Warning: This may go into rant mode!
I have some strong feelings about this, the whole idea of using a free hosting site for your business (whether established or new) just screams at me as tacky (and if I offended you, maybe this is something you need to think about). I’ve heard folks say the reason they are using a free hosting service is because they don’t have the money to pay for hosting or to purchase a domain, so let’s break the costs down.
Domain: You can typically purchase a .com domain for less than $10.00 for year (that’s about 2 cents a day)
Hosting: My favourite hosting provider, Hostgator (and the one I recommend most often) has a hosting package that starts at $4.95 per month if you purchase 12 months, so $59.40 or about 16 cents per day.
Website Design: You can do this yourself using WordPress and one of the many fantastic templates that are available.
Total cost for the year: $69.40 or 18 cents per day.
Kind of puts into the perspective doesn’t it?
So why should you avoid the free web hosting services? Here’s just a few of my thoughts
- Domain: Typically to use the free service you will have a not so ideal domain address, such as yourbusiness.freedomain.com. Not very attractive. So you think okay, well I just buy my domain and point it to my free website, often these free services as a way to make money will make you upgrade to use your own domain (and I’m sure if you work it out it won’t be much different than having your hosting service price wise)
- Advertising: Often to let you hosting your website on their service they require you to have advertising on your website and often (not always but often they put their advertising in a prime real estate area and you have no control over the type of advertising they place on your site.
- Control: You have to use on of their templates (which are often not very attractive) and are also often loaded to meta data that relates to their hosting and this will drive more traffic to their service instead of your business.
- Rights: What happens if the service shuts down? You’ve very quickly lost all of your content and access to. You have to start all over, not a pleasant idea.
Well I have paid hosting, but I’m using one of the templates they provide? Is that good?
While a better alternative than choosing free hosting, my recommendation is to go with WordPress running on your hosting service (heck you’re already paying for the hosting) and start experimenting with the many free templates available with wordpress to build your site. If the idea of choosing a domain name, web hosting service and installing WordPress seem intimidating why not go buy my new guide, WordPress Sites Made Easy? Click here to buy it now!
