Create A Free Website

As you know if you have been reading CAFW, we don't pull punches and we tell it like it is. This post is no different, please read on.

"Your Webmaster is too slow and too expensive. Your friend does not have the ability to make all the features you need, work. FREE* Wordpress is too expensive and you need more than a BLOG. You don't have time to waste. You need a WEBSITE, now!"

Here is a partial list compiled by Nicole, of the website features you can instantly have, if you create a free website with MySafeMedia:

Fast Web Design Automation - create a website in 1 second!
Full Multi-Media Support - Txt, Pic's, Video's , Audio and embedded media.
Comments & Ratings For All Media - The #1 features online today, this is what social is about.
Automatic Notifications - These keep everyone coming back for more!
Picture Upload From .Zip Archive - This makes building rich photo packed websites a snap.
Automatic Picture & Thumbnail Re-sizing - No more wasting time editing in Photoshop.
Picture Sharpening Filter - Very nice to have for all you amateur photographer's.
Automatic Slide Shows - A major value add feature for presenting your photo's.
Drag and Drop Album Management - Order and manage your media libraries easily.
Hot Swap Visual Templates - Change the look of your website, instantly without losing content.
Full BLOG With RSS - People can subscribe to your content.
Tag Cloud & Key-wording - SEO is the name of the game and this is mandatory.
Public Shout/Announcements - Network wide announcements that you CAN turn off.
SEO META-Wizard - This does the hard coding for you so Google can rank your site.
Journal / Notes - Fast easy notes feature.
WYSIWYG Editors with Multi-Language Spell-Check - No coding, multi-lingual spellcheck!!
Online Photo, Twitter, Calendar & More Widgets - infinite functionality!
Customizable Forms With Form Data Storage - You NEED forms to collect data, a must have.
Drag and Drop Homepage Design - Move things around.
Customizable Classifieds Section - Build your own ads section!
Messaging Between Website Owners - Be social.
Network Wide Top List - Become popular, know whats hot!
Text, Audio, Video Chat & Desktop Sharing* - No download needed.
Public & Private Members Only Websites - REAL Privacy.
Website Member Invitations - Start a Fan club or membership site.
Website Member Mass Messaging - Save $$ on e-mail blasting.
Website Member Account Restriction - User management.
Sell With PayPal - Make money online!
Help - Everything is explained in the HELP SECTION

Now those are just some of the features available via MySafeMedia.com. You can visit the HELP section to view more.

We advise that if you have not already done so, you create a free website today.

WordPress does not support [insert feature you need here]!!

On one of the popular Forums frequented by CAFW members we noticed an awful lot of WP cheerleaders (WP makes me ZERO DOLLARS but everyone here says its the best so I do too). Which got us to thinking about both the "peer pressure phenomena" and the ability of these cheerleaders and their regurgitative forum post to mask other solutions that may in fact outperform WP in key areas and therefore represent a huge value to new Webmasters.

The basics of this observation seemed to be that the cheerleaders do the promotion for WP and so new people looking for solutions get forced into using WP by the others (much to their detriment as our recent product shoot-out confirmed).

This constant and blind cheer-leading by those who themselves were bullied into using WP has led to massive WP sales and massive failure by millions of would be Webmasters to create and maintain a useful presence on the web. We used to use WP too, now we dont.

On top of that, the forum cheerleaders do not seem to notice or mind that a few of the more senior/savvy cheerleaders simply feed off of the less knowledgeable, by selling them WP sites, and themes for sites at obscene rip-off rates and/or e-books on how to "make money online" with WP powered websites. These more "savvy" forum inhabitants (Moderators in some of the more obvious cases) simply scrape together and edit third-party information without testing it or proving it in nearly ALL cases. The predatory WordPress cheerleaders then have a real reason to continue touting WP as the end all solution to any online problem; furthermore "buy my e-book and make millions". There was even one shockingly obvious scammer (who somehow was a Moderator in the very forum he was preying on ???!!!????), pretending to be an expert on both the Internet and all manner of associated technology in addition to how to make money online, who literally said "it is impossible that anyone could make a better program than wordpress" and he even went so far as to REMOVE a posting from a supporter of a different product.

