Hi there:

My name is Madeleine and in a few minutes I’ll help you find a free website hosting service, set-up an attractive site and avoid some major pitfalls that I myself have encountered as I went through this process.

I've created this information for friends and family, but all others are welcome to it as well. All I ask is that you spread the word. I'd also appreciate your using the links on this site to purchase books and other resources...this is how I pay for my time and any costs. Oh, and please come back, since I'll be adding new information, FAQs and resources weekly. -- Madeleine

CONTENTS

SOME BASIC TERMS

• A website is simply a collection of pages linked together and stored or hosted on a company's server/computer so that it can be viewed on the Internet.
  
  
• The home page or index page of a website is usually what you see when you first type in a URL in the address field of your browser (Netscape, Explorer, etc.)
  
  
• So what’s a URL…it stands for "uniform resource locator". But, the important thing is that it’s the specific and unique address of a web page on a server….you know http://www.keen.com for example.
  
  
• Some URLs can be quite long, especially if you are using a free website hosting service. For example: http://www.geocities.com/madtwo_99.... and on and on.
  
  
• That’s why some people register with a Domain Name Service (DNS) to get a shorter, domain name or address for their visitors to use.
  
  
• A domain name is like a DBA or fictitious "doing business as" name, such as Tom’s Cigars or Keen for example. Online visitors can use www.tomcigars.com, but are really being directed to a web page, which may have an entirely different URL address.

DEFINE YOUR SITE'S PURPOSE AND CONTENT

Jumping right into your web site is an exciting thing...it was for me anyways. However, unlike me, you should first take a day or two to really think through why you want the web site and what exactly you're going to say (the copy) and show (photos, graphics, etc.). This will not only help you determine the 'best' web hosting service to use, but will also save you the time and frustration of making constant corrections or changes.

A few tips:

• Objective - Determine the kind of service or information you want to provide through this site? Some people just want to display their resume, while others want to sell products or services...either online or offline. If your goal is to sell, please also see the section on "Evaluate whether you should pay".
  
  
• Define your audience...everything you do on your site should match up with this. So, if your key audience is teenagers, you may be able to use smaller fonts; whereas, seniors would not be able to read them.
  

• Site and page titles - Make your titles relevant to your audience and purpose by using keywords that you know they will search for. For example, you may have come to my site by searching for "create free web sites"? As such, I have tried to weave these words into my titles. I also may want to choose a site title, such as "freewebsites.tripod.com".

• Content - Prepare your copy on Word or other document ahead of time and make edits there. Given that every web page template is different, you may need to modify your copy to fit the template; but again, you'll want to make the edits in Word to avoid typos and to keep a safe copy.
  
  
• Links - On the same Word document, you'll want to also record any links you'll need. Give the link a name (that you'll display) and the actual URL. One of your links should always be Contact Me/Us, and should link to your email box.
  
  
• Graphics - While it's great to have nice big photos and graphics, they will load slowly for your users, especially those working from home. So, try to use smaller graphics or optimize them for the Web on PhotoShop, etc. Also, prepare all graphics in JPG, GIF or BMP formats for the Web. Most other formats will typically not work. See the section, "Evaluate whether you should pay" if you want to incorporate multimedia.

return to top of page

SO, WHY IS EVERYTHING FREE?

If you believe in the rule that everything costs something, you're right. Most companies offer free hosting services, free site builders and other great services in exchange for your displaying their ad on your website. They provide the ads and insert them automatically on to your pages. Beware, however, some services make you buy something, like a domain name, to get the free hosting; this is unnecessary since there are more than enough good services that provide free hosting without charging anything.

return to top of page

EVALUATE WHETHER YOU SHOULD PAY...FIRST

Based one your site's purpose and content and your needs, you may actually want to pay for a web hosting service instead of using a free one. Check out the following criteria to determine this.

Key Reasons to Pay:

• You hate ad displays
• You want your own, custom domain name: www.myname.com
• You need extra storage and bandwidth, especially for multimedia projects.
• You're setting up an e-commerce site that will be visited by thousands of visitors each day and requires a catalog and credit card processing.

You can easily buy a domain name registration even after your site has been set-up. However, some services offer fantastic discounts if you buy the domain name, hosting and other services from them all at once. For more on this see below.

return to top of page

There are now a ton of free website hosting services that do provide site builders. Some are definitely easier and more powerful than others. Again, they’re free because you’re obligated to display an ad of some kind for them…but, ads can be customized as well to minimize the bug factor, as I’ll show you in a while.

I’ll stick to describing the pros and cons of three services. Then, I’ll take you through registering and creating a website on one service that I’d recommend most.

