GoDaddy has launched Websites + Marketing to the South African market, pairing a drag-and-drop website builder with a suite of marketing tools designed to help small businesses with little to no marketing know-how reach new customers.
“Website builders are enabling or allowing entrepreneurs to get online in an easier way by themselves,” says Selina Bieber, regional director for Turkey and the MENA at GoDaddy, during a recent visit to Johannesburg. “Getting an online space has a stigma of having to get professionals for help or having to overcome technical struggles to get a website working. After this, what’s next on their evolutionary journey for them? Before Websites + Marketing, that bridge didn’t exist.”
These features help entrepreneurs move from a platform where many South Africans start: social media. A website is the next logical step for entrepreneurs once they reach scale, where they ask the question: “What should I do next to achieve my goals?”
“There’s a step before a website, that is people starting off on social media,” says Bieber. “For example, one of our customers, Konfetti Love, has a very successful business. It’s an event planning business that she ran on Instagram, and then built a website with GoDaddy with the website builder platform. She was at the point where she needed to take this step. We’re here to show these entrepreneurs that it’s possible to take the next step, and we understand it’s still difficult, which is why we offer a little bit of guidance by integrating what they already have. This creates something that’s more meaningful that they own, and can track and control.
“When you look at it from a small business perspective, the platform is intuitive. So entrepreneurs can go to your website and it tells you ‘90% of your profile is complete’, like on LinkedIn. The thought process that accompanies the users is what makes Websites + Marketing so strong. So it works on the entire spectrum of website owners, whether they’re established or just starting. As GoDaddy, we can help you with the next step in your journey online, and we shouldn’t think of it just as a website. This is actually talking about an online presence. Looking at our entry into the local market, we’ve obviously been around for years in terms of having customers from all over the world, but when we look serving this market specifically, we’ve really tried to connect with the local market and the local customers.”
The roots of the solution are based open source software, to encourage rapid growth of the platform through various developers who can contribute freely.
“We believe in an open environment, not a closed environment,” says Arnold Blinn, Chief Product Architect at GoDaddy. “That’s why we encourage platforms like WordPress, because they are diverse and open source. As we leverage open source, we contribute back to open source. We think Websites + Marketing can also play in that play in that game, so we’re figuring out how to do that, and are committed to doing it.
“The platform makes sure that an entrepreneur’s online presence is available everywhere. We know online presence is more than your website. It’s your Facebook page and your Instagram. It’s also the reviews on review websites, and even your own website. That’s bridging this gap to social. It works hand-in-hand with a growth strategy, and our goal is to keep businesses online as they grow.”
Read more about the added offerings of Websites + Marketing.
The Websites + Marketing service includes GoDaddy Insight, which delivers recommendations powered by anonymised data from millions of websites, and gives small businesses an action plan powered by data science, to find new customers and engage more deeply with existing ones.
Stefano Maruzzi, GoDaddy vice president in the EMEA region, says: “By integrating a website builder with marketing tools, our solution not only enables entrepreneurs and small business owners to build a great-looking website, but also to dynamically distribute their website content where it matters. GoDaddy Websites + Marketing takes the guesswork and heavy lifting out of building and managing a digital presence, so that our customers can focus on running their business.”
Consistency is key to creating a polished, professional site, so the builder helps ensure consistent colour theme across the website. Entrepreneurs can also keep their websites protected and boost their search engine ranking by installing SSL Certificates.
Websites + Marketing includes integrations with some of the world’s largest social platforms to make it possible for small businesses to connect with more customers. It syncs with Facebook, Instagram and Google My Business, enabling entrepreneurs to respond to customer reviews from within the platform. This also makes it convenient to keep top social media platforms updated with current information.
Intuitive SEO and email marketing tools ensure small businesses are visible and connected with customers, from Google search results to customers’ inboxes, without a huge time investment.