Free Websites?

[ellenjames]

Hi Writing Friends,

I hope this is the correct forum to which to post this request;

Do you know of any free websites?
freeweb.com
lulu.com
Others?

Which do you feel is the best?
Is this a good way to advertise one's writing?

Thanks,
Ellenjames

[DrRita]

Hi Ellenjames,
I am not sure if I understand the nature of your request. Do you want to promote something you've written? Find writing jobs? Get published? Sorry for being confused.

[ellenjames]

Thanks for answering, DrRita,
(And thanks for deleting the double post.) I'm considering a personal website. It would be nice to advertise my writing and sell stories. The thrust of my question is: are the free sites safe, dependable? Or should one pay for a web site?
Thanks,
Ellenjames

[Merry]

Being a cyber-klutz, I hired Angel to set up and handle mine. He offers a special rate for people at CW and I just send him my stuff and he takes care of it. A definite and trustworthy option.

[wgjones3]

I use to host my websites using freeservers.net under a faithweb.com domain. They were reasonably reliable. Of course, they put banner ads on your site, but otherwise it's pretty much a good basic ISP. They also have site-builder options, etc... But, you can't upload server side software like a CMS or blog publishing software to freeservers unless you pay for an account.

Now, if you do a pay site, here's what you're facing. You have to decide whether it will be static or dynamic, and if it's static, you have to decide whether you want to keep paying someone to update it or whether you want to learn to do that yourself. If it's dynamic, you have to decide whether you want to pay someone to set the site up for you or whether you want to learn how to do it yourself. And if you don't have any idea what I mean by static and dynamic, a static site is one that can't be changed without uploading new files (like http://www.williamgjones.com). A dynamic site is one like ChristianWriters.com, where you can log onto the site, make a new post, and it shows up immediately.

The purpose of a sucessful commercial website is to make more money than it costs. Which means you have to promote it to get people onto it in the first place. If all you're going to do is post a link in your sig here on CW, then more than likely, you'd be just fine with a freeservers account. If you're planning on printing up business cards or taking out ads somewhere, then you'll want your own pay site. But you'll also want it professionally designed to optimize search engine results and have a cutting-edge look that represents you.

Really, you have to decide what you want and how much you want to invest. However, if this is something you just want to play around with or get a feel for yourself, start out with a freeservers account and use their e-z site builder tool to put your site together. If you really want to get deeper than that, search google for a program called HTML Kit. It's a pretty good free web page design tool. And then if you're not happy, start looking for a good designer who will take the time to create the site you want, and not just charge you for a site just so you can say you have a site.

Now, if you want to try a blog, you can get a really nice free hosting deal for wordpress or typepad software at http://weblogs.us/ Wordpress is what I use for http://www.c4lonline.com

[ellenjames]

Thanks, WG for explaining this! Thanks Merry for your suggestion!
Like I tell the Newbies, you all are helpful, friendly people!
Ellenjames

[Naomi Musch]

Dear Ellen;
I recently set up my website through www.freewebs.com It was absolutely free and the process for set up was a simple one. They walk you through a series of templates and then you just play around from there having fun with the designs and so forth.

Later I did decide to purchase a domain name to make my address shorter. I have it for 2 years for about $70. But you don't have to do that.

They do post banner ads on my site, but so far I've had nothing objectionable appear, and they seem to be very good about nothing questionable or obsene going on their sites. I've also used them to begin setting up a home schooling web site, and so far the ads tend to be from homeschooling or other similar sources.

God bless you on your endeavor!
Naomi Musch
www.naomimusch.com

[ellenjames]

Thanks for the information, Naomi,

I now have a website at freewebs.com and I'm enjoying it!
Ellenjames

[patches]

Try Bigbytes.net for your web hosting and misk.com for your domain.
Webhosting has run me about $16 a yr. Domain, if I remember correctly was $20. for the first two years.
They are both really reasonable, both dependable.

Steph