Why Build a Free Website?

Are you ready to build a website? This article discusses times when you might want to consider building a free website as your first choice. Sure, free websites have limitations. But sometimes a free website is a more sensible and effective choice than paying for a website.

Related article: What Is Free Web Hosting?

What Makes a Free Website the Best Choice?

Limited Engagement—Suppose there's an upcoming event you need to plan, such as Grandma and Grandpa Prescott's fiftieth wedding anniversary, your kid brother's graduation from high school, or the retirement of your boss. These are all one-shot events for which you temporarily need to communicate with a certain group of people exclusively, and—for the planning period—your communication is likely to be focused on the plan.

In this kind of situation, your needs are limited by the situation: you don't need a lot of pages and a complex navigating system; you don't need really large storage capabilities; you don't need stunning design; you don't need the site to have a life past the date of the celebration; and you don't need to spend money. A free website is perfect for this.

One-shot Deal—Or suppose that you were one of the few people who did an audio recording of Joe's funny speech to the bowling club, the really funny graduation speech by the valedictorian, or the sing-along at the neighborhood potluck. These are situations in which you might want to mp4 files too big to email with a group of people whose web interaction doesn't need to go very far. Given audio files (rather than movie files), you may be able to find  a free web hosting that provides enough disk space and monthly bandwidth and lets you manage content, for example with Drupal or Joomla content management systems (CMS).

Gain Experience—If you're just starting out on the World Wide Web, you may find that a free website is just the thing to help you learn your way around and what works for you and doesn't before you invest in more expensive web hosting, not to mention website design.

Because free website hosts have a lot of experience with web newbies, they often provide some supports for those who are just getting started. Helpful aides like online website builders and templates can make structuring your site easy, helping you get through the first stages of establishing your web presence.

Lickety-Split—You may also be in a situation in which you need to get up and running right now. If you don't have time to wait for a website design and the constructing process, free websites give you the tools to get online fast.

Two-fer—Some web hosts will offer you a free website for registering your domain name with them. In this case, it may be worth it to you to take advantage of this package deal.

Overcoming the Name Game—You might be in a situation where you need to have a specific name in your URL, and there's no wiggle room. This could be the case if, for example, you already have a product.  Because free website hosts usually run the sites as subdomains of their host name, you have a much better chance of being able to secure the name you need, in the case that yourname.com, yourname.net, and yourname.org, etc. are already taken.

Free Lunch?—It's also possible that you need to get the word out about something via the web, and although you'd like to put the effort into a sophisticated site, the economics just aren't with you at the moment. A free website can get you started on the path to your goals.

Match Your Needs—Why pay for a site where the perks are 10,000 email addresses that you have no use for, extra gigabytes of webspace you won't use or bandwidth you don't need, and page ranking boosts that don't mean anything in your particular situation? If a free website provides all the elements that you need to have for what you're doing.

Related article: What Is Free Web Hosting?