It’s amazing how far WordPress has come as a full-featured website builder. What began as a humble blogging platform gradually evolved into a powerful CMS for websites of all kinds. And within the past few years, drag-and-drop page builders have transformed WordPress into a no-code solution anyone, even non-designers and developers, can use to create a custom website.
Of course, Elementor is one of the most popular WordPress page builders, and while it can be used with almost any WordPress theme, some themes integrate with Elementor better than others. The team behind Elementor created the Hello Elementor theme to serve as a minimalist, lightweight starting point for those who want to build a custom site with Elementor. The downside is the learning curve, making this solution difficult or time-consuming for beginners who need to create a site quickly.
Elementor recently introduced Hello Biz, another free theme they’ve created for small businesses, specifically targeting those who may not have experience with Elementor or other WordPress builders.
Hello Biz aims to simplify website-building while delivering polished, high-performing results. From its design flexibility to its seamless integration with the Elementor builder, this theme promises a well-rounded toolkit for business owners looking to establish their online presence. But how well does it live up to these claims? And what sets it apart from its competitors in a crowded market?
📚 In this review, we’ll take a deep dive into Hello Biz’s standout features, customization options, and the process of creating a website with this free theme. We’ll also weigh its strengths and weaknesses to help you decide if it’s right for your brand.
- 📝 Overview of the Hello Biz Theme
- ⚙️ Hello Biz Features
- 🖥️ Setting Up a Website with Hello Biz
- 👍👎 Pros and Cons
- 🙋 FAQs
- 🤔 Final Thoughts and Recommendations
📝 Overview of the Hello Biz Theme
Hello Biz is a completely free theme created by Elementor. Anyone can download the theme through the WordPress theme repository. Although Elementor has previously released other free themes, like Hello Elementor, they’ve taken a different approach with this one. Hello Biz was created specifically for small businesses and for those who don’t have experience building a website with WordPress or Elementor.
Hello Elementor is an excellent starting point for designers, developers, and others who frequently build or manage websites using the popular Elementor page builder plugin. However, small business owners and entrepreneurs looking to create their own website may feel lost or overwhelmed by starting from scratch. Hello Biz was created to offer an easier, faster solution, allowing beginners to build a business website that’s also highly customizable.
We’ll look at the theme’s key features in detail in the next section of this article, but Hello Elementor attempts to simplify the website building process through a setup wizard. Thanks to this guidance and a collection of pre-designed options, business owners can set up and launch their sites very quickly, even with no previous experience.
Hello Biz seamlessly integrates with both the free and premium versions of the Elementor page builder plugin. This allows users to create a free business website (aside from the cost of a domain name and hosting) or upgrade to the Pro plugin for additional features and functionality.
Overall, the Hello Biz theme is effective at what it aims to do, which is to simplify the website building process for small business owners. However, it’s not the right solution for everyone. Designers, developers, and experienced WordPress users already comfortable creating custom websites are likely to prefer the greater flexibility of working with the more bare-bones Hello Elementor theme or other all-purpose themes like Kadence (read our Kadence theme review for more details).
⚙️ Hello Biz Features
Now, let’s look at the key details that make Hello Biz unique.
1. Pre-Designed Kits
Hello Biz offers 17 pre-designed kits, which essentially serve as website templates. (Note: The Elementor website says there are 8 kits, but I had 17 options when I installed the theme. Some of them may have been added recently.)
Users choose a kit, which will be the starting point of their site. The available kits are diverse in design style, layout, and purpose. Regardless of what type of business you’re building a website for, chances are, at least one of the pre-designed kits will be an appropriate starting point.
The existing kits are:
- Construction Company
- Startup & Investment (one-page site)
- Pilates Studio
- Jewelry Shop
- Book Store (one-page site)
- Freelance Handywoman
- Property Rental
- IT & AI Services
- Digital Marketing Agency
- Juice Bar
- Nature Photography
- Veterinary Center
- Mobile Payment App
- Bread Bakery Business
- Alternative Medicine (one-page site)
- English Pub
- Portfolio Wireframe
Of course, you can use each template for any type of business, so if you don’t see your business type listed here, don’t worry. The names are just based on the type of business shown in the demos.
As a new theme, more kits may be added in the future. This would be a nice addition as it would give users more options to find a design that meets their needs.
2. Step-by-Step Wizard
Possibly the most significant feature of Hello Biz is the step-by-step wizard that assists users in setting up their website. We’ll go through it in detail later in this article.
