Not all of us are capable of designing a rocking site for our web worker business. The large number of really dodgy-looking sites out there on the Web is living testament to that! SiteKreator offers hope to the non-designers among us with a cheap (free for the base version) way of getting a professional-looking, fully-branded site up and running without an insane level of time and money wasted.
SiteKreator’s four levels of subscription offer additional benefits for each step you climb. At the top, US$39.95/month level, you get the full benefit of:
- customizable design with configurable color schemes, banners and page elements
- image galleries
- forums and blogs with RSS
- customizable forms
- mailing lists
- member-only areas, and
- project collaboration
That’s quite a feature set. Especially considering that we’re talking about less than US$250/year.
The AJAX-driven editing tools offered by SiteKreator are intuitive and obvious once you get used to the interface.
All editing is fully contextual. You can see the contextual widget icons (small, color-coded squares) in the screenshot above. You can hover over any icon for access to a full range of controls relevant to that site element. Controls might be for additional menu elements, styles, or a full rich-text editor.
You get to see the benefit of your changes immediately in the “stage” version of your site. Once satisfied, you publish your changes to the live site and you’re away!
For a hosted and online application, SiteKreator is very feature rich. Everything you might want has been thought of. It’s a complete application and one that I would be happy to use if I needed a site but wasn’t equipped to develop it myself or pay for custom development.
And, in a great example of a vendor eating their own dog food, SiteKreator uses its own product to develop and host their site!
Just want to add it this… SiteKreator has more than 20 templates for you to choose from. You can pick and choose a template you want and add in sections to it, e.g. text, pics, pic gallery, etc. You are only limited what your own imagination. :P
*in fact, i believe in the product so much, i’m using it for all my customers website, i run their websites using SiteKreator* Shhhhs…. dun tell them alright? it’s a secret between us. :P
Sorry but this does not fulfil it’s promise…
1. Sites are not valid html or XHTML
2. Sites do not work with javascript off
3. Sites still use table based design for some areas
4. Not accessibility minded, I couldn’t even open one in a screen reader.
I am declaring bias here as I am currently developing a site creator for http://www.ufindus.com to replace their RapidSite software that will address all these issues. Check out the development blog
I don’t want to be critical but this is why we’re developing RapidSite 3 is to deliver to small business owners a quality, web standards driven and accessible web site. Don’t forget, accessibility and standards are great for the webs biggest blind users, search engines.
@Stuart – as someone who does work in the IA, usability and accessibility space, I’m definitely interested to hear about RapidSite 3. I didn’t cover the aspects you point out as the review was essentially about tool utility – and SiteKreator IS useful.
But yes, you’re right – valid code, working without JavaScript, tables only for tabular data and accessible/semantic structure are all very important.
I’d be more than happy to review RapidSite 3 once it’s ready. Please keep me informed.
AFAIK Sometimes tables can’t be avoided. For example a 3 column layout with equal heights of columns is quite patchy with divs. Many people still prefer tables for this approach.
We all hope soon browsers will obey the CSS standards more strictly.
A cheaper but just as viable alternative for web hosts/designers would be to get yourself a hosting account that has CPanel and its associated script installer Fantastico. They usually come with site builders like Templates Express or/and
Soho Launch which both basically do the same thing.
Useful for smaller companies who want to offer web ‘design’ services to SME’s I guess. The difference is in the cost. A reliable web reseller account using CPanel and Fantastico will cost less than $30 a month. Not bad. Of course Fantastico also has a one click install of Word Press and CMS like Joomla/Mambo too.
http://netenberg.com/templates_express.php
http://netenberg.com/fantastico.php
http://info.soholaunch.com/
Ade
I would also recommend that you include an email marketing newsletter with your new site. I have a partner link with IntelliContact, which is an awesome tool for managing your mailing lists, creating newsletters, checking responses… etc. Follow the link below for more info. (Oh.. and it has a 15 day free trial)
Start a newsletter for your web site or business today. Send personalized text or HTML messages, RSS feeds, and surveys from any computer, and automatically keep track of your subscriptions. Broadcast your marketing message to all of your subscribers with one click. Learn more about our recommended email marketing software.
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