Duda is known by virtually anyone who has ever been online. The web service is truly revolutionary and claims to have helped transform some 5 million websites into mobile optimized designs. It is an out of the box solution that doesn’t need much intervention at all. In fact, their interface can build a website for you.
However, Duda is more than just about converting sites into mobile friendly ones. They also offer a very good website builder, which allows you to create mobile optimized sites that fit on all screens. Basically, you can create a brand new website that looks good and works on all devices with almost no skills. This website builder is known as DudaOne and is perfect for small to medium sized enterprises. It was founded in 2010 by Amir Glatt and Itai Sadan, who named it after ‘The Dude’ from The Big Lebowksi. From their headquarters in Palo Alto, the company was listed #185 on the Inc 500 list of fastest growing companies in 2014. Their initial offering was DudaMobile, for mobile use only, followed by Duda, which converted to mobile, and, finally, DudaOne, a full responsive site builder. So what makes this such a great tool?
Pros of DudaOne
- DudaOne has received an incredibly large number of positive reviews from its many customers.
- It offers fantastic mobile responsiveness.
- You get very deep analysis of your traffic.
- It offers amazing features.
- The ecommerce settings are really good.
- The SEO (search engine optimization) options are excellent as well.
Cons of DudaOne
- The site has no portability.
- It has a slow editor.
- There are occasional glitches.
- Customer service can be hit and miss.
DudaOne’s Features
DudaOne offers a full WYSIWYG editing mode that allows you to simply drag and drop onto your design. You don’t have to have any coding experience, therefore. You can also change your site depending on the user, including tablets, smartphones, and so on. There are numerous features suitable only for mobile, and these are designed to make sure your visitors become paying customers. These include things such as:
- Custom mobile coupons
- Locations
- Click to call
If you are quite techy, you can enter the Developer Mode which allows you to change the CSS and HTML code of your site for further customization. Duda offers inSite, which is a truly unique smart tool. This allows a webmaster to create unique content and ensure that it is delivered only to site visitors who meet certain parameters. These parameters include:
- The geographical location
- The time of day
- The device that is used for access
You can also create custom inSite triggers if you want.
DudaOne is 100% cloud based. This means all you need to use it is an idea, an up to date browser, and a computer. The interface is pretty similar to that used by other website builders, including things such as undo/redo, account upgrades, publishing, saving, etc. However, it adds a lot of features that allow you to truly fine tune your website. These include:
- The design editor, which allows you to change every element of your site, including the color palettes. You can customize your text, change your headings, adjust the navigation, the buttons, what happens when someone hovers on the buttons, background images, and more. There are very few website editors that offer this amount of customization options, particularly with this ease of use.
- You can add elements very easily, dragging and dropping them where you want.
- The undo/redo buttons allow you to quickly correct mistakes, or look through before and after settings.
- It comes with a preview mode, so you will know exactly what your visitors see on mobile devices, tablets, computers, or all at the same time. You can also edit each of these three individual views.
- It comes with a basic blogging platform, where you can change the layout and save backups of your posts. However, you cannot add videos to the blog, which makes it a bit limited.
- You get access to the image editor that allows you to edit any pictures you upload. It is a rudimentary editor, but it’s better than nothing.
- It comes with the aforementioned inSite, which is perfect for those who have a little bit more experience in building websites and who know coding, or who have a business in which different visitors should be linked to specific actions. And while this a highly advanced feature that offers adaptability and dynamism above and beyond what others offer, it is not too complex to get to grips with. What is truly unique, however, is that DudaOne even gives the inSite feature to its free customers.
- You can include a contact form, which you can customize at every level. You get to decide how many fields should be included, with a choice of ten different types available to you. Few website builders include contact forms as standard and those who do often don’t allow you to make them look the way you want to.
- Unfortunately and strangely, there is no mobile editor for DudaOne, considering how they have such a strong focus on responsiveness. At the time of this writing, there is a lot of speculation about whether or not the company will soon create a mobile editor. It seems that it would be the next logical step. That said, although you can’t edit your site from a mobile device, you can edit your site so that it looks good on a mobile device, which is really more important.
DudaOne Templates
Once you’re in, you will have access to 67 different templates, each of which is mobile responsive. There are no separate categories, with the exception of ‘Restaurant’. However, browsing through them, it is easy to see how they would suit industries such as travel, photography, fitness, dental, and medical. You can preview each template in mobile, tablet, and desktop configuration as well.
The templates on offer vary from completely blank to very modern. All you have to do is choose the one you like, and the content of your site will automatically be swapped over. This means that you can change the layout of your site if you want to as well. When you search through the templates, you will also be shown how it looks on each of the three devices.
The templates, for many, compare to those offered by some of the world’s most famous (and expensive) website editors. While there are ‘only’ 67 to choose from, each of them are pretty and crisp, well above the average. Furthermore, you can customize each one and they are all mobile responsive.
