A template-based Web site builder that enables
customers to easily build their own Web sites
is now a standard part of any hosting package.
This is especially important when dealing with
the small to medium-sized business market, where
customers often lack the knowledge and technical
skills to build Web sites, and as a result often
don't even bother putting them up.
Helping small businesses overcome their fear
of technology is a key to accessing this still-growing
market. Research firm the Yankee Group (yankeegroup.com)
estimates that in the US alone almost five million
businesses don't yet have online presences.
"Tapping this huge market is still a huge
challenge for most ISPs, Web hosts and other
service providers," says David Hill, director
of business development for Akmin technologies
(akmin.com), developer of the SiteGalore Web
site builder. "What you need to do is to
get a powerful yet easy-to-use online Web site
building tool that allows you to target the small
businesses, and allow them to quickly build and
maintain their online presence ... this is where
SiteGalore comes in."
Akmin's SiteGalore (sitegalore.com) is a Web
site building solution designed specially for
Web hosts, domain registrars, ISPs and other
providers of Internet services.
The solution, with its user-friendly interface,
has seen a consistent series of improvements
since first being developed four years ago -
including the addition of new tools this year
- and contains a breadth of functionality that
sets it apart from comparable solutions, Hill
says.
One of these is a security implementation feature
that smaller hosts should find particularly useful.
A problem some hosts face is customers who sign
up for a month's service, create and download
a site, only to host it with another provider
once the month's term has expired. SiteGalore's
security feature combats this problem, preventing "unethical" downloads
of site templates with the browser "save
as" function.
"We want to protect [service providers]
customers from being poached by other service
providers," says Hill. "[This] protects
the investment for the service provider."
Another useful feature is the integration of
the company's Editlet (editlet.com) technology.
The cross-browser and cross-platform compatible
Editlet enables users to cut and paste text out
of their Microsoft Word documents directly into
SiteGalore while preserving all the formatting.
Other features include a bandwidth-saving publish
feature, step-by-step wizards, flash intro animation
builders, integrated payment gateways with PayPal
and VeriSign, blog and photo album creators,
image editors, mailing list generators and more.
SiteGalore literally comes with hundreds of
features. But not all may be applicable to the
specific market a host is targeting. So SiteGalore
has enabled service providers to pick and choose
the features they want to offer, putting them
together into customized packs.
"It helps you create these packs to suit
the needs of your target segment more effectively,
and of course, you can go ahead and price them
as you prefer," says Hill.
Service providers can also make use of a variety
of private branding and reseller options. With
a single installation of SiteGalore, hosts can
sign up resellers and sub-resellers under them.
And at each level, the solution can be completely
privately branded with the company's colors,
logo and domain name. SiteGalore's private labeling
can also accommodate hosts offering multiple
brands.
Each page of SiteGalore also includes links
to Flash movies designed to accommodate novice
users when they require assistance. Hill says
this is the best way to help users, as it is
generally accepted that "nobody reads user documentation."
SiteGalore offers more than 900 unique Web site
designs. And colors and images to suit any user's
preferences can be easily edited with a straightforward
user interface. The sites produced are pure HTML,
compatible with nearly any Web server on the
Internet.
Through a comprehensive set of API tools, SiteGalore
is deployed as a single hosted installation on
the service provider's server, and can be integrated
with any control panel that a Web host deploys.
Prashanth S, CEO of Akmin, says SiteGalore deployments
take approximately two weeks, though larger service
providers may take up to four weeks.
SiteGalore comes in ten different languages:
English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese,
Dutch, Greek, Chinese and Japanese and is in
compliance with ISO 9001:2008 and National Software
Testing Labs standards. Several different pricing
models for all sizes of service providers are
available.
SiteGalore's customers include major industry
players such as Tucows, DirectI, HostMySite.com
and Host Europe. Hosting automation software
developer Ensim (ensim.com) recently announced
it would offer SiteGalore to its service provider
customer base.
Ultimately, SiteGalore creates confidence for
users, says Hill, enabling them to say "hey,
I can do this". And it is this kind of response
that will help hosting service providers to acquire
and retain customers. |
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