How to make a static site for free? Best tool to create a website? Create website for free. Make your own site. Make website easily. These keywords are the most searched keywords on search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing etc. and people who are good at using internet and want to make money by website making and adsense often wander How the sites are created/build? and to get answer to their question and satisfy their curiosity, they search for above keywords, but the sites ranking #1 on Google for these keywords do not give the correct answer to this question. So I have searched and collected a list of sites and platforms which help in easy website building and that too for free.Note: If you want to make a blog then read : Top free Blogging Platforms of 2013
Other searched terms include:
- Free website builders
- Create a website for free
- Best tool to create a website
- Make our own site
- Make website easily
- Best platform to create a static website for free?
Introduction: What are web builders and what’s their use?
People who don’t have technical knowledge of programming and web designing can also create professional looking site to suit their needs and that too for free. Thanks to the developing services like Weebly and Yola.
These web development and web designing platforms allow you to create a full featured, professional looking and fast loading website and that too for free, directly from your browser. You can develop site with the drag-and-drop website builder of these platforms. You need not have the knowledge of web development and coding.
Below, I have collected some of the best services which offer drag-and-drop website builders and that also for free. All these features are part of basic and free membership and they may show their ads on your site in response for making service to be free. Alternatively, they may show branding of their site builder like “Free Website created with Tech Jatt site builder. Create your site for free now”.
These sites also offer Premium or Pro features which include registered domain instead of sub-domain, no branding and no adverts along with social media sharing and networking, Email marketing tools, unlimited hosting, unlimited bandwidth with increased space etc. The charges are deducted on per year basis.
Advantages of free Site Builders:
- Easy to use
- No prior knowledge of coding required.
- Drag-and-drop interface
- Free of cost
- Easy web browser development without requirement of setting up server on computer
- Unbeatable speed of development
- More productivity
- Professional Looks
- Sub-domain to host your site
Disadvantages of free builders:
- Limited features
- Premium features require payment
- Branding removal requires payment. Free sites have Branding of Builder
- No custom CSS tweaks for sites
- Domain forwarding requires money
- Ads may be displayed to visitors of free sites, so no money making of our own may not be possible
If you are not a professional web-developer or a creative minded person and want to make a website with easy setup and no price, then try out these free platforms. Upgrades are also available with payment of a small amount of money.
- Yola
- Weebly
- Wix
- Webs
- Webnode
- Jimdo
- Wordpress
- Drupal
- Joomla
Yola :
It is the simplest and fastest platform to develop a site. It features a home-page (static) and other pages which may be static or dynamic (blog type). The site has many professional looking free themes which can be used on the go but if you want to start with a blank canvas then you may do that also. I have personally developed a test site Tashan – Hacking Secrets Revealed with Yola. Social integration, PayPal integration, Google Analytics and Google checkout are available from site builder’s interface. The platform may also be used for blogging. The Builder is responsive and fast and updated frequently. Your site is hosted on site.yolasite.com address and navigation menus automatically adds newly created pages to itself. You can easily create a new page or Blog page easily and also alter the sequence in navigation menus. E-Commerce sites and online shopping sites can also be made easily. Custom Contact Us forms are also available.Weebly :
Weebly is older than Yola and also more popular comparatively. It is also flexible, fast and responsive. You have to select from one of their templates and the templates are quite flexible leaving space for creativity. The user interface is quite good and is easy to learn. Site is hosted on site.weebly.com address. New page addition process is simple and painless and navigation menu updates itself automatically as in case of Yola. Videos, Pictures, maps and text are added easily by drag-and-drop feature. Custom domain can be added through interface. Domain purchase process is handled by BestDomainEver.netWix :
It’s the choice of users who want to create a flash site. The process of adding new pages as well as editing existing ones is quite simple and painless. It,s the best tool to make websites but is ranked #3 because flash sites are less optimised for search engines and Search Engine Spiders can’t read them accurately. These sites may also encounter layout problems on non-flash supported web browsers. Based on User Interface and user friendliness, wix is best. It provides more than required tools for development. You can choose from a wide range of templates or start with blank canvas.Adding animation effects, Photo albums, Google Maps, RSS feeds, Flickr Photos and videos from You Tube all are very easy to do. The designer is fast, sleek and easy to load. Premium package costs $4.95/month (starter). In basic membership, you don’t have much control over your domain name as it is set up randomly by their servers.Webs : Previously Free Webs
This service is very popular among web developers. Its popularity can be understood from the fact that about 30 million sites have been developed using webs. Its almost similar to other web developing platforms and builders. Its popularity is due to the reason that it is among one of the blogging platforms and was completely free in beginning. It can be used to develop e-commerce and shopping sites. It completely integrates Google Checkout and PayPal to your site.
You can create your own social network by adding login feature which adds functionality of requiring visitors to “join” your site with a few clicks only. Doesn’t that sound good?
Webs is not an easy website builder for new bies, but when we take its extra features into consideration, then it becomes must for creating powerful and free site.
Webnode :
Webnode is the most easy to use web builder with a user interface almost similar to MS Word. You may get mistaken at first on seeing this website builder. So, if you are a word user, then it will be easy for you to create your site using webnode. The process of creating a website and making it live to audience takes just a few minutes.
The thing which sets webnode away from others is the way how you create and edit pages of your site. It works as a CMS – Content Management System. You first browse the page and then edit it and make required changes. Thus, you have a WYSIWYG editing theme and you can know how your site will look and function in live form. You can easily change design, theme, layout of your webpage from webnode toolbar. The benefit is similar to Yola and Weebly where navigation automatically updated on addition of new page. So, it is helpful when creating large websites.
So, webnode is the most powerful and easy program among other website builders where you have a user friendly interface and a AMD – Content Management System type capabilities.
Jimdo :
Jimdo is almost similar to webnode with capability of CMS editing and fact that you have to browse each page before editing. You wouldn’t experience any difference between live site and the site in editing mode. However it is less featured than webnode and lss user friendly than webnodes.Wordpress :
Before explaining wordpress and next 2 platforms, I want to tell that these are not drag-and-drop type platforms but are good platforms if you have some basic technical knowledge.
Wordpress is a former CMS – Content Management System started in 2003. It is basically a blogging engine but also offers to create a static homepage and custom pages. Its free version is more than enough to start a static site but adverts are shown to non-logged in visitors. On upgrade, ads vanish and you may start E-Commerce or Video site also.
Drupal :
Drupal is also a blogging platform and a former CMS like Wordpress but also allows users to create static homepage site with custom pages. It is also not of type drag-and-drop interface. It suffers the drawback that it is difficult to learn. It’s for coders and Programmers but new bies find it difficult to learn.Joomla :
Joomla is also a blogging and CMS type web builder platform, offering a static homepage and adding custom pages. It is almost similar to wordpress but offers some more features. It is somewhat difficult to learn. Features include static Home Page, static custom pages along with a blog. Sites are responsive, fast and reliable.Conclusion :
So. it’s your choice and your requirements which decide with what platform you are gonna go. One type of site will look good and perform fast on one platform while other will do best on some other platform. Yola and Weebly are highly versatile platforms along with easy drag-and-drop interface. Webnode and Jimdo are easy to learn and user friendly. The features of webs are more comparatively. Wordpress, Drupal and Joomla are for coders but offer a cheap and reliable option.Choice is yours. Please tell us in comments below what platform you have chosen. Feel free to ask if you have any query.
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