- Review: Strikingly.com
- Rating: ★★★
- Published: 11 May 2019
table of contents
Disclosure
This is a professional review blog which gets compensated for the products reviewed by the companies who produce them. All of the products are tested thoroughly and high grades are received only by the best ones. I am an independent blogger and the reviews are done based on my own opinions.
introduction
Strikingly review. Strikingly is a high qualified website builder in the website building field, introduced in the year 2012. This builder enables customers with even meager experience to create websites easily and sticking to the latest trends. The sites created by Strikingly are mobile friendly and could be accessed anywhere at any time. Strikingly tries to get an approval score from the real-time users who comment on social media about their experiences on using Strikingly, further a sentiment analysis is performed by the crew who later classify the comments as positive and negative. This methodology of using sentiment analysis is making Strikingly – extremely user-friendly by meeting almost all the customer’s demands.
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how user-friendly is Strikingly
If you are looking out for a tool that is economically beneficial as well as user-friendly, Strikingly is your go-to tool. It is ideally preferred for creating websites for personal uses, small scale business, and e-commerce. As mentioned earlier, no much of coding language is required to access this tool. The features are so user-friendly that it mostly includes easy-to-use customized templates; classy designs and an easy technology called the drag and drop software. This feature facilitates to just drag and drop various options from the widgets present on the screen, thus, making it extremely easy. It hardly takes a time of 15 minutes to design a completely mobile friendly website when using Strikingly.
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DESIGN & ADDITIONAL FEATURES
Single page scrolling websites
There are many website building tools available in the market these days. To choose the right one is the tricky part. If you need a single page website where you could just scroll over the content, tool Strikingly is your ideal pick. This tool provides the feature to scroll over the content vertically, thus giving space for more content. This might not be applicable for high range e-commerce kind of portfolios, but it would be preferred in case of utilizing it for product launches, business cards, and presentations.
Normally website building requires a lot of HTML and CSS3 coding knowledge, but the use of this drag and drop feature in Strikingly is adding more value to the site. Such websites allow anyone to create an amazing website. In this platform, you can just drag and drop the element required for creating a visually appealing website without any programmer’s head. Once you have designed your website, all you have to do is “Publish” it. While publishing it, the code for it will be automatically generated back end and gets saved over.
Templates
The templates available with Strikingly are extremely simple and attractive. Though this was user-friendly, many customers do find it to be sleek and blunt. The templates were found to be easily accessible so that the user can play around with it. They were also completely responsive over mobile devices making it much easier for the users to play around. You have the freedom to switch over the template as many times you want, however, want, and the tool restructures the content as per the demand. This is a great advantage as there are few website builders in the market who completely reset your page when you change your template.
Strikingly has only about 25 templates with them which will be available in its library. This number is comparatively small when compared to highly established website builders like WordPress or Wix.
The template library set up has 6 partitions making it easy for the user. They are:
- Startup
- Portfolio
- Blog
- Business
- Personal
- Store
There are multiple options available in the category of business despite making you feel limited over the choices you have. The owners of the novel business do find it difficult to pick the ideal one for the business though due to this limitation. Despite being limited, all the templates can be modified right from their layout to color to design. You can switch patterns even while filling content without losing their content already used for your site. There is also no black canvas template. So, the premium account holders can just customize their header and footer as per their requirement.
Strikingly also has the feature to connect you with your LinkedIn profile. So, you would be able to access your personal and professional information directly from LinkedIn for both personalized and professional sites. This could be made possible with only a premium account with Strikingly.
With this Pro account facility, you could also add multiple pages for the one-page website you have designed using strikingly. You would be able to add additional pages of a blog, e-commerce functionality, etc.
The Editor on Strikingly
Once the template is selected, all you have to do is move on to the next step – the editor page. Here, you would be able to alter the layout from the template, as per your demands. You could not only edit the layout but also you would be able to edit, titles, buttons, font, background. In this editor part, you would also be able to hyperlink any resources, product details, ads and many other pages relevant to it.
Once you finalize your template you can “take a tour.” The editor has 3 sections to it:
- Styles
- Settings
- Sections.
Styles
This section helps you to change and schematize the color patterns in your page over the menu for navigation and background of the site. You will find a plethora of options for title fonts, heading, color, fonts.
If you have a logo to specify your page, you can upload it, and Strikingly will automatically generate color scheming patterns for your page. You also have the feature to add personalized animations which are available in the site, these animations also change over when you scroll down the page, making it more visually appealing.
Similarly, images could also be used in such a way that, when the website user hovers over his mouse, the image changes. This also makes your site visually attractive.
