Development

12 Best Free Website Hosting Compared (2020)

Free things are all that we need in life – from free food to free website hosting. While many people think that free website hosting is a myth, it’s not. Several companies offer free website hosting. However, not all five fingers are equal, and especially when they are free. In this article, we have compared 12 best website hosting services that are either free or almost free. We have discussed their pros as well as their cons, so let’s dig in.

Website Hosting Services

Nowadays, a business without an online presence has become a rarity. There are thousands of businesses that are solely internet-based without an actual brick and mortar shop.

The world dynamics have changed and the consumer feels more confident about a business when it has an active online presence.

That being said, most established businesses usually have an up and running bespoke website. However, it is not always possible for a newbie to invest a lot of money on a website in the beginning. All they need is a free, quick, and easy platform where they can showcase their services.

Luckily, there are several free website hosting companies that offer exactly what they need.

The only downside is that the “free” in free hosting is not exactly free.

These companies need to earn somehow so most of the time they display ads on free websites. These ads have nothing to do with that particular business and may even promote a competitor.

If this is not a problem for your business, then you should go for free website hosting in the beginning. However, once your business has established, you should switch to a low-cost website hosting service. This way, you will have better control over your website and access to more features.

Anyhow, for non-profit or beginners who want to explore the world of the web, free website hosting is a great idea.

Almost-Free Website Hosting Services

Get more, pay less!

1. Bluehost

Officially recommended by WordPress, Bluehost is among the world’s largest website hosting companies.

The starting price for their basic plan is $2.75 per month. Their services include unlimited storage space, 1-click WordPress install, free email addresses, and free SSL certificates.

Moreover, they provide the following services to WPBegginer users:

a free domain name
free SSL certificate
63% discount on web hosting

2. SiteGround

Another WordPress recommended website hosting service is SiteGround. Their customer support and pristine performance are highly praised by users.

Starting at $3.95 per month, their hosting plans offer:

unlimited email addresses
1-click WordPress installer
website builder
Joomla

Moreover, SiteGround is perfect for students and teachers as their Student Web Hosting starts at $1.99 per month.

To WPBegginner users, they also provide hosting at a 60% discount.

3. HostGator

Another top-rated website hosting service is HostGator. They are very well-known for three things:

low-price
reliable web hosting
quality customer service

Their basic plan starts from $2.64 per month and offers a lot at such a low price. Its services include free HTTPS/SSL, unlimited bandwidth and storage, and unlimited email addresses.

4. DreamHost

Being the oldest in the business (it started in 1997), DreamHost is one of the most used website hosting services. At the moment, 1.5 million websites use DreamHost as their hosting service.

You can start using their hosting at $2.59 per month and they offer the following services:

free domain name
free domain privacy
free SSL
unlimited emails
1-click installers for popular website builders

5. Just Host

Another prominent website hosting company is Just Host. They are quite popular among beginners for their low cost and shared hosting plans.

The starter plan cost is $3.95 per month and it offers the following:

a free domain name
unlimited email addresses
multiple websites
1-click install WordPress

Free Website Hosting Services

Get everything, pay nothing!

6. WordPress.com

(WordPress.com and WordPress.org are two separate entities)

One of the most popular free website hosting platforms is WordPress.com. The free hosting plan offers the following services:

a WordPress.com subdomain (e.g. websitename.wordpress.com)
3 GB storage
access to free website templates

The only downside to this service is the ads. Moreover, you cannot get a custom domain name unless you buy the paid version.

7. Wix

Wix is another free website hosting platform. The free version provides:

a Wix.com subdomain
access to website templates
500 MB of storage
500 MB of bandwidth

Like WordPress.com, Wix also displays ads on websites. If you want to get rid of those, you need to upgrade to paid plans.

8. Weebly

Weebly is another free website hosting platform that is quite popular among users. Its drag and drop feature for building websites and the built-in templates make it a favorite.

The free plan offers:

a Weebly subdomain
500 MB of storage
Weebly ads

They offer an ad-free version that comes with more storage and additional features in their paid plans.

9. GoDaddy Website Builder

Not just the world’s biggest domain name registrar, GoDaddy is also a popular website hosting company. What’s more? It’s free. Well, for at least 30 days.

