Clue #5 - Don't Pay For What Should Be Free

Save on consultancy and service costs by discovering components of your Internet that should be free.

It can seem as though there are many components to the Internet. Many of these components seem expensive, but many could in fact be free.

There are many examples of this; there are four in particular that most companies find useful.

• Free web hosting space is often given to you by your Internet Service Provider as part of your access package. This space is not good enough to be your primary web hosting environment, but can be used for storage. This will reduce the requirements of your overall web hosting needs.
• If your web hosting and email systems have easy to use control panels, there should never be a need to pay somebody to add email addresses or content to your web site.
• If you are building your own website, as opposed to getting it professionally built, use web-based tools and templates and save the time and money required for buying web authoring tools.
• Don’t pay for site monitoring software as it should be included in your hosting service.

If you are taking advantage of all of the free services that should be available, you could save significant money. With the extra savings, you can engage a professional web designer to give your site that final polish.

In this brief recommendation, we have suggested that free hosting space, labour costs for basic email and web management, basic web authoring tools and site monitoring software should all be free.

Scrutinize all of your Internet Service Provider bundles (access, email and web hosting) to determine what free features you already have. Look first for what’s free, then shop around for the bits that you need.

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