Creating a basic website - can it be done for free?

[TR888]

My husband is a decorator and would like to create a very basic website to advertise his services. The idea is to be able to post a link to it on social media so he can show some photos and his contact details - not to take payment through it, for example.

He's spent a good couple of hours trying to set up a Wordpress account. He can see it on his phone but when he sends me the link, it's empty and I get a message saying that his page can't be found. Is it because he's gone for the free version? Does he have to pay, realistically? Any help would be much appreciated.

No, the free account should show for you (although it'll be Wordpress branded, which isn't thr most professional)

The best option is self hosted Wordpress which has a hosting fee of up to about £10 a month, but free Wordpress is a good alternative. I don't know if Wix is still free, it was designed to be easy to use but has very poor searchability. There are loads of website builders but many will have either a standard monthly cost or a hosting cost, free and good is hard to find.

If he can see it but you can’t it sounds like he hasn’t made his page live, rather that it’s still hidden while he’s creating it.

Nothing to do with it being free.

It might well be a simple thing like that. I'll have a look (Not that I'm great at these things...).

At the very least, I was recommend paying for your own domain and hosting your own site to look professional. It's not expensive - 1&1 do a basic hosting package with a website builder from £1 and there's plenty of other offers out there. A domain name will set you back £3 or so, depending on it's popularity.