GoDaddy offers a 30-days free trial and after that, the user can upgrade to their paid plan. These plans start at $5.99 per month.

Although GoDaddy is quite easy to use, it is very limited in terms of features which is a drawback.

10. Squarespace

Don’t have any technical skills? Worry not as Squarespace requires none. Anyone can build a website using its professionally designed built-in templates and the drag-and-drop feature.

Squarespace offers a 14-day free trial. In this time, you can explore the website’s features and other services. However, your website cannot go live unless you subscribe to their paid plan (smooth, right?).

Their paid plans start at $12 per month and offer:

a free custom domain
unlimited bandwidth
storage
ready-made website templates

11. Google Cloud Hosting

Small businesses and students can also benefit from Google’s free website hosting solutions.

Their plans follow the pay-per-use policy. Moreover, it provides $300 free credit to every new user that lasts almost a whole year.

Google cloud hosting can host any type of website including WordPress.

12. Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Another amazing free website hosting platform is AWS. It is especially useful for students and developers.

It gives 12 free months along with free products on the AWS Free Tier. These features make it one of the best hosting platforms for testing sites.

In a nutshell, all these almost free and free website hosting companies have pros and cons. So, before selecting one, conduct thorough research and then finalize the one that fulfills all your hosting needs.

Development

How to add TinyMCE in Laravel

TinyMce is a rich content editor being widely used in various web applications. This tutorial covers how we can integrate TinyMCE in a Laravel project. Before we start, we assume that you have already installed the following dependencies;

Php
Node
Composer

Now let’s create a fresh installation of Laravel using the following composer command

composer create-project laravel/laravel project

Let’s change the current directory to Laravel installation directory using the command cd

Cd project

Now to open the current folder in VS Code Studio using the following command

Code .

Next, Install the node package manager using vs code terminal

npm install

Add TinyMCE package to project using composer command

composer require tinymce/tinymce

Open the webpack.mix.js and add following line

mix.copyDirectory('vendor/tinymce/tinymce', 'public/js/tinymce');

this will copy all tinymce required files in public folder that will be used in later stage

To copy files to public folder use following Mix command

npx mix

Now open the blade template of your choice and add the following Html

<form method=”post”>

   <textarea id=”editor”>My first content line!</textarea>

 </form>

Now it’s time to add js code to your blade template. Add the following to head <head> or the end of <body> tag.

<script src=”{{ asset(‘js/tinymce/tinymce.min.js’) }}” referrerpolicy=”origin”></script>

 <script>

   tinymce.init({

     selector: ‘textarea#editor, // Replace this CSS selector to match the placeholder element for TinyMCE

     plugins: ‘code table lists’,

     toolbar: ‘undo redo | formatselect| bold italic | alignleft aligncenter alignright | indent outdent | bullist numlist | code | table’

   });

 </script>

Now finally, run the server to see if all is working fine.

php artisan serve

Development

Duplicate page in WordPress

Go to Dashboard > Plugins and search Duplicate page
Now install Duplicate Page plugin and active it
After the activation of the plugin, go to posts or pages, a new option “Duplicate this” will appear when you hover over to any page or post.
Click the Duplicate this option to duplicate the page

Duplicate page in wordpress

Development

How to Create a Blog for Free and Make Money

The world is changing rapidly and so are the ways of earning money. Gradually, everything is shifting online and traditional methods of earning are becoming obsolete day by day. We have all thought of starting something to make money online at some point. One of the most common ideas thrown around for online earning is to create free blog. While it may seem straightforward to begin a blog, it is not that simple. Starting a blog just for the sake of earning money almost never works because no blog can run without content. So, if you don’t have a passion for writing, drop the idea.

However, if you’re someone with a deep-seated passion for writing and regularly creating new content, you can begin a blog. But, only having a passion for writing is not enough. You also need to have three Ps of success, which are:

Passion
Preparation
Persistence

Without these three traits, your blog can die its own death with time because the digital world is growing every second. According to 2019 statistics, there are above 500 million blogs with WordPress having nearly 60 million. Moreover, this number is constantly increasing every day.

In this article, we have shared a step by step guide to create free blog and make money online. Let’s see how it’s done!

How to Create Free Blog – A Step-by-Step Guide

For those interested in making money online with the help of a blog, this step-by-step guide is very useful. They can learn about creating a new blog by following these steps. However, preparation, planning, and persistence are crucial for a successful blog.

