Is there such a thing as a free website? Well, it really depends on your definition of free. The good news is there are some amazing free tools out there that will let you create and and publish your website for no or low cost. Of course you have to learn how to use these tools – but most importantly you have to create content – text, images, styling, etc.
Probably the easiest way is to create a Facebook Page – if you have a personal Facebook account then you already know how because it is basically the same – but that is also the downside since there isn’t much room for creativity.
If you are looking to do something a little flashier – but still fairly straight forward – then you can try out Weebly.com, JimDo.com or Wix.com. Also these integrate with social media sites like Facebook – so you can keep that Facebook page too. Once again the downside is there are limits to features and customization.
My favourite is WordPress.com though. Like the others above you can choose from a huge variety of themes, and create pages with images, text, videos and links all for free. A whole pile of other features are included too like blogging with comment management, email subscriptions, social media integration and more. Want a custom website address? They will help you choose, register, configure, and manage your very own domain for less then $20/year (NorthernStarNewspaper.com). But the best part is that you can get right into much of the underlying code and tweak it to be exactly like you want. In fact WordPress.org provides all the code in a nice package for anyone to download and customize to look and do exactly what they want (that’s what my job is).
what’s standing between you and your great website? My guess is it’s the time to learn the tools, create the content, and possibly the skills needed for this work. Of course that is why professional website designers and developers exist.
Happy website building!
