Summary: Is it really possible to get a website completely free of charge? Yes, but it probably won’t be a very good one. If you want a website with zero money, your best choice is to set up a basic blog on WordPress.com or use the free website builder at Olitt.com. If you’re looking for a professional or business website, we recommend that you buy a domain and find cheap web hosting, then build a your website using free WordPress tools.
The truth is, any website worth the name will cost you some money. At the very least, you’ll pay for a domain name and website hosting.
Having said that, most people pay too much for website development, domain registration, and hosting services. If you have basic technical skills (meaning you can use Google to work yourself out of most technical problems), avoid paying these unnecessary costs and build a professional website on your own.
These inside tips and tricks should help you start your website and begin earning online for less than ₱550. We’ll show you exactly how to go about it using WordPress (a free CMS) or Olitt, a free drag-and-drop website builder.
Plus, we’ll throw in some exciting money making ideas to complete the package.
1. Build a Website for Free Using WordPress.org
If you prefer to learn visually, we highly recommend this comprehensive tutorial by FreeCodeCamp.org. It shows the full website development process, from buying and registering a domain to editing website elements and posting content.
Before you get started, you’ll need to buy a domain and pay for website hosting.
The rest you can get for free and it should be easy to build a professional-looking website.
However, please note that complex functionalities like payment integrations, customer relationship management (CRM), and live chat may require an expert to set up.
Here’s the simplified version of the guide:
- Find a unique and memorable domain name. It should reflect your brand without being too long or too confusing. For example, avoid repeated letters (like edgeescalators.com) and special characters, such as underscores or hyphens.
- Choose an appropriate domain extension. Most people prefer .com domain names, but those are highly competitive and expensive. Alternatives such as .hotel, .travel, .edu, .org, .biz and io can work just as well, if not better. They’re also more affordable.
- Check the availability of your chosen domain name through a hosting service provider and buy it. Use Truehost.ph to find the cheapest domain names and grab them before someone else does.
- Buy and register your chosen domain. This is easy to do on the Truehost page, and you can bundle your hosting into one convenient package.
During the hosting and domain registration process, you will be prompted to set a username and a strong password for your website. Save these because you will need them for the next step.
- Once the domain is yours and the hosting is confirmed, go ahead and login into the admin section of your website. If you don’t know where to find it, type the URL of your website followed by /wp-admin. For example, sambaonline.biz/wp-admin.
- From the backend dashboard, you can install a content management system (CMS) such as Joomla or WordPress and activate it. WordPress is one of the most popular options because it allows extensive customization and powerful features.
- Once WordPress is active, you can add or remove plugins as you wish. Some plugins come pre-installed and activated, and these are usually good enough to get you started with basic site functionality. Plugins offer added functionality for your website, such as backup (e.g., All-in-One WP Migration), SEO (e.g., All-in-One SEO), search (e.g., SearchWP), and firewall (e.g., Sucuri).
- Install a WordPress theme of your choice. There are thousands of free and premium themes you can choose. One example is the gorgeous OceanWP theme, which is completely free and offers unlimited customization features. When you’re done, install the Ocean Extra plugin as well.
- Go to your website and start customizing. You can use the free WordPress tools at your disposal or install a free builder like Elementor, which is one of the most popular options. Elementor is particularly powerful at moving around content elements, texts, images, banners, and buttons in easy drag-and-drop operations.
There’s a steep learning curve when it comes to WordPress website administration. Luckily, if you get lost or make a mistake, it’s easy to find solutions thanks to the large community of WordPress users around the world. There are also tons of YouTube videos and active WordPress forums to help you with most problems you’re likely to encounter.
2. Build Your Website Using a Free Drag-and-Drop Builder
The biggest disadvantage of building a WordPress website is the learning curve. It may take several days or even weeks to get familiar with the various tools and elements, but eventually it yields the best results.
However, if you have no idea how to build a WordPress website, drag-and-drop website builders like Squarespace and Wix make it as easy as ABC. However, these can be very expensive, difficult to scale, and offer limited customization options.
The solution? Use Olitt, the latest website builder tool in the market. Olitt is a drag-and-drop website builder application that enables powerful functionality such as payment integrations and mobile responsiveness.
