Today anyone can build a website and it is even possible to create a professional looking site for free. People who have the time and interest can use the tools for web design that the best website builders offer and create their own online presence, fast and easily. Nevertheless, while this option might be the best for personal blogs and even for smaller businesses it is important to understand that free websites are not at all the same thing as what web designers can offer. And in fact, the free website building services do usually give their members the option of having true professionals take care of the work. But if you opt for making your own website for free, what is in store for you?

The truth about free websites

If you are planning to make your website without paying a penny for it you need to understand that you will not get full control of the site or of the web design. The services that offer sites for free will let you pick a domain name but this will be combined with their own domain name. So let's say that you choose a site named everythingfree.org to create your own site with. If you pick the domain name "my site," the address of your site will be mysite.everythingfree.org. Now, this might not bother you but it is certainly something to keep in mind.

When it comes to the actual design it is important to understand that the concept web design encompasses many different elements. You might focus mainly on the pictures and think that it is great that you get these for free through the site builder service. Apart from the images used to embellish the site, though, there is much more to consider such as layout and content production. Free websites come with a certain set of templates that will not allow you to change the layout much.

Okay, but what about the good things...

There are obviously a number of good aspects to free web design and this is why so many people choose to create their sites for free through good online services. You will find plenty of instructional movies online that show you how you could build your own website in as little as 6, 9 or 15 minutes. This is a great advantage. Also, the templates that include pictures and textboxes to move around are made to be intuitive. You can simply drag and drop onto your site. Once it is ready, the site will look really nice and what is even better is that you can easily update it as often as you want.

To some it makes sense to start with this type of site and then to upgrade to a site with a unique domain name and more features. After a while you might come to the conclusion that you would like some professional help and since you are already very familiar with the website building service that you started with for free it is easy enough to continue using the upgraded services for your site.

Things to think about

If you are convinced that you can handle your own web design and make a fantastic site for your personal needs or for your business it might still be well worthwhile to learn a bit more about how you can affect your visitors in the right way. For example, did you know how colors can influence our mood and even physical sensations? Colors can even contribute to hunger. If you look at a yellow banana it will make you want to eat but if you look at a red banana you will not feel the same way. Red can also trigger feelings of hunger but not in the same way as yellow. This is something you should think about if you want to make people hungry while they're at your site -- hungry for food or for your products. Just make sure the colors and the images are right!

It is a great advantage to get access to an image bank with high quality pictures and this is a service that most website builders will provide. In fact, if you are going to build your own site using this type of service you should opt for one that lets you use a large stock of images. It is not always easy to understand all the rules for copyright and images and therefore it is wise to go with something that will be legal and safe. It is true that picture banks will let many users use the same pictures but this is not something that your visitors will be aware of. They will just find your site appealing to the eye since you offer them high resolution and a very professional look.

Marketing your site

Even if you are using a long domain name and have to play by the rules of the website builder's free program you can expect a site that will be usable in many ways. If you know a little bit about Internet marketing you can certainly work with this site in order to attract more visitors. Still, there is a lot to understand when it comes to online marketing and if you don't have the time to learn how the search engines work this is also something you might want to hand over to the website builder service.

Sometimes people choose the free sites as a way to create blogs and personal sites that could be used to support and market a main site with. For non-commercial purposes like a teacher communicating with students and parents or a private individual sharing his life experiences, the free site works very well. However, for a business looking to expand by reaching out online, it will be well worthwhile to pay a few dollars in order to get professional assistance, both with the web design and with the marketing of the site.