Register.com, Inc., a popular provider of domain registration and Internet services, announced Wednesday the introduction of new Flash-based animated templates and interactive Web form capabilities into its flagship do-it-yourself Web site building solution, WebSiteNOW!(WSN). The announcement comes the same week Yahoo! announced free starter sites for small businesses.

With WSN, small business owners get a simple, straightforward method for building a contemporary, sleek, professional-looking Web site without the cost or time resources traditionally involved in hiring a professional Web designer.

Register.com launched 40 new design templates, each of which are highly customizable with pictures, logos, content, and now, a choice of a variety of Flash-animated graphics. In a written release on Wednesday, the company said the templates are "reflective of today's design standards and offer customers superior quality results that are easy to achieve."

"Register.com's WSN package gives small business owners the ability to build highly customizable, branded Web sites with a level of sophistication not available with other DIY solutions," added Sarah M. McAuley, spokesperson for Register.com, in the release.

Register.com has also introduced a new tool for easily integrating Web forms into WSN templates, making it simple for customers to collect data that is imperative for marketing purposes and to build a client database.

Web forms can also be used to compile a newsletter subscriber list, conduct opinion polls or customer satisfaction surveys, or enable visitors set up appointments directly from the site. By allowing information to flow interactively between customer and business owner, businesses can help foster customer loyalty and improve overall customer experience.

Users can also customize Web forms, augmenting default forms for contact information or product inquiries, or build forms completely from scratch. Information submitted in online forms are e-mailed to the site owner in a format easy to import into a spreadsheet or within the body of an e-mail.

"Perhaps even more so than at large enterprises, Web sites are a valuable sales channel for small business owners, and it is imperative to the credibility of their business that they present a strong, professional image on the Web. With these new features, our WebSiteNOW! tool is not only among the most sophisticated DIY options from a design perspective, but also it helps customers use their Web sites as more than just one-sided marketing tools," said Peter Forman, CEO of Register.com.

There is no additional charge for WebSiteNOW! Web forms or the new Flash-animated templates, and all new WSN packages are backed by a 30-day, money-back guarantee. A five-page WSN site is available for $49 a year. That price does not include the cost of a domain name.

SMBs Getting Many Free Choices
Register.com's announcement comes only a day after Yahoo! Merchant Solutions announced its free, five-page web sites for small businesses, boosting the low- or no-cost options for small businesses.

Company spokesperson Jenna Fogle, in an email to Ecommerce-Guide on Wednesday, pointed out some specific difference regarding the Yahoo! product versus Register.com's WebSiteNow

"Yahoo's site can only be published as a subdirectory of local.yahoo.biz/{sitename}. It cannot be published on its own domain name. As such, serious small businesses will want to think twice about the image it presents to their key constituents. Register.com's WebSiteNOW comes with an individual domain URL to make it a unique business. Yahoo's pages included in the site cannot be named; they are pre-determined. Untrue for Register.com," she said.

"There is only one template available to choose from on Yahoo!, and it offers four colors. Register.com offers over 40 templates, and as of today, Flash!," added Fogle.

She also said the content of Yahoo's free site is "very limited," because only text is available in the main content areas — and they are pre-determined and cannot be switched around, unlike with Register.com.

"Yahoo's advertisers will appear on your home page — (this) could prove unhealthy for small business owners in terms of branding. At Register.com, small business owners have complete control of the site's contents," said Fogle.

Devin Comiskey is the Managing Editor for ECommerce-Guide.com.