Plus, Olitt offers 500+ gorgeous templates free of charge that come ready-made for a wide variety of websites for ecommerce sites, artist portfolios, blogging, startups, gyms, lawyers, and agencies.
Getting Started With Olitt
Getting started with the Olitt website builder is easy and fast. You only need to create a free account, no credit card required. Once you log in, you come to this home page where you can select a category and template for your site.
Once you select one of the templates, you’ll get the message that your website is live. You will also get a free domain name with a .olitt extension.
If you already own a domain, connect it here as shown below.
You can also upgrade to a premium package to further customize your free domain.
From there, you can go to my websites, choose from the drop down list labeled Site actions, and choose edit. The resulting page gives you the tools to edit page elements such as text, images, buttons, and more. It’s that easy!
Play around with the different features to further customize the look and feel of your new website:
- Add new pages at the Index option near the top left corner
- Optimize the site’s mobile responsiveness by selecting the mobile phone icon at the top middle section of the page
- Preview the website to see what it looks like to visitors
- Check out the asset library for free photos and other assets
- Change settings such as auto-save
- Import your site for back-up
Your new website has all the basic features needed to get your business off the ground. However, as you grow, it will become necessary to upgrade to a paid plan to get a custom URL, access further customization features, and improve site performance.
Bonus Option: Create a Free Website (With Free Hosting and Domain)
WordPress.org lets you create professional websites for next to nothing, so long as you can afford to buy a domain and hosting and don’t mind investing some time to build your website.
But there’s an even easier option that involves zero investment and zero skills, only a willingness to share your thoughts and creations with the world. WordPress.com is the commercial version of WordPress.org (the open-source CMS), but it also offers a completely free domain and web hosting service.
All you have to do is choose the free plan and create an account to get a free blog with a .wordpress domain name. It’s perfect for hobbyists and beginners, but it offers limited customization options.
WordPress.com websites with free site hosting plans have little earning potential. However, they’re the easiest to start and you can upgrade easily to a monthly or annual plan to get more functionality.
Pro Tip: If your goal is to create a free ecommerce website, check out Weebly. It works much like Olitt or Shopify, but it allows you to set up product categories, integrate payment systems, and create product descriptions. It also offers rich content modules, some SEO tools, a free SSL certificate, and some analytics features.
How to Make Money With Your Website in Manila
Creating your website is the easy part. Now you actually have to make money from it and grow your business.
If you have things to sell, that should be easy. Creating unique products such as knitwear, beautiful photographs, paintings, electronics projects, pottery, wood carvings should get you some income once you start driving traffic to your website.
You can also create and sell digital products such as t-shirt designs, e-books, digital art, fonts, spreadsheets, web applications, software programs, music, audiobooks, training courses, and much more. The opportunities are simply endless.
If you’re a talented writer or copywriter, start a blog and post thought articles, poems, white papers, and thought leadership content on it. If you attract enough people to your site, you can monetize it in various, such as through AdSense adverts, affiliate programs, and selling custom merchandise.
Once your audience grows, you can even partner with brands and earn big for reviewing and promoting their products.
If that doesn’t sound like you, consider creating a portfolio website and selling professional services. Examples include digital marketing, online sales, legal or financial consultation, skills training, education, coaching, among many others.
Here are a few more ideas you can implement today to start making money online. Some may sound unusual or unorthodox, but they work.
- Resell products after purchasing them in bulk, especially food, clothing, electronics, or beauty products
- Resell used or rejected products, such as repaired electronics and clothes that no longer fit
- Show people how to do stuff, such as cooking home-made meals or fixing things around the house
- Help students with their homework and assignments
- Do voice-overs, recordings, and translations
- Be an online friend or companion
- Sell pictures of yourself
- Sell parts of yourself (like hair or nail clippings)
As you can see, it’s simple (not easy) to make money online if you’re willing to put in a bit of effort. Once the money starts rolling in, you can upgrade from free hosting plans to premium plans that offer managed hosting and website management services.
Get Your Domain and Hosting Now
Are you excited to start your journey to online success? The first step is to find a website hosting service you can trust to grow with you. Truehost is the most affordable and reliable website hosting service in the Philippines and globally. Learn more about our free website builder and hosting services to get started.