You've heard of websites, blogs, and even social media accounts that cost nothing. But are they really free? What does it mean to have a website without paying anything?
Websites are the foundation of almost every marketing strategy today. They're also a great tool for getting the word out about your brand, driving sales, building relationships, and more. But did you know that the price of a website has dropped significantly over the years?
There are two ways to build a website:
- Either through a web host or
- via a self-hosted solution.
With the first option, you pay a monthly fee for the hosting service. A self-hosted website, on the other hand, doesn't cost you anything, but you have to learn how to manage it.
A website usually consists of two components that cost some money every month:
- Web hosting (space on the server and server resources).
- Domain (the address for the website, www.domain.de)
Web hosting is very cheap nowadays; you can get a web hosting account with a reputable provider for less than 10 dollars! Bluehost is my recommendation. A domain is usually billed annually and costs about 20 dollars per year.
Of course, you can also create and run a free website, but this is unsuitable for a professional website because the customers or users will wonder why the operator saves a few dollars a month and does not organize a real website with a domain.