Website for free – Is it possible?

There is a common misconception that if we do something by ourselves, we will get it for free.

Looking at some random item in the furniture store, have you ever thought: I could totally make this myself. It’s just a piece of wood and bunch of nails. Simple. I will do this and we will save some money… honey. There’s not a single field in business that doesn’t have at least one do-it-yourself guide dedicated to it.

If I’ll do this myself will I have it for free?

Of course, if you have time and enough determination you will be able to create your website by yourself. There’s a lot free tools, guides and templates that you can use. All you need to do, is spend some time on research, and find the solution that will work for you best.

All you really need, is to pay attention to licensing. There are a lot of authors out there, who let you use their tools or templates for free but on some condition. Therefore you should always read the license. The most common type of license used in free products is CC-BY – Attribution. That basically means that you should always credit the author.

You can either use free open source platform like WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Wix, Tumblr to name a few. Or you can try to code your website by yourself from start to finish. There is a free course on almost everything. You just need to spend a little time to search for it and learn it.

So what you will pay for?

There are few things to keep in mind when you decide to launch a website. You will need an address (domain name) and a place to keep it (web server).

As far as hosting (web server provider) goes you will still be able to find some free plans. But keep in mind that it will probably mean that you’ll have sponsored ads on your website. Server quality or space won’t be the best. But apart from that you’ll manage. Tumblr for example is free (so far) and sometimes it might be just what you need.

But! there is no such thing as free domain name. Yeah you can use a subdomain name like on wix. For example your-domain.wix.com. Which basically is fine, but all the content will be indexed by search engines on that exact subdomain name. It means that if you ever decide to switch to your own (paid) domain name, your current position in search results will be lost. Also, you can’t transfer a subdomain name to another server, if you ever decide to change your hosting provider.

In most cases all you can count on when it comes to domain, is the free for-the-first-year deal. But you should be prepared to pay the full price for renewal. 

If you are serious about your website but low on cash, the domain name is the thing that you should consider to pay for, in the first place.

Time is money

Apart from a proper domain name, you can basically build your website for free. But is it really free? You will still have to spend your time on it. And if you are not an internet savvy, you can spend a lot of time without guarantee of success. It’s totally fine when you have an abundance of time, but show me someone who’s that lucky nowadays.

What to look out for

I won’t lie. There are a lot of things to watch out for when building a website. All those web developers, web designers and SEO experts are here for a reason after all. You should always consider for what you need your website. Is it for fun, hobby or learning purposes? – ok, go wild and try all your options. Is it for your business? – well, think about what you are risking.