HELLO! - These people are simply using the other cheerleaders to make a little extra money because they have not been able to do it using WP or the contents of their get rich scam e-book. So if you are a blind WP cheerleader, we advise you NOT to buy anything from anyone concerning how to benefit from WP, since allegedly you can find a way to use it for free and all the modules you want should also be free etc.

Which brings up the actual usefulness of WordPress as an application and platform with which to build a website. It does this WELL if you can find the modules you need,but it does not support ANY features not directly related to Blogging natively. For additional functionality you WILL have to find free modules that allow WP to do what you want or PAY for modules that offer the needed capability. The reason WordPress LOST the recent product shootout was because of this fact. It is only a BLOGGING TOOL not a CMS or WDA engine.

What that means is that there are in FACT, many other alternative tools to build complete websites that do not require that you go and find module after module to make them work. We obviously prefer this service but have also in the past used WordPress for Blogging (which is what it is designed to allow you to do). There are others like Joomla and Drupal too.

The bottom line to this post is simple, use your own brain to make your own choices, find a product or service you can use with the features you need and watch out for forum predators (especially if they are Moderators) who simply want to sell you their useless e-books that have ZERO value, or there incredibly useless "guaranteed" WP themes, because although they may have been scraped, repackaged and edited with finesse, they have never been used by the WP cheerleaders selling them to generate one thin dime.

Every once in a while we like to pit all the top FREE WEBSITE generator services together to see which one is the best. We don't just regurgitate what the commercials say, we actually test them and see which is the real value. Which, led us to create this free website here in the first place.

This years DIY FREE Website Comparison Shoot-Out was no different. We put the advertising heavy-weights up against MySafeMedia.com and they flat out LOST EVERY CONTEST. So we posted a chart on the front page so everyone who wishes to know the truth could see.

Nicole, John and Abner all made free websites on the powerhouse services (the ones that would let them anyway) to learn the interfaces. Next they tried to make a website like this one using all available means from each provider. Being that this is primarily a textual site, we figured that the competition would be fair.

The first challenge was using the interfaces, which we did not evaluate as part of the comparison because there is too much opinion involved but props to MySafeMedia.com and VistaPrint, as the popular opinions were that they were the easiest.

Once we got done learning, the first test was to replicate this website using whatever methods we could and see how long it took. The goal was to do it in 5 mins! Now while that may sound ambitious, it only takes a few minutes to make a website if you have all the content to cut and paste.

So we began the comparo by visiting VistaPrint which is a huge powerhouse service with more than 13 million users. Our findings were that the service was fairly easy to use and the UI was solid. In direct comparison to MSM (MySafeMedia) there was some missing multimedia capability and NO social features.

Next we visited Wix, which is the current Flash based juggernaut. Wix lets you build beautiful and animated sites but there is not much actual functionality available beyond that. The UI was also complicated and slow. In direct comparison to MSM, Wix is better for those who have a love for flash but fairly useless for those looking to SEO a website or who want features like a BLOG or custom contact forms with data storage. Wix also produced painfully slow websites that frustrate visitors and search spiders.

After that, it was Microsoft's turn. We visited Intuit Websites and were able to make a site using the fairly typical UI. As with the others, this service lacks capability when compared with MSM but since it is powered by Microsoft the advertising does it's job and that is why the service is so very popular.

Finally, it was time to take WordPress for a spin. Our observations of the incredibly popular service was that it is NOT a tool to build a website at all, it is just a blogging tool. It does not compare to MSM but does have equal capability to the BLOG feature included with MSM websites. To be fair you must know that we actually used to host this site with a standalone WP install on our dedicated server and we did use many modules to achieve this same functionality as you get with MSM, but it took 11 modules and 11 installs to do that, and cost at the time $312 USD.

