What site building tool(s) do you use to put us sites fast?

[Mitsu Fisher]

I'm looking for suggestions for a fast and easy site/blog building tool or technology. I don't want to hand code html as I'm not technical. Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

[Prashaant]

I'd suggest you use some free software like Joomla or Drupal.... They're very robust and you can find plenty of free templates.

[Eric Graudins]

Wordpress - self hosted version on a paid web host.
There's lots of expertise, templates, and addons freely available.

Joomla and Drupal are excellent too as Prashaant said, but I understand that the learning curve is much steeper, and they are not as flexible. If you don't need the additional features they offer, go with Wordpress.
Cheers, Eric G.

[SeanIM]

Self hosted wordpress.org script....simply the best and most flexible and Google loves to eat it...

For whipping out fast simple static websites I prefer Dreamweaver but there is a decent free WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) HTML editor called Kompozer.net...if you can work MS Word or some other wordprocessing software you can work it.

Hope this helps

- Sean

[Jesus Perez]

Wordpress.

If Fantastico isn't fast enough, there's Firepow and WPManagerDX.

[mywebwork]

Yet another vote for WordPress!

Seriously, for a beginner it's perfect (and it's also great for experts too). I setup some hosting space for a young colleague of mine to "play" with, he had never used WordPress or done any web development before. Within 24 hours he had a fully developed site - I only gave him the basic instructions and pointed him to wordpress.org for more info.

Bill

[esr]

Without a doubt, Wordpress. I've literally built hundreds of websites and just recently began using Wordpress. I can't see myself ever going back to manually building sites with HTML.

Wordpress is easy to use and offers so many free plugins to make your sites do some cool stuff.

[jjpmarketing]

WordPress hands down. With some of the available themes and plugins (free and paid) it is becoming more and more like Joomla. So the advantage Joomla once had over it is slipping.

Drupal is for the programming folks... non techies might find it a daunting task to learn Drupal.

[Solidsnake]

Originally Posted by Mitsu Fisher

I'm looking for suggestions for a fast and easy site/blog building tool or technology. I don't want to hand code html as I'm not technical. Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

There's a lot of good software you can use..Niche website builders: Build your own niche website and make money

Drupal, Joomla, Wordpress - all of them needs manipulations before you can use them the way you want.

[grover69]

Wordpress hands down. And this is from an old HTML coder. I use Flexsqueeze so that my "blog" doesn't look like a blog. And I use the following plugins (and I discovered that I don't really need anymore, although I love the fact that they exist if I need them):

Google Analytics plugin
Pretty Links (best damn link cloaker that is free)
All in One SEO Pack (of course)
BX Page RSS (throws all my "pages" into the RSS mix)

In fact, I don't use posts as they are date stamped and I want a traditional mini-site. BX Page RSS makes my "static" Wordpress sites have a feed.

[PeteHarrison]

Hi Mitsu,

Another vote for Wordpress here

Also worth considering:

HTML Editor: NVU (Free) - Use an existing site template from Open Source Web Design - Download free web design templates. as a starting point
Sitebuilder: XSitePro v2 (Paid)

Pete

[russellprisco]

I swear I'm not jumping on the bandwagon here, lol... but everyone is right. I've gotten so many different website builders in the past and still have many, but it seems I almost always end up putting up WP sites!

There are a couple of things you can get regarding putting them up faster like wpmanagerdx. That will let you install them easily, and more importantly keep track of and manage them all.

Also, if you're looking to build some sales letter style sites, there's some good sales letter templates out there (i believe i've seen 2 in the forum here).

Hope that helps,

~Russell Prisco =)

[Michael Mayhew]

Originally Posted by Eric Graudins

Wordpress - self hosted version on a paid web host.
There's lots of expertise, templates, and addons freely available.

Joomla and Drupal are excellent too as Prashaant said, but I understand that the learning curve is much steeper, and they are not as flexible. If you don't need the additional features they offer, go with Wordpress.
Cheers, Eric G.

WordPress.

[Todd Pedersen]

I started off using Xsitepro but have recently made the switch to Wordpress. I guess I am just echoing what others have said. Wordpress is the easiest to set up and get going. With Xsitepro I found myself spending too much time figuring out how to do things. I was also hindered by the lack of templates available.

[melanied]

I use wordpress extensively, and also Store Stacker!

[koolmeg]

I would have to join on the wordpress band wagon!
Its worth it!

[kentaiwan98]

What's storestacker?

