Website builders, I need your input

i need some info on a website building web site (heh!) called SiteSell.com

Specifically, would it be good for someone who wants to have a web site, but doesn't know that much about web tools (and can't be bothered to learn)?

My sister thinks this might be a good tool, but I'm not crazy about it and I can't figure out why.

It has the late-night-infomercial-just-use-us-and-all-your-problems-are-solved, feel to it.

See what you think,

http://www.sitesell.com/

:shrug: Maybe in a different forum?

She's something of a SME (interior decorating in this instance), but doesn't know anything about working with website designers or any of that jazz and wants big payoff for minimal effort and $$ spent.

Something like Etsy or even Ebay.

Bad web sites are a dime a dozen, and the tubes are littered with them. It's not just enough to have a site-- you also have to maintain it, market it, and if you want to get paid, collect money through it.

Before she hires anybody or spends one dime, she needs to decide why she needs a site, what she plans on doing with it, and how it relates to her business.

For the record, I have built my share of bad sites, from dot-coms to aspiring politicians to computer repair services to a large park and rec department. I've even built ones for my own business. I've been doing web work since 1997, and am currently employed full-time as a webmaster for a site that gets 500k hits a month and has over 18,000 pages on it, so I have a bit of experience to rely upon.

NNNS, it's more what I was looking for.

She wants to make money, obviously, but she's very much looking at it from the money, advertising end of things. She is thinking about content but, I don't think she realizes, just yet, how much content you have to put out there to make it work.

Definitely have her look into the online store aspect first-- something like Yahoo, or one of the established ones. They provide good infrastructure and built-in traffic as well as the web tools. If she's able to make some $$$ with that, then maybe think about doing something on the stand-alone side. It's not easy to make money on the web, but it's quite easy to lose money on the web, unfortunately!

It's WYSIWYG software. I sucked at FrontPage and all the other ones (still do). Homestead was really easy to learn and apply.

but nothing real complicated. I would recommend checking out hosting servers and see what tools they have for free. I know GoDaddy has a number of website building tools that are free with a domain and hosting purchase.

What kind of website are you trying to set up?