Free Hosting, no charge! Sounds good to a new webmaster without
much start up capital. If it says free and then attempts to
charge you then guess what? It wasn't free.
Free Hosting can be very good, and saves your pocket money.
Most free hosts also offer other hosting package but has a basic
or starter package that it advertises as free. These packages do
not usually carry many features as the paying ones and are most
suited to personal sites. Some free services offer a complete
ecommerce site where all you need to do is to stock it with your
own goods. The trick is as you market your site they benefit as
your are benefiting their domain by driving traffic and pushing
up their rank as their site grows without them doing very much.
If you are new to the net and want to try at selling products
without expending a lot of money then a free service might be
for you. While you get that main important website ready for
listing, you can use a free host to quickly develop and promote
your products on the web. Later on you can use this site to
drive traffic to your main site.
There are point to note however, when you are looking for free
packages to open a store. Consider the following factors.
1. Free might mean no support service. If it is a business site,
then this becomes invaluable.
2. Free might mean insufficient resources with which to carry
out the functions of the store. You might not have sufficient
bandwidth, or disk space.
3. Free might mean that you do not have a domain for yourself.
Rather you have a free sub-domain or sub directory. E.g. I have
a web store at
http://kimmieval.ecrater.com. This means that I
am hosted through a free service and my URL reflects just that.
Some search engines do not favour free services or sub domains
when you submit your store. Bear in mind some persons have done
it and have received rankings. But note that with changing
search engine algorithms you might not be as lucky.
4. Free might mean they host their banners on your site which
detracts from your business, and hurt potential page ranks as
many links lead away from your site.
5. Some free hosts also do not allow you to host any form of
advertising or pages outside of what is on their template. This
make it difficult for you to participate in reciprocal linking
or use services such as Google AdSense.
All in all the ultimate choice of host partners is dependent on
you, your pocket and the needs of your business. But whichever
route you go, make sure to do your homework. A minute spent in
research equates to possible money saved. But if you still want
to progree with a free hosting serve, then hosts like freewebs,
ecrater and 50webs are there that offer basic free packages. For
others, a simple search will yield quite a few.
About the author:
K Valentine is owner of
A Web hosting Site and
