Now that I have your attention, I am going to confess. I will tell you how you can have a web presence for free. But I will also tell you why that really costs you money… and the alternative doesn’t have to cost much at all.
You probably know that you can have a free account on Facebook and you may even know that you can go to wordpress.org and sign up for a free blog and there are other similar sites depending on what you want. With a little work, you can sign up and have a page or a blog up in an afternoon.
So what is wrong with that?
Well nothing, if you want a place to catch up with friends, or to post family pictures. I am not saying that having a blog or a social media account is wrong for a business either. They can be very useful tools in a branding strategy, but not by themselves.
If you want to be taken seriously as a business or a brand, then it is better to have your own domain. For example, who do you trust more as a site, www.igossi.com or http://www.facebook.com/igossi?
So here is the catch. No one will take you or your business as valid if you cheap out. Why should they believe in your brand or business or invest in it if you do not. The free costs you in terms of potential clients and respect.
The solution is easier than you might think. You can get a domain name from a place like namecheap.com for $2.99 a year. In full disclosure, that site is an affiliate link, but you can search Google and find many places to buy a domain name. I just happen to like and believe in namecheap.com.
As for hosting, I use Hostgator.com, and yes that is another affiliate link but I have been with them for years and they are currently offering to host your site for $3.96 a month. So for less than five bucks a month, you can have your own domain, which includes free email accounts based on your domain name.
Now all you just need to decide what type of site you want to have, static or dynamic and how it will look. Most hosts have templates that you can use for free. However, if you already guessed that I’m going to tell you that’s a bad idea too, you’re right. You can find out why in the next article.
Like this article? Questions or comments? Please let me know. I would love to hear from you!
