Temporary Websites

For SEO, the long term view is the right perspective.Quick fixes usually backfire, while the more natural approaches, though slower, give more lasting and worthwhile results.

What if there is no long term? Money magazine recommended making your house a website when you’re trying to sell it. That way, you can post a sign with the URL (web address) outside your home, and people can take a virtual tour on their own time.

It’s a smart idea. Engaged couples make websites about their weddings, sharing the experience with distant friends and family. Family reunions have a site for a few weeks before to get the word out, and for a few weeks after to share information. Candidates for office need a website, but it might be for just a few months.

Sometimes — for that candidate, for a book launch, for a major fundraising event — it might be worthwhile to spend a few thousand dollars and get yourself a proper, basic website. In many cases, doing your website well increases your chances of needing a long-term site for the successful candidate, book, or fundraiser. But you don’t want to invest a lot in a site that will only be up till you sell your house or leave on your honeymoon.

Here are some options:

• Temporary website companies These exist, and you can Google them. I did, and I didn’t see any that seemed to be making good websites. What the heck, you can make a bad website on your own.
• Free website options While these are a mistake for business, they’re perfect for personal sites. Weebly, Wix, and any of the dozens of others out there are fun to build at and they’ll do just fine for your temporary site. You can usually choose from lots of templates and do a lot of customization.
• A Facebook page Making a Facebook page is free, and it’s easy to get the word out to your friends and family. Ditto with a Squidoo lens or a Google site. These options give you fewer choices and less control than the free sites listed above, but may also have more functionality– that is, you can make them do more things.
• A blog Blogger, LiveJournal,  Xanga, and other free blogging sites let you set up your site in minutes, and you need no special skills to add information. You won’t get a static page that way — that is, a home page that doesn’t change — but you can keep people posted on what’s happening with your project.
• A WordPress site WordPress sites are flexible enough now that you can do almost anything you want with them, if you’re willing to pay a bit. They also require some skill, unless you’re just using your WordPress site as a free blog — which you can. This puts them in their own category.

As you can see, there are lots of ways to arrange for a disposable site — a temporary site for a temporary need. Consider springing for a domain name, even if you only expect to need it for a few weeks or months. Your class project, book club, or desperate bid to find homes for those puppies might blossom into something you’ll want to keep online.