Before you invest a whole lot of effort into setting up your own website, check out what online resources are available that may meet your goals.

Here are some suggestions.

  Sharing photos

Film companies like want you to store your photos on their site because they're hoping to sell you extra prints, coasters, calendars and so forth. You can even get when you sign up. These sites are a great deal. You're not obligated to buy anything, and you get free online photo albums for your friends and relatives to view. Most let you put up slide shows as well as organized albums. A good choice for clubs and organizations or just showing slides of your latest trip to Samoa.

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Online Yellow Pages

If you have a local business, a restaurant, for example, you may not be looking for wide geographical marketing coverage, unless your trade is mostly from tourists or other travelers. If your clientele is local, you might better spend your website building budget on getting a listing on a yellow pages site such as Yahoo or City Search that break listings down by location.

"Wiki" Sites

Wiki's are sites that anyone can edit. The biggest is Wikipedia, which is an encyclopedia. If you want to promote a town or an organization, or you want to share your expertise on a subject, you simply go to Wikipedia.org, find the appropriate subject, click on "Edit" and start typing. If your entry is worthwhile, it will remain. WikiTravel is a listing of travel related businesses. If you own a restaurant or a B&B, just find your geographic location and enter your business for free. Archiplanet is a wiki about architecture; Architecture Week's directory lists architectural firms listed there.

Email Marketing

Another choice, if your business is local in scope and you want to communicate only with your local customers or club members, is an electronic Newsletter. An electronic newsletter is an email, usually formatted, which is sent out periodically to a list of people who've subscribed to it. It's a good way to communicate to people if you've got new things to say frequently, and you know who you want to say them to.

So-called opt-in email marketing tools like Constant Contact are easy to use and allow you to communicate frequently with your base. Email marketing is also inexpensive -- just a few dollars a month to send a couple of thousand attractively formatted emails. Most mailing services offer a free trial.

Professional Directories

If you're a professional, you might get more exposure for your practice by paying for a listing on a site that presents itself as a "resource" for members of your profession. For example, a lawyer may get more referrals from a page on Lawyers.com than her own website. Even though there are other lawyers listed there, the site has already invested a great deal of time, effort and money in attracting lots of visitors. In other words, a small piece of a very large pie may be larger than a very small pie you bake yourself.

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Auctions & Ads

If you are interested in ecommerce, but want to sell just a few items, such as a couple of novelty t-shirts, you probably will find that EBay will meet your needs. (If you need help with Ebay you can send for a kit to help you get started.) You may even be satisfied with a classified ad site like Free Online Classifieds or Craig's List.

Where to Get It

Yellow Pages

Email Marketing

Auction sites

Wikis

Professional Diretories

Ads