I get many emails from people looking for a free website for a new business idea they have, could I point them in the right direction? What I usually find (after several back-and-forths) is that many believe starting a business is as simple as creating a website, a sort of "build it and they will come" approach to business. Alas, my friends, such is not the case.

So, prior to talking websites, let's talk about everyone's favorite topic: marketing. Here's the new set of questions to ask yourself, oh fledgling entreprenuer:

1. Is there a market for this service?
2. If there is, how do I reach them in the cheapest way possible?
3. If there's not, how do I find that out in the cheapest way possible?
   

The first question can be (partially) answered by a Google search. A good example of this: a friend wants to start a custom poetry business, so she does a search for "custom poetry services ", which yields a ton of results, most of whom are individuals like herself who want to see if someone would pay for their custom poems. And it seems like a few of them are indeed generating revenue [example], though of course it's hard to say how much. So, now she has come to her first critical juncture: is this enough evidence that there's a market for her services?

The answer depends on how much money she'd like to make off a service like this. If she's doing it because she 1) does it already for free, and 2) loves it so would like to do it more, the official "market answer" to this question is irrelevant, and the new question becomes "How much to I want to spend (in time and money) on this side hobby, regardless of what I make back?"

So, that's a good question to ask yourself: is this a serious business proposition, or a hobby that might turn into something more over time? If the former, a lot more time and resources will be spent up front (more market research, surveys of potential customers, developing a "brand look and feel": business name, logo, site and printed materials, etc) to make sure you're hitting your target audience with the right service offering [Note: If you're in this category, you should be hiring me to help with all of the above].

If it's the latter, you can do whatever you have the time and budget for, and my advice would be this: start a blog site on blogger.com. It's free, simple to do, with abundant templates and customizations possible. You can post every day (or week, or month, whatever your time availability is) on a topic that touts relevant knowledge or news on the service you're offering. You can configure static pages that give your services, pricing and ordering info, and you can even add "gadgets" that provide more functionality. It's very easy to configure, super user-friendly -- and linked to the entire Google community of bloggers so it's automatically well-indexed for search engines.

Good luck! If your hobby turns into a revenue-generator for you, and you're ready for the next step, do This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .