Most web site builders concentrate on ease of use and ease – briefly, delivering a service that even the least technical residence person can deal with. And that is not essentially a nasty factor, but it surely might depart skilled customers questioning if the builder has the facility they really want.
Voog takes a barely totally different method. It claims to be easy and easy, however the web site additionally highlights its many professional customers: companies, builders, designers and extra.
This is not only a advertising and marketing ploy. The baseline Starter plan has a number of restrictions (30 pages most, 2GB storage), however nothing main, and in any other case it delivers all of the core options you want: responsive templates, drag-and-drop modifying, customized area help, and SSL safety.
There are just a few templates, however they give the impression of being higher than most (examine them out here), and are totally customizable.
Skilled extras embody help for as much as three web site languages, full entry to CSS and HTML, an API and developer instruments for in-depth customization, and a restricted on-line retailer. This entry-level plan is pretty priced at €6 (£5.30, $6.60) a month, paid yearly, though when you do not want the high-end options, there are higher offers available elsewhere.
The Plus account provides you 10GB of storage, limitless pages and a extra highly effective on-line retailer. A database instrument helps you construct dynamic content material, like product catalogues – a really uncommon further – and there is a customized area thrown in. The €10 (£eight.80, $11) value seems to be like good worth when you’ll use the shop and database capabilities.
The Premium account drops all useful resource limits, contains precedence help and a customized SSL certificates, and has no gross sales transaction charges to your internet retailer. That is a good specification, but it surely may look just a little costly at €39 (£34.35, $42.90) a month, paid yearly.
There isn’t any free plan, however Voog does offer you a free 30-day trial to pattern the service, no bank card particulars required.
Getting began
Beginning out with Voog is so simple as selecting a template, handing over your electronic mail handle, and selecting a subdomain to your web site, like yourchoice.voog.com (it’s also possible to publish to a different area of your individual).
The corporate goes on to ask to your identify and telephone quantity, however click on the Skip button and the request disappears, a minimum of for now.
Your chosen template is then displayed in one of the light-weight and unobtrusive editors we have ever seen, with an interface so minimalist it took us a second to note it in any respect. There isn’t any cumbersome sidebar or different intimidating litter, only a tiny menu bar on the backside of the display screen which pops as much as reveal its controls.
An non-compulsory tour walks you thru the modifying fundamentals. It is very simple – little greater than a transferring tooltip which tells you extra about numerous icons and buttons – however nonetheless manages to cowl the core web site creation steps. Not unhealthy for one thing which takes solely a minute or two to learn.
The Settings menu could be extra fascinating to skilled customers, because it’s completely filled with neat and strange options.
You’ll be able to view your Sitemap.xml file, for example. Set a customized Robots.txt file. Add your individual Favicon. Combine with Google Webmaster Instruments, or insert Google Analytics or the code for different providers into your pages.
Our favourite characteristic gives a easy solution to work on the location with others. You are in a position to ship invites to buddies or colleagues and provides them modifying rights over the undertaking, permitting groups to collaborate in a safe approach (no extra sharing of passwords). This may very well be a really interesting characteristic for a lot of enterprise customers, and it isn’t one you will usually discover elsewhere.
Editor
The Voog editor does its finest to remain out of your approach, a welcome method which brings every kind of advantages. There are not any sophisticated menus to confuse novices, no obese toolbars hogging useful display screen real-estate, and you may browse your template a lot as if it was a completed web site. Clicking a menu hyperlink would not offer you fifty navigation choices, for example – it simply takes you to the linked web page.
Even while you begin exploring the interface, it stays very compact. Tapping the Add button on the backside of the display screen shows small icons for the eight widgets which you can add to a web page: a textual content field, picture gallery, video, map, kind, social bar, a Purchase button, and a normal Embed field.
That is much more primary than a number of the big-name competitors. Wix has a number of galleries, buttons, frames, kinds and extra, all displayed with thumbnail previews that will help you discover what you want. Voog is rather more stripped-back and leaves you to do extra tweaking and customization to attain the results you want.
The editor provides you little management over format. Objects could be positioned above or beneath one another, however you possibly can’t simply add web page degree columns to rearrange them side-by-side. You’ll be able to’t drag objects to particular pixel positions, both – you are largely restricted to aligning them to the left, proper or centre of their container, and generally you possibly can’t even do this.
Workflow is not all the time intuitive. There isn’t any picture management, for example: so as to add a single picture you have to place it in a textual content field. And you may’t delete a management by deciding on it and urgent Del – as a substitute you have to click on and drag, then drop it into the trash can which all of the sudden seems bottom-right.
Voog would not have a world Undo choice, sadly. Take some main motion, like deleting a management, and you will be requested if you would like to undo it. However until you say sure, you will not be capable to reverse your steps later, and there isn’t any assured Undo for lesser adjustments.
There’s nonetheless actual energy right here. Click on inside a textual content field, for example, and a prolonged toolbar seems. This does not simply have the standard font dimension, fashion and alignment choices – you possibly can change colours, use bulleted or numbered lists, insert tables, maps or movies, even edit the HTML supply to customise the impact. It is a succesful phrase processor, all by itself.
Voog’s Embed field is one other all-purpose spotlight. Paste in a hyperlink for a tweet, a YouTube video or different dynamic content material from a lot of the huge providers and it will be embedded in your web page.
The Voog kind opens with three containers to your identify, electronic mail and message, however you possibly can change these, outline an anticipated format (electronic mail handle, internet URL), mark a area as required, and extra. It is extra customizable than it seems to be.
