Unless you are planning setting up your own computer with a permanent
Internet connection, installing web hosting software and putting
your web site on that, you have three options.
Use the space provided by your ISP
Sign up with a free webhosting service
Pay for a webhosting service
Each of these have advantages and disadvantages, which we will
look at here
Space provided by your ISP
As far as I am aware, all Internet Service Providers give you space
to set up a personal home page. In fact many of them provide online
tools to let you create your page. Usually some sort of wizard that
you select options from and the wizard builds your basic pages and
you fill in the information while you are online.
You may be limited in your choice of backgrounds, layouts etc.
but you don't need to know anything about HTML and you don't need
any web development software on your computer, you do everything
online
The key phrase here is personal home page, you are usually
not allowed to use this space for business purposes.
Free webhosting
There are many companies around the globe who will give you free
web space, all that you have to do is sign up and the space is yours.
Sounds to good to be true. How can these companies make money by
giving you free web space?
Advertising, they use pop-up windows and/or overlay windows to
advertise third party products on your web site, Sometimes they
give you a choice of how the ads appear (e.g. left side, right side,
pop-up etc.).
Some of these companies allow you to choose the categories of advertising
appears on your site, so you can choose the type of ads that your
visitors may be interested in. Oh sure, get visitors to your site
and offer them somewhere else to go to.
Some of these ads are more intrusive than others. You can close
them or minimise them, but just like Arnie, they'll be back. Sometimes
on a pre-set timer, or often when your visitor jumps to a new page
on your site.
Paid for webhosting
You can get this from your ISP, the free webhosting companies,
or from companies that only offer paid for hosting. So, why pay
for it when you can get it for free?