I would use WP because it's flexible, it's got lots of plugins and themes, and you can add content as you need through the web or a blog app. No FTP messing around at all. Of course it's resource heavy... and sometimes the host you use will flake out... but it's got BIG advantages in my book.

Kenneht

[bhull26]

I too have been using Xsite Pro, but think Wordpress is a better way to go,
plus the word on the street is that Google gives better rankings to blogs.

Question though, I'm looking to build a fancy site with photo slide shows.
Is there a simple builder / designer that can help?
I don't want to buy the new Flash web site tools, but that is the type of site designs I am looking for - templates from Flashmo.com and such

Any suggestions?

[GuruGazette]

Another vote for WordPress here too I use it on any site I want to get up quickly, and particularly those I plan to use for different kinds of content (articles and photos). It's excellent for really large topic specific sites and it's easy to set everything up to run automatically for months at a time.

[Wakunahum]

I generally use wordpress, but sometimes I just copy and paste the articles into premade templates with a text editor.

[abs007]

Have a look at zencart. Its easy to use and has a great form for support with over 2000 active users at once. As its open source you will find many free mods and templates to work with.

hope this helps

[melanied]

Originally Posted by kentaiwan98

What's storestacker?

StoreStacker - Affiliate Web Site Builder - not an affiliate link!

It's mainly for product-centered sites. Here's an example of one of my installations, on the backend of a wordpress site - acousticvids store

[jjpmarketing]

StoreStacker doesn't look half bad. Kind of reminds of that ebay affiliate store builder. I think it was called BANS... ironically just like eBay BANS'd a lot of those affiliates.

[servpro]

I agree, wordpress is the easiest one to use. There are so many plugins out there and its so easy to tweak it into a CMS.

[Alminc]

You need a good WYSIWYG editor, not a HTML editor, since you
don't want to work with code.

Dreamweaver offers both options, it's the best editor to my opinion.
The best way to learn the code is to design in WYSIWYG mode and
try to understand the code blocks by looking at the 'code' window.

I started 5 years ago with 100% WYSIWYG editor NetObjects Fusion.
You can design very beautiful websites with it, both static and dynamic,
without working with the code at all. But you are not a webmaster if you
don't know at least basic HTML and php code. As soon as you have
a slightest problem with your site you need a 'real' webmaster to help you out.

Learn HTML, php and some javascript, it's not that difficult as it seems.

[jjpmarketing]

I second the notion about Dreamweaver. Here is why. Frontpage based WYSIWYG editors among others tend to throw in some junk code when building sites. As far as I know Dreamweaver doesn't do that.

Start messing with code on wordpress and eventually you will start to pick up on what the code is doing for certain aspects of the site.

Yes learn HTML. Learn PHP if you can.

As far as Javascript goes... have fun debugging. I loathe that language.

[Nigel Greaves]

Yet another vote for Wordpress but if I'm doing a static site I'd choose Dreamweaver.

[bhull26]

Originally Posted by abs007

Have a look at zencart. Its easy to use and has a great form for support with over 2000 active users at once. As its open source you will find many free mods and templates to work with.

I thought Zen Cart was purely a shopping cart system,
Do you use it to write site codes as well?

[sh3ryl]

Wordpress is best for me

[xlfutur1]

without a doubt, Wordpress is the way to go.

[Floyd Fisher]

Dreamweaver and templates. You can set one up in hours, once you know how.

[lklein]

I vote for Dreamweaver too. There's many adons for it to make it easier. I do use Wordpress as well, depending on the site.

Lambert

[koolphoto]

I too think Wordpress is the way to go especially if you don't want to code.

You can have a blog up and running in under 10 minutes. Use the static page feature and you will have a static site just like any other static site.

And, it is hard not to find a theme to your liking by just visiting a few theme galleries. Plugins make SEO, Adsense, Forms or anything else you can think of to put on your site a breeze.

Then all you have to do is add content to it through an easy to use Admin panel.

[Tyler Jonsson]

I am not debunking those who vote for straight HTML with Dreamweaver/Expression web/etc.

But Wordpress is such an amazingly robust tool, I personally think it is futile using anything else. You can accomplish more on Wordpress than any other tool in a very short period of time.

It is the most essential tool I use, Period.

[xeeds]

I spent countless hours building and tweaking using photoshop to map out the site with graphics and text spaces, then put in the rest with Hot Dog by Sausage software, which I still use. The trouble is that this really only works well for static sites, and to change anything except text, you have to start again with the photoshop base, It still produces a clean attractive site for simple sites, (I still use it for example for hotel web sites, that just want to show info and take bookings, and the site is not likely to change often).

