I regularly get requests from friends and family members who need a web site for their small business, but I never know where to point them.

They’re not particularly computer literate, but they’re smart, clued-in people. When I explained to one the idea of promoting your services through a weblog on the topic of your services, she instantly groked it, and wanted that. One of the others is a photographer, and wants an extranet, where he can upload photos with password-protection for his customers to pick the photos they want in hard copy.

So what should I tell them? Where do you go if you actually “get” the web in all the ways that we do, except the technical details? Do I sign them up fo TypePad? Get a run-of-the-mill hosting provider like Dreamhost and get them to install MovableType? That would take care of the blog part, but what about the extranet? Do any reasonably-priced options exist?