Free Website Builder Software
Getting started online is exciting – but it can also be a daunting process!
There seems to be so many confusing options and pricing points, domain name registration, hosting, security – the list goes on.
But it really doesn’t have to be that hard, and you can definitely build your own first website for free.
Starting on a free website with free website builder software is a great decision when you are just starting – there isn’t any financial commitment to anything, and you can find your feet and start learning what you are doing before you go out and spend money on your own domain name and hosting.
Choose a WordPress Site Builder - No coding Ever!
There are a few different types of free website building platforms – and some of these look very impressive.
However, you need to be carfeul and not get pulled in by bells and whistles as many of these are unique platforms associated with the hosting domain.
What this means is that once you have started building, it is very difficult to move your site away from that platform.
You don’t want to be locked in to a unique software solution.
My recommendation is that you start your site based on WordPress – this is the most flexible website platform out there, is supported everywhere, and it is super-easy to move your site around from place to place if you want to change your host.
WordPress is easy to learn and use, and there’s no coding required ever! So don’t be scared of needing to have technical skills to build a website, because those days are long gone.
How does free Website Building Work?
With a free website builder, there is no need to have any technical skills.
You choose a name, you choose a theme, and the website builder creates your site framework for you in a few simple clicks.
What you then have to do is build your website content – having an empty website isn’t going to attract any visitors so you’re going to have to write some posts and put up some images to make things a bit more interesting.
The website builder I’m going to recommend also has a Site Content builder built right in, that will not only do spelling and grammar checks and let you add images, but also publishes your content for you so you never even have to use the WordPress dashboard if you don’t want to.
But first, there are 2 components to your website that you need to understand:
- Domain Name
- Website Hosting
1. Domain Name
Before you create your website, you need to give it a name so people can type that in and find you!
The domain name is the name of the website that comes after the www or http part of the web address.
This is also called the URL. It is a unique address for every website in the whole of the world wide web!
Think of the domain name as your website street address.
For example the domain name of this website is theaffiliatelink.com.
2. Website Hosting
Once you have your domain name, or street address, it needs to reside somewhere.
It will reside on your website host.
You website host will let lots of other domain names reside with it, but they all have their own unique street address, right? So they’re easy to find.
It’s a bit like having multiple apartments in a big block of apartments. You have your own unique address inside that big block that leads only to you!
If all this sounds a bit confusing, don’t worry – what I’m going to recommend doesn’t require you to choose hosts or anything like that as your domain name and where it resides will all be under the one roof.
And it’s not going to cost you anything at all for your domain name or your domain hosting either.
Free Website and Hosting with Wealthy Affiliate
To build your website from scratch and host it completely free, I recommend using Wealthy Affiliate.
You won’t find a better place to start from knowing absolutely nothing, to building your site, and gaining all the guidance you could need to have a fully functioning, beautiful website.
Wealthy Affiliate is an all-in-one solution that allows you to start totally free with 2 websites and you will also get world-class training thrown in:
- WordPress Site Builder
- 2 x Free Domains
- Website Hosting
- Free SSL (site security)
- Step-by-Step Training
- 24/7 Site Support
- Active Community
I personally build and host 4 income-producing websites in Wealthy Affiliate and have done so since February 2017.
It really is the best place for beginners because you can start free – you would have to pay up front for these services at other providers, and you certainly won’t get any free training.
Just sign up for a free account and then I’ll show you how to build your free site in less than 5 minutes – and then you can start your free training to really get started with your online business!
Build your Free Site In Under 5 Minutes!
If you’ve created your free account at Wealthy Affiliate, we can now jump right in and create your first free site!
From the Wealthy Affiliate homepage, just follow these steps:
Step 1. Navigate to Websites - Site Builder
Step 2. Choose "Free Domain"
The free domains that Wealthy Affiliate and other free site builders offer are called sub-domains.
This just means that you don’t fully own it – you can do whatever you like with your website, but you haven’t purchased a fully owned domain name of your own (this is a free site builder remember?).
So instead of your domain name being mynewsite.com, it’s address is going to be mynewsite.siterubix.com – that’s becasue it is a subdomain of the SiteRubix site builder!
Later on down the track, you can buy your very own domain and that will cost you about $15 a year to keep registered.
For now, a free subdomain is the best place to get started and find your feet – and because we are using WordPress to build our site here, it is very easy to move your free site to another domain later on!
You will see exactly how your free site domain name will look in the next step.
Step 3. Name Your Site and Build It!
- Choose a Domain Name For Your Website – You won’t be able to change this later on so if you haven’t decided on the name already, spend some time to think about this and how it will relate to your new website’s content
- Check for availability – As you type in the name, the site builder will check for name availability – usually you will get a green tick but sometimes the name you want has already been taken – remember that your domain name must be unique, just like a street address.
- Enter your Site Title – This will usually be the same as the domain name. Don’t worry too much about this as you can change it later on.
- Choose a Theme – The Theme will determine the overall layout and design of your site – likes fonts, colours etc – but you can change your theme as many times as you like so don’t spend too much time choosing!
- Click on Build This Site – In literally a couple of seconds your site will be installed!
Go Ahead and Start Your Free Training!
What you have now is a complete, brand new EMPTY website!
The only content in your new website is going to be some sample posts that WordPress include in every theme.
Go ahead and login and have a look around, but now I highly recommend you get started with your free training.
If you really want to understand what you are doing, what you can do with your site, and how to start building your content – you now have 10 free lessons to get started!
From the Wealthy Affiliate homepage, follow these steps to start your training:
Navigate to Training - Online Entrepeneur Certification
Choose Level 1 - Getting Started
The 10 Free Lessons in this course will get you started with your website and your online business if you are going down that path.
There is everything in here that you need to understand the process of building your website from scratch, how to create your content, to using keywords in SEO and so much more!
Whether you want to start making money online, or build a blog, or whatever you want to do with your website – you have every opportunity available to you now to really get started.
Congratulations on building you first website and enjoy the journey!
I totally agree with you that Wealthy Affiliate is the best way to get started building websites to profit on. I joined them about 6 months ago and they have a wealth of information on just doing that.
I have only created one website with them so far but I am starting to see the potential.
Thanks for your post.
That’s great Adrian – really glad you are benefiting from the training at Wealthy Affiliate – it’s so exciting to build your first site!
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Hey thanks for the heads up!