Ok, for those of you who are saying "what the heck is WYSIWYG", here is the long version of the term: "What You See Is What You Get". These programs allow you to edit a webpage by typing and dragging text and images around a page until it looks the way you want. Makes sense now right?

Well the definition may make sense, but using one doesn't. Even though a WYSIWYG program allows people who have no idea how to read or write html, php or cgi scripts a way to build a web site themselves, I have never seen one that writes good, optimized code and with the exception of search terms with low competion, a site will never rank highly if it is built with one. That doesn't mean it won't rank ok for local search terms, but ranking for terms like; flooring, siding, clothing and video games is out of the question.

So now you may be asking how you are suppose to get an affordable site that you can edit and build yourself. The answer is to have a designer build you a template that has small editable sections where you can change the text or maybe an image. The missing link to this whole issue is SEO. You need to make sure the design team you choose is a multi-tasking company that will also perform the SEO work on the site. That way they can design the editable blocks to be javascript includes instead of actual page content, as far as the search engines are concerned.

Having a site done this way allows you to have a web site that is fully optimized for the search engines and nothing you write will hurt or help your rank for that matter. But it may help sales if you are a better marketer than your web design company or if you have sales that drive customers to take action on your site.

I would like to know what experience everyone has had with WYSIWYG programs, which programs you like the best along with how well you rank and for what keywords.