible to people who have no technical knowledge of programming. The company therefore offers a simple tool to take in hand and an intuitive interface to remove the brakes and allow all users to create a website.
We can distinguish Jimdo Creator, its original editor that allows you to customize the design with code, from Jimdo Dolphin, the new redesigned editor that came out in 2017. This tool makes creating a website that looks like you very easy and faster than ever: “create your site in less than 3 minutes” is the brand promise. It is the Dolphin version that we tested and that will be the object of our review of Jimdo.
Types of websites compatible with Jimdo
Jimdo is a website creation platform that caters to a wide range of individuals from various industries. The brand offers solutions for individuals, professionals and e-merchants. Thanks to it, it is thus possible to create :
a blog (cooking, fashion, travel…)
a reservation site (rental, accommodation)
a site for catering
a fitness coaching site
a portfolio for artists or architects
a website for online sales
an online resume
And the list goes on. From a simple hobby site to a more serious project and a showcase site for your business, Jimdo adapts by offering flexible designs.
Click here to buy jimdo website builder
Fun creation steps
Jimdo offers free website creation with all the basic features. A good way to get familiar with the tool and test its web editor. In our Jimdo review, we tested its website creation tool to check the speed of creation put forward by the brand as well as the simplicity of use.
After clicking on “start now”, we are first redirected to a series of questions: Who are you creating a site for? Why are you doing it? What is the purpose of your website? What is the theme of your site?
We found this questionnaire to be very fun and it’s clearly something that Jimdo manages to differentiate itself from its competitors. The process takes less than two minutes and it allows the algorithm to learn more about you and your career plans in order to recommend suitable styles. Color palettes and several categories in the menu are also suggested, but they can be modified according to your needs.
Finally, a personalized domain name will be offered to you free of charge for the first year. If you want to continue with the free option, a default subdomain is assigned by Jimdo. For our test, this is what it looks like: test-someting-with.jimdosite.com. Note that users who already have a domain name can link it to their Jimdo site or even transfer it directly.
The whole thing took us less than 3 minutes and we end up with a very aesthetic website that we just have to customize. What we particularly appreciated is the fact that we don’t start from scratch. In addition to images, Jimdo also includes content to get you started. This is very interesting if you’re lacking inspiration to compose certain parts.
Even though we were rather skeptical at the beginning of our review, Jimdo Dolphin does indeed allow you to build a ready-to-use website, blog or online store in a minimum of time and without any experience in the field. It’s fast and efficient.
An easy-to-use web editor
Simplicity of use is at the heart of the company’s philosophy. So we couldn’t pass up their website editor to form our opinion and share our thoughts on Jimdo.
Adding content
The first steps are quite intuitive from the interface. The Pages tab allows you to add, edit and delete pages. To add subpages to an existing page, just click on the “+” symbol.
Jimdo has a number of useful tools, such as blocks, which allow you to add sections to your site in just a few clicks: about, news, header, text, slideshow, column, list, etc. You can then choose from several designs and different compositions. You can customize your site as you wish and see the results in real time.
Adding and changing images is very simple. Just click on the photo in question and import a new one or choose from the integrated image library, which is particularly useful for illustrating your site in a few clicks. An additional feature is the ability to add filters directly to the photo. You won’t have to go through an intermediate retouching software.
Content modification
The color palette pre-defined during the creation is always accessible. This is very useful to keep a uniformity and a certain coherence on your site. Moreover, it avoids you to retype the right color code each time which saves you time.
To change the appearance of the text, simply click on the title or paragraph and write your content. You can also edit your text with copy and paste if it comes from an external word processor. Again, it’s very intuitive. You can change the text size, color, alignment and add links.
Although creating a site with Jimdo allows you to set up a pre-designed site according to the characteristics defined in the short questionnaire, it is possible to modify them afterwards. To change the style of your site, you can go to the Design tab, where you’ll have access to a palette of colors, different fonts, several types of buttons and animations. The new settings will be automatically adjusted on your site and you will be able to see the result immediately.
When everything is finalized, you just have to click on the Publish button on the top right. Your site will then be visible to Internet users.
In addition to being easy to use, the Jimdo website editor is also very fast. The loading times of the back office are very low and guarantee a good user experience. This is a point that we wanted to emphasize in our Jimdo review because it is not often the case with other editors.
Our opinion of Jimdo and its website editor is therefore very positive. The tool is easy to use, especially for beginners. The elements and customization options integrated in the web editor allow Jimdo to offer great flexibility in terms of design.
Is the SEO aspect taken into account?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a strong point in which Jimdo stands out. The brand does everything it can to help you get your site to the top of the Google results and increase your visibility.
To start with, Jimdo takes care of a lot of the technical parameters of SEO, starting with the default organization of your site, which is created from the information provided when you create your site. Of course, you can change this to make it as easy as possible for your visitors to navigate your site.
It takes into account the optimization of titles and the customization of meta descriptions in accordance with your page and your project. Of course, these elements are modifiable when you switch to a paid package. URLs will be simplified for more clarity. Jimdo also handles redirects when pages are deleted or URLs are changed.
In addition, Jimdo websites are responsive, which means they fit perfectly on computers, tablets and smartphones without you having to worry about it. That’s good news when you consider that by 2021, almost 70% of the French population will be using mobile devices to access the Internet. Moreover, this element is taken into account by Google to establish its ranking. Indeed, a site compatible on mobile will be preferred to a site that is not responsive.
How much does Jimdo cost?
Our review of Jimdo is coming to an end, and we had to talk about its prices, because this is a crucial element in the choice of a website editor. First of all, you should know that Jimdo has opted for a more competitive price positioning compared to its competitors with various offers and prices below the average ranging from 0€ to 39€ per month. All of these packages include high-quality web hosting.
By default, the subscriptions are based on one-year contracts. Here are the packages offered by Jimdo in 2021:
Play for free
Start at 9€ / month
Grow for 15€ / month
Click here to check more plans for you