Follow the step-by-step guide given below:

Select a Niche

Every blog needs a topic. Nobody can start a free blog and start throwing content online. For a successful blog, laser-focus is important.

The first step in making a blog is to select a particular topic or a specific niche. Once, you have identified that only then you can start creating content.

Your customers/visitors/readers identify you with the help of your blog. So, picking a particular topic/niche helps in targeting the right audience.

Pick a Platform

The second step after choosing what you will write about is to select a platform where you will write.

Most people, who want to create free blog and make money online, trust WordPress. It is the most popular platform for bloggers. However, it is not the only one.

For micro-blogging, other platforms such as Tumblr, Blogger.com, and Medium are also used.

But, serious bloggers who want to be recognized by a larger population usually use a self-hosted WordPress installation on a custom domain. Some people like keeping their blogs with a WordPress subdomain, too (e.g. myblog.wordpress.com). However, the most traction is generated on a self-hosted website.

So, choose a platform where you’d like to start your blogging journey.

Choose a Domain Name

After finalizing the platform of your choice to create a free blog, the next step is choosing a domain name.

Your domain name is what helps the visitors discover you. There are several domain name providers like BlueHost and HostGator. So, select a keyword that best defines your niche and your content. Then, get a domain name from these domain providers and you’re all set.

Domain Name

From an SEO point of view, keep the following suggestions in mind while choosing a domain name:

Find a well-known and top-level domain (TLD), like .com and .net
Try to keep the domain name short and catchy (maximum 15 characters)
Purchase a domain name without hyphens and other symbols

Get Website Hosting

Many great website hosting companies are available online. But to create free blog, it’s important to find the right web hosting company.

Keep your budget in mind while selecting a company. Moreover, service-level and up-time guarantee should be included in the package.

Use Google Analytics

Once you have successfully started things off, install Google Analytics on your blog. It helps keep a track of everything that’s happening on your blog. GA is a great way of keeping a record of your traffic. It is also helpful in search campaigns.

Use Google’s Webmaster Tools

To create free blog and make money online, it is important to know what keywords is your website ranking for. It helps in tracking keyword impressions and CTRs. Moreover, it allows you to submit an XML sitemap. To grow your blog, these tools are mandatory.

Learn Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Knowing the basic principles of SEO is important to grow a successful blog. While most people don’t know everything about SEO, they need at least some know-how of search engine optimization. This is important for understanding what impacts a website’s ranking on search engines, like Google. However, nobody can learn SEO overnight. It is an ongoing process and you will keep learning more every day.

Create Relevant Content Regularly

Remember the 3 Ps of success? Persistence is one of those Ps.

If you are not serious about content creation, you might as well say goodbye to blogging. For any blog to succeed, it needs a regular dose of new content.

Moreover, the content you produce for your website must be relevant to your niche. Random content will attract the random audience who may or may not be converted into potential customers. So, make sure you produce content related to your niche.

Apart from this, your content must be engaging, informative, unique, and new. Do not copy and paste anyone else’s content. Your writing must be keyword centric but it shouldn’t be robotic in nature. Write with a natural flow and insert keywords naturally. Avoid keyword stuffing and learn more about Google’s content guidelines otherwise your blog may get penalized.

Start Socializing

Creating a free blog is not enough to make money online. You have to do marketing of your blog, too. And, for that, you need to socialize.

Use social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and other relevant social media platforms. These platforms are excellent for getting to know other like-minded bloggers and publicize your blog.

Begin Marketing and Monetization

The best strategy to make money online through your blog is to learn content marketing. It is one of the best ways to get your on-site content noticed. But, for that, you have to create some off-site content as well.

The off-site content must be well-created as it is produced for attracting visitors from other platforms. It can be done by writing articles for websites like Medium and Scribd. It can also be done by answering questions on Quora and Reddit. You can also do it by making YouTube videos.

Once, your website starts getting a stable number of visitors each day, your content monetization will become easy.

Monetizing the content is not an overnight job. It requires patience and persistence. You will start small and grow eventually. But, always remember that there are no shortcuts. Your blog will generate income and you will make money online but don’t expect it to happen within a week. Stay persistent, produce quality content, and the money will flow.