Telecommuting

It doesn’t matter whether you’re a writer, graphic artist, photographer or an IT specialist, an online presence can help you land future gigs.  Many freelance authors have latched onto this method of self promotion, and with the right keywords, you can get your page ranked high on the search engines.  (Yes- Google and others).

The first step in creating your self-promoting website is deciding whether or not you want to pay for web hosting or opt for a free one.  They both have advantages and disadvantages.  If you pay for one you can probably have a nice bobsmith.com web address, whereas the free one could be bobsmith.whatever.com.  The first is easier to find and remember.  The second is cost.  Hosting can be as inexpensive as $5 per month, or higher, depending on all of the bells and whistles you want.  Finally, how “pretty” do you want your website, and do you want to be able to have whatever you want on your pages?  Do you want it full of someone else’s advertising, or do you want it to just focus on you?  These are the things you’ll have to decide before you put a lot of effort into creating your site.

The following web hosting services are free:

Webs

110MB Hosting - one of the few free no-ad sites

DotEasy - banner-free site

BraveNet

BlackApple - offers 5,000MB space

I’ll be checking out BlackApple today, and if all goes well, I’ll have my site up and ready by tomorrow’s post.

~~Gregg