How to Create a Free Website

How to Create a Free Website

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Plenty of people have their own website. So how can you join in on the fun, and maybe even make some money while doing it? A free website-making service will allow you to create a website quickly and have it live on the web in just a few minutes.

Ask yourself what kind of website you want to have. The needs of your website will dictate what kind of hosting service you should be looking for. If you intend to do business through your website, you’ll need to make sure that the host supports online stores. If you want to create a wiki, there are a variety of free wiki hosts that specialize in creating and maintaining wikis. If you want a blog, blogging sites can get you set up in just a few minutes.

Find a free online website-building service. There are a lot of options out there; some great, some poor, some cheap, some expensive; so it's worth spending some time comparing features. Most offer limited services for free sites and typically place advertisements on your site. Your website will most likely also be a subdomain of the host site instead of its own site (e.g. yoursite.host.com instead of yoursite.com). Some of the more popular free hosting sites include:
Wordpress; great for blogs, small to medium-sized websites of all kinds
Drupal; great for medium to large-sized websites
Webs
Angelfire
Google Sites
Webnode

Wikia; great for wikis

Compare service features. Each host will offer different services at the free level. Most hosts have a limit on how much data you can upload for your webpage, and this is typically very limited. This means that if you intend to have a media-rich site with images and video, you may not be able to effectively use a free site.
Different free hosts have different policies regarding creating online stores. If you intend to create an e-commerce website, ensure that the service you pick can adequately support your goals.
Most free hosts have low bandwidth limits as well. This means they don’t work very well as file hosts, as downloading files can quickly max your data allowance.
Check to see if the host allows you to upload your own websites. Most free services have web page creation tools and don’t allow you to upload your own custom code. This works for most basic needs, but if you want to be able to create your own site, make sure that the host allows it.
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4Choose a theme that suits you or your business. Browse through the available pre-made themes (sometimes called 'templates' or 'styles'); you can use the software's own available themes, as well as browse theme-selling marketplace websites like Theme Forrest.
Many hosts have specialized designs for their sites that help maintain a brand identity with that host. Find the design that fits your website’s needs the most.
5Consider how much it will cost you. Even if the service is for free, the business has to make money to provide it to you; it might use adverts, or it might try to entice you to upgrade to get more features, which might come at a significant monthly cost. Whichever one you choose, make sure you know how much it might cost in the future if you decide to upgrade to get more features.
Part 2 of 3: Creating a Site
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1Sign up for an account. All free website hosts will require that you create an account. Depending on the service, you may not need to add any billing information unless you plan on upgrading to a paid account.
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2Choose and purchase a suitable available domain name. Free websites typically allow you to create a subdomain on the host’s domain for free, and offer regular domains for a fee. Some free hosts allow you to connect a domain you already own to their free host.
You can buy top-level domain names (www.yoursitename.com) for yearly fees, and the connect that domain name to your free site. Be sure to check that your service allows this. Domain registration companies include GoDaddy, Register.com, Domain.com, Dyn.com, and many more.
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3Design your website. Almost all free website hosts have web site construction programs available through their website. These programs allow you to choose from pre-made themes, and some allow you to customize elements such as CSS.
Web page construction programs allow you to add your text and images with minimal fuss and have a functioning website up in a very short amount of time. Many let you simply drag and drop images into the site. Most require little to no coding experience.
Most free websites provide the tools to create your website online, without the need to download any editing programs. Since you are creating the site through their service, you won’t need to worry about using FTP programs and cPanel to upload content to your site.
Most services offer a variety of tutorials to help get your site up and running as quickly as possible.
If your web host allow it, you can upload your own HTML files to truly create your own custom website. To learn more about HTML coding, check out this guide. If you want to upload your own site, you will need to use an FTP program in order to access the server.
4Add valuable content. You might need to tell your audience what you do or sell, why you do it (the story behind the business), how to contact you, and so on. Also plan ahead for fresh new content you'd like to add in the future.
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5Publish your site. Once you are happy with the layout and content of your site, it’s time to open up for business! If you have a blog or announcement area, it’s a good idea to create a welcome/introduction post, explaining the purpose of the site and introducing yourself. This will help make readers feel more welcome when they visit the site, and give them a quick breakdown of what the site is for.
Part 3 of 3: Growing Your Site
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1Continue to create content. Websites that consistently put out new and useful content will get visited much more often than sites that stagnate. Do your best to produce engaging content that brings the reader back for more. Stick to an update schedule so readers can get used to when new content will be available.
The number one way to increase traffic to your site is to consistently create good, engaging, original content. This will drive more viewers your way, and help to retain the viewers you already have.
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2To generate a passive income, place advertising on your site. Check with your host to see if this is allowed, because many free hosts do not support ad revenue going to you when you are using free services. Placing ads on your site can help you monetize it, but may also deter people from reading your content if the ads are too intrusive.
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3Market your site. Once you have a complete website and are adding content on a regular basis, you can start advertising your site. You can pay to have your site advertised on other websites through programs like Google AdSense, or you can promote your site on your own through social media such as Facebook or Twitter.
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4Search engine-optimise (SEO) your website. You can start by submitting your site to search engines. Search engines crawl the web, matching content on websites with users’ searches. To really start attracting large numbers of people to your site, you’ll want to submit it to all the major search engines. The process varies depending on the search engine, but almost all will require you to create a sitemap of your website first.
For Google, you can choose to just submit your site’s URL, or you can submit the entire sitemap for more optimized searches.

For Yahoo! Bing, you can submit just the URL, or submit your sitemap in a variety of different ways. Sitemaps should be in the XML format.