Creating a website

[pinkhighlighter]

This was brought up in another thread, and since this has been on my mind lately, I thought I should go ahead and ask...
I have been wanting to create some websites, I have some ideas. This could be a great way for me to let myself be creative. I'm not an artist etc, but I love to design things. It would be nice to make some money from any sites I create. Since I am new to this, it would be my first time, I am thinking of using a free web hosting service.
I've been looking into creating a .com, but honestly the whole thing seems far too complicated for me.

So my questions:
1. Do/can free web hosted sites get noticed?
2. Can you make money from said sites?
3. Which free web hosting service do you recommend?

[Adam]

Originally Posted by pinkhighlighter

1. Do/can free web hosted sites get noticed?

Yes, with some minor exceptions.

2. Can you make money from said sites?

Usually, no, with some minor exceptions. Even with these exceptions, it is difficult to make any substantial amount of money.

3. Which free web hosting service do you recommend?

This depends entirely on what you want to do with the site. For blogs, I reccomend Wordpress.com and Blogger.com.

While free sites have their disadvantages, owning your own domain name and paying for server space also has its own disadvantages. The first is that if you ever decide to stop maintaining the site, you will have paid for a service that you're not using. Regardless, in order to find any success with any site, whether it is paid for or free, expect to spend at least a few hours a day for a month straight in the beginning, and taking a few hours each week to maintain it. You could spread out the first month of setting it up over a year, with minor tweaks to the layout of the pages, new or different advertisers, but if the site is to be anything more than a hobby, then treat it just as you would treat a real, brick-and-mortar business.

[Caveman Joe]

Before I started HostingForAQuid, I bandied Culture Shock around between free hosts (see http://www.furnation.com/cmj/ for details) and never got much traffic. With a domain name, the website stored on my servers, and running on the GeekLog engine, my visitor count went up dramatically.

[Dani]

Seriously, if you want to make a successful business it's tough with free websites like wordpress.com

You can get free tools, like wordpress itself, and put it on your own site, but trying to start a business without actually putting anything into it is not going to get you results.

Getting a web site is so cheap, $10 a month and a domain $10 a year. That there is no excuse for not having your own site.

If you are struggling to make the (less than) $130 a year needed for a web site, you have bigger problems than a free website can fix.

[Caveman Joe]

Ten dollars a month? More like two dollars a month. :P
/not-so-subtle plug

[Dani]

ack! sorry CavemanJoe how could I forget!

So a grand total of less than $30 a year

[pinkhighlighter]

Thanks everyone. Well, I do have a blog at blogger. I never considered that a website really just because you can't make different pages and all that. But, yes, I suppose it is.
I'm not looking to create a website for a source of income. It would be nice to make a little money off of it, but I am looking for a good way to be creative. I thought this might be an interesting idea. I sill might give it a go. I'll keep looking into it and developing my ideas.
Thanks, again.

[investorblogger]

Originally Posted by pinkhighlighter

Thanks everyone. Well, I do have a blog at blogger. I never considered that a website really just because you can't make different pages and all that. But, yes, I suppose it is.
I'm not looking to create a website for a source of income. It would be nice to make a little money off of it, but I am looking for a good way to be creative. I thought this might be an interesting idea. I sill might give it a go. I'll keep looking into it and developing my ideas.
Thanks, again.

Yes, the definition of 'website' has changed a lot with blogging. I would, if I were you, encourage you to get started without thinking about it too much. Success is the result more of action than of mere thought.

And, experience based on real world experiments can really help to foment the ideation part of the website creation process. So, don't wait too long for the perfect website to come about, it only really comes about through action.

my 2c.