People often wonder about websites and think they require a lot of work and expense. Work, yes, expense, no, lol. I like to sew and wanted to put up a free website that would give clothing solutions to breast cancer survivors who'd had bilateral mastectomy. It would have free patterns and instructions for items that women could make for themselves economically, and later I added a few things that I make for women who can't sew.
It's not exactly a business website, it's more of a personal one, but both kinds are put together almost exactly the same. A good friend recommended www.yola.com and after much research, I found it to have high reviews as they are very dependable, friendly, and compatible with almost any sort of site you'd want to make. Many business sites are posted through them and Yola has loads of free templates with a variety of different themes.
You can pay for an inexpensive monthly plan that includes even more templates and they will even set up your site for you, I think, but I couldn't afford to do it that way and did it all myself on the free version. I'm very appreciative that they supply so many great free tools and give free space for individuals as well as businesses to have websites, and they don't even run any intrusive advertising banners across them, it's great! They only put their own name/ad very discretely at the bottom of the page, nothing more.
Yes, you will have a website address at first that includes the Yola name as well as your website's name, but you can buy a website name of your very own for as little as $10 a year from various sources (I bought mine through Google as a reseller) and aim it to your free Yola website, so when people type the name of your purchased website name, it'll take them directly to your website and that's the name that'll show in their address line.
It's much easier and safer to buy your website domain name through Yola for $11.95 a year, and let them aim it to your website automatically, but if you're patient you can figure out how to do it yourself through other resellers if you'd rather. When I bought mine, I had no idea what I was doing and bought my domain name someplace else, which worked out fine, I was just lucky. Bu if I had it to do over, I'd go with Yola to buy my domain name probably. For only $11.95 a year to keep the name and a free website, what a deal! I really trust them myself.
There's a slight learning curve, but they've upgraded lots of features in the year since I started a website there and it's much more intuitive now. You can drag and drop areas to put your photos and text, etc. If you have a problem, just look on their "Get Help" tab and there's tutorials and a community of people who will explain things. Sometimes I just Google my question and find the answer right away. Almost everything, you can figure out for yourself.
My plans for the coming year are to look at their new templates and re-do my site, but at the time I was in a hurry to get the information up that I didn't fine tune it a lot. You can have a simple website up in minutes, then go back and add to it when you have time. They even have blogging features, if you're so inclined.
By Mary LaCaze from Mtn. Pine, AR
This page contains the following solutions.
There are free templates out there. I created websites for people using the Weebly.com templates. It is very very basic, no html.
Here are the questions asked by community members. Read on to see the answers provided by the ThriftyFun community.
What is the most frugal way to put together a web site? If I do a search, the task can be daunting and I'm not sure who to trust. Specifically, I need to either learn how to put one together myself, or pay a company that is trustworthy and economically feasible.
By Patti from Ewing, NJ
If you need a basic website you can get one free at www.yola.com/
If you want to LEARN the true nuts and bolts of a website I am not sure which host is best right now but I will refer you to www.HTMLGoodies.com as a reference for learning the craft of web creation.
You can do a search for website templates and find a few sites with "shells" you can use. You fill them with your content and post them on your host.
I will add that you can do web craft utilizing something as simple as Windows Notebook. I found it easier to use a program called Arachnophilia. At the time I was web building it was free and may still be... but it has tools to help you with the coding of a website.
Good luck.
Check out www.freewebs.com. I did one there a couple of years ago and it is really simple, mostly point and click. Learning how to do one is hugely different, but for someone wanting a decent one you can check out the one I did if you want: www.freewebs.com/carpidiemgoats.
My friend and I create websites, and I have bartered a web site with the gal that does my hair for cuts, colors and waxes. Another one of my friends wants me to create one for his photography business. I still have to figure out what we will barter.
Creating a simple website isn't too difficult if you have MS Frontpage. It would be within your MS Office programs. I've encountered a few companies that use Frontpage. I, on the other hand, determined to write my own, so I searched out "free HTML lessons" using my favorite search engine. It isn't elementary, but it's doable. Please remember blind folk use the web too (I'm one of them,) so if you include pictures, please name them within the HTML framework. I hate getting an incomprehensible string of code instead of "Our CEO John Johnson."
Since my own experience was 10+ years ago, I don't know anymore who hosts free. You might want to do a search for "free website hosting" and see what looks good to you. One I'd advise against is godaddy.com - it doesn't seem very good.
There are a number of inexpensive webhosting companies (many provide hosting for under $5.00 a month) that provide easy to use software to build your website when you subscribe to their service. By going this route you don't have to spend time learning HTML or other complicated software. Plus, you'll have control of the content of your website without intrusive advertising that normally comes with "free websites".
You'll be able to get your website up and running quickly and avoid the frustration of spending weeks or months learning to build a website. A nice website to compare different webhosting companies is www.mytopfivehosting.com. It also provides some definitions to help you decide what you are looking for. I hope this helps, good luck!
