Best Web-Design Softwares - 2013

Creating your own website needn't be a daunting task. Here we look at four template-based DIY web-design programs that make it easy.
You don't need to be an expert at coding to create a professional-looking website. Modern web-design software lets you enhance your online presence with all kinds of impressive embellishments, including image sliders, support for social networking and an online store and gallery. It can also manage behind-the-scenes details, such as ensuring that your site appears in Google search results. Here, we've tested four web-design programs - three available for less than £100 - that use pre-designed templates, styles and widgets to let you create a site quickly and easily.

HOW WE TESTED
We looked at the key features for a good web-design program suitable for all users, such as the number of templates and the overall quality of their design and functionality; the inclusion of components such as widgets, e-commerce and SE° tools; support for mobile devices and social networks; and whether they allow more experienced users to edit or input their own HTML code.

SERIF WEBPLUS X6
Of all the products we tested, Serif WebPlus X6 struck the best balance between ease of use, functionality and value for money. It's easier to use and almost half the cost of Corel Website Creator X6; far more powerful than Xara's Web Designer 9; and doesn't suffer the technical limitations of Magix's Flash-only Website Maker MX. WebPlus' design echoes other products in Serif's Plus line, using a drag-and-drop interface that's intuitive and easy to master. Unlike Website Maker MX and Web Designer 9, the price doesn't include hosting, but that's relatively easy to set up yourself or via Serif's tailored hosting, which can be purchased from within the program. WebPlus supports more shopping carts than the other programs tested here (though adding more than a few products may require an upgrade to a paid-for cart), and it has the best SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) tools of the bunch. Its templates lack some of the visual finesse of those provided with Web Designer 9, but there's a good range of types and styles to get you started. WebPlus also includes hundreds of extra graphics and effects to add visual interest to your site, and can create separate sites suitable for mobile devices.
The WebPlus site-view mode compares favourably with that of Corel and is streets ahead of the Xara and Magix products. It includes a wide range of widgets to add features such as forms, site search, pop-ups, rollovers and galleries to your website. More experienced users can also add complete HTML pages, as well as cutting and pasting snippets to embed widgets from other sources.

XARA WEB DESIGNER 9
Xara Web Designer 9 works well for websites that don't sell anything, such as personal sites, clubs and societies. Like Serif WebPlus, Designer 9 uses a drag-and-drop interface for creating web pages that's easy to pick up. It's also fast. We're less convinced by the way the Design Gallery works, though, and finding themes, buttons, navigation bars and other elements requires a lot of scrolling around.
Irritatingly, the 133 fabulous-looking business themes previewed in the Designs Gallery aren't included in the price. What you do get is 36 general-purpose themes with a good range of colours and styles. These are grouped by type (ecology, finance and fitness, for example) and include everything you need to start building your site (navigation bars, buttons, slideshows and other graphical elements). The themes are miles better than those you get with Website Maker MX and Website Creator X6, and snazzier even than those included with WebPlus, although the overall experience isn't as slick.
There's support for Google+, Facebook and Twitter widgets, although these do little more than launch the respective websites. You can type your own HTML code and paste snippets into placeholders anywhere in the body of the page. There's no support for Google Analytics and, unlike WebPlus X6, you can't generate a search engine-friendly site map either. Ultimately, Xara's Designer 9 is a great little WYSIWYG web-design program: not as powerful as WebPlus X6, much easier to use than Corel Website Creator and able to build sites that don't rely on Flash (unlike Magix Website Maker MX).

MAGIX WEBSITE MAKER MX EASY
Unlike the other products in this test, Website Maker MX is a browser-based service that uses Adobe Flash to create websites. The drawbacks are that its sites load more slowly, can't be viewed on many mobile devices and aren't search-engine friendly. Also, the interface doesn't behave like a proper Windows program. The Easy version comes with just 12 templates. Like Xara Web Designer, many more from the premium version can be previewed but remain tantalisingly out of reach in this cheaper version. It's generous with its widgets, though, with photo galleries, media players and the option to paste in HTML code snippets, so you can add social-media badges. There's no e-commerce and you can't add a site map, but you can add Google-friendly keywords. However, for less than £25 a year, you've got everything you need to knock up and publish a quick personal website.

COREL WEBSITE CREATOR X6
Website Creator is actually a licensed version of NetObjects' Fusion 12 (originally released in 2010) and is lumbered with an old-fashioned interface and unhelpful jargon (asking, for example, does your host support CGI/Perl?). The library of 64 Sitestyles (graphic and text elements that can be applied to with one click) are easy to use with the 14 templates provided, but we preferred WebPlus X6's approach, which offers more templates and a variety of colour schemes. You can enter HTML code, but there's no in-built support for popular services such as Facebook. However, Corel's site-structure view, where pages are presented like entries in a family tree and can be arranged by dragging and dropping, is a great way to organise larger sites. Like WebPlus, there's built-in e-commerce, so you can sell stuff on your site, but this is the most expensive program here and we found it hard to recommend.

OUR VERDICT
Serif's WebPlus X6 is the best web-design programs because of its range of tools, the quality of the included graphics and templates, and the ease with which it lets you add external features and services, such as shopping carts and social-media widgets. It lets you design a sophisticated website, quickly and easily. It costs more than both Xara Web Designer 9 and Magix Website Maker MX, but is well worth the extra expense, and it's still half the price of Corel Website Creator X6.