X-Site Pro - The Good, the bad and the DOG-UGLY!

by Andy Havens

First things first - I'll tell you right off if you are building web sites or even one web site you'll want to consider buying X-Site Pro.

What is X-Site Pro? It's a software program that helps you build web sites. I'm using this right now to build this page.

It Ain't Perfect!

I'll say one thing about X-Site Pro - okay two things - working with this software has NOT been a bed of roses! I've had problems and it's not perfect BUT it does work and it works very well. And I've never had better customer support. No matter how good a product is - it's the quality of the customer support that really shows the backbone of the company. X-Site's is so good, on one occasion, I insisted the support person (Matt) forward my comments to Paul Smithson and warned Matt if I didn't hear from Paul I'd contact him myself. Paul did email me saying Matt forwarded him my email. I did this because excellent customer support often goes unheralded and this is a shame. Matt not only deserved a good word but he deserved that good word to be passed on to those in charge.

P.S. Mel - another X-site CS person also provided excellent support. I suppose I should've done the same there but I didn't. Wait a minute. Okay - I fixed that and sent a note commending Mel. Let's move on...shall we?

Okay so I've had problems so why do I use this software? Here's why:

There's no such thing as "building a web page" anymore. Let's face it even the simplest page should have a privacy statement and a site map. It should conform to certain standards. There is so much that goes into any page on the web, trying to build one "from scratch" is a masochistic exercise. (If you're one of those people who vehemetly oppose this view, I suggest you move on - X-Site wasn't built for you.) Who was X-Site built for?

X-site Pro was built for non-professional webmasters who need professional looking results. Maybe you don't have $2,000 to pay a web designer (I sure don't). If you own a small business and need a web site and would like to update it regularly (highly recommended) or if you market products online and need to put up a variety of pages and sites, then X-Site Pro may be exactly what you're looking for. Even if you just want to make a little "side money" by displaying your hobby online and monitizing it with adsense or some other affiliation - X-Site Pro can do the job well. Here's why:

I'll be the first to admit, X-Site Pro has a bit of a learning curve. How much depends on how well you adapt to new things...especially software. But even if you've never built a web page before, X-Site Pro profides excellent video teaching tools to help get you up and running in no time. Not to mention their excellent staff is right there ready to help if you get stuck.

Plus X-Site Pro handles many of the "sniggling little details" many of us would forget about or not bother with otherwise. Details like adding a privacy statement or a site map (search engines love site maps). But there's more...

Easily Optimize for Search Engines

X-Site makes Search Engine Optimization (SEO) a snap. Why is that important? Do a search on Google on any subject - better yet, try a word pertaining to your website - now look at the blue area where it says "results". Look to the right. What do you see? probably several hundred thousand to over a million results. The sole purpose of any SEO strategy is to get you as close to page one as possible. Granted this will be easier if your subject is "doohickeys" (67,200 results) than if it's "cows" (39,800,000 results). But that's another subject.

In addition, you can change the entire look of your web site with a few strokes of your keyboard, add affiliate links with ease, add a product in mere moments and a ton of other things. Once you're all done, X-Site Pro will publish it right to your web host for you. But there's one more thing to consider...

All your pages will be linked!

How important is that? Very. You want vistitors to be able to find your pages easily and you want the search engines to discover what a great site you've built too. All this makes linking very important. Otherwise you're just publishing a collection of unrelated pages. While this might be desireable at times (X-Site Pro makes this easy too) most of the time you want to publish your site as a unit. X-Site does this automatically.

The Downside

We've already discussed the learning curve. Many people can jump right in and start using it, but I recommend that even if you've used other web page editors before that you begin your experince with X-Site Pro by going through the video tutorials. That way you'll pick up lots of time-saving tips. The other problem with X-Site Pro won't bother most people  - only experienced HTML programmers usually notice this.

X-Site Pro produces some "sloppy code". This is true of any WYSISYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor. It's the nature of the beast. Most people will never notice. Unless you read HTML for fun, you aren't likely to notice either, with one exception, and that's if you use X-Site Pro with another editor. What you might get is some strange characters you weren't expecting. For example, apostophes don't always translate well. That's because different programs interpret these special characters differently. The solution is simple, either don't use another editor with your X-Site Pro sites or resign yourself to some minor editing. (I use 'search and replace' to do this).

Conclusion:

X-Site Pro isn't "perfect", but what is really? (Windows? :-) While I can see some web developers might be tempted to use this program, it's really designed for anyone who wants professional-looking results without hiring a professional. It's easy to use and affordable. Best of all it comes (as of this writing) with a full one-year satisfaction guarantee and the best customer support of any product I've purchased in a long, long time.

My recommendation: X-Site Pro is a Very Strong Buy! (Unless you're looking for software that will automatically read your mind and build your sites for you - you can't go wrong) 

Andy Havens

Netrazine.com

P.S. I almost forgot the UGLY part! As someone who is proudly "graphically challenged" I can attest it IS possible to build an ugly site even with X-Site Pro! And no, I will NOT give you any examples!