Day Three: Free Web Page Hosting

Free web page hosting for entrepreneurs isn't a fallacy. It exists, and I found it in Day Three of the Make Money without Spending a Dime Challenge.

If this is your first time visiting the thirty-day Make Money without Spending a Dime Challenge - Welcome! If you want to start from the beginning, you'll find the first posting here, and a list of all of the challenges to date here. Also, don't forget to join in the discussions and let me know what you think.

Day three wasn't a very busy day for me, I'll admit. It was a Friday, and I normally try to spend time with friends and family on Fridays, so I did. Sure, I sent and responded to a few emails and posted a couple more advertisements on Craiglist (see Day Two for the details), but nothing earth-shattering.

Since I started some portions of this challenge before the "official" thirty days began however, I might as well explain one the most important freebies I found in my search to make money without spending a dime: free web page hosting.

I'll spare you the details of how tedious the search was and merely give you the nitty gritty how-to and who to go to.

Step One: Sign Up with Commission Junction

If you haven't already, sign up with Commission Junction, an enormous affiliate marketing conglomerate. These types of companies (Link Share is another) compile thousands of affiliate programs into one simpler interface, so you can earn residual income with numerous affiliates without the mess and fuss of different systems.

Step Two: Find BlueHost

BlueHost isn't a free web hosting company; they offer full web hosting packages for $6.95/month when you sign up for 24 months (or 7.95/month for one year). However, their current affiliate program through Commission Junction is a "$90.00 commission payout" for each sale, with features that include:

• Free Domain (1 and 2 year plan)
• Free Setup (1 and 2 year plan),
• 200 Gigs of Storage Space (New)
• 2,000 Gigs of Transfer (New)
• 2500 E-Mail Accounts (New)
• SSH, Perl, MySQL, FrontPage Extension Support
• Fantastico
• Web Site Builder
• Free Marketing Services and more.

Since the entire cost of a one-year fee is $95.40, well it's as free as you'll get (please note that when I signed up the payout was $100 - so I actually MADE money). Plus, unlike many other web hosting companies on Commission Junction, BlueHost supports their affiliates doing exactly what I did.

Step Three: Set Up Your Free Web Host Website

You've got a couple of options now, depending on your skill and time frame. I chose to download NVU, an open source web authoring system, complete with free online support. Then I downloaded a free website template from Open Source Web Design. For those with less time or savvy, use BlueHost's free web site builder, which is intuitive and provides a fairly great looking end result. Another tech-savvy option includes using an open source CMS like Mambo. And don't forget, you'll get a free eBook about Getting Your Business Online when you sign up for my free weekly newsletter.

Step Four: Get a Logo

I'm a writer, not a designer, so I was unsure about what I could along these lines for free. Then I found LogoMaker, a snazzy little program that lets you design you own logo and use it online, all for free. I'll admit I played around here for more than a couple of hours, but I had a blast figuring out a professional yet funky image for my company. Plus, if I ever want to use the logo on business cards or other printed works, I only pay $9 USD. Not bad for a bootstrapper.

On to Day Four!

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