I recently purchased a domain (from Google) for $12. Now, I'm looking to create a single landing page using this new domain. Tools like Wix are great for quickly building nice-looking pages but charge you a monthly fee to use your own domain to host it (rather than the generic "yourcompany.wix.com" domain, included on the free version).
Any suggestions for free tools that can be used?
Appreciate the input!
Two options that come to mind:
Thanks @maguay!
I had glanced over Google Sites thinking that it would be too rudimentary but will give it a more in-depth look.
First time I'm hearing about Carrd and will definitely explore further.
My fav place for 1pg site builder is Carrd which is FREE and do much better than Wix. Wix is awful product as you need to design... Twice! One for Web version and the 2nd time to Mobile. Carrd is doing that automatically like Squarespace but cheaper. Pro is $19 a year (if you want to use your own domain). Yup, not 19 a month. 19 a year. But you can enjoy the free plan for your landing page.
Hope this helps.
- Nadav.
+1 for Carrd. Very very easy to get a simple landing page up and their pricing is so generous I almost feel bad about it
Appreciate the quick responses @Livenadav & @alexjvale.
A lot of positive feedback about Carrd and I'm excited to give it a run. As you mentioned, $19 seems like a joke if the tool does everything it's supposed to super well!
Will keep you posted.
Launchrock is another https://www.launchrock.com/
Their focus is on early customer acquisition. All their tools help you get those early customers in the door to help validate what you're trying to do.
Thanks @chadhutchins - will definitely give this a look as well!
GoDaddy recently launched a free version of their website builder -Websites + Marketing - which has been growing quite quickly/gaining share in the DIY space!
+1 for Carrd as well. Its templates are super easy to get going with and its ridiculously cheap to boot.
I think either Carrd.com or Leadpages will be your best bet. Carrd is common as it's simple and specific to this need but if your willing to upgrade Leadpages gives you a lot of resources to test your market and get validation before working on the rest of your product which can save you money long term.
For a free solution, a basic site on Webflow free plan or HTML5 up (if your okay with a little syntax) can be exported to be hosted on Github pages.
Thanks @BobbyThakkar.
Our specific use-case isn't too heavy and from reading everyone's posts, it seems to lend itself to something Carrd can do well. Appreciate your chiming in.
With the current state of the world economy this is becoming a very important question as small and medium sized businesses are needing help in transforming their businesses to a digital world. Small and medium businesses especially in Australia make up about 50% of our functioning economy so helping answer this question is key helping these businesses survive and thrive. What needs to be asked is where businesses are in their digital journey and what are they wanting it to do immediately. My suggestions are as follows:
If you want to create a simple and beautiful website for free then my top picks are Wordpress, homestead and WIX.
If you want a more premium experience then it’s about $25-30/mth where you get all the templates and business ecommerce tools needed to sell your products and services . My picks are squarespace, sitel23 and Wordpress.
For the ultimate website you are up for about $50-60/mth and here you get the lot. Beautiful site, easy to do AddsMoveschanges, e-commerce, loyalty programs and business insight reporting. Personally WIX and square space are the most used but my pick here is Wordpress.
In simple its about where you are on your digital journey but overall a necessity in today’s world.
This is a great breakdown - thanks @RobertHEherceg!
Great question. The best approach to building a single landing page is to do it as easily and as cheaply as possible.
Why?
It's never the landing page itself that sells. It's always the offer. That being said, it doesn't matter what software or tool you use, as long as it lets you convey the value that your offer provides.
Thus, if you want to do it fast and cheap, I'd suggest you try out Carrd (https://carrd.co/).
It's a very cheap solution that is perfect for single landing pages. Hence, it was created primarily for that purpose. Wix is a much more robust tool that, at this point, may overwhelm you with its options and builder.
Go for Carrd, ship fast, and do it on a budget!
Well said @Kliszczakjakub... seems to be in line with the majority of the other folks that chimed in on this thread and will definitely be my first stop! Appreciate the advice.
Oh yea, I didn't want to appear as a copycat but I personally use Carrd and its simplicity makes it hands-down the best solution for single landing pages. Especially when all you want to do is gather contact info, show a portfolio or collect someone's email.
Another alternative to Carrd would be Weblium or Mailchimp landing pages.
If you’ll find that templates solutions are too rigid or your use case requires future scalability that doesn’t justify a custom build, you can also look into WordPress with Elementor’s page builder ($50/yr for one site and it’s probably the best page builder on top of a CMS right now). You also won’t have to deal with the messy native WordPress functionalities beyond a minimum. Of course, you’ll need a WP host, too. I suggest Siteground for that (another $50/yr for basic plan and top customer service). None of the above require deep technical skills.
You might consider https://www.notion.so/ to host your site. Easy to use, especially if you already organize your life with Notion. You can use your own domain and publish your page in a click. There's even a new service with prebuilt page templates: https://nocodepages.com
Nice to see lots of fans of Carrd - nobody has pointed out that they often have sales around Black Friday and other times when you can buy Pro upgrades at a significant discount.
I used it for https://touchme.me/ and https://brainbleach.online/
(BrainBleach is a site used in some early ad tests for Touchgram for an advertising surface yet to be deployed. It is not a real product.).
Thanks @AndyDentPerth - both of your sites look great!
I explored several of the options on this thread and ultimately went ahead with Carrd as well. $19 for a year combined with awesome templates to piggy-back on drew me in and allowed me to quickly create https://virtournyc.com/
Now that Notion is free for personal use, you can quickly draft up a landing page that is VERY easy to edit/ embed. You can then use a bought domain name to point to this public Notion page.
The second option that works very similarly is Coda. Since Coda now let you publish pages to the public, you can essentially follow the same thing. Providing you make a very simple landing page that doesn't require much data structure, these two options are the very userfriendly and workable from the get go. Zero html / coding knowledge required!
I have used public notion page as a hub for my online course that sells quite succsesfuly.
Looking for a better way to plan remote meetings across time zones, and keep up with events. What software is doing that best today?
Yes. Google Sites is a good option