PERSONAL/INTERNET SPECIAL...Create a website for free

Create a website for free

Professionally created websites and custom domain names can cost a lot of money. Karan Bajaj tells you how to create and host as many sites as you want free of cost.

Instant homepages
About.me
After a quick sign-up, About.mehelps you create a search engine-optimised homepage, with a small biography and links to all your social networks. You can customise the background of the page (upload your own), select a font and choose your favourite colours. It takes only a few minutes, and once you publish your page, visitors can e-mail you directly through the page or leave compliments. About.mealso tracks your page’s statistics and keeps a log of your activity on the page.
Flavors.me
While Flavors shares many features with About.me, it also offers additional ones. You can alter the layout of the homepage, organise content from different sources and add visual effects to content. The free account lets you add up to five social network services. If you opt for a premium account ($20 or 1,100 a year), you can choose more designs, add unlimited services, create a mobile-optimised Web page, view real-time statistics, add a visitor contact form, and use Flavors with your own domain name.
Follr.com
Follr takes a different approach as it creates a virtual visiting card for you. This card has your contact details, as well as those of your social networks, skills and work experience. It can also automatically update content from your Twitter timeline or details about your influence from Klout/PeerIndex. It even works as a mini social network—you add known people to your network and they vouch for your skills and influence. Upgrading to a premium account ($2.95 or 162 a month) gives you statistics and customised page designs.
Dooid.me
A big advantage with Dooid is that it provides a live preview as you work. So, even as you add services, tags or change the layout, it shows you a preview of the finished page simultaneously. The free account allows you to connect to up to 10 services/links, and even creates a mobile-optimised version of your Web page. Visitors can download your virtual business card as well as view your social network updates in a ‘lifestream’. You can remove the advertisements, add unlimited services, embed a contact form and use a custom domain name by paying $5 ( 275) per month for a pro account. Create and host full websites
Weebly.com
With Weebly, you need to first specify the type of site you want to create (forum, blog, portfolio, and so on). You can make a sub-domain on Weebly or purchase a new one. Creating a website is easy—you select a theme and then drag and drop items to add different elements and multimedia. Advanced users can even create advertisement slots for revenue generation. The owner can also allow other people with admin access to manage the website.
Yola.com
Yola has an easy graphical user interface to build a website. After you have selected the category, Yola generates a starter website, where every element can be configured to suit your taste. A bottom pane lets you quickly switch between multiple themes, layouts and add widgets, where required. Once done with the design, you can publish the site as a Yola subdomain and track your visitors through the admin panel.
Wix.com
Wix is loaded with stylish templates that can suit different kinds of websites. You can choose a free template and edit it to your liking in Wix’s own graphical HTML editor. You don’t require any coding skills. After you have customised the template, it takes only a minute to publish the website so that anyone can access it. The only issue is that the address is slightly long (www.yourusername.wix.com/sitename).
Zoho.com
Zoho also offers multiple templates, depending on the style of the website. You can then customise the available template with the drag-anddrop feature. Inserting multimedia or embedding elements from third parties is simple and easy. Zoho even lets you add widgets on the page for useful services like PayPal, Google Adsense and Google Maps, while supporting the embedding of dynamic content, such as user feedback.
Mobile website creators
Octomobi.com
If you want to create a mobile site within minutes, Octomobi can do the job for you. Sign up for free, choose a template, edit the layout, add content, upload your logo and your mobile-optimised website is ready. However, the free account only allows you to create a website on the Octomobi network. By paying $9 ( 495) per month for a pro account, you can map the site to your domain with Google analytics integration.
Onbile.com
Onbile allows you to create a site as a subdomain (www.yoursitename.onbile.com). You can create a rich mobile website with multiple pages, a catalogue, an image gallery or an e-commerce site. The free version has ads on each page and only offers basic statistics. The pro account ($12 or 660 a month) has no ads, offers 500MB storage and detailed visitor analytics.

Karan Bajaj   ETW 121210