How do SBI vs Xsite vs Dreamweaver make it in the RANKINGS?

[elanvital]

RE: the thread about "which editor" to use when you are first starting out. Me, I am concerned BOTH with design AND rankings... I would probably be wanting the advanced tools available in Dreamweaver, and my goal is to become native to this program. Since I dont own them, I dont know quite how SBI and XSite work as a newbie with advanced design intentions & this is where I'm looking for advice.

What attracts me to the other pitches is not he look of them, but the philosophies, educational example and ability to create high ranking websites. I dont hear that Dreamweaver helps you to do that. What about tools lke pops, Blogs, newsletter autoresponders and stores? Can these be effectively be combines with more advanced design tools? I believe that in terms of having a true commercial site, the point is that it should rank high and then the key is in the viewers curiosity being led around as much of the site as possible and then pitch pitch. If it looks good, it shoud look good appropriately to the topic - and for many this simply arent necessary as far as adding credibility. A beautiful and slick site to me can often come across as trying too hard or being too corporate for your audience. Sometimes its better to be a real person.

So, How do Xsite pro and SBI rate as far as achieving rankings? Can dreamweaver be programmed to rate higher? Or am I asking these questions in a totally off base way?????

Sigh. Well, dumb questions eventually made me smarter in the past. Hopefully I'll get smarter as the days go by.

Kaspar

[Rosalind Gardner]

Hello again Kaspar,

ANY HTML design software can be used to design high-ranking sites, although some has it built-in.

My sites rank reasonably well, and I use the lowly Homesite - always have, probably always well.

It more depends on what you want to do.

If you want a total ecommerce package like SBI offers, and don't mind that you'll be dealing with his online interface, then that might not be such a bad idea. It's Ken's tools that make the SBI sites rank so well.

At this point, I would say that XSitePro is a better choice for those who are willing to learn a little more HTML (not much) and enjoy more flexibility.

Blogs are stupendous for driving traffic. Don't build a site without one!

I always recommend using a third-party autoresponder service, and that won't effect your rankings, but it certainly will affect your bottom line in a huge way.

RE your comment

[Monty Loree]

Search engines like text. That's what their algorithms are based on.
Any text editor is good. I use EditPlus Vs2.12

Search engines need lots of good quality text to feed their spiders.

The next step after text and keywords is LSI Latent Semantic Indexing.

[elanvital]

Thanks Ros and Monty for your replies...

I think I am still trying to wrap my head around this - I am still trying to decide whether one of these all in one packages would be worth it, or whether its as easy to get the quick rankings without these business packages. the design is going to be key for my big site so maybe the SBI or XSite is not going to be my best bet despite the ease of the other components and rankings. YIKES! Its hard because I havent personally experienced any of these to make a good comparison. AAAGH!

KAspar

[Rosalind Gardner]

Hey Kaspar,

Rankings, schmankings... Less concern for rankings. With great content, preferably product reviews of your merchant products, and good relevant meta tags, just writing naturally will get you those rankings.

Just keep your pages simple, not a lot of graphics or 'funny code' and those SE's will love you! xxoxoxoxo

Either XSitePro or SBI! will do a nice job.

Cheers,
Ros

[elanvital]

Thanks Ros,

I think that if I want to schmank the rankings, I'd better get busy writing.

Kaspar

[Johnny Socko]

I'll toss in my $.02 for what it's worth.

I built a site for my church using Frontpage, Dreamweaver, and notepad. This was kinda my learning site and it went ok. When I wanted to start my own, I researched and found that XSite Pro would work best for me. I got it at the end of December and I love it. It has an SEO tool helps to fine tune your site, but as others have said, build a good site and rankings will follow. I haven't used SBI, but have only heard good things about it. As much as I would like to perfect Dreamweaver, I am not a professional site designer and XSite Pro helps me to make a decent looking site quickly.

[callie47]

LSI Latent Semantic Indexing
Never heard of it before... Can you tell me a bit more about what it is and what it does?

[niallr]

Hi Callie,

LSI will basically look at the words used on any given web page and see how the relate to each and how relevant they are to the topic the page is supposed to be about.

