Sunday, January 14, 2007

Free Website Building, Is Free Always the Best Policy? by Jason Marchildon

When you type "Free website building" in Google it comes up with 513 million results (at the time of this publication). That is just the words "free website building" not in quotes.

Wow! That tells me that there are many people who have information online for you to research, and for that many websites to have information on this subject that tells me there are defiantly people looking for free ways to build websites.

The number of sites that I visited offered free building tools, free web hosting, free 25 megs of web space, free this and free that. It occurred to me that if someone was on a limited budget and the only way they could put a site up would be to use one of these sites, I would have to say "Oh no".

It might be ok for someone wanting to put pictures online but for a business site, I would have to no way, do not do it.

I will give you two compelling reasons why not.

The first reason is that there are banner ads flashing around your site designed to take your customers away from your site, never to return. To top it off they don't even offer you an affiliate's income for sales originating from your website! I do not think that they intend to run ads that compete against your business, but it happens. I just think the banner ads have to make a certain number of impressions and if a competing ad happens to come up on your webspace, oh well it is nothing personal. They are offering you free website hosting and tools to build your site.

The second will knock your socks off. I will not mention the site you will just have to take my word for it. Last year I happened on a site that offered free hosting. They offered the same stuff that other free web hosting sites offer. I was at an internet marketing conference and I overheard someone talking about a website: It was a website that I had personally visited. What I heard I would never forget.

The site offers free web hosting but if your site does extremely well and visitors are spiking they have the right to your site, content, domain name, you name it they can claim it as their own because it falls into the realm of corporate ownership. Now you tell me, if you are making enough money at this point to purchase a domain name, web space and marketing tools then I recommend you do this before someone claims your ideas.

REMEMBER - You get what you pay for, so if your investment is free, then someone has to be flipping the bill. Right?

When looking for free website building where you do stop looking? Do you stop looking when you find a site that offers you less banner impressions then the next site? Do you stop looking when you find a site that offers you one gig of space and a complimentary baseball cap with their name on it? All they ask is you send the shipping and handling fee and it is yours?

These are just a couple of experiences that I have had online. My aim is not to discourage you from downloading and using free resources online. In my experience the more time I spend online the more I become aware of the potential pitfalls that may arise from slick and savvy companies marketing to me.

There are many fantastic, reputable, sophisticated and cool websites that ask only that you use their sites in hopes of future sales. This, I have no question. Even though their services are free to use, companies are investing and offering products that might appeal to you. So use your wits when looking for "Free" services online, know what you are getting and what you are willing to forfeit.

About the Author

You can get "How to Find, Design and Build Your Own Professional Website In Just Five Days" a free 5-part mini course: - http://www.5daywebdesignsecrets.com

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