3. Hello Widgets
While the theme is fully compatible with Elementor and its page-building elements, Hello Biz includes a collection of customizable widgets for specific purposes. These widgets provide flexibility while creating specific sections or components of a site. Let’s look at each of these widgets.
Header
With the Header widget, it’s easy to tweak and customize the website’s header, including the navigation menu, logo, and call-to-action. The widget provides a selection of pre-designed styles to choose from or use as a starting point.
Footer
The Footer widget controls the bottom of the site’s pages and includes elements like navigation menus, contact information, social media links, and copyright notices. With the help of the widget, creating an effective and attractive footer is easy.
Flex Hero
Your website should immediately capture visitors’ attention, and that’s where the Flex Hero widget shines. Using this widget, you can create full-width opening sections featuring large photos or high-impact images that go along with large headlines and calls to action. The widget offers pre-designed options so anyone can create a professional-looking hero section, even without design skills or experience.
Form Lite
The Forms Lite presents an easy way to create contact forms that include everything most businesses need, without extra options that may confuse users. Elementor includes a more feature-rich Forms widget, but it can be overly complex for beginners needing a simple form. Forms Lite gives you a simple contact form that likely needs no customization.
Zigzag
When you’re building a page layout, the Zigzag widget makes it easy to create visually-pleasing alternating sections. It’s ideal for displaying a list of services or team members, among other things. Zigzag comes with pre-designed styling so it can be dropped into a page with minimal or no customization.
Call to Action (CTA)
Conversion is the most important aspect of a business website, and the CTA widget was created with conversions in mind. It includes headlines, descriptions, and buttons for promoting products and services or generating leads.
🖥️ Setting Up a Website with Hello Biz
Many website builders and themes claim to be user-friendly, but those claims don’t always match reality. It’s helpful to see the process of creating a site to understand how it works. Here, we’ll walk through the process of creating a website with Hello Biz on a fresh WordPress installation so you can get a better idea of what it’s like.
Step 1: Install WordPress
You’ll need to have WordPress installed before you can begin with Hello Biz. Most WordPress hosts will already have WordPress installed for you when you create an account (see our top recommendations for managed WordPress hosting), so thankfully, this step is easy. If you need help here, contact your host for support.
Step 2: Install the Hello Biz Theme
Next, you’ll need to install the theme so you can start building your site. From the WordPress dashboard, go to Appearance > Themes and click on “add new theme.”
Then, search for “Hello Biz,” hover over the theme’s thumbnail, and click the “install” button.
After the theme is installed. the button will change from “install” to “activate,” and you’ll need to click the button again to activate the theme.
Step 3: Begin the Setup
Next, you should see a banner like the one shown below. Click the “begin setup” button to start the setup wizard.
The welcome screen shown in the screenshot below is the beginning of the setup wizard. Click the “start building my website” button to begin.
Step 4: Choose Your Kit/Template
The setup process begins by asking you to choose a kit or template. You can see thumbnails of the 17 options available (at the time this article was written) in the screenshot below. When you’re presented with these options, you can view the demo of any of the kits by hovering over the thumbnail and clicking “view demo.”
There are templates for a wide variety of business types. For this example, I’ll choose the Construction Company template shown below.
From the demo, you can click on the “apply kit” button when you’ve found the one you want to use. This will open a window that prompts you to create a free account.
When you create the free account, you’ll be prompted to connect your site to the template library.
After connecting your site to the template library, you can go back to WordPress and click the “apply all” button (shown below) to apply the kit to your site. It’s important to note that this will overwrite any existing content on the site, so it’s best to start with a fresh WordPress installation.
After clicking the “apply all” button, Hello Biz will get to work setting up your site, and you’ll see the message below.
Then, when it’s done (it took less than a minute for me), you’ll see the screen shown below.
At this point, your website will be set up just like the demo, and you can customize it as needed.
Step 5: Customize the Site
Click the “customize my site” button, and you’ll be led to the page shown below where you can select exactly what you want to customize or edit.
Of course, you’ll need to enter details like your site name and logo. Click on the links to customize any elements or content, and it will open Elementor, where you can make the necessary changes. For example, when I clicked to customize the logo, it opened Elementor and showed the customization options from the screenshot below.
You can mark items done as you complete them. At any time, you can click on Hello Biz in the left sidebar and it will take you back to the customization options page.
The process of customizing pages simply uses Elementor to edit content from the template. For example, if you click to customize the “About” page, you’ll see something like this.
