How to Create a Free Website

Let’s say you’ve already learned what it takes to create a website, but you’ve decided that you don’t want to pay. Here’s how to go about establishing a website without spending a dime.

1.       Find a free web host. Choosing a web host is tricky in general. The most important question to ask when you’re choosing a free web host is: how do they make money? If they’re not making money from you, they must be making money from advertisements. What kinds of advertisements do they use?

• Email advertisements: Some free hosting companies provide their service by signing your registration account up for email promotions (spam).
• Embedded advertisements: Hosting companies using embedded ads will place advertisements on any pages you create using their service.
• Referrals: Referral systems require that you refer a certain number of paying customers to the company to receive your hosting for free.
• Advertising Partners: Be wary of free hosting companies that require you buy something from another company to get free hosting. If you have to pay for anything you might as well pay for the hosting.

How to Make a Website

 Having trouble making your own website and don’t know where to start? Read on!

1.       Think of idea for your new website. If you already know what you want to make your website about, skip this step. Search other band sites for layout ideas. Brainstorm and write down all of your ideas, no matter how ridiculous they may seem. There’s no better place than the Internet to turn an idea into gold. You can also get help by searching the web with “website ideas”.

2.       Identify your market. What kinds of people would each of your website ideas serve? Some websites, like Yahoo or Google, are as general as it gets, while other sites, like Weebles, serve a very specific bunch. Write down the target market next to each of the ideas on your list. Conduct market research–Who is your audience? What do they do? How old are they? What are their other interests? All of this information can help you make your website more useful to you.

3.       Do keyword research to determine if other people are searching for your topics and learn more about your potential clients. There are many free keyword tools to help you get more information about your topic. You will need to find keywords that are in demand (people are looking for it) yet have some chance of finding your site. Like a site on web hosting is too broad of a topic. Forum webhosting is a little better (narrower) topic.

4.       Figure out your commitment. How much time and money are you willing to put into your website? You can start and run a website for free, but the more money you want to make from your site, the more time and money you’ll have to invest. If you do not care too much about making money (like if you’re just interested in showing off your dried bug collection) you can get away with free web hosting and sporadic maintenance.