Need a website but short of cash? Try Freewebs

Following a link from Mhairi’s blog, I discovered Freewebs and thought I would give it a go. Freewebs is a service similar to what Geocities used to be like before they were purchased by Yahoo (they now charge a fee for their web building services). Freewebs allows you to build your own site using one of their templates for Free.

I normally wouldn’t encourage anyone to use a tool like this for setting up a company website, but if money is indeed tight or if you just want to have a website to display images of your toy collection, then why not?

Signing up to Freebwebs was simple and easy. I managed to sign up, create a 2 page website (including writing the terrible fake copy), insert and resize an image in just 30 minutes. The result is not great, but I’ve seen designs built in Frontpage which are way worse.

Their templates left me a bit uninspired and although their site mentions that they have over 300, most of them are identical, except for the different banner image and colour scheme. Once my template was selected, their interface was easy to follow and I simply started typing away. I added another page and inserted an image. I even added a really naff butterfly effect to my second page. I’m not sure why anyone would want this, but with just the click of a button, butterflies were fluttering on my webpage.

Overall I think that Freewebs is great. Their interface was easy to use and with a bit more time and effort, I think that you could create a decent website. I would certainly encourage anyone to try Freewebs first before signing up with Geocities or other companies who charge a monthly fee for the same thing.