EDIT: The best free website maker I found was weebly.com, it seems to be the easiest to use. The finished product actually looks pretty professional, and wasn't hard to make at all. Just drag and drop boxes where you want them. Hey guys, I know some of you have websites and I'm interested in starting one up. First off, I currently only do my business during the summer (college student) so I'm not looking to be paying fees while I'm away at school. Ideally, I'm looking for a free/cheap website host or maker. Basically, I need a homepage with contact info/introduction, a place to display some example pictures, and the list below. Pretty simple website. I would like to: - Have the ability to make a section to display pictures efficiently - Contact Info - Preferably a calendar that is available for the public to see - Professional looking If any of you know of a good website that has even a couple of these features, I would love to hear it. Thanks guys :mounty:
I don't think you are going to get all of that for free. Photobucket or Flickr can host your photos, but I don't think it's going to allow you to publish a calendar for your clients to see if you've got an open schedule.
Yea I wasn't expecting to get all of it for free/cheap, but if there's a website maker that will even allow a couple of the things I listed I'd be happy with it. The calendar is probably the least of my worries, I figure I can make one and just post an image of it, and when I get new bookings I could just update the image. Hopefully that would work, I'm pretty newb at websites besides forums. Thanks for the feedback
You might want to try google -- (I think its free if you have a gmail acct which is free anyways) Here's a short informative video too: YouTube - Introduction to Google Sites http://sites.google.com Here's a rundown from them: Learn more about Google Sites I know they have google calendar and you can create and share those. Pretty nifty. I might check it out myself!
You're best left to use something like blogspot. You can post anything you want on it and host pictures on flickr or photobucket and link to them from blogspot. There are several templates that could help you look more "professional", and then you might even be able to link to a public google calendar or something like that, it looks like it can be embedded in web pages. That's what I'd try first.
Thanks guys :thumb: I'm going to research the 3 suggestions I got, and let you guys know which one works best.
GoDaddy. I do contract web developing on the side and go through them for my web hosting. They have some decent templates if you're not code savvy.
I like the idea of having a calendar on your site so that the customers can sign themselves up or get to know your schedule better. nifty idea there. godoman
Google calendar is actually a really great way to integrate that. If you have an iPhone or smart phone that supports google's products, you can even sync a calendar that's on your phone with the calendar online. Updated right then and there. Additionally they have to-do list tracking. Amazing tools to maximize your productivity. All for free I might add.
I've been using hostmonster.com for the last couple years with no issues at all. I think i pay like $100 a year and they can do all of what you want and a whole lot more.
1and1.com Been with them for about 5 years and it's very easy. Never had to deal with technical support to I couldn't say.
