Can You Create a Website for FREE in 2021_

Can you create a website for free? That's what we're going to look into in today's video

The short answer to the question is yes, but obviously the website builder companies are

businesses looking to make a profit. So they offer free plans in most cases

hoping that at some point you'll upgrade to a paid plan. So with each of the different options

they have some pros and cons and what they decide to hold back for their free plans

So what I wanted to do in today's video is highlight some of those differences. So what

are the pros and cons of the free website builders to help you narrow down the list to

figure out which one you want to build your website with? One quick thing before we get going

our YouTube channel and website is partially supported through affiliate commissions. Affiliate commissions are essentially if you use the links that are down below for any of

the website builders and upgrade to a paid plan, we might earn a small commission

but at no extra cost to you. So if you're interested in supporting our channel

you can definitely check out the different website builders down below in the description

So I have 10 free website builders for you today. This does not include website builders

that only have a two week free trial such as Squarespace or Shopify. Those are some of our

favorites when it comes to paid website builders, but when it comes to free options, those are not

part of our list. So the 10 options I have for you today in alphabetical order are Card, GoDaddy

Google Sites, Jimdo, Square Online, YouCraft, Webflow, Webnode, Weebly, and Wix. So I hate to

tell you of the 10 options we're going to talk about today, they're all businesses. They're not

nonprofits. They're not here to just give you something for free and get nothing in return

So basically how they're hoping to make money from your website are basically twofold. They're

hoping that if they hold back certain features as you begin to grow in weeks or months into the

future, that you'll want to upgrade to a paid plan so that they can make a monthly or annual

subscription fee from your website. Then the next way is by placing ads on your website

hoping to convert your website visitors into paying clients, building websites on their

platform. So what I'll do today is show you some of the different things to look out for as far as

depending on what's important to you and the website you're building, which functionality

is going to be included in which different options. And then also show you how intrusive

or not so intrusive some of the ads are that the website builders will be putting on your website

Now we're going to go through some of the things that are included or excluded that could be deal-breakers for you. The first of which is e-commerce functionality. So are you looking

to sell something on your website? This is excluded for the majority of free website

builders. The next thing could be any limits to bandwidth or storage. So this is something

that can really put you in a bind because imagine if you reach the bandwidth limit

and so it's the 20th of the month, there's 10 days left in the month, and they're not going

to show your website unless you upgrade to a paid plan. The storage limit, it could be

hey, I want to add one more picture to my website, but if I do that, I hit the storage limit

These are frustrating because in the moment you want to make your website better or have more

traffic and you need to pay to continue showing your website. And then the next thing is a limit

for the number of pages created. So one of the options is just a one page website builder

the free option, and that's also a really inexpensive paid option. And then one of the

other free website builders only allows you to build five pages on the free website. So those

that could be a deal breaker depending on how big you're planning on having your website. And then

the last thing is connecting a custom domain. So this is something that is excluded for most

free website builders, but can be important and make sure website look more professional

So a custom domain is essentially mybusiness.com instead of say mybusiness.weebly.com. So let's

go through these in more detail one by one. The first e-commerce functionality. So if this is

really important to you, there's really two options, Square Online and Weebly. Square actually bought

Weebly, I think it was a year or two ago. So it's essentially the same company. They might end up

merging together at some point, but the great thing here is Square started out as a payment

processor. So their goal is for you to sell stuff and use them as a payment processor. They make

money that way. So both of those website builders allow you to sell things on the free version of

their website builder. So the next potential deal breaker would be bandwidth or storage limits

There's three website builders on this list, Jimdo, Webnode and Wix. So those are the three

that offer some type of limits where you could all of a sudden middle of the month or wanted

to upload an extra image might run out and need to upgrade to a paid plan. So moving on to deal

breaker number three, page limits. So Card is a website builder meant for just one page websites

That's it. They're paid options. Same thing. The nice thing with Card is if you're just creating a

one page website, it's an amazing option. Their paid plans are $9 a year is where it starts out

at. So way, way cheaper than most other paid website builders, but the free option is essentially

the same thing, one page free website. And then the next one is Jimdo. So Jimdo's free plan only

allows you to add five pages to your website. So if you need more pages than that, I would not include

either those on your list of potential website builders. Okay. So one other thing that could be

a potential deal breaker is the actual URL, the domain for your website. So the best is to have

your own website and a custom domain. So Jeffsbiz.com, but you know, having your own custom domain

you can't get a free website and a free domain. So it's going to cost you $12 a year. So to have

your own domain, we usually end up buying our domains from Namecheap. I'll link to that down

below if you want to check out purchasing a domain from there. But the thing is with the website

builders, most of them will give you a free sub domain. So it's going to be Jeffsbiz.websitebuilder.com

So Jeffsbiz.weebly.com as an example. So most of them are going to include something like that

The Wix websites on the other hand, look something like this. So this is much, much longer. And for

me, that would just be a deal breaker. If I was building a free website, I would not want something

that looks like this. You know, that's one of the drawbacks with creating a website with Wix

I love their website builder for paid plans, but between that and some of the storage or bandwidth

issues, you know, I would just end up going with something else. And then on the positive side

if you do want a custom domain, there's two options. So Google Sites, you can connect a

custom domain. The thing with Google Sites though, is that it's more of like a class project or maybe

something you share information with your colleagues, not something I would necessarily

use for an external facing say business or personal brand though. The one option where you

can connect a custom domain, and they do have a pretty solid website builder would be Ucraft

If you want a custom, you have a custom domain that you want to connect to a free website

that might be an option worth checking out. Okay, so that I think covers the major kind of

deal breakers that could be in terms of functionality between the different website

builders. So e-commerce, e-storage, page limits, bandwidth limits, or, you know, being able to

connect a custom domain or not. Now I want to go over what they're going to be putting on your

website in terms of an ad, and you can decide if it's too intrusive or not, and maybe want to go

with a different option. So what do you think of the 10 options? Which one would you use to build your website

Let me know down below in the comment section. I think for me it would either be Square

Weebly, maybe Card, or Ucraft. But I mean, I think there's a lot of good options. It just

depends on what you're looking for. If you want to learn more about building your own website

we have a whole playlist with tons of other content for you. If you're interested in checking

that out, I'll link to alongside right here. Hope to see you in those in future videos. Bye-bye