Use Your Free Websites! Don't Let Your Domain Just Sit There!

Is your domain name just sitting there while you develop your new web business offline? If that's the case, try putting the domain to work online with one of the free websites you get with every domain you buy from certain registrars (OK, those sites are ad-supported, but how many websites have you visited lately without ads?).

You can create a substantial website with one of these free sites; many are as large as five pages. Five pages allows for a lot of pictures and text. You can install videos. You can sell stuff and get paid with PayPal. Yes, you can even set up an account with Google or Yahoo to display ads, and the revenue will go to you instead of some registrar like it does now!

If you've been lucky enough to purchase your domain from one of these registrars, you won't have any trouble finding the sites in your account; these registrars go to great lengths to bring them to your attention because they know you are more likely to keep your domain name longer if you have a website on it, free or otherwise. These sites are usually of two kinds, a regular hosting account and a site builder. As you might guess the regular hosting account requires that you build the website offline and upload it to your site in the usual way. This can be daunting if you've never done it before and requires some knowledge of HTML and CSS. If you don't know what these acronyms mean and have neither the time nor inclination to find out, then you might want to turn the job over to a professional (which sort of defeats the free aspect!) or a friend that does...or better yet, go to the second free website flavor, the site builder.

There are a number of these site builders or pre-developed websites that you can fashion to your own desire: Yahoo has one; Wix.com produces some wonderful free "flash" sites; and perhaps the most common of all is Website Tonight, given free with every domain by GoDaddy and its resellers. These site builders use templates, website patterns that have already been formatted using the complicated HTML and CSS that I mentioned earlier; this allows you to get right to adding text, pictures and video. You can, quite literally, build your website and go online in a single evening!

Don't sneer at templates. Professional web designers hate them because they make site design look easy--and they can't charge as much for them! But think of this: studies show the average web surfer looking for products and information spends less than ten seconds on a website. Do you think that that surfer can tell the difference between a template and a five-thousand-dollar custom-made job? Or care? Your site either has what he wants or he's gone.

These site builders offer something like 1500 possible templates. You can make one of them fit your needs with your pictures, your text and your video. You don't need any special software; you can get the job done with no more skills than you need to upload content to Facebook. You can fool around with them to your hearts content without worrying about messing something up. You will find all the necessary documentation when you launch your free site. And if you can't find it there, call your support staff--that's what they get paid for!

Don't let your domain name just sit there. Take advantage of the free stuff offered by your registrar and try your hand at building a website. What have you got to lose? You might enjoy it and you might even make some money.

My name is Mike Nardine. Visit my website http://www.CheapMikesDomains.com and buy a domain name, cheap. Our prices are low but our 24/7 service is the best in the industry, and as you might guess we are one of those that give free websites with every domain.