GoDaddy’s WordPress Feature Set Is Pretty Decent
I have to say that GoDaddy’s features, both general and WordPress-related, are pretty darned good, especially for the price. The domain giant has struck a good balance between loading its plans up with extras and keeping things relatively simple.
For my test, I went with the Basic plan, which includes:
- 1 website – this means you can only attach one domain
- 30GB storage
- Website backup protection with 1-click restore
- Automatic daily malware scans
- Free domain – only if you pay for more than a year, but the domain is free for your initial term
- Free business email for the first year
- Free SSL certificate
For the price, that’s a respectable offering right there. Things get even more interesting when you bring the following features into play:
The WordPress Plans Are Actually Semi-managed
Semi-managed means that a lot of things are done for you, but by automated tools. By and large, GoDaddy’s support staff won’t get involved unless you ask them to. The management is relegated to simple things, like automatic core WordPress updates and plugin updates. Still, that’s a lot of stuff you mostly don’t have to worry about.
Unless, of course, something goes wrong.
That’s when you can get support involved, and unless you’re doing something really complex with WordPress, it’s almost like having someone manage your site for you. You’ll still have to put in your own content and choose your own theme, though. The installation wizard literally walks you through the set up of your site, which is great if you want a totally hands-off set up.
All Plans Come with Premium WordPress Plugins
GoDaddy has chosen to expand the default WordPress by including a fair number of extra plugins from the get-go. Some of these are free, some are paid, but they’re all good. Maybe not essential to the WordPress experience, but good.
First up is CoBlocks, a free plugin that adds a bunch of predesigned content elements to WordPress’ posts and page editor. It includes things like hero blocks, pricing tables, Click to Tweet buttons, extra image gallery styles, and more.
Next is Gravity Forms, one of the best paid form plugins out there. It allows you to make just about any kind of form you want without coding it yourself: contact forms, newsletter forms, surveys, multi-page forms, and more. It has form validation, spam protection, and pretty much everything else you’ll need.
Sucuri Security is designed to help you with auditing your security, scanning for malware, and generally hardening your site against attack.
WP101 Video Tutorials is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a plugin that delivers WordPress tutorials right to your WordPress dashboard/admin area. Learn WordPress without ever leaving WordPress.
Poynt is GoDaddy’s own WooCommerce payment processing plugin, which allows you to accept credit and debit card payments and get the funds the next business day.
Now, one downside: The WordPress plans are advertised as coming with an SEO plugin. On GoDaddy’s basic plan, I saw no such thing. It just wasn’t there.
There Are Daily Backups to Ease Your Mind
I cannot sing enough praises to any host that includes daily backups in its plans. You can also create backups manually, and all backups are kept for 90 days. This is actually longer than many hosts will provide, and most don’t have an option for daily backups at all.
I’m so serious about this, I always list this as one of the primary features whenever I review a site that includes it. Embrace the backups. Love the backups. Backup the backups. It’s not just nerd stuff, it’s good business.
To be fair, I’m exactly the kind of guy who saves his work every 30 seconds or so, even when the apps I’m using autosave everything I do.
There Are (More) Malware Scanning/Removal Tools
Sucuri Security is only part of the equation when it comes to security. GoDaddy has its own tools that are designed to keep your site free of anything that would attack it or your users. A lot of hosting companies leave security up to the user (beyond a basic firewall, perhaps), so this is a nice touch.
