How To Add Comments To Static Sites

One of my main petpeeves when it came to creating static sites used to be the issue of not being able to add comments the way you can add them in Wordpress. This means that the whole interaction aspect of a site, the user feedback, etc, is basically lost. I’ve been talking to a few people who shy away from buying Xsitepro and going with static sites simply because this feature currently doesn’t exist in Xsitepro or any other html editor like Dreamweaver, Frontpage or whatnot. They are sticking with Wordpress, even though they are finding Wordpress a bit more cumbersome to setup and work with (and god forbid sell the site with all the database and file issues that comes with it).

Well I found a solution recently and I’ve been silently implementing it on all my static sites and I have to say this: I’m extatic about it!

First of all, the bad news: the software called XCommentPro it is a software that at $97 is not very cheap. I am the first to admit this. And the second ‘bad’ news is that you have to set it up on each of your sites separately. However that only takes about 5 minutes per site, all depending on your customization needs (colors, etc).

The software is called XCommentPro and this is where you can get your 30 days fully working trial: http://www.xcommentpro.com/comment-system-trial.php (no aff.link)

But that’s all about the bad news. And here are the good news and benefits over Wordpress:

1. You buy the software once and you can use it on any domains you want. There is no limit as to number of domains or pages on a site to use it
2. One license works on 2 computers, so you can have it on your laptop or regular pc and work wherever you are at the moment
3. It is fully customizable, including the color of the comment header, font, size and so on to fully match the layout of your own site
4. If you have Xsitepro (and I strongly urge you to get it, you’ll thank me for it once you got your hands on it!), integrating the code within Xsitepro is a breeze. You don’t have to do anything really, Xsitepro adds all the code.
5. If you don’t have Xsitepro, you can very easily customize and upload it to any regular static html or php site in just a few basic steps (full details given in the 200 page manual).
6. It comes with a full 30 days guarantee and best of all, there is a free download that works fully for 30 days. If you don’t register the software after that, all the existing comments remain on the site, except that you can’t setup new ones.
7. My favorite: static sites are SO MUCH EASIER to handle when it comes to transferring to another hosting or simply just working with it. Wordpress has various databases to work with which can easily corrupt (and if you don’t have a backup of your site on your pc - and trust me, 90% of folks out there never think of backing up their site!), you’re basically screwed (pardon my French).
8. If your static site goes corrupted or deleted by mistake from your hosting, you have all the files on your pc and a simply reupload will solve the problem pronto. If you have Xsitepro, things are even easier than that!

I’m sure there are more benefits but these came to me immediately without thinking too much. For me this was one of the best business related investments of this year. Forget about crappy ebooks and WSOs that every John, Dick and Harry is offering. This, however, is something that can bring one’s site to a really better interaction with its readers and customers, which previously was only possible with Wordpress. Also not to forget that there are people out there with static sites that simply need this feature badly. Now they can get it with ease. Much easier to pay a one off of $97 than trying to convert all their sites to Wordpress blogs *shudder*.

Personally, while I am extremely familiar working both with Xsitepro and with Wordpress (about a year ago I was heavily flipping Wordpress based sites, so I had to know all the ins and outs of it), my favorite choice is working with Xsitepro. It is simply amazing how easy it is to create beautiful websites that your visitors will simply love.

Btw, as a sidenote, just to see a few examples of sites done in Xsitepro, check out this short Youtube video.