A friend would like to build a simple and attractive site for her one-person business. No e-commerce, just information. She asked me about Yahoo webhosting, which has site builder software included. I would like to steer her away from relying on Yahoo (price, service, and performance issues), toward a cheaper, better host, but she still needs some kind of site builder, online or offline.

I hand-code or use relatively advanced software for my sites. She doesn't want to hire someone, and is not interested in learning a lot about HTML. I tried a few pieces of site builder software. The Yahoo Site Builder is actually fairly nice, and comes with many templates, but is tied to their hosting. Coffee Cup Visual Site Designer seems OK, but there few supplied templates in the trial, and extra ones cost $9/each. The free Serif WebPlus SE has few templates and seems a bit harder to use. I haven't tried the pay-for Serif software yet.

Do you have any recommendations for PC site builder software, or a simple content-management system with good templates? Or how about a webhost that includes some kind of site builder, is not oversold, and has good service? My own webhost is great for me but does not supply this kind of stuff.

Thanks.

I would have to say if she needs a CMS definitely go for wordpress. There are great looking free and paid templates for it everywhere.

If she just wants to create a site from a template in her hosting account from a site builder look for a host with RVsitebuilder pro.

There is a free program for PC called Kompozer that has a WYSIWYG editor very similar to Dreamweaver, except 100% free. I would post a link, but I'm not allowed to yet.

You could look for a host that provides rvsitebuilder. That is pretty easy to use.

Thanks all! Thanks for reminding me of using Wordpress for a static site. That's what we ended up doing, and built a simple five-page site. It was actually not so easy to find a good-looking template that was completely suitable for a static site: many have blogging stuff that must be tweaked, such as dates even on the static pages.

rvsitebuilder seems pretty interesting for basic designs.

Agro, you hosting company probably does provide this for you in your Control Panel somewhere.

I am curious, what Control Panel are you using?

Thanks all! Thanks for reminding me of using Wordpress for a static site. That's what we ended up doing, and built a simple five-page site. It was actually not so easy to find a good-looking template that was completely suitable for a static site: many have blogging stuff that must be tweaked, such as dates even on the static pages.

A freaking men to that!

I would strongly suggest going with a CMS like WordPress or rvsitebuilder. I would suggest WordPress because if you can read, you can run WordPress without any issues. There are also a great deal of free plugins available to jazz up your WordPress theme. Best of luck!

Agro, you hosting company probably does provide this for you in your Control Panel somewhere.

I am curious, what Control Panel are you using?
cPanel. I found Soholaunch Pro Edition and Templates Express in Fantastico after we created the Wordpress site, but didn't investigate those in detail. I did try an rvsitebuilder demo on their website, but Wordpress worked out better.

A freaking men to that!

We ended up choosing the the "Modern (http://www.ulfpettersson.se/design/modern/)" Wordpress theme, which looks great, but hasn't been updated for widgets in several years (so it's not widget-ready, I think.) I had to tweak a few things to make all the top menu items fit, but that was all.

do check your hosting company's cpanel.. some offer free site builder