Everyone has a website these days. Your neighbor’s dog probably has its
own website. So how can you join in on the fun, and maybe even make a
buck or two? Free website hosting will allow you to create a website
quickly and have it live on the web in just a few minutes. Follow this
guide and you’ll soon have a site that can put that neighbor dog to
shame.
Part 1 of 3: Finding a Service
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1
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.
2
Find a free web host.
There are a lot of choices out there when it comes to free webhosting,
so you’ll want to spend some time comparing features. Most hosts offer
limited services for free sites and typically place advertisements for
the host 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
- Webs
- Angelfire
- Google Sites
- Webnode
- Wikia (Wiki host)
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3
Compare 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 caps as well. This means they
don’t work very well as filehosts, as downloading files can quickly max
your data allowance.
- Check to see if the host allows you to upload your own websites.
Most free hosts 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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4
Browse the templates that are available.
If you can, check out the options that each hosts’ web page creation
tools boast. Browse through the pre-made templates to see if there’s one
that fits your style
5
Check uptime claims.
Hosting companies should be able to tell how much uptime they
guarantee. While no webhost can promise 100% uptime, you’ll want to find
one that has at least 99%. Even with 99% uptime, that still means that
the website will be unavailable about 3 days out of a year!
Part 2 of 3: Creating a Site
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1
Create an account. All
free website hosts will require that you create an account. Depending on
the hosting company, you may not need to add any billing information
unless you plan on upgrading to a paid account.
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2
Pick a 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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3
Create your webpage.
Almost all free website hosts have web site construction programs
available through their website. These programs allow you to choose from
pre-made templates, 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.
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4
Publish 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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1
Continue 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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2
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 intruisive.
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3
Market your site. Once
you have a complete website and are adding content on a regular basis,
you can start advertising your site. You can choose to 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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4
Submit 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.
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