Best free or cheap website building site?

[pinkmagic1]

I am in the early stages of starting a small business from home and would like to create a basic website with a few photos, information and contact details etc.
I was wondering if anyone could recommend a free of cheap website building site. I am a totally beginner when it comes to making a website and although google has come up with many sites offering this service it is all a total minefield! Thanks in advance.

[pinkmagic1]

Anyone?

[niceguy2]

If you have a bit of budget then WIX could be a good place to start. Very simple to use and design your own website but it isn't the cheapest. I guess you pay for the simplicity.

If you don't mind a bit more faffing around then I'm currently using 000webhost. They will give you free webspace and a fairly decent amount of features to get you started. I'm currently using them to host my own site for free.

I've coupled this with a domain name I've purchased and pointing to the 000webhost site so my customers can get to me using a sensible .co.uk name rather than a less than professional looking customname.wix.com or whatever the other ppl give you by default.

Hope that makes sense

[niceguy2]

Oh another thing you may want to consider depending on what your small business is doing is to create a Facebook page. I hate FB pages since I think they look awful and don't lend themselves to showcasing my photographs. But so many people seem to be using FB now that a lot of business comes through FB messaging. I get most of my customers through FB now and many of my friends get a lot of custom via their pages too.

[ImGoingToCountToThree]

Moon fruit.
We have a website on there. We built it ourselves. It's fairly easy to do and I'm no computer whizz.
It's free for all the basics which is enough for what we need it for but if you want something a little more you can pay per month for slightly larger packages.

[BarefootShirl]

I have had a website with 1&1 for a few years - not the cheapest but very easy to set up/update and service is extremely good. I agree with niceguy - a business FB page is also a "must" for small businesses now

[TheDuchessOfEarl]

I use Mr.site which costs me about £30/year, they're ok if you want a very basic site but can be a pain in the arse if you want it to look a bit more "designer-y" (yeah,I know that's not really a word). The bonus with them is that I own the domain name.

I would second what pp said about Facebook, it's free marketing so you'd be mad not to make use of it.