From here, you can click on the text you want to edit, add new elements, or re-arrange elements by dragging and dropping. If the template’s design is close to what you want, editing text will be the biggest task.
Overall, the setup wizard adds a bit of simplification since it guides you, but I didn’t feel like it was a drastic difference from using a drag-and-drop page builder with another theme.
👍👎 Pros and Cons
Like any other theme or website builder, there are pros and cons to using Hello Biz.
Pros of the Hello Biz Theme
Here are the most significant ways that Hello Biz stands out.
- Ease of use: Hello Biz was created to simplify website building for beginners. The theme’s setup wizard allows anyone to get a great-looking, customized website up and running with minimal time investment. Users who might find other website builders overwhelming or confusing may appreciate Hello Biz.
- Speedy website creation: In the past, creating a customized website required a lot of time, especially for those without experience. Hello Biz slashes the time requirement, making it possible to build a website quickly, thanks to the setup wizard and pre-designed kits.
- Attractive templates designed for businesses: Hello Biz provides 17 different templates users can choose from, and there’s a great variety in these designs. They’re not boring or bare-bones templates.
- Price: Hello Biz is a free theme and can be used with either the free or pro version of the Elementor page builder plugin. As a result, it’s an option for businesses working with any budget or no budget at all.
Cons of the Hello Biz Theme
Of course, Hello Biz is not for everyone, and it’s not intended to be. Here are some of the drawbacks you need to consider.
- Experienced Elementor users may find it restrictive: Hello Biz was created specifically for beginners, and it’s less ideal for experienced users. If you have worked with minimalist starting points like Hello Elementor in the past, you may find Hello Biz to be restrictive to your creative ability.
- Relatively few pre-designed templates: The 17 pre-designed kits are nice, but it would be even better if more were available. Multi-purpose themes like Kadence and Astra offer bigger selections of starter templates for businesses.
- No suitable templates for some businesses: While it’s easy to appreciate the fact that Hello Biz’s pre-designed kits have character and are not boring blank canvases, I expect that some businesses will find that none of the templates fit their brand or specific needs.
🙋 Hello Biz Theme FAQ
Is the Hello Biz theme free to use?
Yes, Hello Biz is a free theme offered by Elementor. There is no cost to download or use the theme.
Do I need Elementor Pro to use Hello Biz?
No, you do not need Elementor Pro. Hello Biz uses the Elementor page builder, and the free version is sufficient. Elementor Pro opens up more possibilities for creating your site, but it’s not necessary.
How does Hello Biz simplify the website building process?
Hello Biz features a setup Wizard that walks you through the steps of choosing a kit/template and customizing it. The theme works with the Elementor page builder to allow you to edit and customize your site. The setup wizard is the main difference between Hello Biz and other themes.
What kind of businesses is Hello Biz best suited for?
Hello Biz includes pre-designed kits for a variety of businesses like a construction company, pilates studio, bookstore, freelancer, property rental, marketing agency, and more. It’s ideal for entrepreneurs and small businesses, particularly service-related businesses.
Can I use Hello Biz with Woocommerce?
Yes, the Hello Biz theme is compatible with Woocommerce. However, the pre-designed kits provide few options that would be suitable for an online shop with a large catalog of different products. The current templates are better suited for smaller shops that offer a limited number of products.
Can I customize the designs created by Hello Biz?
Yes, you can! All of the templates are customizable using the Elementor drag-and-drop builder.
🤔 Who is Hello Biz For?
It’s fairly easy to know if Hello Biz is right for you because the theme was created for a very specific type of user. Hello Biz is the best fit for small business owners (or those creating a website for a small business) who have limited or no experience building a website and need a quick, customizable site on a limited budget.
On the flip side, Hello Biz is probably not the best option for those with significant experience using WordPress page builders. The theme’s beginner-friendly features aren’t needed by experienced users, and the features are limited compared to other page builders that you typically work with. For example, freelancers who build sites for clients are unlikely to find that Hello Biz provides enough flexibility and versatility for their needs.
If you fit into Hello Biz’s target audience, you can head to Elementor’s website to download the theme or install it from your site’s WordPress dashboard (if WordPress is already installed). Elementor also offers hosting that includes the Pro builder plugin, which is an excellent option,
If you need more flexibility than Hello Biz offers, you may appreciate other themes like Kadence or Astra. Both are excellent multi-purpose themes that can be used as the foundation for freelancers and others who build a wide variety of websites and need more creative freedom.
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