Review: Infinite.ly Small Biz Plan - Cebu X-Geeks

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Monday, October 21, 2013

Review: Infinite.ly Small Biz Plan

I was recently given a chance to try out a product by Philippine startup Infinite.ly, specifically their Small Biz plan which promises to help you launch a great-looking website in seconds complete with a mobile version and a domain name with little or no technical know how for only PHP 1,600 per year using Infinite.ly's own page builder.

To open an account with them, you need to first create a subdomain under the infinite.ly domain. What's nice about this company is you can try their service first before asking you to register or make a purchase.


Infinite.ly homepage


Theme selection

Next, you will be asked on what type of page you would like to build. Infinite.ly offers predefined templates depending on the kind of website you want to build which you can customize later on. For more advanced users, you can also select "Freeform" and start from scratch. Give it a few seconds for your website to be created and once you see the prompt, visit your newly created website and customize it.

Here's my in-depth review of their service.

What I love about it...

>> Drag-N-Drop interface

Their page builder is so easy and fun to use. If you want to add an image, you just select the appropriate option and position the image anywhere you want it and if you want to make its area bigger or smaller, just select the image then drag to your ideal dimension.

The same goes for videos, texts, and other design elements for your web page. It is as if you are using MS Word, only better and with the right amount of creativity, you can easily create a professional looking website with zero programming knowledge.


Dashboard

>> Easy integration with Google Analytics and PayPal donate

Infinite.ly has its own "Reports" application that gives you daily report on the number of visitors coming to your site but it's nothing fancy. For those who want more in depth analytics, you can easily track that by simply adding your GA publisher ID on the settings section of your Infinite.ly dashboard.

If you want to ask your visitors for donation via PayPal, again, you simply add your PayPal associated email address on the settings section. The donate button can be placed anywhere on your website using the drag-n-drop design interface.

Personally, I haven't used these features yet for my website is barely finished. However, it's good to know that these options are readily available.

>> Advanced settings control for widgets

Do you want to add a box? Do you want it's edges curved? How curved? What color would the box be? Filled or just an outline? Do you want to adjust the opacity level?

These are just examples of the things you can control when you add widgets or elements to your page. You don't have to be an expert when adjusting these settings. Just play around and have fun using the application for the widget will automatically refresh it's design according to your selected options.

>> Mobile site ready and easy Facebook page integration.

With the rising number of smartphone users, it makes sense to make sure that your website is mobile friendly. With Infinite.ly, you can easily create a mobile version of your site. Also, they makes it easy for you to add a specific section of your website to your Facebook page. This would be very useful in highlighting your products, services and/or promotions on Facebook and drive traffic to your site.

>> Flexibility

The design possibility is endless. You can easily change your website's layout without having to pay for a web designer each time. Your website can be as simple as an event landing page, a profile page with streams of updates from your social media accounts like Facebook and Twitter or you can make it as your blog. It can also be a static website for your business consisting of three to five pages, or a static website with a dedicated news or blog section.

Wishlist...

Design wise, Infinite.ly's application is very intuitive and promising. However, while using it, I found several flaws and there are things I want done that the application currently do not support. I hope some, if not all, of these issues I have will be taken cared of in the future, especially if they want to attract bloggers to switch to their service.
  • Embed YouTube videos on a blog post. 
  • Option to resize images on a blog post. 
  • Add a blog post "preview" option. 
  • RSS feed. 
  • Ability to post links to recently published blog posts on other pages (e.g. homepage) via a dedicated widget. 
  • Customize links on an image in a slide show. 
  • Ability to disable or enable the image pop-up for the Gallery widget. 
  • Add more predefined templates to give idea or inspiration to its users. 
  • Improve the "Stream" widget's design. (I find it ugly as of the moment.) 
  • Sub menus for the navigation. 
  • More up-to-date images. (Some of the royalty-free images looked really old as if they were takes ages ago.) 
  • Remove the homepage redirect. Currently, my page URL is at http://cebumusicscene.com/, however, it redirects to http://cebumusicscene.com/#/home since I have created multiple pages. This might become an issue for some user's so this better be fixed. Personally, I hate it. 
The Verdict...

I might have listed quite a long list of currently unsupported features but that's just me being picky. Overall, all the necessary features needed to come up with a decent website is already there and I would still recommend Infinite.ly's Small Biz Plan to others especially those non-techie users looking to have a simple website and be hands-on with its design. For the curious, you can go ahead and get an Infinite.ly subdomain now and try their page builder for free.

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