Weebly is a site where you can build a simple website for free. Yes, Weebly offers free web hosting and a free website builder. They have a pro version as well, but you can start off using their free version and still have a nicely designed website with many features.
There are many options for web hosting, but most of them cost money. They also require a certain amount of technical know-how. Weebly makes it easy for anyone to build a website, even if you’re completely new to the process.
What is Weebly?
Weebly is a simple website builder that enables you to create a new website from scratch. You can either use your own domain or use a free subdomain from Weebly. It is used by more then 12 million people, so there are many Weebly sites on the internet.
Weebly provides an alternative for people who don’t want to sign up for traditional web hosting which usually costs $3 to $10 a month. All these web hosts have advantages of their own, but you do have to pay for most hosting. You also have to figure out how to set up your website. Weebly, on the other hand, guides you through each step.
Why do I like Weebly
Let’s look at some of the main benefits and features of Weebly. These are also some of the reasons why I like Weebly so much.
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No Ads
Even with a free account, you won’t have to put up with third party ads on your site.
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Lots of Themes
There are more than a hundred professional looking themes to choose from to help you customize your site.
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Simple Drag and Drop Process
Even if you’ve never built a website in your life, you’ll find it easy to follow the step-by-step instructions on Weebly.
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Sites Can be Monetized
Oh yes, I love this. While there are no forced ads on your sites, you can place your own ads to make your site profitable. There is built in integration with Google AdSense.
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Free Blogging
You can set up a blog with your website that has lots of convenient features. You can edit and moderate comments, set up options for time zones and dates and archive your posts.
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Audio and Video Players
You can upload videos and audio files to your Weebly site. Like any professionally designed website, your visitors can watch or listen to your content without downloading any files or opening a media player.
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Free Domain Hosting
If you want to have your own domain (which you can either buy directly from Weebly or from a domain registrar), you can host it for free on Weebly. This will make it easier to optimize your site for the search engines. On the other hand, if you want your site to be completely free, you can use a subdomain on Weebly.
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Sites are Search Engine Optimized
When you set up a site on Weebly, it will automatically be optimized for the search engines. You do not need to worry about all the technical aspects of SEO!
The above are just some of the features you get with a free Weebly website. There are also others, such as photo galleries and form builders. There are also traffic stats available so you can find out how many people are visiting your site.
In other words, you can do just about anything with a Weebly site that you can do with a professional website that you host in a conventional way (with a paid web hosting company). It’s just a lot easier – and free!
How to Build a Website on Weebly
I will now take you through the basic steps of building a new site on Weebly. Please note that this short tutorial is aimed at new Weebly users, but should be a good preview for website owners who are using another website building tool.
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Sign up for an account
You can either sign in through Facebook or register for a new account by entering your Full Name, Email address and Password. Remember, it’s free to sign up and use Weebly!
Weebly is free. Sign up with Weebly now, and start building your own website by following our guide!
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Create a new site
Choose a name for your site and select its type. There are choices such as Personal, Business, Education, Wedding, Portfolio and etc.
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Choose your Website Domain
Choose whether to use a subdomain on Weebly, buy one from Weebly or use a domain you already own. For this example, I am using a subdomain.
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Design your website with Weebly Editor
Start adding text, pictures, contact form and other features. You can even customize the HTML with the Custom HTML tool! Once you are done, click on “Publish” and your site is online!
I must admit that this WYSIWYG editor is very user friendly and easy to use. I especially like its drag and drop capability.
The above quick tutorial is just the basics, of course. However, this should give you an idea of how fast and simple it is to create a new website on Weebly. You can literally get an idea for a website and have it live within minutes! Anyway, I will come up with a more comprehensive step by step tutorial in the near future.
Once your site is live, you can always add to it and edit it. A free Weebly account allows you to have two websites. If you want more, you’ll have to upgrade to their Pro account.
Weebly Makes it Easy to Build a Website
There is no faster or simpler way to build a website than with Weebly. Whether you have your own domain or not, you can quickly build any type of website you want. You can have a blog, a business website or a website devoted to your favorite hobby or topic.
If you want to get even more features, you may want to upgrade to the Weebly Pro version at some point. However, there’s no reason why you can’t start off with a free site to find out how you like it. Do check out Weebly now and start building your first website for free!
Good Weebly tutorial, Jasmine! Love it, this gives us a peek at how Weebly works. Thank u.