How To Create Free Website?

How easy is it to create and maintain a free website?

• I am 15 and in school we have been given an assignment to set up a mini company with a parter. One of my ideas involves having a website, and preferably a free one. So I'm well able to use a computer (obviously) but I have no clue about website design. I was wondering how easy it is to set up a free website and how easy it is to maintain and change it as the business grows. Any advice/experiences to share? I was also wondering what websites would be best for creating a free website, and basically any advice for me in regards to website design. Thanks in advance!

• Answer:

  First thing you need to do is to be able to understand basic HTML. That is how you create a web site. Then you need software to assist you in making/composing a web site. There're quite a few professional ones out there. (I'm using Microsoft Front Page, that is an older one, and also Adobe Dreamweaver, or MS Visual Studio, but these are not free. Do Goggle search for "free HTML visual editor" and see what's out there if "free" is the stipulation. In most cases your school should provide you with a visual editor if they gave you such an assignment.) As the deploying of the web site goes, you need what is called a "(web) hosting account". Do Google search for "free web hosting" and you'll find plenty. If it's just a school project I'd go with a free account. But if you plan on expanding it as a business venture, then I would definitely find a paid web hosting account. The free one will impose a ton of limitations and may show ads on your page, which is always bad. They go for quite little money these days. You can get a basic plan for around $5 a month, which is not that bad. (But you'll have to pre-pay for 12 mo's, but with a 30-day money-back guarantee.) Another step is to obtain a domain name for your site. For instance, this one is "yahoo.com", so you need to get it for your site as well. Many shared web hosting companies provide a temp name for you so that you don't have to buy your own. If you plan on getting something of your own though, like "mywonderfulcompany.com", then you need a doman name registrar, like GoDaddy, for instance, and purchase it from them. It may set you back from $10 to $20 a year. So, as you can see, this is not bad either. One word of advice though, DO NOT go for a free domain name that may come with your web hosting account! So once you get a hosting account (that is also called "shared web hosting" because you share it with many other people on some remote server), and after you made your web site's HTML+graphics, you will need to upload all that to a web host. You could do this from your HTML editor, or using ftp protocol via Windows Explorer. After that your site may be ready for viewing using your personal domain name, or a temp one and a web browser. Good luck! PS. I obviously omitted a bunch of important nuances, such as server-side programming (PHP/ASP NET, etc), differences between Linux/Windows/etc. web hosting, server configuration, graphics design for your site, etc. But you can search it out by yourself... you're delving into a very complex subject here ))