Every business needs a website, and if you don’t have a website or a digital presence, you are likely hiding your company a disservice. Even for those who aren’t technically minded, some good free web hosting services can get you started.
However, setting up a website can be costly, and getting a hosting and design that benefits what you do can be time-consuming and lengthy. This is where free web hosting comes into play.
Free Web Hosting
Companies usually offer free web hosting to those who need a web space but don’t have the resources available to purchase web hosting.
However, as an offset for the no cost charged for web hosting, there are often some drawbacks to free web hosting that you need to be aware of, and finding the right provider for your website is vital to ensure you get what you need without making too many compromises.
Choosing Your Free Web Hosting Provider
Requirements
Before you do anything, you must ascertain your website requirements. Do you need to run a storefront, a landing page blog, or an entire website? Knowing the type of website you need can help you narrow down web hosting providers to find a company that offers exactly that..
Consider Sub Domains
For a free website, you can consider subdomains, which means that the domain name isn’t completely your own and will look something like this;
yourcompanyname.hosting companyname.com
This can be a good compromise if you are unsure of what goes into running a website or don’t want it for a long time. Also, using a subdomain means you don’t need it by your domain name or make any permanent commitments.
Adverts
Some free web hosting will require that all site owners who aren’t paying for their services run adverts that might not be representative of your website or niche to help cover your hosting costs. This will mean that the company is still getting paid for running your website, making the use of ads might be non-negotiable. Look at their specifications and terms for free web hosting to see the type of ads they will be using and how they will appear so you can decide if you are happy to do this for free web hosting.
Uptime
These days, many free web host providers claim they have 99% uptime, but of course, they might not be being completely honest here. Do your research and look into uptime claims to see how much disruption you can expect. If you are running an ecom store, you want as little downtime as possible to reduce the impact this will have on sales; the difference between 99% and 99.9% is 3 days per year, so be careful about the claims and do your research first.
Read Reviews
After verifying the uptime claims, you need to read genuine reviews of the web host provider to see how they rated their free hosting experience. It’s always better to get the details from someone with experience with it rather than take the provider’s claims at face value. What did others have issues with? What limitations did they notice? How much trouble it is to build and maintain the website and so on. The more you know, the easier it will be to decide whether this is the right place for your web hosting.
Support
Typically, free web hosting comes with little or no support and is a caveat of not paying for the services provided. This means that if you aren’t tech-savvy, no one will help you out as a priority, and you may end up needing to pay a hefty fee for services or find someone who can assist you with any issues. Make sure there is at least one way of contacting your provider if you need to contact them, even if it’s just online chat support. In the absence of free customer support, there will usually be some help guides or tutorials you can use instead.
Other Considerations
Other considerations when choosing free web hosting include access to s website email address, security options, control panel access, server space, server speeds, and .htc access. All of these options are integral to the support and customization of your site, and what type of access or cover is offered with free sites can vary. Some will have limited access and the ability to make some changes, while others don’t provide much security or fast site speeds. Knowing these factors can help you to decide the right place for your website.
Free web hosting might seem like a good deal, but there are often compromises you will need to make to take advantage of this offer. Sometimes, it is too good to be true, while other times, you get an excellent deal. The trick to finding good free web hosting is to know precisely what you’re looking for.
