Common Questions
Bounce SiteMaker is an extremely easy and powerful website building tool, but we can understand why you may have a few questions before you begin. Here are some questions and answers we often hear from new customers.
What is Bounce SiteMaker?
SiteMaker is a multiple award-winning website building service that allows you to quickly and easily create professional looking websites. SiteMaker is simple to use and packed with powerful features allowing you to achieve results beyond your expectations!
SiteMaker has been around since Jan 2000, with over 1,500,000 sites built using our technology. SiteMaker 4.0 was released in Nov 2004 and is the latest in this award-winning series. It was awarded the Best Application Award at the Flash Awards 2005 in San Francisco.
What should I use SiteMaker for?
SiteMaker can be used for any kind of website or online content. From personal profile pages to e-commerce stores, SiteMaker makes publishing and designing your website quick and easy. We are constantly surprised by the kinds of sites that our customers build which vary hugely in their purpose, style, structure and language.
Why is SiteMaker different from other website builders?
SiteMaker is different from other website builders because of its unparalleled ease of use. We offer a true 'drag and drop, point and click' edit environment which makes it incredibly easy to update your content. If you want to change some text, just click on it on your site and change it. If you want to move an image, just drag it across the page, or drag the corners to change its size. There is no technology to learn, no code, no form filling, just quick and easy tools that work intuitively. There is a free no-obligation trial, so why not have a go.
Can I use my own domain name?
Yes you can. When you build a site with SiteMaker we give you a free subdomain, e.g. yoursite.bounce.com.au, to get you started. You can always add a new domain name, e.g. www.yoursite.com.au, or use an existing domain name with your site too. See our Support FAQs for more information on this.
Does SiteMaker work well with search engines?
Yes it does. SiteMaker makes all of your content visible to search engines in W3C compliant HTML which allows them to easily index and rank your pages. Additionally, SiteMaker gives you the option to add page titles, keywords and descriptions for every page in your site, and we automatically produce a Sitemap document for your site which gives search engines a complete list of your visible pages. If you don't want your pages listed by search engines, we allow you to make them invisible too. Many of our sites rank extremely highly on search engines.
How do I publish my SiteMaker site?
SiteMaker sites are always 'live' online, i.e. you don't have to publish them. Your pages are always available to people visiting your site and changes that you make happen instantaneously. We also enable you to hide pages from the menu while you are editing them if you prefer.
Can I sell things on SiteMaker?
Yes you can. SiteMaker currently integrates with PayPal as a payment gateway. You can set up links or buttons on your site to act as 'buy now' or 'add to cart' PayPal buttons. PayPal is a free service which allows you to send and receive payments online and it allows your customers to manage a shopping cart of items. SiteMaker allows you to integrate with these features for your own online store.
Can I use SiteMaker to build sites for other people?
Definitely, this is something that is quite common. Many web designers find SiteMaker to be a very useful tool that allows them to quickly build and design sites for clients as there are no technology headaches to deal with. And you can offer the client a free content management tool built in!
However, if you are selling sites built using SiteMaker we require that you purchase a new account for each client. It is against our Terms to use a single Plus or Max account to host multiple paid client sites.
What is the difference between the different SiteMaker packs?
SiteMaker is available in 4 different versions from Lite to Max. All of the packs use the same core SiteMaker product making it easy to upgrade between packages. A full list of product features is available on our pricing page.
Lite is the basic paid version and gives you access to most features with the ability to build 1 site. Standard gives you access to e-commerce features, allows you to build up to 5 sites and provides more disk space and bandwidth. Plus increases your limit to 10 sites and further increases disk space and bandwidth. Max gives you all the SiteMaker features, allows an unlimited number of sites to be built and gives the most disk space and bandwidth.
Can I use Google tools (Webmaster tools, Sitemaps, AdSense, Analytics, AdWords)?
All of them. SiteMaker allows you to place Google AdSense adverts on your site enabling you to make money from the clicks-throughs. You can also buy AdWords on Google to drive traffic to your site. Tracking user activity and page views on your site can be achieved by using Google Analytics which you can easily sign up for through your site. Furthermore, we allow you to use Google Webmaster tools and automatically produce a Sitemap for your site that helps search engines index your pages.
Can I get help if I can't use it?
Yes. We have a number of different support channels available. Firstly our Common Questions offer answers to the most common questions and should be able to help you with most of your issues, along with a beginner's guide (pdf) which is available to download. For anything else you can submit an email query to our support team who will answer it within 24 hours.
SiteMaker is built using Flash, why? Does it matter?
The SiteMaker editing tools are built using Adobe Flash because it allows us to offer a genuine 'drag and drop' WYSIWYG interface that makes SiteMaker so easy to use. However, we publish your site in both Flash and HTML so it is available to the widest range of browsers and is correctly indexed and listed by search engines. Flash is often criticised for not being search engine friendly, which is why we extract the content from your site and publish it in HTML too. So you get all the benefits of a slick easy to use Flash interface without any downside. That is why SiteMaker is an awesome tool.
