Where Do You Sign Up For Free Web Sites

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So you say you want to try your hand at making a web site for displaying your family information, sharing your ideas on a hobby or you just want to make money. Your first thought may be how on earth can you find a place to host your site, especially when money may be an issue. There are quite a few places that offer free space to host your site.

Angelfire, Tripod and Geocities are examples of free web sites that are very easy for first time web projects. In exchange for the free site, you have to put up with banner and/or pop up ads that are on your page. They also have the option to be ad free if you want to pay the low monthly fee.

PROS

They cost nothing! You might be asked if you wish to subscribe to their newsletters or get offers in your e-mail from them, but you are not required to do so. Read the fine print carefully and check or uncheck the right things.

These sites will at least let you get in some good practice to see what works and what doesn't. You can start on what is essentially a wysiwyg (what you see is what you get) program where you type in your text, choose your font, colors and pictures and it all comes together. These are quite limiting in the potential of what you can do to a site.

You can start to build a following before investing in a dot com. Simply keep working on your free site until you find it has the potential to make a profit. Then re-direct your traffic later to your www.successfulwebsite.com or whatever you name it.

CONS

Scripts done in java or cgi tend to give a web site more interaction with the surfer and makes your site "sticky", but you are not able to use these scripts on most of the free web sites.

The ads on your free site may distract the surfer from the main message of your site. If you have a free site, just be sure you have content worth reading or else the ads by your free site will take them away.

If you have nothing but a banner farm (essentially a bunch of ad banners), you will not get rich. People do not want to come back to visit banner farms. People want fun, entertainment, information or some reason to be there. What's in it for them if they come to your site? Besides, many of the free sites discourage you in putting up banners.

A LOW PRICED ALTERNATIVE

You may not have a big budget, but want to get started immediately with a more professional site. There are alternatives to the big companies which can charge anywhere from $25-$150/month which would break the budget of most budding business people. Try some of these reliable and reasonably priced companies:

Yahoo!

Yahoo! has an advantage, it has been around for awhile and people trust them. They have lived up to their expectations. Yahoo! offers a variety of different packages and often will run specials where you can pay as little as $8.95/month. It has lots of room for most budding web sites and has many packages to graduate onto later when your site becomes bigger. Click on the banner above to get more information on Yahoo! hosting.

Easy CGI

Easy CGI gives you 6000MB disk space, 150GB data transfer, 500 POP e-mail accounts and more all for $7.96/month. It also allows you to transfer to an intermediate account when your web site needs grow.

iPowerweb

I can personally recommend this one because I use it for 3 of my web sites. iPowerWeb introduces the most powerful web hosting solution on the market starting at $7.95/month. Not only do you get 10,000MB disk space, 250GB data transfer, and 2500 POP e-mail accounts, but it also comes with tools to help you promote your site, content feeds you can add to make your site sticky, and a bonus of $50 to use in your Google Adwords account.

Globat

This is also another of my favorites. I use it for one of my sites. It is very low cost and a fairly reliable service. Customer service is friendly and they do get to your questions by e-mail roughly within a few hours.

A free site can be a money maker, only if you make it interesting enough. Just remember, free sites also make you look like you aren't really serious about your business. Free sites are perfect for starters and those who have personal sites. There are low cost alternatives if you do not have a big budget. Either way, if you are going to set up a sit, be sure to visit the Webmaster section for tips.

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