Replicating This site -  times to completion are below:

MySafeMedia	VistaPrint	Intuit	Wix	Wordpress
240 seconds	FAIL	FAIL	EPIC FAIL	FAIL

Ok, after all 4 competitors failed, we decided that maybe we should stick to simple text and image based task instead, as none of the other services allowed true multimedia during the trial period or even if you paid. WordPress was the only service where you could come close due to the themes and widgets available, but you would still have to spend a lot of money to get all needed functionality and need to purchase hosting to install it.

Example#1: WordPress FAIL - The *FREE online service cost $60 per year to include Video and another $30 to get rid of those annoying Advertisements on your Blog. Sorry WP, you have great templates and millions of users but, you're no longer a huge value. Times are changing it seems.

Example #2: Wix EPIC FAIL - This service produces an incredibly SLOW Flash site that is not search engine optimization friendly. Next!

Example #3: Vistaprint - Not FREE as it turns out.

Example #4: Intuit Websites - Not FREE and in fact is very expensive.

Next was test number two, which was to setup a Social Website that allowed members to join and comment, rate and follow conversations using automatic notifications. Again, WordPress was the only service where some modules could be found that allow at least partial functionality. The rest were an EPIC FAIL.

At this point we decided that the major advertised services were simply popular because of the advertising as NONE of them provided any value in comparison with MySafeMedia for most people. Sorry but they just don't.

So after using the entire day to see what those services DID allow you to do we posted the results in the following table:

Features	VistaPrint	Wordpress	Intuit	Wix	MySafeMedia
Actual FREE Websites - No Ads	No	No	No	No	Yes
Premium Features - $1.99 per month	No	No	No	No	Yes
Upload Video, Music & Pictures	No	No	No	No	Yes
Instant Site Template Swapping	No	No	No	No	Yes
Members Can Join Your Site	No	No	No	No	Yes
5 Privacy Levels	No	No	No	No	Yes
Email Blast Your Members	No	No	No	No	Yes
Individual Member Profiles	No	No	No	No	Yes
Social Networking Capability	No	No	No	No	Yes
Members Can Follow Conversations	No	No	No	No	Yes
Classifieds Section	No	No	No	No	Yes
Automatic Notifications	No	No	No	No	Yes
Public Announcements	No	No	No	No	Yes
Comments & Ratings	No	No	No	No	Yes
Automatic Slideshows	No	No	No	No	Yes
Instant Video Chat	No	No	No	No	Yes
Custom Contact Forms	No	No	No	No	Yes
We could go on but why bother? Those other sites are no where near the value of using MySafeMedia.com

So, after much time testing, we came up with the same end result as last year. Kids, it's another K.O.  for MySafeMedia and another win for the people who have found out about the service. The only complaint continues to be the lack of templates to choose from, but since the site is owned by an entrepreneur, its actually his call to offer more templates of widgets, so maybe they will in the future (hint, hint).

-CAFW Team

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Lesson 7: Adding More Graphics To Your Free Site.

Your new website can support a lot of customization, which means that basic HTML and CSS still works. So fot those of you who already know how to work with editors and code, you can simply use the editor and customize as you would normally. See the example below.

(Editing the Home Page Text module the old school way (HTML), let�s see your skills!)

FOR THE REST OF US, A SHORT TUTORIAL:

Example of adding a graphic to the center of our front page?

Clicking the HOME PAGE TEXT module edit will let you edit your front page -Or- You can use your favorite HTML/CSS or WYSIWYG editor then drop the content right onto the HOME PAGE TEXT editor (you will have to upload the images used to your site for them to work or host them somewhere else online).

 

 

Lesson 4: Choosing The Privacy Level Of Your  Free Site.

You can select one of four (4) different PRIVACY settings for your website and they are useful for different reasons. Below you will find explanations for the various settings.

