Using free services to make a website with a short life

What is the point of making a short lived website?

There are occasions when you want to make some pages about something that is very short lived. It could be a special offer, an event or something of the sort.

For examples of how this can be used to get your message to more people, read on..

Perhaps your message is about something that has no relevance to your main subject and you don’t want the two associated. A free blog can give you the opportunity to promote something that has no place in your main website.

In this case it is not important that the website lasts. You can make a blog for the duration, and delete it when it’s no longer useful.

Here’s a very Domestic example

Let’s say you live in a community that has an annual fair. This is the year you’re going all-out to raise some money for the local youth centre (I’m English – that is the correct spelling!).

You decide to set up a stall selling lovely egg cosies knitted and donated by every member of the family and all the friends and neighbours you can rope in to the scheme.

You want a basic site that shows people how to make the cosies, where to get the materials, how the non-knitters can help by unravelling old woollies to get more yarn.
They will need to know where to bring their finished creations and you want some pictures of the progress to build up to the event.

  • You want all the information in one place.
  • And you want them to know how to contact you to join in.

AND – You want the punters to know where you will be on the annual fair-ground too.
Maybe you can even persuade them to buy online…

Well you’re not about to buy a domain for a six-week wonder. Might be a total flop anyway.

Solution? A free website…
Brilliant!

You can send people to that website whether or not they are on Facebook and twitter.
You know, an awful lot of energetic do-gooders wouldn’t dream of ‘wasting their time’ on the social networks:)

A free advert in the local corner shop, and the local rag (newspaper, church magazine) just sends everyone to the website.
There, they find Knitting patterns – the works.

And you don’t have to PAY.

Bingo!!! All the more for the Lucky Local Youth Centre!

Substitute your temporary event or promotion in the example above and you have the bones of a new free advertising blog – especially useful if your audience is Social Media Shy.

TIP-ola:
Having said that, when you have your own self-hosted website and you want a short lived promotion that does Not conflict with your ‘niche’, you can create such pages anyway!

Using free services to assess public interest

Suppose you came across a ‘jolly good idea’ and you weren’t sure whether there was much of an audience for it. It could be an unusual product you want to test or just an oddball subject.

You might not want to buy a domain for it immediately, so you could create some articles around the subject and put them on the free blog. If the blog starts to get visitors you start to see some action, then you could buy a domain name and make a website for that subject.
Alternatively, you could use the free blog to formulate your idea, and work out the structure.

TIP. You could later link to the new website from that free blog to implement the ‘backlink’ strategy.

I shall show you how you can get a free hosted blog or website in another post soon.

What do you think about making short lived sites? Let me know in the comments below!

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About The Author

Julie Ashti

Julie Ashti explores working from home and finds products and tools that help with Marketing on the internet. I work from where-ever I happen to be, and if you are wanting to do the same you can discover how to get there with me.

2 Comments

  • Torsten Mueller

    Reply Reply June 23, 2015

    Hi Julie,

    I generally like the idea of creating websites even for short lived events.

    However, personally I wouldn’t use any of the free services as there are too many disadvantages going along with it. You are limited in too many possibilities, like for example the use of various plugins or monetisation of the content, especially when it comes to promoting affiliate products.

    I think with having a hosting account anyway and yearly domain name prices below the $10 mark, there’s no real need for going the free route.

    Cheers,
    Torsten

  • Julie Ashti

    Reply Reply August 14, 2015

    Hi Torsten,

    I agree entirely with your view and have only dabbled with the free route so that I could make the comparison, but found them restrictive, as you say.
    Not only that, if you do find you’re on to a winner it feels like wasted effort. You don’t really ‘own’ it.

    However, I wrote this in the spirit of encouraging those who have never made any website to ‘have a go’.

    I speak persuasively, I hope, for paid hosting in another article here. On re-reading this article I can see that it may seem that I am advocating the use of free hosting, which was not my intention.

    I thought I would explore the subject of hosting thoroughly and wrote a few articles on the subject. I have a tendancy to write posts in sequence, forgetting that each stands alone for the reader.

    Thank you for dropping by and for making me aware of that point.

    Will try harder next time:)

    I apologise for my (very) late reply. Life got in the way for a while.

    I took a glimpse at your site just now – full of useful info. I shall spend some time reading your posts properly now.

    Julie

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