Every writer needs to have an online presence as part of their marketing effort. Whether you write books or articles for magazines, you need to have, at the very least, a brochure-style Web site and/or a blog. If you want to go into business as a writing coach or a freelance editor, you must have a professional-looking site, preferably with a blog.
On my Wired to Write blog, I’ve checked out several free Web site options, and I’ll refer you to that post rather than repeating the information here. Go to Wired to Write before going further.
As an update to the post you just read, I want to point out some changes with Viviti. You get a two-week free trial with no ads. After that, you must choose to pay about $5.00 a month or put up with an ad across the top of the page. It’s pretty much the same with Freewebs (now called Webs). The only free site builder with no ads is Blinkweb, and it might work for you, but it does not have as many design options, and you might not be able to customize it to suit your needs.
Note the ad on my free Viviti site at http://emilyakin.viviti.com/ and on my Freewebs site. In case you missed my free Blinkweb site on my other blog, here it is again, http://emilyakin.blinkweb.com/. Some would say that the ads detract from your image as a professional.
There’s one more way to have a free site without ads, and that’s with WordPress, the blogging tool. I just completed a site for my music club on WordPress. Take a look. It is in blog format, but you can make it operate like a Web site and still use the blog feature. See my how-to post on this option also on Wired to Write here.
If you are a writer and don’t have a Web site, don’t delay. Choose one of these free options and try it out. Check out these sites built by writers with free site builders. If you decide that you can’t do it yourself, perhaps you can get someone to help you set it up and work with you until you can edit it yourself as needed. And, if the free options don’t really suit you, the paid versions are not really that expensive.
Warning: if you do choose a paid version of any of the free sitebuilders, do not buy a domain name through them. Should you decide you need your own domain name, you want to own it. In some cases, when you get a free domain with paid hosting, the company owns your domain name, not you.