Overall LSI will be an advanced keyword spam filter that will be looking for keyword stuffed pages that have no real value. The autopage generators will die a quick death at the hands of LSI - hence why all the guys who used to promote those tools are now promoting article tools instead. If their wonder tools are so effective why are they ditching them so fast??

Basically if you're writing naturally and for your visitors then LSI will never be an issue for you.

If you're constantly chasing algorithms, changing keyword densities and using the latest "quick fix" software then you'll wind up chasing your own tail forever.

Just my thoughts on it.

Niall

[callie47]

Hi Niall

Thanks for the explanation and now I can see how LSI will actually Help me. Writing content pages naturally to give good information about the topic I love is Sooooo much easier than trying to figure out algorithms, keyword densities and breaking the bank on "quick fix" software. I took the time to learn about keyword densities, and I'm glad I did, but ultimately I ended up writing in a style that explains the topic irregardless of the number of keywords in the article. I worried about that at first, but since reading Rosalinds handbook, I don't even give it a second thought, and I'm actually getting more sales than previously! So Yeah for LSI !!

Thanks again Niall.

[niallr]

Hi Callie,

Glad to help out and yup LSI is great for us natural writers. Including a keyword or keyphrase naturally on a page does no harm at all - as long as we don't make it the focus of that.

Follow what Ros and Colin McDougall do. It's tried and tested stuff that will never, ever get you banned or penalized. I learned that the hard way when a 300 page site of mine got banned for basically having keyword stuffed rubbish as content. Very expensive mistake.

Build a real business. Build your visitors confidence in your site. Make more sales

Take care

Niall

[richerbrat]

Hi there. I was hopeless at design and always used Front Page. It would probably be great for those design wizards out there but i could never really get the hang.

I searched, researched and searched some more on XsitePro and SBI. I already had my own expensive SEO tool, which I won't mention the name of, as you could get XSite or SBI cheaper than Frontpage, or Dreamweaver and the SEO tool, and your site would be much easier to build.

Here is what I found - SBI would probably give you a lot more on what you need to know about building a business, as well as a site. The only thing is, it is expensive, as you need to pay the same price for each site. I am lucky having one of these marketing obsessive mothers, so i went for XSite, which has some great features, and you can use it for many websites.

If I wasn't fortunate enough to have a mentor, and had no business experience, I would probably choose SBI, and then use XSite for the rest of my sites. But, you don't need a mentor. If you are keen to learn - it would actually cost you less to get XSite and Rosalind's handbook for your first site - and any more you built would be included in the price.

[wthomas]

I have been using it for over a month and really like it. Having used FrontPage for years I was reluctant but I took the plunge and converted all but one website over. The big thing is maintenance of websites. This program makes it really easy.

Maintaining a site is like "Wham Bam Thankyou Mam!"

[callie47]

Concerning Front Page... After shelling out the big bucks for Front Page 2003 last year, I just found out that Front Page is to be no more. MS is gracing us with yet another website development program called Expressions. Read about it here:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA101205221033.aspx

I'm more than a little miffed at MS for this, and won't be going back for more. I'm now going to look at some of the other web authoring tools that have been mentioned here in the forum... Dreamweaver is nice, but I'll check out XSitePro and Homesite too...

Maybe I'll even download Linux on my other harddrive and use it... it's totally Free... and that way I could get totally Bill Gates Free!

[Zamizall]

I can't seem to get my hands around the site develoment tool issue.
I was recently laid off as an affiliate manager and have been planning an affiliate marketing site for several months. I have been on the inside of affiliate marketing for about 7 months now. I have a copy of Front Page so I do not have to shell out any money for an html editor.
A friend of mine mentioned that I sould consider a contact management system such as ASP or Mambo that is open source and avaliable with GoDaddy which I am thinking may be worthwhile over the long haul.
I am thinking, just start building the site in FPage and convert to something else better 4-6 months down the road as a maintennance item.
Is this a good idea or changing horses in the middle of the stream?
Thanks
Zam