There’s speedy help for a number of languages. In a number of seconds you possibly can arrange your web site to, for instance, help English, French and German. These choices can be found from a menu, or you possibly can even have the location routinely detect the language from the customer’s location.
It is a neat thought which works effectively, though it additionally has an enormous catch: add a brand new language and also you begin with a replica of the web site template, not a clone of your current web site. Which means it’s important to rebuild the location by including no matter textual content, photos and different elements you have used to date.
There’s quite a bit to love right here, however the core points stay. Nonetheless good some options could be, Voog’s editor would not provide as many choices and widgets because the main web site builders, and the performance you get is not all the time straightforward to make use of.
Media
Voog presents solely the naked minimal of media help: single photos, picture galleries, movies, and the power to embed media from third-party sources. There isn’t any native media participant, no direct audio help and no doc viewer. There’s additionally a restrict of 50MB on the dimensions of recordsdata you possibly can add, which implies you are not going to have the ability to host movies of any important size in your Voog web site.
It is a little higher than it sounds. Voog could solely have a single picture gallery management, for example, but it surely has loads of choices. Your photos can seem in grids, partitions, a slider or a customized ‘squares’ view, with full-screen viewing when you want it, and management over settings just like the slider delay.
The service additionally scores with its capability to prepare your media through the Recordsdata space. You’ll be able to simply add recordsdata of any kind and optionally arrange them into Collections, making it easier to seek out them later. As soon as they’re saved in Recordsdata you possibly can then use your media on a number of pages or web sites with out having to add them every time.
As we talked about earlier, Voog’s media operations aren’t all the time easy. Okay, we perceive the builders wished to create a minimalist interface, however does it actually make sense to count on customers so as to add a textual content field earlier than they will insert a picture?
Voog has a definite lack of media tweaks and customizations, too. Whereas different providers boast about their built-in picture editors and filters, Voog cannot do rather more than set an overlay and background shade, add a caption or assign a hyperlink.
Put all of it collectively and Voog does an inexpensive job of masking the multimedia fundamentals, however we suspect many customers shall be left wanting extra.
Running a blog
Web site builders generally battle with running a blog, and even primary duties like including a brand new put up can take some work. For instance, in Wix you have to click on Weblog > Add a New Weblog Publish, then work your approach by a brand new full-screen dialog field to arrange the put up accurately.
Voog avoids all that within the easiest of how. As soon as you have chosen so as to add a brand new put up, you simply enter your content material on the web page the place it will likely be displayed. There are containers to your title, an excerpt, physique copy, tags and extra, and you may full them identical to another internet web page component.
Voog’s subtle textual content management provides you loads of choices, as we talked about earlier. You’ll be able to set textual content font, types and alignment, enter lists, insert tables, photos, movies, maps and extra.
If that is not sufficient, you are ready so as to add any of the elements you possibly can embody on a daily Voog internet web page: galleries, kinds, social buttons and extra.
As with the remainder of Voog, the weblog is distinctly quick on extras. You’ll be able to’t arrange posts into classes, schedule their launch, restrict the variety of feedback, shut them after a time frame or do the rest even faintly superior. However the system is undeniably easy to make use of, and if you’d like a primary weblog with the minimal of problem, it may very well be a sensible alternative.
E-commerce
Voog wasn’t actually constructed for e-commerce, and though you possibly can add an online retailer, it feels a extra cumbersome and awkward course of than with many web site builders.
The support pages clarify which you can begin promoting as soon as you have configured a number of key settings, for example, however that is on the most elementary degree – finest for including a number of merchandise solely. It is nothing just like the pre-built retailer elements you will get with Wix and a few others.
Ranging from an online retailer template provides you the power to create product pages and arrange them by class, however that is hardly handy, and there are solely 5 retailer templates to select from.
Supported cost suppliers appear to be solely PayPal and MakeCommerce, and the web site asks you to contact help to allow them to your web site, which is hardly handy. Remember that you will pay an additional three% transaction charge, on high of any cost supplier cost, until you go for the most costly Premium account.
There are some important limits. There isn’t any direct help for promoting digital merchandise, bodily merchandise cannot be given weights, and you may’t arrange customized transport or tax guidelines to any important degree.
As with different Voog modules, the shop does have some helpful talents. You’ll be able to outline product variations (dimension, shade), arrange low cost codes, handle product inventories in a primary approach, use a number of transport strategies, and extra. It is not a nasty system, but it surely won’t be fairly ok for demanding customers.
Assist
Assist is rarely distant on Voog, not least due to an unusually full Assist menu on the bottom-right of most Voog screens.
The menu provides you speedy entry to a primary Voog tour, for example. There is a hyperlink to the FAQ, and the Voog Fb web page. Begin typing within the search field and matching articles seem instantly. If all else fails, there is a field the place you possibly can enter a query and ship it to Voog help with a click on.
The standard of this content material is just a little combined. The FAQ web page lists simply 4 subjects, and a kind of is concentrated on signing up. The remainder of the knowledgebase has fairly a number of genuinely helpful articles, and these will usually level you in the proper route. However we additionally discovered some occasional points with their formatting, so, for instance, hyperlinks in a single web page we seen had been clickable in a single browser, however not in one other.
Nonetheless, we discovered the help web site often offered sufficient info to assist remedy our issues. If help is essential to you, otherwise you simply need to higher perceive how Voog works, try the support site for your self before you purchase.
Remaining verdict
Voog’s quirky interface and lack of web site widgets and integrations imply it isn’t the only option for novices. But when you realize what you are doing, Voog’s low-level and developer-oriented options could enchantment, and it is definitely value taking the free trial.