The real question: what to show, to whom, and for how long
Before comparing options, go back to your need. Three questions are enough to clarify it. What do you have to show? An offer, an event, a business that is just starting, or rather a set of services, past work, information meant for different audiences? To whom? To a few people you know and to whom you will send a link, or to strangers who need to find you, remember your address and come back? For how long? A few weeks, long enough to test an idea, or several years, as the shop window of an established business?
If your answers fit on one page, are aimed at people you can contact yourself and cover a short period, a free website does the job very well. If they call for several pages, a wide audience and a presence that lasts, what you need is a website on your own domain. In between lie all the intermediate cases, and that is where the order in which you do things matters most. If you are starting from scratch, the step-by-step guide to creating a free website describes the whole process, from choosing a template to sharing it.
What a free website does well
- Testing an idea: presenting an offer or a project and seeing how the first people react, before investing in a website on your domain.
- Showing something to a client: a proposal, a presentation of your business, a first version of what their future website could look like.
- Announcing an event: a date, a place, a programme, a way to reach you. A simple website is enough, and it does not need to last.
- Creating a first presence: when you are starting out, a polished website is better than none, and it is shared through a simple preview link.
- Preparing your future website: writing your texts, choosing your images and colours on a professional template, so you know what you want before spending anything.
- Comparing several options: with up to 3 active free websites per account, you can try several templates or several projects side by side.
The limits of a free website, plainly stated
A free website made with “Build my website” is a starting tool, and it comes with rules that are worth knowing before you get attached to it. It starts from a professional template, which you edit in an online editor, directly in your browser: texts, images, colours, sections. It is shown through a preview link, not under an address in your name. You need a ServOrbit account with a confirmed email address to create it, and one account holds at most 3 active free websites at the same time.
Above all, it is not meant to lie dormant. A website is deleted after 30 days without the editor being opened; each opening pushes the deadline back. And a deleted website is gone for good: no backup is kept. This is not a hidden trap, it is the nature of the tool: a space to try things out, show them and get them approved, not a place to leave your shop window for years.
Finally, the editor is available in French, English and Spanish; for other languages, including Arabic, it is displayed in English. All of this is presented on the Build my website page and detailed in the launch article: create a free website, then publish it on your domain.
What a website on your domain brings, and what it asks of you
A website on your own domain name changes three things. The address is yours: it can be printed on a business card, spelled out over the phone, remembered. So is the structure: a site with several pages, organised the way you see fit, with for example one page per service, a page of past work, a contact page. And it lasts: it does not depend on any inactivity deadline and stays online as long as your domain name and your hosting are active.
In return, it asks for more. A budget first: you need a domain name and web hosting, both to be renewed. To give you an idea, web hosting starts at 199 DH/year (indicative prices, excluding promotions and renewal terms); what each plan includes is detailed on the web hosting plans page. Time next: every extra page is a text to write, images to choose, an organisation to think through. And upkeep: on your domain, you are responsible for what you publish and for keeping it up to date. A website with outdated opening hours, prices or contact details does more harm than good.
Free website or website on your domain, criterion by criterion
Scroll the table
| Criterion | Free website (“Build my website”) | Website on your domain |
|---|---|---|
| Address | A preview link | Your own domain name |
| What you need | A ServOrbit account with a confirmed email | A domain name and web hosting |
| Cost | Free | A budget for the domain and the hosting |
| Number of pages | The pages of the chosen template, and up to 3 active free websites per account | Several pages, following your own structure |
| Starting point | A professional template to customise | Your own structure, to build and write |
| Lifetime | Deleted after 30 days without opening the editor, with no backup | As long as the domain and the hosting are active |
| Upkeep | Open the editor before the 30-day deadline | Keep the content up to date, under your responsibility |
| Typical use | Testing, showing, announcing, getting started | A lasting presence, in your name |
Which option for your situation
- You have a client meeting next week: a free website. Prepare the presentation, send the preview link, gather the feedback of the person you are meeting.
- You are organising a one-off event: a free website, as long as you open the editor to keep it up to date; it is not meant to outlive the event for long.
- You are launching a service business on your own: start with a free website to set out your offer, then move to your domain as soon as the first clients arrive. The article free pro website for artisans, consultants and coaches shows what to put on it.
- You are opening a restaurant or a café: one page is often enough at first, with the menu, opening hours, address and a few photos. See the free website for a restaurant or café, then publish the website on your domain before printing it on your materials.
- You have several services, past work to show, several audiences: a website on your domain. A single page would quickly become too crowded to stay readable.
- Your address will appear on printed documents, a vehicle or a shop sign: your domain, without hesitation. A preview link cannot be printed, and a website that may disappear after 30 days without the editor being opened has no place on a shop sign.
It is not one or the other: start free, then publish
The comparison gives the impression of a final choice. In practice, it is more of an order. The free website lets you work on your content without committing a budget: you write, you show, you correct. When the website is ready and your project is confirmed, you do not start again from scratch: you publish that same website on your own domain name.
For that you need a domain name and web hosting; domain names are chosen and ordered at ServOrbit, just like hosting. After that, publishing is done from your client area, in a few steps. Once the website is published on your domain, the free version is deleted: from then on, the version on your domain is the one that counts, and the one you will develop.
Publishing your free website on your domain
Order a domain and hosting
Choose your domain name and a web hosting plan. Both are needed: the domain gives the address, the hosting houses the website.
Paste it into your site's editor
Open the editor of your domain's site and paste the share code into it: your website is copied there.
Publish
Start the publication. Your website is online on your domain, and the free version is then deleted.
Then, grow the website
Once published on your domain, your website is only a beginning. You can expand it at your own pace: add a page per service when your offer widens, a page of past work when you have projects to show, a frequently asked questions page when the same requests keep coming back. Nothing forces you to build everything at once.
This progression has an advantage that is rarely pointed out: each step builds on what you learned in the previous one. The feedback received on your free website has shown you what your first contacts remember and what they ask you; your new pages then answer real questions rather than assumptions. For the move itself, the article from the free website to your own domain goes through each step in detail.
The sign that it is time to move to your domain
If you send the preview link to every new contact, your free website has become your shop window: it is time to publish it on your domain. In the meantime, keep your texts in a separate document and your original images in a folder, and open the editor at least once a month. A deleted website cannot be recovered; content kept on your side can.
