If this is a commercial site mostly for straight information: directions, phone, address, some picture of your work, blog etc., you probably will be able to get away with
free hosting and the use of premade templates. Hosting your website is usually where it costs you per month (like at Yahoo.)
Your own Internet provider may give you free web space to create & "host" your site. They usually have easy templates of pages to use to get you up & started. Google also has free hosting for a website with blogs & templates. (It's what I use for one website.)
If you want a super large website, you can open two accounts at Google under different email addresses and can knit many pages together to give you one larger seamless website via links to the different pages. Alternately, you can do the same if you & a friend have 2 different Internet providers or many different screenname accounts like with AOL. Each account is given a limited amount of free MBs.
Then you can simply buy your domain name cheap for the name of your site. Think of it as: the domain name is like your phone number. Hosting is the monthly service provided by the phone company. You can have a phone number, but no service. You need both.
Buy the domain name you want from a reputable company or the bills can add up. I got mine from
http://www.godaddy.com. There are usually promo coupon codes out for deals at GoDaddy, bringing the yearly price down to $7. I bought 4 domain names for my businesses 2 years ago, so no one can even come close to using a web address similar to mine.
Also check the fine print on buying your domain name. I have another one from Yahoo. I haven't had any trouble with them. However, I do not think I can transfer out my domain name to a different company, once I bought it from Yahoo.
With GoDaddy, I
own my domain name. Something to think about if this is a domain name/company name you want to keep for personal or professional reasons. You might not be able to shop around to transfer to a new service later.
So, if you use your Internet provider, you would already have free monthly "hosting" for your website, you won't have to buy that, just the domain name. Then you'd have your domain address(es) "point" to your real website address where it's hosted. It's like call forwarding. So instead of clicking on a long-winded, unprofessional name like: http:// members.aol.com/your site/index.html, (which is where your actual site is hosted,) you'd simply tell people to go to the domain address "www. yoursite .com" which would automatically forward or "point" people to your site without even knowing about the other address.
To save on all the MB space on my free site, (again, they give you a limited amount,) I use
http://photobucket.com/ to separately host my pictures free. Then like here at DIS, I simply insert the photos & have them seamlessly appear on my webpage.
There are other places online where you can add more fancy templates to use, (like shopping carts, if you did have a business,) but they often require that you know some HTML coding, and it would be better to go to a professional and set up a professional looking website. Then, you would simply need to maintain it. If you do happen to get someone who is a HTML code professional who is willing to create a whole webpage for you that is fairly simple, you can upload the whole file to Google to host it for you for free. Professional website for only the initial set up cost, then only the cost of the domain name each year!
Since you'd like to sell items online, you can use the auctions/shopping carts at eBay and or etsy.com (for handmade stuff,) along with your blog, this is how you would set up your site:
Free hosted webpage with general text info & thumbnail pictures of each item --> LINK to Blog --> LINK to eBay and/or --> LINK to Etsy
This way, you'd still have thumbnail pics of your work all in one place on your own website. When they want to look at an individual item or buy it, they'd click on the etsy link to purchase it.
Since you are LINKING to the other resources, the MB space used on your hosting site would be minimal. Which is how you'd get away with using the free web space from your Internet provider. AND you'd get to utilize the shopping carts at the other sites for minimal charges and upkeep than if you had your own shopping cart.
I wouldn't worry about what other people are selling their works for. You sound like you have your own built in clientele who'd be visiting your site and purchasing from you. I know many professional artists & craftsmen who have their own site and still use etsy and don't mark down their prices. Quality shows. It's a different demographics for people who want cheaper items at a bargain vs. connoisseurs who can spot quality.