App market
There is no app store to choose from with DudaOne, unfortunately, as they do not integrate any third party apps. However, they do offer a number of Google features, including Google Analytics and Google Maps, as well as a WordPress feed, YouTube video play, vCita online schedule, Disqus comments, PayPal integration, OpenTable restaurant reservations, and Yelp Integration. Additionally, they have all the necessary social media tools. However, that is it in terms of apps, as they expect you to use inSite instead, which is a Duda service.
eCommerce
You have access to a really good ecommerce service, and even free users can access it, although they can only sell ten items. This is rare in the world of website builders, who generally ask for big money if someone wants to create an ecommerce store. Hence, many people like to go to DudaOne, as it allows them to experiment a bit and find out whether ecommerce is for them or not.
The ecommerce setup comes with a really thorough and helpful walkthrough, where every item is discussed. It goes into detail about the payment and shipping options and, once you have gone through the walkthrough, you should be ready to create an ecommerce site that works and looks good. If you follow their instructions, you will end up with someone attractive and functional. Furthermore, you can sell both digital and physical goods, which is also quite unique. You will be hard to find something as good as this, particularly considering it is a free feature.
The DudaOne ecommerce feature is very thorough as well. You get a huge quantity of choices for payment processing, although this does depend on which plan you have signed up for. The free and Business + plan only allow you Robokassa, Stripe, and PayPal, but if you go up to the Business + ecommerce, you can use virtually any payment processor in the world, including some that you are likely to have never heard of before. These include:
- Net SIM
- American Express
- Beanstream, which is a hosted payment form
- Bacomer/eGlobal, which is a Mexican payment gateway
- ClickAndBuy
- Boleto Online
- DIBS
- DengiOnline
- First Data Global Gateway e4
- Manual credit card processing
- e-Path
- iPay88
- iDEAL (via Mollie)
- Innovate Payments
- MOLPay
- MultiSafepay (iDEAL, Giropay, credit cards, DIRECTebanking, and more)
- Moneris SELECTplus (Canadian accounts, hosted paypage)
- PagSeguro UOL
- Nochex
- Network merchants
- PayLeap
- PayJunction
- PayPal Standard, Express Checkout, Advanced, PayFlow Link, Elements Pro Hosted (United Kingdom)
- PayOnline System
- Paytrail (former Suomen Verkkomaksut Oy)
- PaySto
- QIWI
- PayU India
- Robokassa (Money, Yandex, Webmoney, and so on)
- Realex Payments/Global Iris
- Stripe
- Sage Pay (form integration)
- Virtual Cart Services
- Swipe HQ
- 2Checkout
- And more, including offline payments, wire transfers, phone orders, money orders, checks, and so on.
Pricing of DudaOne
DudaOne operates according to the freemium business model, which is a popular ethos. Essentially it means that there are three tiers for you to choose from. These are:
- The free plan, which gives you a natively responsive website, limited analytics and tracking, unlimited access to inSite, community support, webhosting on Amazon Cloud, a branded Duda domain, community support, 10 product store items, Duda ads, two product categories, access to Global Gateway, Stripe, and PayPal payment providers, and customer and order management tools.
- The Business + plan, which costs $7.12 per month if you pay per year, or $19 per month if you pay monthly. You get everything from the free plan as well as email support, full tracking and analytics, a custom domain without branding, no ads, Chrome push notifications, site backup, a multi-language website, and developer mode.
- The Business + Ecommerce plan, which costs $11.25 per month for 100 products if you pay annually ($29.99 per month for monthly payments), or $18.37 per month for 2,500 products if you pay annually ($46 per month for monthly payments). You get everything from the Business + plan, as well as unlimited product categories, all the payment providers, and Facebook integrated product reviews.
You can pay DudaOne using your credit card or with PayPal. They do not currently accept personal checks or debit cards, although this may change.
Support
Duda is incredibly simple to use, which means you are unlikely to run into any problems. If you do, you have access to a good knowledge base on their website with various easy to understand tutorials. Business + customers also have access to phone and email support.
Conclusion
It is clear to see that DudaOne was developed with the modern world, which operates on different screens, in mind. It is perfect for people who aren’t overly technical and don’t know how to turn their site into a mobile responsive one. Duda can do this for you in a fully automated manner. If you don’t have a website yet, then the DudaOne website builder is truly out of this world. These are dudes who know about the importance of responsiveness. For many, the site builder is nothing short of a breath of fresh air. It has some seriously advanced features, even if you opt for the free plan, which is really unique. This really is a builder that everybody should at least try, therefore. The free version is highly functional and will really give you a good idea of what else to expect, and you are likely to be amazed at how much you can do with that version. The mobile responsive templates are really good as well, and they give you an idea of what the future is likely to hold. There really is very little to complain about with these dudes, which is why I 100% recommend it.