When you simply want to put up a personal site for your own use, it’s extremely likely that your personal web site hosting needs will not be nearly as vast as your local ecommerce site, or authority site. You just want a home for your blog, a few pictures, videos and so on. Your needs can be met with one of several low cost or free web hosting solutions. Let’s see what your options are!

The Free Options!

There are many ways to come up with free web hosting. You may be able to get a free website with your internet service provider. Many times this is bundled with your service. You generally have very limited resources, and virtually no control over the look, feel and functionality of your site, but hey, it’s free! Typically there will be lots of ads there as well, from which you won’t see a cent.

Another way to get free web hosting is to utilize a Web 2.0 property for this purpose. You can find oodles of them out there just dying to give you a platform for your site. However these too are riddled with ads, unless you opt for their “upgrade” to a paid version that eliminates the ads. While this may seem the same as the first free option, it is a bit better, as there is a great deal more function on these blogs, and you have a lot more options. Also, some of these sites have developed a great deal of authority in the search engines. Some of these sites include properties like Squidoo, HubPages, LiveJournal, Terapad, Blogger, Multiply and many, many more.

One warning about these sites too: of you are attempting to host a business site there, just know that you are playing in their sandbox, and the day they decide they don’t like your content, or affiliates or the color of your shirt, they’ll just delete your site with no recourse. This has happened to many sites, and doing so is well within their rights. A word to the wise!

Low Cost Web Hosting

Probably the best way to host a personal site is to opt for a low cost web hosting plan. A starter web hosting plan is often about $5 a month, and will have more than enough resources for you to do whatever you like with your site or blog. Also, it will be free of annoying third party advertisements, enabling you to monetize your blog if you wish to do so.

You will also not have to handle any of the server issues, as the web hosting company handles all of that. Support is available for things you don’t know how to do, and you’ll be able to concentrate on more of the things you want to do, such as putting up great content on your blog or site!

Hosting a personal website doesn’t have to be an ordeal. You can get it for free if you wish, but my recommendation is that you spend a few bucks a month and have a hosting platform that will enable you to do whatever you want! It’s a small price to pay.