Settings
A major section of your site features could be edited by using the elements and features available in the settings option. Some of the options are listed below:
Basic Info
Using this option, you would be able to edit the information of your website like – site name, category (Startup Company or whether it’s your personal page or any business)
Domain
To get a domain for yourself, all you have to do is register a new user, or you can also connect with a domain which is existing already. You need to have a premium account to get upgraded and get your own domain name for $24.95/ month.
Sharing-info
After getting a domain would be sharing info. This tab facilitates you to include a favicon to the browser tab. Favicon is nothing but the logo representing your agency, added a button along with the browser’s tab.
You can also activate a feature known as the “Twitter card”. It notifies you when you get the message instantly over Twitter. You would also need to share an image which represents your company socially. This image would represent your site in social media.
Mobile Actions
You would be able to optimize your website more specifically for a mobile site under this tab. Be it the display feature, or by adding many add-ons like, calling, texting, using maps, and direct linkage to emails.
This feature is available only for a premium account and not for the basic plan.
Header and Footer
Your website will have both a mobile and a desktop version, so you would be able to distinguish which are the features that are to be hidden, and which are to be displayed at a time on any device.
Analytics
This tab provides you with all the insights that you would need to know about your site visitors, like how your visitors got to the website, their location, and also the site traffic.
Multiple pages
You may add to max out of about 20 pages. The links and URLs are automatically created; also you can organize these by adding a drop-down menu.
Legal
It is up to you to display or hide your specific terms and conditions. This legal action is mostly made available in the footer section.
Collaboration
Add along with your colleagues or friends in building and editing your site. But you would be the sole person in providing them access to it either completely or a certain number of pages.
Privacy
This feature is extremely important as it helps you in hiding a few personal information in the social media, in case you are not willing to display it over the search engines. Again, this feature is also available only for pro account holders.
Search engine optimization
There is an SEO checklist available on the site which helps you to channelize your web page to have good SEO content. Basically, this list ensures that you have made the best effort in your site to be pointed out by search engines. Some of its requirements in the checklist are given below:
- Customized domain
- Categories
- Favicon
- Site verified by Google
- Meta descriptions
Custom code
You are also allowed to have multiple third part integrations by which you can customize your header and footer. This feature is also available for a pro account holder only.
Services
Last but not the least; this is one of the best features of strikingly, the tie-up with Google Analytics. In the settings option, there is the “Services”, where you can just add your tracking number on Google and after that, you would start receiving information about your website visitors.
Strikingly Apps
You can choose a set of apps from the below-listed options by adding a new section in the editor. Most of these apps are free, while some might charge you like MailChimp, ECWID, and HTML:
- HTML (Available for Premium feature)
- MailChimp (Available Premium feature)
- Baidu Maps
- Google Form
- FaceBook Comments
- Google Maps
- SCRIBD
- Typeform
- SoundCloud
- EventBrite
- SlideShare
- Medium
- ECWID (Available Premium feature)
- PayPal
- Google Calendar
- Disqus
- WuFoo
Websites built with Strikingly
Websites built with Strikingly include:
- positivesolutionscounselingcenter.com
- penningsorchard.com
- ponga.com
- geostellar.com
- pamc.org.sg
- wags4kids.org
- xsplit.com
- genebenson.com
- philchalmers.com
- fohboh.com
- peabodystoga.com
- foresight.org
- whistlestop-antiques.com
- academy.fallschurcharts.org
- patsykensit.com
Find Out If Strikingly is Right for Your Business.
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Pros & Cons
THE PROS
- The strikingly mobile app allows users to be able to perform all functionalities of their website, and are available to be worked on any platform.
- For all their plans, be it the free one or the paid one, there is always customer support.
- It is extremely user-friendly.
- When it comes to choosing images, Strikingly has a huge repository of stock images from which you can choose. These are offered from Unsplash for free of cost.
THE CONS
- They are just providing online support and there is no phone support.
- Only a few SEO tools are available.
- The platform has only 28 templates to design your website.
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pricing & plans
Strikingly has 3 major plans to buy a domain, host it and then build your own website.
To get your own personalized domain, you have to buy either a limited plan or a pro plan or you can even buy a domain of the cost $24.95. In case you are planning to upgrade your plan, you would be getting free access to all the features for a time period of 14 days. But you would be asked for your credit card details for the formality sake as you will not be charged for your usage until day 14.
In case you are planning to buy a yearly plan, the price of the domain will be deducted from the overall annual price you pay finally.
There are multiple freebie options like there are a lot of free features, and there are even many features which would want you to purchase them. This process seemed highly transparent and had no trust issues. Users are also allowed to buy a non-branded domain name for which the cost is comparatively cheaper.
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support
You will normally receive a response for support via emails within a few hours of time frame. But Strikingly lacks phone support. This might also be a reason to give prompt email support by them. Also, you have the facility to live chat in case of support even while editing regarding any edit related queries.
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faq's
Can Strikingly be used to build an e-commerce store site?
