For someone who has never set up a website yet, which one of these would I benefit most from? (I don't even know why I chose these 2 to ask about) I don't know the pro's and con's of website design software so I don't know what to look for. I just want to be able to set up a simple website (as soon as I find a niche) There seems to be so many programs out there, and I just want someone to pick one for me, so I can get on with the rest of it. Any help at all would be helpful.

Thank you so much

Well, hmmm, I don't know much about Coffee Cup, other than it has been around a while, and was quite popular. Joomla, is really good but you may find the learning curve of it much harder than either Coffee Cup or something like NVU.

NVU is also real popular for people to get started with. Ewen Chia put it into a package a while back called MyFreeWebsiteBuilder

http://www.myfreewebsitebuilder.com/

It may be good to start with something like that. There are many pro's and con's to either situation. If you learned Joomla early on, it might be beneficial to you later. Then again, it might be way to much for you to bite off, just starting out.

With all likelihood, for starting you would probably be more comfy with either the one above or Coffee Cup.

Cheers
Davin

It always depends on what kind of website you want to create. If it should be a simple website, then you definately do not need Joomla.

Joomla is a content management system designed to handle huge websites or to work with many people on one website. With Joomla you can give other people the permission to post content on your website if you like, this makes it so powerful (user based content). Like Davin said, Joomla includes a learning curve which is huge for beginners. Even I as a programmer had some difficulties with Joomla on my first website although it is the easiest content management system that I know of.

My first choice for smaller websites is always a professional website builder like Dreamweaver but you should know HTML to use these tools professionaly. I don't like those WYSIWYG editors because they produce "dirty" HTML, but if you don't know HTML, then this might be the only way for you can go.

Maybe you want to have a look at a blog-builder like Wordpress. I have never worked with them but a lot of beginners use these, so I guess it's not too hard to learn.

Guido

Thanks a bunch. I appreciate it!

Tawni

Thank you for the input. I have one more question. Why couldn't I just use Microsoft word to create a website? Would I run into problems when I got a hosting company and domain name?

Thanks again
Tawni

Microsoft Word is not a webpage editor, did you mean Frontpage?

Guido