Your company’s online presence begins and ends with your website. However, hiring a design company can be expensive. Fortunately, with do-it-yourself website builder options, it is easier than ever to create a high-impact website without breaking the bank.
Check out these 8 services to help you create your website at little to no cost:
- Squarespace: Squarespace has subscription prices ranging from $12 to $36 per month with accounts including hosting, the Squarespace content management system, the visual designer tools, and access to widgets/add-ons to incorporate into your site. You can also use your own domain name with all levels of Squarespace accounts. Larger plans give you room for more pages, more bandwidth, more management staff, and access to advanced features like FAQs, SSL, form builders and member registration.
- Weebly: Weebly is an entirely free service that allows you to use your own domain name and choose from more than 100 professional themes, which can then be further customized. Weebly also has gallery/slide show functionality, audio and video players, a custom form builder, and built-in blogging platform.
- Jigsy: Jigsy’s plans range from free to $30 per month, and all paid plans will let you host multiple websites from the same account. Jigsy also has a blogging platform, handles e-mail hosting, and utilizes a widget-based system. Widgets are available for features like Google maps integration, RSS feeds, and PayPal/eBay selling. Jigsy also offers tools for easily creating photo galleries and slide shows.
- SnapPages: SnapPages is a drag-and-drop website builder and hosted service provider with plans ranging from free to $30 per month. Features for all plans include a blogging platform, customizable themes, photo galleries, calendars, and basic access control through a “friends” list. With the paid plans, you can host your own domain name, add your own custom HTML and JavaScript code, gain access to powerful analytics, and control various SEO options.
- Yola: Yola is a website creation service offering free and paid plans from $99 to $499 per year. Yola offers more than 100 themes to choose from and customization options. Other features include analytics and traffic statistics, premium styles and multi-site hosting. Both paid plans include advertising credits on popular ad platforms like Facebook and Google AdWords.
- Moonfruit: Moonfruit is a free website host and editor with extremely customizable designs and detailed editing options. A site you build in Moonfruit is designed to render in Flash, HTML, or mobile HTML5, depending on how the user is accessing it. Moonfruit’s basic services are free for one website with up to 15 pages, 20MB of online storage, and 1GB of monthly bandwidth. For those who need more, Moonfruit has packages from $6 to $50 per month. Its Business package is $25 per month, offering 15 websites with unlimited pages, 2500MB of storage, and unlimited bandwidth.
- Qapacity: Qapacity is a business-oriented social networking site and a business directory. Instead of adding your website, you add a “service” to Qapacity’s network of businesses, and then build an associated website to promote your service. Qapacity’s basic features are free, including one website with five pages, 16 images, 1GB of storage, and 500GB of monthly bandwidth. Qapacity also offers packages from $12 to $40 per month.
- Jimdo: Jimdo is another easy-to-use website designer with integrated e-commerce. Jimdo has three membership tiers: Free, Pro ($5/month), and Business ($15/month). The free membership lets you list up to five items for sale, with Jimdo taking a 10 percent cut. The $15 Business membership lets you list unlimited items and Jimdo takes no cut. The service also optimizes your site for the iPhone and other mobile devices.
The Take-Away: You do need to put something into your site if you expect to get anything in return, but you don’t need to break the bank to create your site or build an online presence. There are great services on the web that will help you do just that. To check out more information, visit Mashable.
Brittney Leigh Smith is a marketing analyst for the 60 Second Marketer.