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A friend of mine, who runs a small business, needs to attract more clients. She has a Facebook page; but no website. I have urged her to get a website whose URL she can put on her business cards and mention to people; but she doesn't want to spend additional money. Can one build a free no-frills website for a small business; and if so, does anyone have recommendations of how/where to go about it that I can pass along to her?
There are template based website editors such as WIX that allow you to build your website using pre-made online templates which allows you to drag and drop your content. It is not recommended for large businesses, but can be used to start up a website for now.
A friend of mine, who runs a small business, needs to attract more clients. She has a Facebook page; but no website. I have urged her to get a website whose URL she can put on her business cards and mention to people; but she doesn't want to spend additional money. Can one build a free no-frills website for a small business; and if so, does anyone have recommendations of how/where to go about it that I can pass along to her?
Thanks for your time.
She can buy her domain for $15.00/year and direct it to her FB page.
That is about as cheap as it gets, and she can promote her business on FB.
Yes, she will lose folks who are not members.
Or, she can build it on WordPress.com, with content she posts. It can be free, other than cost of the domain, or she can opt to exclude ads, and other options.
But, she has to want the website worse than you want it for her.
I pay Network Solutions $15.99 per year for my website plus $50/month to my isp for internet service, which includes space on their server for web pages. Your friend *probably* already pays for internet service, so the added cost is $16/year.
I designed my own web pages over the years with various http software -- some of it free. I've also designed and maintained a couple other business websites for friends but quit doing that due to my own retirement plans.
IIRC, Network Solutions offers webpage design solutions that don't necessarily cost anything -- just fill in the spaces in their template with your information and it's done.
Several web businesses offer to create sites or modify your current one so it'll show up near the top on web searches, but that's not necessary just to get started. I've never done it.
There is usually a catch with free so be be very careful with anything free and/or proprietary web site building software. Anything that is flat out free will usually have their ads on it.
Paid for hosts like Network Solutions often have proprietary web site building applications. These might be easy to use but can be a nightmare in the future if you ever decide to move your site to another host. I had to move site once where someone had been using their site building software. They had uploaded hundreds of images and were the only copies, there was no direct FTP access to them. Something that should of taken a few clicks took an entire day of clicking. Because of other issues I would not recommend Network Solutions at all.
If you are going to use anything look in the panel for Drupal, Wordpress or Joomla installation. There is learning curve for these and you need to keep the software up to date yourself but you can move it to any host very easily.
I'd at least buy a domain and point it to a web hosting service. Domains typically cost approximately $5-$20 per year. It just depends on the name you choose and the extension (top level domain). Would your friend's domain be YourDomain .us or YourDomain .co ? I personally would choose a .com domain.
You then have to figure out where to point the domain so that you have your website come up after typing in www.YourDomainName . com
Free services work OK for very basic websites. There are limitations to them such as advertisements are embedded on your webpages or annoying pop-ups. I have used Bravenet.com to help someone else with their very basic website. I like them overall, but have not used Bravenet much recently.
If you friend wants more of a blog type of website Wordpress.com works alright for extremely basic websites. As an example, you can choose some name like George for your blog and it would be a URL george.wordpress.com
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