Has anyone here ever used sitebuildit?

I myself would obviously never consider this, but a friend of mine that does not know much about designing or coding sites has asked my opinion on this product.

http://buildit.sitesell.com/main/home.html

Basically, it is a cookie cutter web host company that will let you template a site design, host it, SEO it, and keep track of your rankings etc.

Has anyone used a service like this and do you think its a total rip off, or would it be a decent idea for someone who wants to have a web presence for only a few hundred a month including everything?

Your thoughts?

My thoughts?
Waste of money.

Why? You have to "go with the program".
Not good enough.
Get help from a coder site, much much cheaper!

Ya thats what I was trying to tell him.

He thinks that since they do the SEO he can just sit back, but its not like they are going to get you any good rankings or anything.

Yep, I have an SBI (SiteBuildIt) site, although I also have various other sites that are not SBI.

It's a bit expensive, but great for newbies. They have an excellent forum with tons of info.

Some people have had great success with it, including myself, but if you know how to code, I'd recommend going with shared hosting like h**ostgator and then use IBP to optimize your pages.

They allow you to upload your own HTML or CSS pages, but they also have a block builder method where you just input your text and the HTML code is added automatically.

Each page is checked for SEO factors and they tell you exactly what you need to do for on-page SEO. They also give you some wordtracker credits and also have a keyword research tool as well as various other tools.

While SBI is excellent, you will still have to do all the work yourself, so be prepared to work, like with any other site.

@Dev-Gank:"do you think its a total rip off, or would it be a decent idea for someone who wants to have a web presence for only a few hundred a month including everything?"

Diablo007 is right, it is work involved searching ya product; but the tools are good and complete. The company is wide open, not hidden, top-traffic, they're Pros, offering services for Net-Newbies.

So you asked about if it would be for the "friend of mine that does not know much about designing or coding" ...yes. He developes the content, they care for the rest.

No, not a rip off, and I think it's not even a few hundred a month; much cheaper.

It's $300 per year, payable upfront. Includes hosting, support, unmetered bandwidth (I don't think they specify bandwidth, but I have never had any issues with it).

Works out to $25 per month. No extra fees, except if you want a shopping cart or other extras.

What do you think of their affiliate program? Has anyone made much money using it?