SmallBiz 3.8 by Expand2Web
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StartLogic is one of the hosting companies that Jimmy Craig Websites uses in their business (there are a total of four five at the moment). StartLogic makes a free offer for a professional WordPress theme in their cPanel for subscribers which I find misleading. My assumption was that if a WordPress theme is made available there as “free”, it would have full features and be included in the hosting fees I was already paying.
Wrong.
You are looking at the free version here.
StartLogic puts a very constrained free version of the the Expand2Web SmallBiz 3.8 WP theme on the cPanel. There are only a very few significant choices that are allowed in the free version. Only two header images (you get more than that direct from WordPress!), a standard font style for the entire theme (apparently) that looks good in IE but has definite line spacing problems in FireFox (the text lines overlap).
There is a built-in SEO function, but I have the feeling that the free All-In-One SEO WP plugin is more effective, and apparently using the two together can cause problems.
There is also a feature that allows the author to design an app for smart phones to receive the website. I don’t use one, so I don’t know how that works out – if you have one, please take a look at this blog on your phone and see if you get a reasonable layout for your device, and then let us know? Thanks!
It takes a long time to learn how to address the various functions in SmallBiz 3.8, and I suspect WP 2011 goes faster and cleaner, even for someone who has not done WP before. It is difficult for me to be objective here, since I already am familiar with the standard WP themes.
To get to the more sophisticated bells and whistles costs almost $100 for the upgrade to a single installation license, and almost $250 for multiple installations. That’s pretty rich for my money! Haven’t Expand2Web heard that there is a monetary crisis going on?
Bottom line:
- The smart phone app is an advantage – if it works (we could not test it)
- Paid version – too expensive and most likely too complicated for most small business owners to understand
- Free version – too restricted to be much help in acquiring more business than would be acquired with a completely unconstrained and less complicated WP installation
Sorry Expand2Web, but I think you need to do some homework here, and maybe StartLogic also.
Jimmy Craig
for
Our clients, as always! 
Short update (about 12.03.2012): One thing we have noticed is that the site now has a Google PageRank 4 ranking. We did not do anything special for SEO, so I guess all the Expand2Web backlinks are good for something!