Simple Ideas on Getting Your Free Website Today
It’s very easy nowadays to get a free website. With just a few mouse clicks, you can create a site for your small online business or one that allows you to communicate your opinions to the world at large. Before getting that site, however, you first need to answer the question, what do you want to do with your website?
If you just plan to share stuff with others online, you should probably go with a blog. A blog allows you to post articles, pictures, videos as well as links to other web sites, and it requires little technical knowledge. Visitors can also post their comments on the various posts and you can manage these comments, editing and deleting offensive posts.
A blog is the way to go if you would like to build a reputation as an expert on a particular subject in order to launch a career as a freelance consultant. You can set up a blog in just a few minutes by using a hosted blog service. You can easily design your blog using the site’s pre-designed templates and write and post entries using its text editors. An alternative is to use get free articles from content generating sources other than yourself.
If you would like to restrict access to your blog to family and friends, you can create your blog using an online diary service or a tumblelog. These blogs are essentially online journals or scrapbooks where you can post photos, videos, text entries and links to other sites. They can also be used to social network through an online community.
If you’re creating a site for an online business, however, you will need to use a free web hosting service to create your site. A free web host allows you to put e-commerce features on the site such as a shopping cart, multiple e-mail accounts and online payment solutions.
However, there are many downsides to using a free web host. For example, many hosts will offset hosting costs by placing their own advertising on your free site. Your URL will look something like this mybusinessname.webhost.com, which many clients might interpret as unprofessional. And the amount of bandwidth you are allocated is limited, which means that if you start to get a lot of visitors, many of them may not be able to access your site once you have exceeded your allocation. If these limitations don’t bother you, go ahead and set up your site on a free web host. You can always upgrade to a paid web host once your business starts to take off.
If you’re interested in using a free web host to set up your site, here are some things to look out for when picking the host to use.
One, what is the amount of web space the host will give you? If you intend to put a lot of pictures, video clips and sound files, the allocation may not be enough for your needs. You should also consider if the web space allocation will give your site room to grow in the future.
Second, once you’ve gained some technical expertise and want to upload web pages that you’ve designed yourself to your site, does the web host allow FTP access?
Third, what are the limitations of the host with regard to maximum file size and types of files that you can upload?
Four, is the web host reliable and fast? If your site frequently down or has slow access, then you will lose visitors and business since they will look for another site.
Five, is the bandwidth allocated to you by the free web host enough for your need? For a starter e-commerce site, an allocation of 1 to 3 GB should be sufficient.
There’s little difficulty in getting a free website; the challenge lies in creating and maintaining an interesting one that will make people want to visit it over and over again.
