I've heard this so many times that I wanted to write about it. I was asked about free hosting as a package a potential client was getting for some other services they were purchasing. Free is fine for personal pages and stuff, but if you ask me, free comes with a lot of hidden things you'll need down the road. And if I'm a business owner, free won't give me what I need or my business needs.

People need to understand what Free really buys. Most companies offer free because it gets your attention. Once they have you, you realize you needed more services and space to work (i.e. bandwidth, webspace, email, databases, sub-directories and more). Then they charge you more than you could have received on a standard pay service to get what you really need. But by then, it costs you more to change. Hosting is pretty inexpensive anyway and good quality hosting services go a long way to managing your business online needs.

And don't get me started on free websites. Oh my. Free websites are a waste of time and effort. They are typically filled with third-party advertisements. Most of those ads are not even related to your business and some are even ads from competitors... Ouch! Even the free websites that you get that don't have much if any third-party ads limit functionality and ability to be creative. I can just about always spot the free websites over professional websites. Do you really want your potential customers going to a free website that might look decent to you? Would you buy or request information from a free website or one that is laced with ads? If someone is selling on a website, there should be limited ads. If they are offering free services or online products, then ads are fine.

So be careful with free services and make sure you know what you're getting and that it meets your short term and future needs.

Many websites, especially small or older websites, are built using static webpages. These webpages are built using HTML, Javascript, and Macromedia Flash code. This code is difficult to access on web servers and is virtually impossible to edit without special software and training. Thus, static websites are difficult and expensive to maintain.

To solve this website design and maintenance problem, a new technology called a Content Management System (CMS) was developed. A CMS uses a database to store, retrieve, and edit the content of your website.  Each page of your site is stored as simple text - making it easy to edit, search, and change. When someone visits your website the CMS automatically converts your text into the required HTML and Javascript. Furthermore, the CMS database allows for additional features to be easily integrated into the website: user login and passwords, events and calendars, blogs, news feeds, audio, video and much more.