XSite Pro 2 vs. Site Build It!

A reader asked me for a evaluation of XSitePro 2, a web design tool.

After I decided that Wordpress is very easy but no instrument to build a real business I downloaded XSite Pro yesterday on their site. That's pretty quick and easy.

It is on Sale by the way (Dec. 09), so I had a good deal paying 199 USD instead of 299 USD plus taxes.

In order to test it I decided to build some sales pages for my Gold Marketing Group with Rob Goyette.

I am basically a SBI fan, but SiteBuildIt is most useful when you build a business from scratch, but here I want to build some pretty easy pages.

Honestly I wanted to do them in Joomla, but Joomla is far more complicated than Wordpress. I spend some hours trying to figure it out, but I want to build a business, not become a webprogrammer.

And it is prone to be hacked if you do not keep it updated nearly daily (same for Wordpress). Hackers find exploits in the Joomla or Wordpress programming and hack your sites. When you go to the Joomla security forum first thing you read is that you won't find many friends there if you do not update kind of daily to keep up with the threats.

The hacking did also cost me serious money for my Admin to fix it, I am not playing in that league.

A note to the Joomla developers:

Sorry guys, I know that you do great work and for free (GNU Licenced) but I want the internet to work for me and not me becoming the slave of the internet.

I do not have the time to deeply learn it and keep up with updates and stuff daily. You made the update process so complicated that I had my Admin do it (thank you Oliver from exia, by the way).

And why do you bother me with all this Linux file compression stuff, this is really for Nerds. It took me about an hour to find a program that helped me a lot with all your .tar and .tgr and .BS.

After lots of installing and uninstalling work I found the cute tool IZArc, which seems to be able to do anything.

So Joomla will be put on hobby status for me. Fun to play around, but too (time-)expensive for me to build a real business on it. Great if you are a Pro and webprogrammer. I am not and do not want to become one.

Back to XSite Pro 2. The manual itself is 261 pages, nothing to digest in a minute. So I started to play around (are you also never reading the instructions of your VCR?). Took me some minutes to start to understand it, quickly had decided about my Template, then had a hard time finding the actual editor (actually pretty easy and logical for me now).

After finding that I quickly was able to write my text and even could add an optin box for Aweber very quickly myself (either the original from aweber in code or a predone XSite template).

The only problem is it seems that the editor's kitchen sink is sometimes kind of gone. Read "crashed". Perhaps I am doing something wrong here, but hey, I am a USER, not a PRO. Because after I changed the footer settings the Editor crashed.

I would say they should work on that. I had to restart ( I am still waiting to see a really stable webeditor).

The footer settings are easily to be found once you understand the system, but I am still trying to figure out how to change the menu items themselves.

If you want to do multiple subpages, XSite Pro 2 is really helpful. Quickly I had setup multiple similar pages.

But as I wanted to show you the result of my first 2-3 hours of work.... I have problems uploading. That wouldn't happen with SiteBuildIt!

I think this server stuff is the most frightening part for a total newbie. Here most support will be needed. And the negative is that their support really did not support me at all. I even crahsed this website while trying to solve it myself (not improving my blood pressure).

My Admin once again came to my rescue. In the end it wasn't Xsite 's fault, but some quick support would have saved me time and money.

And I would claim that I am THAT advanced that I CAN enter my server with a FTP program (filezilla is great) and look up the links.

So I am further in this than many of my readers, I presume. As a marjeting guy I would suggest XSITE will loose most of its customers (you can return the product within 30 days) in the first 10 days when they feel left alone with unsurmountable tasks. Like server stuff.

So, after finishing my first day with XSitePro 2 here is my resume:

The Cons:

* unresponding service (a reader told me he has never seen greater support, so perhaps I am unfair here)
* tricky to upload your site until it is set up correctly for the first time (do not what I did and kill your other sites)
* crashing editor (classic webeditor problem, the same with wordpress etc.)

The pros:

* very intuitive
* great tools included
* really helps me to get to my goals quickly
* some help included how to make your websites successful 
  on  google
 * forum and tutorials online
 * special price right now 199 USD (instead of 299 USD).

So if the service would have been more responsive (no solution, one answer in 24 hrs. on "urgent" is not good enough for me) I would call XSITE PRO 2 PERFECT (Triple AAA)  for what I do need and what I am able to do with the features.

Right now I am asking myself why I haven't tried this tool earlier. It is really helpful to get my sites going.

Comparing it to Site Build It! is not totally fair since Site Build It is a complete online business building tool. Kind of a business incubator.

XSite Pro 2 is the best tool to build great websites themselves. Easily the best tool I have so far seen to get websites up quickly. But you have to know your marketing strategy stuff. XSite does help you with Search Engine Optimazation (SEO) but not how to position yourself with the right keywords etc.

I am gonna keep it. And I do recommend it over Joomla and Wordpress, if you want to build a business.

Since I will use XSite Pro 2 for homeofhomebusiness.com, you can see the the actual state of my work.

You find many SiteBuildIt! evaluation(s) on this site, too. If you ask me which one of them to choose to build a business I suggest this:

 1. build your FIRST business site with Site Build It! Take all the great and abundant marketing and SEO information. (Thousands of pages). Learn it, implement it.

 2. your next ventures you do with XSITE Pro 2. Implement what you learned at SBI thouroughly, but be more flexible in what you do (many sites).

 3. Download the free "Make My Site Sell" Internet Marketing "bible" at http://myss.sitesell.com/skywalker.html.
 That really is a "must-read" with over 800(!) pages.

If you want to have look or try it you can use my affiliate link http://www.xsitepro.com/index_r.html?p=skywalker&w=testimonials.html

or go directly to http://xsitepro.com/

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