Topic: free website,any reccomendations?

[elvis2003]

Morning all!
Im setting up a new (small for now) business and am looking for advice re free websites. I dont mind if its one of those ones where its free for the first 12 months and then you pay after that. Hopefully Ill be a bit more established by then. Ive had a go at webs.com but they put free ads on the home page which take up a lot of space. I dont care how basic it is. Any ideas?
Thanks in advance Rach x

[sheddie]

Hi,

I've heard positive things about Moonfruit.com - free webspace I believe but I must admit I haven't used them personally.

I have used 1&1.co.uk and found them very good, they aren't free but I found them pretty reasonable.

good luck
sheddie

[elvis2003]

Thanks sheddie,Ive had a look at moonfruit,found a lovely template which is perfect,but Ill be B******D if I can susss out how to do the rest,cant even type the title (cue gnashing of teeth)

[sheddie]

Ha ha! - yeah, webs are always a fun challenge aren't they! - thats why I used to like frontpage, it was just like using Word.

Just had a quick look and I think you need to go into the 'edit' option obviously and then theres a +button at the menu on the top of the page to insert. A menu popped up on the left and it gave me the choice of insert body text or insert title text? - not sure if thats a help - I just had a quick flick!

Looks like one you might just have to keep having a play at - they never seem to make them simple!

ps, did you pick the 'Fresh and Natural' template with the nice photo of the apples by any chance?
 ;D
Sheddie

[elvis2003]

 ;D yep,the green beans sold it! We now have a title,slow progress being made and OH has sensibly gone out to leave me to it..thanks sheddie
R x

[BarriedaleNick]

Weebly is excellent for novices and also for more expereinced users

http://www.weebly.com/

[elvis2003]

Thanks Nick,just stumbled across weebly and so far it looks a bit more user friendly.moon fruit was driving me mad,it was so hard to enter simple text,and I'm ok ish with IT

[elvis2003]

just in case anyone else setting up a website reads this,deffo try weebly first,its so simple I'm actually really enjoying doing it! :)

[Tee Gee]

Quite often your internet provider gives this service, check with them.

That was how I started.

Then again you could try browsing through these;

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=free+website+hosts&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a

[elvis2003]

Thanks TG,think Ive tried all of them now,and reckon weebly best by far,for me anyhow

[Tee Gee]

Weebly is excellent for novices and also for more expereinced users

http://www.weebly.com/

I agree it looks simple to use but it is not FREE see here;

http://www.weebly.com/tos.php


I get suspicious of things that are supposed to be free so had a look around and found this page,

Personally I like to see what it wil cost before I I venture into sites such as these.


Edit;

For example; the new apple ibook author software which i am trying out at the moment is free to produce but when you read the small print you find out that you need a ISBN which costs $125 plus they take30% off the selling price of the book

 It seems a bit expensive to me,  e.g a £4 book will cost me  around £ 80 for the first book and 30% off every book there after, meaning I don't start making any money until I have sold around 40 books.

As I say I am suspicious of freebies.

[elvis2003]

My understanding of it is you pay only f you use certain features,which Im not,,Ive not been asked for any payment so far..wouldnt mind paying a fee,within reason,as hopefully my website will be a good tool for my new venture

[BarriedaleNick]

To be fair to weebly they do have a decent reputation but of course they are trying to make money - they do offer pro features which are payable services but you can use the free version with no real strings attached.  That's pretty much an industry standard business model for a lot of Internet startups these days - nothing wrong with that! 
The whole iBook thing is just another reason for me to avoid Apple..

[Deb P]

I had a go and did a basic few pages for my husbands business, only took me about an hour and very straightforward. I paid for a domain name for a year and a bit extra for a private domain to reduce spam, but when I search for the site via a search engine it doesn't come up at all. Is that anything to do with it? I can go direct to the site so it has been published.

[BarriedaleNick]

What's the url??

[Deb P]

http://www.andypatrickjoiner.com/

[BAK]

Deb P,

it looks to my untutored eye as if you registered the domain today?

If so, I am afraid that search engines can take a while (a week or two) to pick a new domain up ... and this assumes that there are no problems - google in particular can be quite fussy.

[Deb P]

Yes that is correct, if so that would make sense! I was worried that registering it as a 'private' domain would affect it when searching, which would be a bit pointless for attracting business !

[daveyboi]

http://www.andypatrickjoiner.com/

Google has already picked up this post so I am sure your site will be crawled soon.

[elvis2003]

if anyone would like a look,ive nearly finished it now,let me know and i'll pm the link (would post it here but not sure if allowed)