There are tons of things that you can do with Wordpress and one of the most powerful is to turn it into a mini content management system with WPRemix.

WPRemix is a premium theme for Wordpress that transforms WP into a flexible CMS where you have absolute control over your whole site or blog.

To find out more about what WPRemix can do to help design your website, Click Here!

As consumers have become accustomed to getting free stuff, free web hosting marketers have resorted to offering packages with Unlimited disk Storage and data transfers or Bandwidth. Is this for real?

Smart money says that it’s a marketing gimmick to lure people who are comparing web hosting prices and package features. The real question is, what’s the catch?

There are a range of web hosting companies that advertise unlimited offers and it would be hard to verify all their authenticities, especially since there will be varying fine print in the Terms of Service to justify the claims.

So, when Yahoo! Web Hosting offers Unlimited Storage and Bandwidth for its hosting packages, we thought it’s time to take a look at  the details.

Here’s a quote from their site where we’ve BOLDED the notable parts:

What do “unlimited disk space, data transfer, and email storage” mean?

It’s pretty straightforward: Customers who use Yahoo! Web Hosting can obtain unlimited disk space, data transfer, and email storage if they use their services consistently with the Terms of Service and these paragraphs.

What is appropriate usage?

Yahoo! Web Hosting is designed to serve the web hosting needs of small, independently owned and operated businesses in the United States. It is not appropriate to use our services to support large enterprises or internationally based businesses with a sustained demand that places undue burden on our systems or negatively impacts use by small, independently owned and operated businesses.

Yahoo! Web Hosting is a shared web hosting service, which means that a number of customers’ web sites and other email or storage services are hosted from the same server. Yahoo! uses abuse controls to help ensure that use of our services does not adversely affect the performance of our system or other customers’ sites. It is not appropriate to use an account primarily as an online storage space or for archiving electronic files.

Disk space: If you use your services consistently with the Terms of Service and these paragraphs, your site can grow as large as necessary to meet your small business needs, but to ensure a great experience for all, we will place some constraints on how fast you can grow. The vast majority of our customers’ sites grow at rates well within our rules, but our abuse controls may cause a brief delay while we evaluate if expansion is appropriate.

Data transfer: In most cases, if you use our services consistently with the Terms of Service and these paragraphs, visitors to your web site will be able to download and view as much content from your site as they like. However, in certain circumstances, our server processing power, server memory, or abuse controls could limit downloads from your site.

You can also upload as much as content as you like each month, subject only to the Terms of Service and the rules that control how fast your site can grow (see above).

Email storage: You do not have to worry about hitting a storage limit if you use our services consistently with the Terms of Service and these paragraphs. Yahoo! will increase your space along with your appropriate small business needs, but our abuse controls may impact the rate of growth or your folder size, and there may be a short delay while we assess your usage. In some cases, creating additional folders or subfolders will help ensure that the system works well for everyone.

Find out more about Yahoo! Web Hosting for Small Businesses.

Free websites come in different forms. When you’re searching for a free site, make sure you know the difference between absolutely free website services and free trials for paid web hosting.

As we scan through our list of free web hosting and website providers (see below), you’ll notice that out of all the companies claiming to offer free websites, only one appears to be totally free with no ads.

Ad-Supported Free Websites - traditionally, free website providers have inserted banner ads into the free websites offered. Now, most of them only insert a line saying something like “This free website was created by XYZ company.”

• Bravenet
• FortuneCity
• Jimdo
• Webs.com
• Yola.com

14 or 30 Day Free Trials - technically, you do get a free website but only for the period of the free trial. This is great for testing out their systems but not so viable if you’re not looking to pay any money.

• Homestead
• SiteKreator
• SquareSpace

So, be careful when finding a solution to create free websites and most importantly, know what you want and need.

Most of you are here to find out how to get a free website. We’ve prepared a basic guide to share some tips for anyone who is a complete novice to hosting and web design.

Here’s a Step-by-step guide of how to create a free website:

1. Planning for your Site: Understand what you want to achieve and have a plan for your new website.
2. Understand the Basics of Websites: Hosting, Free Web Hosting, Website Builders and Domain Names.
3. Find a Free Hosting & Website Company: Identify the best service provider offering free websites and free web hosting. All of them will provide you with a free website builder to create your site and a free web address for your website.
4. Sign-Up for an Account: Sign Up with your preferred free website provider by completing their application form.
5. Complete your Account Registration: Check your email for the Registration Confirmation Email and click on the link to confirm your account.
6. Start Creating Your Site: Start to design your site using the Site Builder offered by your provider.
7. Confirm Your Site’s Address: Decide on whether to use the free web address (eg. http://YourSite.free-websites.com) OR purchase a unique domain name for your site (eg. http://www.YourSite.com.
8. Unique Domain Name: If you decide on the unique domain (recommended), register your chosen domain at a domain registrar offering cheap domain name registration and follow the instructions to forward the domain to your site at the free website provider.

It’s really quite easy.

If you have any questions, please post them in the comments section below.

Further Reading: 10 Website Design Planning Tips for Beginners

A common mistake by first timers and people new to creating websites, is to rush into the available options which the free hosting and web design companies are pushing at you.

As with most other things, it’s all in the planning.

Ideally, you should have a reasonable idea about what you’re trying to achieve for your site before assessing the design and hosting packages. If you’ve already gone through the numerous choices to create a free site, chances are, you’re overloaded with technical jargon and are slightly confused.

Here’s a list of 10 Planning Tips which you can do without spending any money, so that you can create your free website supported by a well thought-out plan.

(1) Know What You Want – before looking for a free website service, sit back and reflect on what you WANT in your website and what’s your ultimate goal of having it.

(2) Know What You Need - after listing the things that you want, go through it again and analyze more deeply about your site’s objectives and what you really NEED to achieve it.

(3) Examples & Comparisons – one of the best ways to visualize your website before it’s made, is to reference 10 to 20 similar sites in the same category where you can get more IDEAS to refine your own site.

(4) Plan the Structure – using pencil and paper, Excel or whatever suits you, PLAN out the structure of your site, the number of individual web pages and how they link to each other to create a website.

(5) Design your Homepage – before diving into the website builder from your free website provider, have a rough idea of what you would like to achieve so that you can make clearer decisions for templates and other creative elements in the site creator.

(6) Plan your Templates - Similar to your homepage, try to have a plan for what you want in each page and how it will look together with the content

(7) Start Writing Content – If possible, write at least 10 to 20 pages of content for your new site. The site maker and hosting may be free, but you still have to do the work for the content.

(8) Write More Content – After completing the static pages such as your About Us page, move on to write more articles, reviews and posts on the main topics in your site.

(9) Plan the Graphics & Visuals – Once you’ve got your content, homepage design, web page templates and the general structure for your site, incorporate your visual elements (such as icons, photos, images, graphics) to match the text content and overall page layout.

(10) Compare with your Reference Sites – With everything in place, compare your website design and content with your reference sites to get a better picture of your end-product.

Please ask any questions or share your comments & personal experiences in creating websites below.