Hey all. I want to design a Yelp type website for a niche business. One where users can create profiles and have the ability to fill in forms to add a business (if it's not on the website yet). Users can also post reviews of the businesses.

I have no html experience. I'm willing to learn, however, and have always taken pride in my ability to learn fairly quickly.

Is Visual Site Designer a good place to start? Any recommendations on other resources I should look into?

Thanks.

It could be done with VSD but not recommended at all.
To do this type of page, you will need to know HTML and a server side language such as PHP and also a database.
This is not a beginners project as it is very advanced.

Mike...

The alternative might be to find yourself a ready made content management system web site. Many servers offer this kind of site - sometimes for a small additional fee on top of their basic hosting services.

Even if you have to pay a coder to develop an in-house application to achieve this goal, advertising revenue should pay for the development and hosting cost.

Janys, are there sites that you recommend for ready made content management sites? I'm not exactly sure what to search for.

Thanks for the other replies. I've decided to start designing a simpler website first so I can get a hold of the basics.

Hiya Shiny Pants,

If you have a server already to host your site(s) on, you should be able to get access to the cPanel which will have some ready made content management systems built into it as well as Forums and a host of other apps you can use.

Shiny Pants
a little googling should bring up some to think about...here is a review site I found on cms
http://www.cmsreview.com/ but I am sure you can find lots more information to help you make a choice.