[Disclaimer: When you make purchases using some of these links, we may earn a small commission that helps support Engage Small. We never suggest or promote a product that we don’t already use or believe in. Thank you for your continued support in Engage Small!]
The Engage Small website was created by The Free Website Guys as part of their free website offering. So, before you read our spotlight, know that the experience was amazing and truly, honestly, 100% free. Find out more below about why they do it and how you can get your website created for free.
The Free Website Guys reached out to us at the end of last year and told us that they could build us a website for free. As you can imagine, we were a bit skeptical at first, but after researching their company and seeing all of the positive reviews from past clients, we decided to give it a try, and that’s how the website you’re on right now came to be. In short, we’re really happy with how it turned out, and we would definitely recommend The Free Website Guys as a resource for other business owners — or anyone looking to get a website online, really.
The company was founded at the beginning of Covid pandemic but they seem to have grown quite a bit since then. Sven, their lead developer, told us that they only accept around 15-20% of the applications they receive every month for their free-website program. So yes, you have to go through their application process and qualify for their service. They don’t accept everyone. The application isn’t complicated though. It’s a short questionnaire that helps them gauge if you’re a good fit for them (and vice versa).
The whole process is pretty straightforward and streamlined. We submitted our application and, after asking us a few additional questions about our vision and goals for the website, a couple days later they reached out to us to inform us that we had been accepted!
In order to get started on any website, you have to get set up with web hosting. Sven had a couple of web hosting recommendations, and we ultimately chose Bluehost. The only thing that The Free Website Guys asks of you is that, whichever web host you do decide to go for, that you just use their affiliate link when you sign up. This gets you a discounted rate (since they have special deals with various web hosting companies), and it also helps Sven to pay the developers for the work they do on your website. So The Free Website Guys cover some of their costs this way without you having to ever actually pay them. (For those interested in learning more about why they don’t charge, we found this page useful.)
After we got set up with web hosting, Sven and the team got started with setting up the back-end environment of our website, which includes loading in some pretty useful (and free) plug-ins as well. The next (and probably the most fun) step was to choose our template. They use beautiful, pre-designed website templates to set up the front-end of your website, which they will then customize to your needs and specifications (within limits, of course). For this, they provide several options: either a free template, or a premium, paid one. We decided to go with one of the paid themes, Divi, because there was much less customization needed in order to get it to look great and it seemed easier to use and edit ourselves.
After the template was customized and everything seemed good to go, the team sent us instructions on how to use the website and how to make additional customizations so that we don’t have to reach out to them when we want to make updates. We can just do it ourselves, in other words.
What we liked most about this process was that Sven and the team never hesitated to clarify things and keep us informed about everything that was going on during the development process. They provided us with progress reports throughout the whole thing, reached out to us if there were any delays or issues, and ultimately worked with us to deliver a final product that our team is extremely proud of.
Definitely check them out if you want to get a website done and don’t want to pay the big bucks of going through a traditional website development agency.
Brandan is a graduate of Columbia College Chicago and has worked for Method Studios, Akron Children’s Hospital and Outcome Health creating content for marketing, education, TV commercials, music videos and short films. In 2017, he created 26Made (formerly Parallel Vision Post), an independent post-production studio in Avon, OH. In 2018, he launched the Cleveland chapter of the Freelancer’s Union SPARK program which he currently Co-Leads. In 2020, he launched Engage Small to encourage engagement for small businesses and freelancers. You can see way too many pictures of his kids on instagram.
In the little free time that any parent has, he loves to write (a never-ending fiction book) and watch Cleveland sports.
Recent Comments