But I have to agree with the rest of the exponents of WP. For the simplest and quickest way to put up a niche site, or other non static, it is the best.

Dreamweaver is, (or was, I haven't tried it in a couple of years) state of the art, but the learning curve seems too steep for someone who just wants to get a site up with the minimum of learning and hassle.

Just my humble 2 cents worth.

Ed

[sandraartox]

I like wordpress and xsitepro, sometime I use dreamweaver too..

My favorite still using wordpress as CMS, Joomla seems nice but not very familiar.

[CPA]

Guys slow down with wordpress I believe the guy was asking for software to build sites quick.

xSitePro.

Website Designer Software - XSitePro - index - non affiliate link.

Check that out.

[David Chambless]

I use wordpress for about half of my sites and xsitepro2 for the rest.

Wp for all the reasons that have been mentioned.

XSP2 for static sites, adsense and most of my sales and affiliate sites.

Someone mentioned a lack of templates for xsp. There are thousands of templates available for xsp2, most are free. There's also a bunch of people who will custom build one for you very reasonably.

For me the learning curve was about the same for both of them. Both Have massive support and info available to you.

You'll probably find after you learn one, you'll like somethings it does and not like some things. That's one of the reason most Im'ers know 2 or 3 different programs.

Pick one, learn it, then expand. But focus on just one till you have a good grip on using it.

David

[milan]

Since you are a CWJ member I recommend you visit the section "Internet Marketing Guides and Lessons". There you have my video on how to use the free editor Kompozer, without doing any html. There are also some videos on how to do the graphics (a header).

Also, Wordpress can be a good choice.

[DanielFonda]

Originally Posted by Mitsu Fisher

I'm looking for suggestions for a fast and easy site/blog building tool or technology. I don't want to hand code html as I'm not technical. Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

Well If you would like to set up blogs fairly fast, make sure to visit something like blogger or wordpress. Otherwise I'm not sure which program/tool you could use.

[DanielFonda]

Originally Posted by Prashaant

I'd suggest you use some free software like Joomla or Drupal.... They're very robust and you can find plenty of free templates.

Well Joomla or Drupal are also great pieces of software. But the problem is that you might need the basic html and/or css knowledge if you want to work with any of them. Not a problem for someone like me and you (probably), but for someone with a bit less of coding knowledge- it just might be a problem.

[DanielFonda]

Originally Posted by BlueSquares

Wordpress.

If Fantastico isn't fast enough, there's Firepow and WPManagerDX.

I would stick to Fantastico. That always gets the job done. (Well if you don't want to have a Wordpress blog hosted on THEIR site).

[DanielFonda]

Originally Posted by lklein

I vote for Dreamweaver too. There's many adons for it to make it easier. I do use Wordpress as well, depending on the site.

Lambert

Well yeah but dreamweaver tends to need some coding. And it's much slower to complete the entire process.

[TelegramSam]

For simple sites I still use good old fashioned html. I use the dreamweaver template functions to help speed up any changes.

I much prefer well written, tight html code to anything, wordpress, joomla or drupal can produce. All things considered, these rank much better than similar sized CMS sites.

So that's what I do for sites of less than 30 pages or so.

For blogs I use wordpress.

For larger sites that I build I use drupal. I much prefer the seo benefits of drupal over joomla. Yes there is a learner curve, but so much of IM has a learning curve. What's one more?

[Gunter Eibl]

Originally Posted by Mitsu Fisher

I'm looking for suggestions for a fast and easy site/blog building tool or technology. I don't want to hand code html as I'm not technical. Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

If you are not technical then I recommend Xsitepro. I don't see how a non technical guy will setup Wordpress blogs easily and fast, even with Fantastico. Sure you have a blog installed with a few clicks but what you do with the ugly basic theme? Without some technical knowledge you have not much chance to change the theme, layout or any other important setting.

Gunter

[pavionjsl]

Thats one thing a lot of people forget. Even WP can be intimidating in the beginning. What is the fewest clicks possible to a site that will rank at all?

[dndoseller]

Wordpress quick install via hosting connection at Godaddy.

[PatriciaJ]

Wordpress and XSitePro for me, they are much easier to use than Dreamweaver and Joomla.

[ragnartm]

Wordpress + fantastico + separate domain + clasy free theme

[Graddis]

If you want to speed blog, without any techno knowledge, I'd go with Firepow. Simply awesome