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Building and Editing Your Site

Unlike Moonfruit, Weebly builds your site and then lets you choose a theme, if you want one. The basic template resembles a blog, with an image, a menu bar, and a blank space where you can drag elements. If you'd like to start with more direction, you can click on the Design tab at the top of the page and choose one of hundreds of premade designs. You're not going to find the fresh, modern layouts offered by Moonfruit.

The Weebly editor is relatively straightforward, but you can't upload more than one file at a time.Weebly's drag-and-drop webpage editor features tabs with toolbars. To add an element to your page, just click on the Elements tab and find the object you want, such as a Paragraph with Title, Video, or Contact Form. Then click the element and drag it onto your webpage. It's simple to edit elements, such as an image; just mouse over it and click on the Click here to edit button. A toolbar will appear with big, easy-to-use buttons.

Unlike Moonfruit, Weebly doesn't let you upload multiple files at once. It does have a searchable database of free Creative Commons images and $5 professional images you can use. (Weebly adds an attribution link to the footer of your site for each free image you use.)

Once you've built your website, just click on the Publish button to send it off to the Web.

Pricing

The Basic option of Weebly is free, while Weebly Pro costs less than $5 per month. The free version is decent, offering two websites with unlimited pages, bandwidth, and storage, though you're limited to a 5MB upload maximum.

Weebly Pro costs $4.58 per month for six months, $3.99 per month for 12 months, or $2.99 per month for 24 months. You can create up to 10 websites per account. It offers additional site elements, including video, audio, embedded documents, and password-protected pages. With Weebly Pro your file upload limit increases to 100MB per file, and you can delete or customize your page footer. (The default footer is "Create a free website with Weebly.") Weebly Pro expands customer support and provides expanded visitor statistics that let you see top pages, search terms, and referring sites.

Weebly Pros: Easy WYSIWYG editor; in-browser image editing; search for Creative Commons licensed photos; unlimited bandwidth and storage with free version; affordable paid version.

Weebly Cons: Themes are limited, and all look similar; page layouts have little flexibility; you can't upload multiple files simultaneously.

Qapacity

Qapacity is a website host and editor with a business focus. Unlike other editors, Qapacity has its own little "business" social network; instead of adding your website, you add a "service" to Qapacity's network of businesses, and then build an associated website to promote your service.

Getting Started

Getting started with Qapacity is simple: Fill in your name, verify your email address, and then click Add Service. Unlike other editors we've looked at, Qapacity is designed especially for business owners offering specific types of "services" rather than products. Qapacity offers tools for sharing and receiving feedback on your services, and it adds your service to its marketplace so you can try to reach new clients that way.

Building and Editing Your Site

With Qapacity, you start by adding your service and a description. Next, begin building your site. You can use premade themes (choice is limited to about 25, of which 5 are paid, "premium" themes), or design your own style using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) language.

Qapacity's website designer features a toolbar with options for adding pages and modules, changing the theme, and sharing your website. Qapacity steps you through creating a very basic Website.To add an element to your site, just click the "Add Module" link. You can add up to 10 elements per page, including for images, text, video, AdSense, Facebook fans, and RSS feeds. Editing elements is also easy: mouse over an element, and an "edit" button will appear.

Qapacity's wizard walks you nicely through the basic informational elements of the website you're building in case you're unsure where to start. The wizard begins by asking you to write a good intro, and then steps you through adding portfolios of your work and basic contact information.

Pricing

Qapacity's basic features are free, including one website with five pages, 16 images, 1GB of storage, and 500GB of monthly bandwidth. Free users can't use their own domain name, access Qapacity's premium themes, or reach priority email support.

Qapacity has a few packages for heavy-duty users, ranging from $12 to $40 per month--with a 30 percent discount if you pay annually. The $12/month Basic package is described as being for a "tiny business," while the $22/month Promote Plus package is Qapacity's most popular option.

The Basic package gets you one site with 10 pages, 500 images, 3GB of online storage, and 1TB of bandwidth. You can use your own domain name, access premium themes, and have more than one blog on your site. The Promote Plus package offers one website with 15 pages, 1500 images, and unlimited online storage and bandwidth. The most expensive package, Pro Brand, provides a custom-built website based on the Qapacity design of your choice.

Qapacity Pros: Integrated marketplace for selling services; business-focused; the Qapacity ad on free pages is small.

Qapacity Cons: Not very many themes; website editor can be confusing.

Next page: More e-commerce options for your site, plus a comparison chart of features...

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