Review – XSitePro

This review is about a year overdue. Last year I made some major changes to our blog and website. While our blog is on the WordPress platform all of our websites were created using a tool called XSitePro. I had just upgraded to their latest version – entirely rebuilt – and had just started playing around with it. I gave you a heads up in my post Maybe I’m a geek but this software is too cool but never followed up with the full review.

To be blunt website design is a major pain for most people. I personally enjoy getting lost in HTML or CSS. Then again, I’m a bit of a geek when it comes to things like computers, web design, and programming! Most people want a tool that is easy to use. The challenge is that most easy to use tools are created by removing advanced – complicated – features. You end up with a tool that is easy to learn but that won’t do many of the things you need. They also don’t have the flexibility you need to create a unique site.

The other end of the spectrum are tools like Expressions Web, Go Live, or Dreamweaver. These tools are robust enough to do almost anything you need. The challenge lies in actually using them! I’ve used all three and can honestly tell you that they are good tools, but that creating anything beyond the most basic site can be a challenge. Just try to get each item to sit right on your page. It looks great in Internet Explorer but nothing is right with Firefox. It can take hours (and sometimes weeks) to get everything right.

These tools work and are powerful. One problem is that they have a huge learning curve. It takes months to learn them inside and out. They are also expensive. Dreamweaver will run you $344.99 (Amazon.com) while Expressions Web will set you back $239.99 (Amazon.com).

XSitePro Is Entirely Different

XSitePro web design software was created from the beginning to be a tool for marketers and business people. Instead of spending your time learning HTML, CSS, and a complicated tool you can focus on what matters most – the business side of your website. Are you a brick and mortar business looking to gain a web presence? They make it easy. Are you an internet marketer? Their sales letter templates take care of the formatting and design so you can focus on sales copy.

XSitePro has a clean interface and is designed so that the average person can build a site. To test this I’ve had my wife and my teenage son build simple sites. In a matter of a couple hours each was able to build a visually compelling site.

Don’t let the simple interface and ease of use fool you.

This is a serious tool with powerful features. They have just done a good job hiding them under the hood. You can do everything from complicated formatting to adding custom scripts. Want to add a testimonial to your site? Right click the page where you want it to appear and select that menu option. Want to include your email without unscrupulous marketers stealing it for spam? Use their email cloaking feature. The list of easy to use but powerful tools goes on and on.

This is one area where the previous version of XSitePro fell short. I needed both XSitePro and Expressions Web to do everything I wanted. With the latest version they have fixed this shortcoming. Since XSitePro released V2.0 I haven’t needed Expressions Web for any web design task or feature.

Where XSitePro Excels

XSitePro excels at making it easy to build a feature rich site. They added a ton of features that most marketers want:

• Affiliate link wizard
• Advertising tools making it easy to add your Amazon (and other) links, recommended products, etc…
• Clip art and image library to store and easily add images
• Audio and video wizards
• RSS wizard to easily create a RSS feed
• Forms wizard to easily create forms, including forms for your autoresponder.
• Easily add scripts on a site wide basis or page by page
• Code snippet library to store and easily add code to your pages.
• Password protect pages
• Search Engine optimization tools

You get the idea. The list of features goes on and on.

It isn’t perfect

I won’t lie to you and say it’s perfect. If you are a high end web site designer you sometimes get frustrated by the simple interface and having to work around their features. You still need to look at HTML for complicated tasks (XSitePro gives you the ability to work in HTML directly if you want). It doesn’t incorporate a blog so you need to match your design to your blog design if you want to use both.

These are minor things that only an advanced web designer would notice. For the remaining 99% of us this is the best tool for the job.

Learn more about XSitePro web design software.