Zoho Sites: website as a public interface to your IT environment

For a long time Zoho hasn't delighted us with cool new services. And there were doubts that it ever will. After all, Zoho has already more than 30 SaaS services and it need to support and develop them. And the creation of each new service seems less and less justified. But this time, Zoho has done everything right. The app for creating business websites Zoho Sites - is really useful addition to Zoho's suite. Because (ideally) business site should be integrated with the company's IT environment, especially with email, CRM, recruitment system and collaboration tools. And Zoho - is the very suite that can provide such an integrated solution. There is also Google with its Google Apps and Google Sites. But at the moment Zoho Sites beats Google Sites in all respects.

In general, Google Sites is more intended for building internal sites, rather than public corporate sites. This becomes evident if you look at the set of templates (you'll find jus collaboration sites, sites for schools, teams, family). On the other hand, Zoho Sites contains quite a large specialized library of templates for various business industries (hospitals, restaurants, law firms, etc.). The visual editor Zoho Sites is far superior than Google's one. Besides, Zoho Sites (unlike Google Sites) - is really integrated with other provider services - Zoho CRM (data from the site forms goes into CRM), Zoho Mail (you can send email campaigns to registered users), Zoho Creator (you can create sites with dynamic content from the database). In addition, Zoho Sites provide site statistics and is integrated with Google Analytics.

As you know, in recent years another important requirement is demanded from the business sites - mobile access, because almost half of visitors visit small business sites via smartphones. Google knows this and has recently introduced a service that allows to mobilize a site - GoMo. But this tool is not integrated with Google Sites and in general looks like a toy. On the other hand - all templates in Zoho Sites are mobile-ready by default.

Zoho Sites offers a free version for 2 sites (but Zoho badge will be displayed in the footer). The paid version costs $39/year (for 6 sites). If you think that it's expensive, than keep in mind that you'll pay for simple hosting almost the same amount.

See also: Top 10 Public Cloud Platforms