I use a website designer for my website which includes google analytics.
Often I just want to change a word or update a paragraph. I may also want to add a news item under our news page.

What SIMPLE software can I use that is easy and as a non professional I won't get into trouble?

Majick, I guess I'm a non professional but I'm also going to tell you that I use almost every software program that CC offers plus one they use to. I'm only missing 4 of what they currently have in their cup. I use what ever I have to to fill my needs. If you would like a recommendation for a beginner website designer program I would say VSD would be the choice. You can download the free trial version and take it for a spin. If you go with VSD you can always get the HTML editor later once you get use to making websites but want to go a little deeper.

Hiya Majick,

There are 2 great ways here to work on websites, one being code based and one being visually. These programs are very nice and should do what you need. The part you need to think about is if you are able to edit code of the pages or if you want to be doing a visual design and work on it by moving things around with your mouse etc.

If you want to do code design then you'll be really glad to know that the HTML Editor should work great for you. It has a lot of features without being too overwhelming to learn how to use.

If you're wanting a visual aspect then it's a little bit different with the Visual Site Designer software as you would need to do your site from scratch using it because it has no import capabilities to edit already published pages. Having said that, it's an awesome program that many people here have created some beautiful websites with. You just need to decide if you are able to start a site up from scratch or if you are just wanting to edit what is there.

It's hard to be sure how to answer you since we don't know your capabilities as a designer. Non Professional can mean lots of things hehe.

And of course there is always the great support here on the forums and by the CC team to help you should you get stuck with something getting either of them setup and working.

Give the trial versions a spin and see how you like them. That's the best way to know their capabilities and yours. Good luck on the site

Thanks Eric and Jo Ann
Let me explain ... I have an existing website for my business
www.callsierra.com (i hope it is alright to post the site) I have an existing website designer that I do not want to use anymore. I am hiring another company to do the major work on the website but I want the capability to make minor changes. (Very minor) like spelling etc. I have used HTML in the past but I am a HTML novice. I can usually figure out how to do minor changes without getting into trouble.
what do you think?

Maybe the developer could put some comments in the code to make it easy for you to find paragraphs, etc. so you could make your edits? Or maybe the actual text could be a different color from the html?
If these are really minor changes, it seems it would be easy enough to find the text you need to change.

For minor changes, you can usually do edits within your web site's control panel - no need to download, edit, then ftp the changes. For example, in my panel (Yahoo hosting), each html page has view, edit and delete listed next to it. So I can choose edit, make a change then view it to see if it looks OK, then save that change.

Talk to your developer about what you want to do so he/she can come up with the best way to go about it before they get too far into the re-build

Thanks Paintbrush

If you are hiring someone to build your site, then you really want the HTML Editor so that you will be able to update it, the chances are that it will not be possible to update using VSD.

If on the otherhand, you wanted something easy to build your site from scratch, then possibly VSD could be for you.

The safest thing to do when editing a page is to first back it up and then save the file with a temp name and then edit that file, If you mess that file up then you can always go back to the original. Once you have edited your temp file and it is ok, you will then need to rname it before uploading.

Majick, it is a .php site which means that you won't be able to view your changes locally. You have to upload after changing to see the result. This makes it even more important to follow Jim's hint about backing up the pages.

Also, some of the contents may be in 'include' files linking to your site, typically header, navigation and footer. You may therefore have to download some of these include files from a folder called 'includes'. It's not more difficult, but just a bit more work. Again: save a copy of the files in a safe place before you start editing them.

Thank you Jim and Inger
This forum is Great!
I am feeling much more comfortable about my decision.

Okay,
I bought HTML Editor, set up and loaded everyting and now when make a change in local disk and check it all is okay. Then I check it on server ... looks okay.
now upload from local disk... it looks like it uploads but nothing on the website.
if i go to my old ftp i can upload no problem... just having a problem uploading on CC HTML Editor.

What am I doing wrong? callsierra.com