In the age we live in having a website as a business is critical. I’m not sure about you but it’s literally the first thing I do when I want to vet a supplier out and in my old days at Pure360.com I’d even do that for customers.

No site and to be honest I wasn’t even keen to give them a call as I’d suspect they may be a time waster.

So, in short you need one and there’s no getting away from it as like me, potential customers will check you out via your site as their first port of call.

So a fast way to get a website eh? Well here’s an idea for you. Do you have a ‘Linked in’ profile yet? No? Then my suggestion that it’s a fine first start and given the premise is connecting to people’s (you know) own network, you can also build up a network of potential customers to talk to.

So that’s ‘Linked in’ but how can it help me get a website up and running? Well, here’s the plan. Linked in rather conveniently allows you to set an external URL reference (called external profile) so you can easily place your profile in blogs and on sites. For me my external profile is http://www.linkedin.com/in/darrenfell

Now if you can easily do that and say you have chosen to market your business as yourself I.e your name then quite simply you can register the domain name for yourself and point it at your external profile. I’ve literally just set mine up as www.darrenfell.com

Want a domain name service that is recommended? I’d wholeheartedly suggest the www.simply.com service. It has a great interface, it pretty cost effective and most importantly offers a POP3 or even IMAP 4 email box service.

As I’ve mentioned in a recent podcast, one of my pet hates is people that have gone to all the trouble of creating a website and getting a good domain and then they have an email address of dave24@yahoo.co.uk. I ask you!

So with the rather cool simply.com service you can get a POP 3 mailbox service for next to nothing and look even more professional with a matching brand email address, say darren@darrenfell.com.

Now of course, this isn’t perfect but I can promise you it’s the fastest way of getting a site up and running! It will give you a breather, making sure you get business rolling in first before you get a more professional site built which is hopefully built by a designer to convey your fantastic brand (you).

I’ve heard of so many stories where freelancers literally have wanted to created the best website ever and never got round to it and as you now know, no website is likely to get you no business!

One last thing, make sure you get as many projects up on Linked in as you can or try and reference work you have done at your previous employment if you don’t have any yet. To make the most of Linked in once you have fully completed your profile and try and connect to as many people as you know to gain access to their networks and potentially a goldmine of possible customers for you!

Other alternative fast and free websites are:

Word Press – traditionally a blogging site creating tool but a great fast website builder!

photo credit: Nadya Peek