free website builders

Re: free website builders

Joanne Lewis — Wed, 22 Jan 2014 12:58:02 GMT

I'd take a look at Weebly.com - I used that for my website - very user friendly!

Re: free website builders

Gareth C. — Wed, 22 Jan 2014 10:55:03 GMT

great thanks will look into that

Re: free website builders

Wren — Mon, 20 Jan 2014 09:33:24 GMT

Another vote for WordPress. I started a (non-veterinary) website with some friends a year ago and despite having no previous experience have found it very user-friendly. Photos extremely simple to upload. You can schedule posts for a time of your choosing (we often publish new articles to coincide with lunchtime as we find it a time of particularly high traffic) and if you get, for example, a quiet Sunday afternoon you can write and upload enough content to cover a few weeks and set it to publish a new article etc. every couple of days. It will also post to our FB page when something new is uploaded thus driving traffic in both directions. There is a small hosting cost but there are no adverts, which was imposrtant to us. We have a few adverts from companies specific to our particular field which we use to cover the hosting costs. I believe the feedback statistics aren't hugely accurate but they give you a good general idea and the girl that does our figures manages to magic accurate stats from somehwere else anyway.

Re: free website builders

Gareth C. — Mon, 20 Jan 2014 09:16:20 GMT

thanks for all that. might be in touch later!

Re: free website builders

No Name — Sun, 19 Jan 2014 12:34:20 GMT

There are some free website builders that I've seen, but which require you to pay hosting on top (ie to keep your website online). These are usually banner/ad free but in the long run you will pay more (since, really, nothing comes free and you ARE paying for your website layout year on year).

There are also some free website builders that also offer your free webhosting, but normally force you to put advertisements on your website.

I am not very familiar with the above as I normally make my own website (as a professional web designer).

I'm personally a big fan of WordPress - which, with a bit of tweaking can be converted into a website quite easily with thousands of different themes/layouts. As a web designer, I often create websites using the platform and for the most clients are quite happy to edit the pages and insert images etc. after being shown how to do it. You can get a free WordPress blog at http://wordpress.com/

If you need any help with using your free WordPress blog , or would like a paid bespoke solution either PM me or just reply here. Happy to help :)

As for getting an e-mail, you're best off to sign up at gmail.com or somewhere else for a free one, unless of course you want to by your own domain name (ie whateveryouwant.co.uk) costs vary but around ~£10/yr depending what you want (GoDaddy and 123reg is the ones I use).

As for Facebook, the main demographic is 20-30 year olds, but a lot of other people are joining it all the time. I DO recommend practices to have an up-to-date social media page as this is a great opportunity for free advertising if done correctly. I know my local equine practice also used it to try to find local blood donors for a patient, the news spread like wildfire and multiple donors were found! Twitter is less popular than facebook, but a lot of bigger businesses have joined the bandwagon with twitter too. Whilst social media is brilliant for getting people together and encouraging a dynamic conversation on current issues/topics, websites are better suited for providing longer articles and information that can easily be searched over time but are less likely to include other people's opinions and discussions.

Hope this makes sense, let me know if it doesn't!