Hosting Company choices of Website Building tools
Web site hosting is becoming a saturated industry. Almost all of them will offer storage, bandwidth and cheap prices as their main promotional packages. To be standing on a different level than the rest of the pack, you need to offer something else that is unique. Website Builder tool is one application that will lure in the customers. It’s easy to use and practical for those with little time on their hands.
These packages vary in functionality and costs but they all provide the same basics. A user selects from a set of pre-built templates. The template is the graphic design or "look" of the website. The user then enters company information like name, logo, address, and email. Next you select which subpages you want and enter text and images for them. And finally, for the advanced packages, you select additional pre-built functionality to include such as a photo album, blog, forum, of shopping cart. That's it and you have a professional looking website. The user then has a control panel to log into to make changes, add pages, etc.
With pre-built templates, there will be limitations. It doesn’t give much room for flexibility in the creative department, but at least it is fast and easy. It all depends on the individual skill the user possesses. If you are a programmer and want specific functionality or design then you will find these products very confining.
For this article we researched 4 products, SwSoft's SiteBuilder, SiteGalore, SiteReptile, and RV StieBuilder. In general, by size, costs, and features, SiteGalore is the largest, then SiteBuilder, followed by SiteReptile and RV SiteBuilder. We were disappointed with the response and website from SiteGalore. They did not offer prices or a demo on their website. They require a form to be filled out to request each of these, which we did, and have still not heard back after 3 days. All of the other sites have prices and demos right on their website. So, even though, SiteGalore is the largest we do not recommend them. We have found that value propostion means a lot in a business relationship. If you are one small customer to a large company then what kind of attention will they give you? If a site cannot be responsive when they are trying to sell you their product don't expect it when you need support.
Below is a table we have built comparing the costs and functionality of the 4 products. We recommend Swsoft's SiteBuilder first for it's overall features and low cost. If you need cPanel integration then SiteReptile is your best choice. RV sitebuilder is a new product and is still lacking some key functionality.
SwSoft's SiteBuilder
Price - $19.90/month($199 onetime fee) 100 websites
Control Panel - Plesk
Templates - 300+ templates
Pre-Built Functionality - photo gallery, e-shop, PayPal, blogs, voting
SiteGalore
Prices - Not online. No reply after 2 days
Control Panel - None
Templates - 900+ designs, 15,000+ templates, flash intros
Pre-Built Functionailty - photo album, blog, online shop, customized forms
SiteReptile
Price - $9.95/month($159 onetime fee) 100 websites, your brand
Control Panel - cPanel, Plesk, Ensim, DirectAdmin
Templates - 100+ templates
Pre-Built Functionality - news, polling, photo album
RV SiteBuilder
Price - $6/month unlimited, your brand
Control Panel - cPanel
Templates - 50+ templates
Pre-Built Functionality - page effects, guestbook
There are many more products on the market and this just 4 of them. We tried to pick 2 large ones, a medium one, and a small startup. All of these products will add functionality to attract the beginner website builder to your hosting plans. This will be well worth the monthly or one time license fee that they charge. The fees are relatively low compared to the functionality added to your company. We recommend all personal web hosting and budget web hosting companies add a website builder tool to their business.
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