XSitePro Review

It’s been a while since I published an XsitePro review, but with Version 2 just around the corner I thought it was time for a re-evaluation to see if it still stacks up against Dreamweaver. Version 2 promises to add a lot of new features and perhaps correct a few shortcomings.

What is XSitePro?

XSitePro is web design software with a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) interface. This simply means you create a website visually rather than work with HTML. You do have the option to switch to a source (code) view when designing your pages but generally this is not necessary. Typically, you would switch to code view for some minor tweaking. Given that the program is aimed at beginning web designers, small business owners and affiliate marketers, I would suggest that very few users would bother messing around with code.

XsitePro’s strengths lie in its ease of use for non-technical users and speed at which you can create an effective, well designed and search engine friendly website. It is literally quite possible to buy this program in the morning and have your site online that day. A number of templates are supplied to match certain types of websites such as a sales page, shopping cart, sports club, affiliate site etc. Here’s an example of a site I put together for my daughter’s soccer club.

Of course Affiliate-Sales-Programs.com is all about affiliate marketing so how does XsitePro stack up in this regard? Quite well, in fact. Most affiliate marketers do not want to bother with the ins and outs of site building. They want to be able to create a website, have it online quickly, and then move on to the next site. Dreamweaver has a very steep learning curve and I would defy anyone whose never used it to build a site in one day.

Dreamweaver is a far more powerful design tool. It integrates with CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) which allows a lot of flexibility in design, and uses various other web technologies. It is the choice of professionals. But, are you a web design professional? For its targeted users I believe XSitePro is a better choice. It doesn’t have all the capabilities of Dreamweaver, but it is less demanding, easier to learn, cheaper, and most importantly, has SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tools built in. Dreamwever pays no dues to SEO whatsoever.

Some other features of XSitePro are:

• analysis of your pages for optimum search engine results
• automatic sitemap creator
• privacy policy creator
• pop-up pages
• links pages
• article pages
• breadcrumb trail creator
• automatic Google Site Map creator
• page redirection
• import pages
• export pages from XSitePro into Dreamweaver or other website design applications
• insert Google AdSense
• insert affiliate program links
• script wizard to insert Date, Print Page, Add to Favourites, Scrolling Status bar etc

Which program do I use? Both. As a web consultant I’ve done some website design work for clients. In some cases Dreamweaver was appropriate but in others XSitePro was a real time saver. And time is money. 

I recently had a client who was using both Site Build It and XSitePro to manage two separate sites. One was a sales site (XSitePro) and the other a content site (Site Build It). Being extremely busy running his business, as most small business owners are, he asked me to make few changes to the XSitePro site.

To accomplish this all he had to do was export his complete site to a special file, email to me, and then I import the file, make the changes and email it back to him. Simple. This import/export ability is one of the best features of XSitePro.

So, is XSitePro a poor substitute for Dreamweaver? I don’t believe so. They are aimed at two totally different users. Unless you’re a professional web designer, or are prepared to invest a lot of time learning, XSitePro will be a good choice. It certainly beats just about every other WYSIWYG website builder I’ve come across. I’m looking forward to Version 2.

UPDATE: XSitePro V2 has been released. Review details here.

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