How to get a free website in minutes

Posted on June 4, 2007 
Filed Under Website Tips

‘Free Websites’ and ‘Free Webpages’ are advertised throughout the search engines.
YES they are free and YES it is possible to create your own website with a number of these free website builder services. 

Here’s the story …

We found our daycare provider (let’s call her Jane) through an advertisement in our newspaper and a link to her website. The website was well laid out with lots of information about the daycare facility, services, hours of operations, guidelines, photos and all the information you would need for the care of your child. The website also gave us confidence in her services, her credentials and the care she was to provide for our child.

A few weeks ago I asked ”Jane” how much she paid for her website and indicated “nothing, it was free!” with a  free website service online.  

This was cool.

Small Business being set up with free webpage and free hosting services.

Why not look further?

So I did and in a matter of minutes I was able to create this little master piece here …

Free website example - click to view

Many companies that offer free websites usually have a ‘website wizard’ built in to their administration. These tools are great if your knowledge of HTML is limited and if you want to get a site up really quick. With a website wizard it is easy to manage and build your own website. A wizard will usually walk you through the process of building your own site. 

One of those companies offering free webpages is Bravenet. The service it is simple to set up and you can also tie in additional features (services) in to your website:

This screenshot above was literally built in under 15 minutes. Simply create a new account, select a name, select a themed template, add content and click to publish your website. Done.

Some quick benefits of using a free online website service:

As with anything free, there are always a few little catches. Here are some of issues when working with free website services:

  1. Do not show up in search engines. This one is key if you are wanting to position your business in the search engines like Google, Yahoo, Ask.com and others.
  2. Advertising and pop-ups on your webpages. Some services will include those annoying pop-up advertising on your site until you decide to pay for the services.
  3. Unable to change and modify the default templates or themes. With some services a bit of tinkering is required to do this to a limited degree.
  4. Unable to control the search engine optimization aspect of your website. Examples include changing the meta keywords and description of your website.
  5. Limit in content. Some services will allow a certain amount of content to be published on your free website. Review the terms.

Bottom Line

Free website services are great when starting out and great for testing out ideas online. Anyone can create their own website quick and easy and in some cases it shows. Limitations in themes and functionality may not work for your business, but it may be a good starting point for trying out some of the add-on features like forums, guestbooks, and simple classifieds ad systems.

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