Need Affiliate Marketers for a Web Site? Consider Designing With XSite Pro

Remember Microsoft FrontPage? It was discontinued in 2006, but its WYSIWYG spirit lives on in products such as XSite Pro. With XSite Pro ($197), you can create an entire website without writing a single line of code. Then again, there are much cheaper ways to create your own website without coding, such as Artisteer ($130) and Weebly (free). So, is XSite Pro worth the price? Well, it depends.

Aimed at Internet marketers, XSite Pro contains several sales letter templates.Visually, your websites will not break any new ground: Websites created using XSite Pro look like they were based off a template, which is indeed the case. The application ships with no templates, but an optional installer packs dozens of designs you can freely use. Each template is different, but they all feel similarly generic. Some templates do have an angle, like a header image featuring two smiling businesspeople -- but even these stock photos don't add much in the way of personality. No matter which template you choose, you will probably want to swap out these with images of your own.

But having a beautiful website is not the point here, really. XSite Pro is all about effective websites that generate revenue for their owners using affiliate product sales and banner ads. The application makes it easy to create many (somewhat) different websites in a short amount of time, each with its own marketing copy and banner ads, and each targeting a different niche. You don't begin working by creating a website, but by creating a project which can contain numerous websites.

The context menu lets you easily insert affiliate links into your website.XSite Pro makes it very easy to add affiliate links to Amazon and ClickBank: The commands for adding them are built into the right-click menu of the visual editor. When you tell XSite Pro you want to add a Clickbank link, it opens up a dedicated Product Search dialog in which you can write the keyword you are targeting ("fitness"), and instantly get back a list of ClickBank products you may be able to make a commission on. Each product is shown with a title, description, and a category, as well as sales metrics showing how well it is doing.

XSite Pro also lets you evaluate how effectively each page is written: The Page Analysis tab shows a word frequency table (so you can make sure you're targeting your keywords properly), as well as a list of Suggested Actions such as "You should have the main keyword appear at least once in the links on your page."

Sites created using XSite Pro feel like they were generated using a template.When you're done creating your website, you can publish it right out of XSite Pro. The application feels friendly, and the interface is bursting with buttons and text, but is sensibly laid out. If you need to make revisions later, that's easily done.

XSite Pro itself is aggressively marketed: After you download the application, you get no less than 12 overly friendly follow-up emails, some of which try to upsell you on related services.

So to answer my own question: If you are a non-technical user and you feel that affiliate marketing is a good way to make money online, XSite Pro will make it possible for you to test your marketing prowess with a minimum amount of technical fiddling. Your websites will not win any design awards, but they might convert users into paying customers and net you affiliate fees.

Note: The Download button takes you to the vendor's page, where you can download the most recent version of this buy-only software.

--Erez Zukerman

From PCWorld. Visit Amazon Computer and Notebook Center here

Designing a Website? Start Wireframing With Free Lumzy

When thinking up ideas for new software or websites, wireframes often come in handy because they let us iterate through ideas quickly, focusing on substance rather than style (which comes later). Lumzy is a Web-based wireframing tool that is offered for free, and can be used as a gentle introduction to the art of wireframing.

Lumzy offers a basic collection of UI controls for showing interface ideas, but lacks the polish of its commercial competitors.Lumzy's layout is typical of wireframing tools with a Controls toolbar lining the left edge of the window, and a canvas. To create your mockup, drag interface elements from the toolbar onto the canvas, and then resize them and fill them with content. Much like commercial competitor Balsamiq, Lumzy includes a quick-search function letting you find the control you need without having to scroll through dozens of controls manually.

Beyond its attractive price, Lumzy distinguishes itself by emphasizing interactivity. Many wireframing tools let you link screens (so that clicking a sketched "button" leads to another screen), but that's usually as far as they go. Balsamiq embraces this limitation on purpose, but Lumzy bucks the trend, offering more sophisticated interactivity features. For example, you can specify what happens when the user clicks a line in a list control: Lumzy can pop up an alert, show a page as a pop up, go to another page of the mock-up, etc.

Other parts of the application do not feel as well developed. Unlike Balsamiq, Lumzy does not offer "live guides" that elements snap to for easy alignment (it does include toolbar buttons for alignment, though). There is also no way to nudge elements around using the keyboard. Graphics are very basic, but that's to be expected with a wireframing tool.

Offering a limited or focused feature set is fine, especially when it comes to a free product. But Lumzy also behaved unexpectedly at times, which is less understandable. When I clicked the Duplicate button to create a copy of an element, it worked right in the first time, creating a duplicate that was slightly offset from the original (so I could see it's a copy). Further clicks duplicated the object without changing its position, making it seem like duplication isn't working and creating a stack of identical objects. When testing Lumzy's real-time collaborating capabilities, my colleague could see the initial view of the screen, and chat worked, but any changes they made were not reflected on my side (and vice versa).

Despite these technical glitches and shortcomings, Lumzy is serviceable for basic wireframing work. If you are still trying to decide if wireframing is for you, or if you have a specific and small-scale mockup you'd like to communicate, try Lumzy out. It won't cost you anything, and if your design isn't complex, it can get the job done.

Note: The Download button takes you to the vendor's site, where you can use this software in your Flash-enabled Web browser.

--Erez Zukerman

From PCWorld. Visit Amazon Computer and Notebook Center here