Strikingly does offer e-commerce structures, but it does not include the features that are required to build a full-fledged online store. It will work well to sell a few kinds of stuff though.
Do Strikingly have plans that include Hosting services?
Yes! All plans offered in this include full-fledged hosting services. You won’t have much control over your hosting though, but for a regular one-page site, there shouldn’t be any problem. Moreover, they have included almost all the features that they want from a host, including HTTPS.
Does Strikingly give a free trial period?
Yes! They give a free trial period of 14 days. In addition to this, they also offer a free plan with a few limited features. So, you could build your site for free with basic features and later you could also upgrade your plan to get all the features.
Can a user log in to SXL with their Strikingly account? (Valid for Chinese customers)
No, in order to gain access to it, you have to sign up with a new account with SXL. Apparently, Strikingly and SXL systems are not interconnected with each other, neither are their payment systems. You will just need a mobile number to sign up for a new SXL account.
Can I use my domain on SXL’s site? (Valid for Chinese customers)
If your domain is a registered one, then yes. In case it’s not, then you have to first register it, and then it should be applied for ICP. And then connect with the China server.
Guidance for applying the ICP Filing? (Valid for Chinese customers)
Strikingly provides every paid site with an ICP Filing registration number for free. But this information has to be filled privately as it has a lot of sensitive personal information. Furthermore, information on this is provided in Alibaba cloud.
How does your site vary depending on the type of browsers you use?
There might be little discrepancies on the site when used along with different browsers. It is quite normal as each browser uses different technology. Strikingly would recommend you to enable your JavaScript while viewing and editing your site to avoid these differences.
What is the ideal browser for using Strikingly?
The ideal one to use Strikingly is any latest web browser. The site may not be displayed properly if you are using any older versions. Some of the browsers which support are listed below:
- Google Chrome (PC, Mac, and Linux)
- Firefox (PC, Mac, and Linux)
- Safari for Mac
- Microsoft Edge
- Internet Explorer (version 11 and above)
- Android Browser (version 4 and above)
All the background images should be sized in such a way that they could fit a varied sized screen. So, some parts of the background get cropped based upon the screen size. If you are viewing your site on a monitor screen, the top and bottom parts of the image will get cropped. While viewing on the Portrait mode of the phone the side parts of the image might get cropped. The most optimized background image size should range between – 1600 x 900 px.
Why Can’t I delete sections?
Before you could delete a section, a dialogue or a pop-up box comes over to confirm whether you want to delete the section. Some time these pop-ups might be disabled by us on Google to prevent ads. This causes the delete sections functionality to not work properly. In this case, the site editor will also not respond.
Can two editors work on the same website at the same time using different tabs and different browsers?
The tool has an auto-save functionality enabled, so in case you are working on 2 different tabs simultaneously, we would recommend you to close one as this would confuse the system.
How long will it take me to finish ICP Filing?
It normally takes 3 to 20 working days. You will not be able to access your site during this time.
The user doesn’t hold a company in China can they still create sites with SXL?
Yes, you can create your own website in SXL. But still, a business license is a must if there are features which include Wechat Pay or Alipay.
What does the site transfer doesn’t include?
Site transfer does not include the items mentioned below:
- Account information
- Membership plan
- Custom domain
- Background Videos
- Images (It will still be connected to Strikingly server)
- Documents (It will still be connected to Strikingly server)
- Simple Store Content
- Simple Blog Content
- App Store & HTML Content
- Social Feed Content
- Social Media Content
I’m trying to upload a PDF file but it’s not happening. What do I do?
When users come across error messages while uploading files, Chances are, there is plug-ins or extensions on the browser that’s initiating this or maybe the file is too large.
How do I prevent this error?
Look for the below-mentioned criteria:
- Check if the file size is less than 10 MB first.
- Everyone can upload up to 300MB sized for all sites.
- Common file extensions that are supported are – txt, pdf, doc, xls, ppt, pages, key, numbers, wps.
- Try to upload the file using an alternative browser or Incognito methodology that is CTRL + Shift + N for Chrome, Private browsing by CTRL + Shift + P for Mozilla Firefox.
- Deactivate the plug-ins or any extensions if even private browsing did not work out well.
- Check your internet connectivity.
- Stop having many site editors open.
In case any assistance is needed, contact them online support@strikingly.com or chat with them.
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Conclusion
Why to go for Strikingly? On a whole, this package is highly recommended to use for building a website, as it ensures every penny you would spend on it is worth a fortune. Strikingly is a good website builder that does not over-do its job. If you are looking for some builder who would just do your job at an easy and less time consuming, especially for newbies, Strikingly is your go-to place. This helps your site to be minimalistic and classy. Learning with this builder also helps you to explore further more on various options available and makes your site more resourceful.