SNAPPAGES

Interesting tool with some powerful features.

Snappages website builder logoIntroduction

Snappages is an American web builder which was launched in 2007.  I could not find where their offices are, how many people work for the company, or even how many websites have already been made with this tool.  I'll keep trying to find out just in case you're interested.

Pricing plans

  1. The personal plan is totally free and is a good choice for a simple site to keep your family or friends updated about your activities and your events.  You get 5 pages that can be used to feature text with pictures, a blog and a calendar.  You can even restrict access to your pages to designated friends if you should need that.  The templates are OK and can be customized to a decent extent.  There is a Snappages footer on all your pages in exchange for having your free site.
  2. The PRO account comes with quite a few extras thrown in.  Google Analytics to start with, SEO details (description of pages, meta tags and the like), an unlimited number of pages etc.... all this for $9 per month, which is a good deal in my opinion.
  3. The RESELLER account is only useful if you're going into the website making business ie if you're going to build websites for other people.  That's a bit outside the scope of this review so I'll not go into details.  You may want to know that I have such an account, by which I'm able to provide a few extras if you're considering a Snappages site.  Read more...

Using Snappages

Once you're registered you have to determine whether you want a personal or a business plan.  Next the system takes you through the set-up process which begins with the choice of the template.  You're then required to determine what the site will look like :

  1. colours,
  2. definition of the header (text, logo, graphics),
  3. which fonts will be used for your headers, sub-headers and navigation,
  4. how the links and buttons will be defined,
  5. what the background will look like (colour, picture or image)

It sounds daunting but it isn't - the process is very smooth.  Bear in mind you can always go back and change your preferences at a later stage.  Once you made all the changes to the initial template, you can save it and use it for other websites too if you're going to have more than one.

After that, you can begin with putting some meat on the bone - content on your site.  The dashboard comprises 4 main sections :

  1. applications (pages, themes, blog, pictures, calendar, friends, domain names & files) : all the tools you will need to put the actual content on your site.
  2. settings (site settings, SEO, plug-ins for Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Google Analytics and Google webmaster tools, Picasa...) : items to make sure your site will be found, promoted and measured.  This is back-office stuff that your site visitors won't seen, but it's very important.
  3. account information : to manage your account, this includes the billing center and a big red button to cancel your site if you don't want it any longer.
  4. help center : forum, FAQ section and helpdesk ticket function for when you're stuck.

 

A FEW WORDS OF CAUTION :

  1. the back-end workroom is not WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) !  This means that when you're working on your site, you're not actually seeing it as it will be.  You must click the "preview" button to check it out, which is a bit counter-intuitive.  It's not a problem, it's just that I wasn't expecting it.
  2. Snappages is a bit weak on social media plug-ins.  You can add Facebook and Twitter badges, but it's all rather elementary.
  3. The "friends" function is meant to have you engaged in a community of Snappages-users, and exchange ideas and tips (gabs) on a variety of subjects.  I was not impressed.

My opinion

Snappages is a good product.  It has everything you need to build a decent website, combined with honest pricing levels.  As long as you don't need a site with a sophisticated system of privacy settings, social media interaction and membership application, you will not be disappointed.  If you do need all that, I would rather recommend Webnode.
(written 17 June 2011)

SNAPPAGES showcase :
a few examples of what you can do with this web builder.