Learn about free hosting, free domain names, and free web-scripts!

A couple of years ago, I decided I wanted to learn PHP and set up a new website at the same time. I originally wanted to set up a forum which would double as a place for me and my college friends to interact. Well, a simple forum changed to a Volkswagen site and now a PHP site. I've learned a lot of PHP during the journey and had a lot of fun but how did I do it?

fWebsites cost a lot of money to start! You have to rent server space, get a domain name, and many times buy the software used to run your website like a forum or CMS system. Depending on what you want to do with the website, it could cost you a few hundred dollars just to launch it. Then maybe you can't even get 10 people a week to visit the site! Can't make any money with 10 people a week so now you have to decide if you want to try and stick it out or call it quits and lose the money that you have invested!

Realizing all of this right from the start, I decided to go low budget all the way. I sat down and did a search for free web hosting which led me to a Free Web Hosting Directory! FreeWebHosting and FreeWebspace both offer a great list of hosting services. You can search for the perfect host for your needs by checking the options you need in the search page. I found a few web hosts but most either had ads, too few features, or just weren't very good! I did find AstaHost and Trap17 which are sister sites and both offered what I needed. They use a posting for hosting system for free web hosting. Just stay active in the forums and they give you professional level web hosting for free without ANY ads!

So now with my new host selected, I decided to get a domain name. They didn't require me to get a domain name and offered sub domains if I needed but I wanted to establish my identity. So I bought a domain name! If I only knew then what I know now. The domain name from Network Solutions cost $35.00 back then. It might still be that much, I don't know since I don't use them any more! Using my new domain name and having activated my new web hosting plan, I began to get to work. That was March 2005. In November 2005, a friend sent me a link to a free domain name service and I signed up. ezrewards offers members the chance to earn a free domain name from Optinom by completing a few offers or referring new members. So I signed up and slapped their banner on the top of one of my pages and 10 months later I had enough points to get HANDYPHP.COM for FREE! I could have gotten the points faster if I had completed the offers they had or by promoting the referral link more, but I simply let the banner do all of the work for me.

• http://php.resourceindex.com/
• http://www.hotscripts.com/
Do yourself a favor and do a search in a search engine for "free scripts".

Once you have your website working and publicly available, you'll need to let everyone know about it. Nobody visits a website if they don't know it exists! The very first place to start is with the search engines. Submit your web address to ALL of them. It will take some time but it is worth it in the long run. Talk about your website whenever you can. Forums are a great place to get new visitors from as long as you don't directly advertise your website. That is, if you can to join a discussion that somehow relates to your website, then tactfully tie your website into the discussion, you shouldn't have a problem. If your website is about soccer, and you see a discussion about the World Cup, then it is usually acceptable in forums to mention your related website in the post. Just be sure that you don't spam or directly advertise your website. Many website allow users to have some kind of signature where it is permissible to display a link to your website and this can be a real boost in the number of visitors you might get. There is a world f free advertising available to you if you just look around.

So in the past I have spent a lot of money for websites that never did anything but cost me money. Handy PHP has technically cost me absolutely nothing since the scripts were free, the domain was free, and I still enjoy my free hosting at AstaHost.

Now I run a small website that hasn't cost me anything to develop and I generate income with advertising. The income isn't very much but I don't have any expenses so it is all profit! We're talking about nearly $1.00 each month currently. With a little time and searching in the right places, I think that you too will so be able to run a no cost website.