Genuinely Free Web Page / Domain Name Registration ?

brightlights6

Does anyone know of a reputable and decent company offering FREE domain name registration and web pages.
Just setting out in business and can't afford someone to design one for me. Also don't want to pay anything up front for a year etc. just incase and all that. So want to start with a free to set up and use website and domain name registration. Anyone know of any ????

InsideInsurance

There are but they (a) plaster your site with adverts, often your competitors as its AdSense and (b) they actually own the domain and so when you realise you need a professional solution if you want people to consider you a professional you are at their mercy as to how much they will charge you to release the domain.

A domain costs less than £10 a year; if cashflow is so tight that you cannot afford that then I would seriously reconsider starting a business until you have slightly more liquidity

mkooo

InsideInsurance wrote: »

There are but they (a) plaster your site with adverts, often your competitors as its AdSense and (b) they actually own the domain and so when you realise you need a professional solution if you want people to consider you a professional you are at their mercy as to how much they will charge you to release the domain.

A domain costs less than £10 a year; if cashflow is so tight that you cannot afford that then I would seriously reconsider starting a business until you have slightly more liquidity

Sorry what? You cannot afford £10 a year? You should not be in business.

gb12345

I don't think you've really got a clue what you need to set up a website based on your original post. You need 3 things -

1. A domain name
2. Hosting
3. The actual web pages

You can get 1 and 2 for free, but as InsideInsurance says, there are catches and it won't give a very good impression of your business having ads slapped all over the page.

As for 3, no one is going to design and build you a website for free.

Rosie-Lea

A domain name and Web space costs very little. You can get this through Reg123 for as little as £60 a year.

The big cost would be with your website. And what you want your Website to do and whether you want it designed well with good Search Engine Optimisation will determine your costs.

If you put details about the type of Website you need then you may get some suggestions from others on here.

InsideInsurance

Rosie-Lea wrote: »

A domain name and Web space costs very little. You can get this through Reg123 for as little as £60 a year.

Thats actually very expensive, a domain is under £10 and a very good webhost will do hosting for £35 a year and many budget providers are much cheaper.

brightlights6

OK,

No. 1 - I never said I couldn't afford £10 a year 'mkoo' and 'insideinsurance' !!

I came on here for help - not for insults !

Yes, I have no idea on websites and how to go about it. That's why I posted my questions; hoping people would help me. The prices being quoted are fine. I thought it would be in the hundred's/thousand's of pounds league. This is why I asked for help.

I need to have a website that give some information about me, my business and a link to a catalogue which is currently updated approximately once a month or so.

I would be good to have it up near the top on internet searches too.

Still not sure who to go to for information though

jamesrobins

@brightlights6 it's difficult to know what to advise for you without more information. You can build your own basic sites for very little money as some of the guys above have shown. If you need to just advertise an be listed there are small business solutions with yell and so forth.

If you can give us more information such as;
How much exposure (traffic) the site needs
How much you would be willing to spend
How much if any you are willing/able to learn to do yourself

Then maybe we provide more help. Don't give any information you do not feel comfortable divulging.

gb12345

jamesrobins wrote: »

If you need to just advertise an be listed there are small business solutions with yell and so forth.

Yell are a con. For a five page site they will charge you 150 set up fee and then 20 quid per month going forward. Plus they register the domain name in their own name rather than the customers, so can hold them to ransom when they want to leave.

@OP as I said in my previous post, you need 3 things. The domain registration will cost you a tenner for 2 years for a .co.uk, the hosting you can get with a reasonable company for under 50 quid. It is the design of the website that will cost you the money - You're realistically looking at between £150 and £250 quid for what you are describing.

As to getting it to the top of the search engines, no one can guarantee you that. You need good search engine optimisation, which includes things like getting backlinks, good use of keywords on the page, etc.

jamesrobins

gb12345 wrote: »

Yell are a con. For a five page site they will charge you 150 set up fee and then 20 quid per month going forward. Plus they register the domain name in their own name rather than the customers, so can hold them to ransom when they want to leave.

I knew it was bad but I didn't know it was that bad. I guess people assume they are a reputable company and if you know nothing about having an online presence would go for them.

For the figures you quote are you talking somebody building the site or putting up something based on Wordpress or something similar?

gb12345

jamesrobins wrote: »

For the figures you quote are you talking somebody building the site or putting up something based on Wordpress or something similar?

That depends on where you go. Some "web designers" will just put up a Wordpress template and charge that, while others (particularly freelancers) will do a small bespoke site for that price. To put it in perspective, I built a full Minecraft server list site (front end and back end) for a client before Christmas and charged them about £300 for it.