Three services I’d recommend are:

• Yahoo Geocities (www.geocities.com) has been around for a while…so, you don’t have to worry about the service and your website disappearing one day. It offers 15 megabytes (MB) of space for all of your pages and graphics or photos…each page will probably take about 50 kilobytes (KB). Yahoo also offers 1MB of data transfer or bandwidth. Their site builder is sufficient for basic links, however, their page templates don’t allow for much flexibility without HTML coding knowledge.
  
  
• Tripod (www.tripod.lycos.com/compare/compare.html) has also been around for at least six years and is affiliated with Lycos…so, I’m confident in it. Their site is a bit tricky, however, and tries to get you to buy a pay-for plan. So, after you click Sign-Up for the Free Plan, you'll see a page with all plans...and, you'll need to click on the "Sign-Up" link again under "Try Tripod for Free".
  
  Tripod's free plan offers a generous amount of data storage (20MB) and 1 gigabyte of bandwidth and has a great site builder with nice templates that allow you to easily add cool graphics and other tools, such as guestbooks. You can also easily opt for pop-up ads instead of the usual banner versions that appear at the top of your page. Pop-up ads appear in a separate window, don't take up precious space on your page and interfere less....I think.
  
  
• 20MegsFree (www.20megsfree.com) is a much newer service. However, it does offer 20MB of space and a really easy site builder with more stylish templates that can get you going quickly. It too allows you to customize ads, but customizing links and adding special tools is a bit more difficult.

return to top of page

MORE ABOUT TRIPOD

Unless you're willing to pay to remove the ads or need more than the 20MB of space, my suggestion is to use Tripod's free website hosting service and Site Builder.

Key Tips

• At the registration page, determine your member name carefully. Once you type something into this field, your URL will be: yourmembername.tripod.com.
  
  
• If once you select the Site Builder page it doesn’t show or you get an Error 404, you may have to go into your Web browser Tools/Preferences/Advanced and clear the cache history and make sure Cookies are being accepted. I've explained this further in the Word document download provided below.
  
  
• After you make your edits to each page, don’t forget to Preview the page…and then to Publish. If you don’t publish, the page won’t show when you enter your new site address.
  
  
• Use Tripod's "Add Web Gem" function to add custom graphics and tools. Instructions are provided in the downloadable Word document below. Click here for free counters, graphics, etc.
  

FOR DETAILED, STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS ON TRIPOD, CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD WORD DOCUMENT.

Word document includes:

• Key Tips
• Step-by-Step instructions
• If the Site Builder doesn't work
• Changing how ads display
• Adding custom graphics and tools

return to top of page

• Dreamweaver, FrontPage 2003 (for PC only) or other website editing application - editing applications will allow you to download your files from the hosting service and tweek the design and much more. Dreamweaver is particularly power-packed, but it is expensive and can take time to learn.
  
  
• Knowledge in HTML - HTML is the coding/language that runs or instructs a Web page. Some basic knowledge would allow you to directly modify code through Tripod's FreeForm editor.
  
  
• Photoshop or other graphics application to create and/or modify the graphics or photos for your pages.
  
  
• You might also want to gain publicity for your site by registering with a search engine.

  Click here for the best prices on books and software on these topics.

return to top of page

GREAT PAY-FOR WEB HOSTING SERVICES
...WHEN YOU'RE READY

To complement this free information, we've researched all of the various hosting services out there, based on price, features, reliability and service. From this, we developed several packages to offer you, and feel that these will provide affordable, yet complete services, based on your need...and when you're ready to upgrade from a free hosting service.

Services start as low as $9.95/month and are provided through Easy-Affordable Web Sites.

Each plan includes:

• No Ads
• Reliable, fast hosting service
• Free domain registration: www.yourname.com
• Free web site builder - same as Tripod's
• 200MB+ of file storage
• Scalable -- add more memory & email accounts, MySQL database, ecommerce storefront, online payment, etc.
• Free Set-Up
  
  Find Out More: Click here to go to: Easy-Affordable Web Sites

Plans start at $9.95/month:

• Solo XR: Great to start out with and includes no ads, free site builder, free domain registration, 200MB storage for your files, , web stats, FrontPage extensions, etc.
  Price: $9.95/mon.
• Pro: For businesses or professionals. Includes everything in Solo XR + 300 MB, MySQL database and Real audio/Video 8.0, PHP $, Perl, C, C++ support.
  Price $19.95/mon.
• E-Pro: For online businesses. Includes everything in Pro + 500 MB and a Miva storefront builder.
  Price: $34.95/mon.
  
  Find Out More: Click here to go to: Easy-Affordable Web Sites
  

Other Hosting Services or Plans?
While we think we've recommended the best packages (above), based on price and features, please do search and compare against other services for yourself.

Check out:

• HostReview's power search - lets you search based on a broad set of criteria and produces a nice comparison chart of various hosting services that meet your criteria.
• TopHosts - has a larger list of services but will only let you search by Price/Month, Disk Space and Server Type

WANT MORE RESOURCES...FOR FREE?
click here to go to the Resources page