Can iweb '09 support a small business?

Yes it does even if Apple precise that it should not. Finding a free posting solution might be a little tricky. I looked all over and found nothing really exciting. I found this company that I'm very happy with: http://www.hostexcellence.com
Also here is my small business website so you can see it's possible: http://www.wesdotphotography.com/Home.html

Good luck
Thierry

+I may receive compensation if you click on ads in my site or purchase one of my pictures ;-)+

Welcome to the discussions. Since you're building a business site, you may want to consider SEO (Search Engine Optimization) before using iWeb: "iWeb websites are not made to be search engine friendly" — read more here:



SEO For iWeb: How to get your iWeb Websites into Google & Other Major Search Engines



...iWeb is designed for personal sites and, as such, Apple apparently thinks there's no need for Google — you tell grandma the URL of your personal iWeb site, she painstakingly types it in and then gazes admiringly at the photos of her grandchildren.



Apple hasn't changed this approach in three iterations of iWeb but perhaps, with all the feedback it receives on this issue, there's still hope. Meanwhile, web-design apps for business sites tend to integrate search engine optimization — Sandvox Pro is an example:



http://www.karelia.com/sandvox/getyour_site_noticed_andb.html

Another advantage of Sandvox is that, when viewing your site in Safari, the text increase & decrease commands will work — they don't work for an iWeb-created site. ...For business use, it's important that customers don't turn away from your site because they consider your text too small to read.

To add to Alancito's suggestions: you would be better served to use another website creation application where all elements would be more search engine friendly. iWeb's navbar is javascript based and is not searchable by search engines. You can replace iWeb's navbar with a user created Text Based Navbar but it makes it unwieldily if there are many pages.

Also, do not use MobileMe as your hosting service as it's not designed for efficient commercial use, and can be very slow compared to 3rd party hosting services like Host Excellence or GoDaddy at times. It's also against the Terms of Use for a MobileMe account although I've not heard of any commercial site being banned from MobileMe.

iWeb can be used for a commercial site but there are a lot of things you will need to do to make it reasonable compatible with PCs running Internet Explorer.

OT

brady6x wrote:
What about Yola? (...) I would appreciate any suggestions.

I haven't used other apps, but I think whatever you choose should have good tech support — which Yola appears to have:

http://www.yola.com/support.html

Another popular app is Weebly which has just introduced sub-pages. Here's their support page:

http://www.weebly.com/support

Another app, but with an emphasis on social networking, is Ning. Here's their support page:

http://help.ning.com

The above free, web-based apps have an advantage over iWeb in that you can update your site from any Mac or PC.

brady6x wrote:
Can I create my website on iWeb, but publish it through Weebly...?

I suspect that most free, web-based design apps such as Weebly won't allow you to upload a site made via another app such as iWeb.

brady6x wrote:
...or some other hosting site?

Here's a list of 241 free web hosting sites:

http://www.free-webhosts.com/webhosting-01.php

...Found by doing THIS. And here's a free FTP app:

http://cyberduck.ch