I think one of the most amazing things about Dreamweaver CS4 is the Spry framework for Ajax. The widgets are incredibly easy to use. If you go to http://www.valleyafc.org, the navigation menu on the left is built with Spry Accordion. A tiny bit of code after each link targets where the navigation menu stays open. On the fields page, the Spry is loading data from a simple table, which is over here. Any content can be held in that table. My site is using Sliding Panels - when you click on the links on the left, it's scrolling panels up from hidden view. I'm not a high-end coder by any long stretch of the imagination - but to add things like these - especially for someone who first started in Adobe PageMill a long, long time ago?

There are all sorts of free things out there to get you up and running with a site or creating a fresh new look: flash, full css site templates, snippets of code - but before you jump in, give some serious thought about your content and what it is you want the site to do - and how your site is part of the rest of your marketing efforts. Sites should be easy to maintain - no sense recreating elements from scratch.

I've worked on initial site design, then handed off to the client to maintain. I've also been asked to maintain sites as part of an agreement.

Give serious consideration to your keywords so your site shows up in search engines. Also, add Google Analytics - it's a free service and tracks everything; how users found you, where they're from, how long on the site.