When time is of the essence, a 1-click solution is what you need. Here’s how we set up a website in no time.

For your business, and these automated builders will use the information provided in your business page to create a customised website, without any hassle or haggling.f you’re not down with the idea of learning a whole new bunch of technologies just to be able set up a website for your business, there are plenty of alternatives that will let you do the same without any intervention from your side. All you’ll be need is a Facebook page

We’ll demonstrate how anyone with a Facebook business page can create a customized website using a new but popular website builder, www.impress. ly. An alternative to impress.ly would be www.dudamobile.com. However, Impress.ly has stood out in this field, despite being a newcomer,  because     of its unique focus on creating websites functionally equivalent to native mobile apps. Considering how important responsive websites are in today’s time, this approach helps impress.ly stand out in the crowd.

After clicking on the “Getting Started” button on impress.ly’s homescreen, you’ll be presented with the choice of entering your business’ Facebook page name, or going ahead with a custom build in case your business doesn’t have a Facebook page. Since we’retryingtodemonstrateaone-clicksetupinthis article, we’ll go with the former option. However, the latter is just as simple, and needs you to give out only a few lines of basic information regarding your business.

On entering your Facebook page’s name, you’ll see a drop down menu with a list of business’ having pages on Facebook. Choose yours, following which you’ll see a screen like this. After finding and choosing your business from the drop-down menu, you’ll be asked if you are interested in selling products through your web- site or not.

To store or not to store?

The only point of choosing either option is to allow the builder to create additional pages for a store. If you don’t intend to sell merchandise through your webpage and need it purely for promotional purposes, impress.ly works just as well.

I decided to go ahead with the option of having a store on my website. You’ll now come across this page, which basically indicates all the informa- tion impress.ly is pulling off of your Facebook page. Photos, videos, ratings, location and timing related information, impress. ly takes care of it all.

Your website is now ready.

Choose a skin

After being able to choose from a bunch of 10 skins, you’ll be presented with a pre-publishing preview of what your website will turn out to be on desktop, tablet and mobile devices. Toggle between the three views by clicking on the top three device buttons in the top right corner of the page. You can even check how the website will respond to different gestures. But be warned in advance that the skins presented to you aren’t very innovative nor very different from one another. But then again, Impress.ly is new, and we’re hoping they’ll add a few more to the list of skins, or atleast allow users to pay for better options.

Click on the continue button and you’ll move on to the screen where you can customise all your content and presentation styles.

Content editor

On this screen, you can see the variety of options available to customise your content. Change your content, add and remove details – you can pretty much make a whole host of changes to your website, allowing it to feel distinct from your Facebook business page. And if you feel no compulsion to set your website apart from its Facebook counterpart, you can go that way as well.

The “Edit Content” pane will allow you to make changes to each sec- tion that will be available on your webpage – the “About” section, your blog, and it allows you to manage links to other social media avenues such as your Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest page and even provides an RSS reader. You  can add and remove pictures on your website, making   it distinct from your FB Business page. Customize your store – right from the styling to the products you’re selling. Impress.ly really manages to make things a breeze, and its easy and intuitive user interface sets it apart from its competitors.

The “Edit Style” button directs you to the style customiser, that will let you change your navigation layout, font styles and colour and a whole other host of stylistic aspects.

You can start by changing your navigation pane to suit your tastes. Again, all the options provided to you are pretty standard, so don’t go looking for something out of the world. Then there’s the standard options for changing the background picture, which is by default, your business’ Facebook page’s cover picture, the colour scheme your website uses, the font colours, the header and title of your page.

If you go to your settings, you’ll be able to change the currency using which your store operates, add more members to your website’s maintenance team and even use SEO tracking, which is inbuilt into your page during the time of creation itself.

The “Manage Store” option presents you with a slew of options to create a fully-functional store. You can keep track of orders placed, choose to offer discounts and customise your payment provider. While this might not be a complete management solution, it’s surely a great alternative for a first- timer, and reduces the headache that would come with setting up a website from scratch, with a store to boot as well.

 

All in all, you get the whole package with impress.ly, though the fact that this website builder hasn’t been on the market for very long means it hasn’t rolled out a whole list of features yet.

What does help Impress.ly stand out in the crowd is that they provide an app that gives you full mobile editing ability. It’s as easy to use as the desktop editor, if not easier. It’s a step forward for the industry. Moreover, the fact that the generated website follows mobile-first principles means that they’re in it for the long haul, especially after Google has started pushing up websites with responsive and mobile websites higher up in their search results.

One downside to Impress.ly is its “distinct” pricing structure. You can build your site while exploring the options and features and not worry about payment. Only when you go to publish your site will you be required to sign up for a paid plan. While this means Impress.ly offers no true free plan (as many other site builders do) you’ll at least be able to test all the style options and features without entering your credit card info.

There are other alternatives to impress.ly, and for anyone looking for a one-click setup with minimal hassles, this is the perfect gateway to your own functional website.