I would like my website to:

1. be Public (content available to everyone) This means that there is NO security on your website and ALL your content is visible to ANYONE who chooses to look at it. No registration is possible and you will NOT see any new users added to your site if you check your User Management area.

2. be Private (access by invitation only) This means that MAXIMUM security is set on your site and NONE of your content other than you Login area content is visible to ANYONE. You will need to manually add each and every user to your site using an email address. Your site will then automatically send an invitation containing the users USERNAME and PASSWORD to them. You will then see all users in your User Management area. You will be able to message these users from within your User Management area.

3. require Registrations (users are automatically approved) This means that there is NO security on your website and ALL your content is visible to ANYONE who chooses to look at it. No registration is possible and you will NOT see any new users added to your site if you check your User Management area. Your site will then automatically send an invitation containing the users USERNAME and PASSWORD to them. You will then see all users in your User Management area. You will be able to message these users from within your User Management area.

4. require Registrations (I must approve all users) This means that MAXIMUM security is set on your site and NONE of your content other than you Login area content is visible to ANYONE. You will need to manually approve each and every user who registers to your site using by using the User Management area. Your site will then automatically send your user a notification that their account is now active and they can use your site. You will see all your sign ups in your User Management area. You will be able to message these users from within your User Management area.

NOTE: Users on your website each have a profile that includes, an about me /description, photo and some demographical information like sex and location, in addition to this you can add a note to each profile that the user will not see.

NOTE: Users can not communicate with each other directly but may communicate by using comments and following conversations on your site.

Lesson 5: Creating A Link Back To Your Free Site.

Once you have created your free website you will want to provide a few backlinks to it on other topic related blogs and forums. Here is what to type to make a backlink:

EXAMPLE: <a href=http://www.yourURLgoeshere.com title=”your anchor text/keywords go here”>your anchor text/keywords go here too</a>


Do-It-Yourself Instructions:

1. Copy the HTML code from the example above.

2. Enter your free websites address (URL) in the “www.yourURLgoeshere.com” space.

3. Enter a short keyworded anchor text description of your website in the “your anchor text/keywords go here” space.

4. Enter a short keyworded anchor text description for your website in the “your anchor text/keywords go here too” space.

Now, the above only works in places that allow HTML comments or link code.

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Here is how to do it if BBCode is allowed:

EXAMPLE: [url=http://www.yourURLgoeshere.com/]your anchor text/keywords go here[/url]


Do-It-Yourself Instructions:

1. Copy the BBCode from the example above.

2. Enter your free websites address (URL) in the “www.yourURLgoeshere.com” space.

3. Enter a short keyworded anchor text description of your website in the “your anchor text/keywords go here” space.


Now, the above only works in places that allow BBCode comments or link code.

Lesson 6: Adding Embeded Videos To Your Free Site.

Lesson 3: Choosing How You Want  Your Free Site To Look.

Q. Where Do I Create A Free Website?

A. www.MySafeMedia.com

This is the FASTEST way to create your own FREE website. Great for Photographers, Bands, Parents, Clubs, Teachers, Models, Artist, Writers, Realtors, Hobbyists, Small Business Owners and more. If You need a website then this is the easy, cost effective way to get one. In other lessons you will learn exactly how to build your website.

Here is an example of why we are teaching you about this service.

Lesson 2: Choosing A Name For Your Free Site.

They say "It's all in the name", and they are right. You will need to choose a title for your site that does one of two things; either is cool and catchy -or- features your keywords and is good for Search Engine Optimization.

We suggest you name your site something that features your keywords, unless you have a Domain Name to point to your site. If you already have a keyworded domain, then you need to setup a 301 redirect to point that domain name to your www.MysafeMedia.com/yoursite URL. Do not use forwarding w masking.

Choosing a cool catchy name is another way to do it. this works better for real life advertising to humans but the other way works better for advertising online via search engines. If you end up with both you are really good to go!