Small Business - How to Build a Website for Free

Do you have just a little bit of HTML skills? Can figure your way around an advanced website editor like Adobe GoLive or Frontpage? Than you can create an awesome presence on the web for no money what so ever. There are so many resources out there for small business to take advantage of when it comes to website design.

As a small business owner I know money is always tight at the start up of a business. Let's face it, without a website a businesses chances of survival are slim to none. I'm here to tell you that with a little hard work, dedication, and free time you can build an awesome website with all the bells and whistles that the big guys have.

How are you going to do it? Well, I have spent countless hours online searching for the best tools an websites that will help small business owners get online for free and I want to share them with you. So here they are...

The first step in getting a presence online is to find a good web hosting service. Almost every web hosting service offers a free web hosting program. Of course with anything free there is always a catch. The catch will very from company to company, but they are usually reasonable catches such as ads posted on the site or links. I know you don't want some other business links on your website, but for the time being it isn't too bad for free web hosting.

There is a good website called FreeWebspace that will not only show you a rather long list of options for free web hosting, it will even compare them side by side. A neat feature about the site is that it will even show you what the catch is at each website so you can decide what is right for your small business.

The next logical step for getting your small business online is design a website. This would be a very time consuming and daunting task had someone else not already done it for you. Who designed you a website already you ask? The good people at FreeWebsiteTemplates of course!

Free templates are a great way to get a professional looking website for free. They only drawback is that somewhere out in cyberspace there may be another company using the same free template. With so many websites on the internet though I have never worried about that problem. Just look at as a small price to pay to get a professional looking website for free.

You will still be able to customize a lot of things on the site like content, images, logos, etc. The more HTML and Photoshop knowledge you have the more you will be able to make the free website template uniquely yours.

Now that you have some free website hosting all lined up and got most of the work done on your website thanks to your free template it is time to start adding the bells and whistles! Does your small business website need more complex enhancements like message boards, chat rooms, and other things that you have no idea on how to add to your website?

Well BraveNet is an awesome free site that has almost every little tool, tweak, bell, and whistle you could ever want for your website. The even offer some mild customization for each tool. The only drawback here is that if you use the free version of the site it will add a very small banner at the bottom of each tool you use. It really isn't bad at all. Most web users won't even know what the link is.

So that is my advice for small business owners on how to get a website online for free. Once you get your small business website more established and start making some money you can get back and upgrade your web hosting and Bravenet account to the paid versions.