From Zero to Hero: How to Set Up a Free Business Website (Step-by-Step Guide)

If you're a small business owner without a website yet, the good news is you can get a professional-looking site live — with your own domain, a contact form, and a blog — for $0 in software costs. The only unavoidable cost is your domain name (roughly $15–25 a year).

This guide walks you through everything from buying your domain to publishing your first page, using HubSpot's free website builder (Content Hub Free), which is one of the few free platforms that lets you connect a custom domain at no cost.

1. Get a Domain Name

Your domain name is your address on the internet (e.g. yourbusiness.com.au). You "rent" it annually from a domain registrar — you never truly own it outright, but as long as you keep paying the renewal, it's yours.

How to register a domain

1. Decide on your domain — ideally your business name, kept short, easy to spell, and easy to say out loud.
2. Pick your extension. If you're an Australian business with an ABN, .com.au is the standard choice and signals you're a local, registered business. If you also want the global .com, you can register both and point one to the other later.
3. Go to a registrar (see below), search your desired name, and check availability.
4. If registering .com.au or .au, you'll need to provide your ABN — this is an auDA requirement for direct Australian domains.
5. Add the domain to your cart, skip the upsells (hosting, email, website builder add-ons — you don't need these from the registrar), and check out.
6. Set the domain to auto-renew so you don't accidentally lose it.

Top domain registrars

Practical tip: if you want .com.au, use an auDA-accredited Australian registrar (VentraIP, Crazy Domains, GoDaddy AU, Webcentral). If you're happy with .com only, Namecheap is hard to beat on price.

2. Recommended Website Builder: HubSpot (Free)

For a basic brand website with a contact form, HubSpot's free CMS (part of Content Hub) is the strongest free option available. It includes:

• A drag-and-drop website builder with free themes
• Free, secure hosting (SSL, CDN, 99.95% uptime)
• The ability to connect your own custom domain — completely free
• Built-in lead capture forms (perfect for a "Contact Us" form)
• A built-in blog
• Basic on-page SEO suggestions and analytics
• A CRM behind the scenes, so any contact form submissions land straight into a free contact database

The catch: the free plan shows small "Powered by HubSpot" branding, you can't customise system pages like your 404 page, and as your needs grow you'll eventually want to look at paid CMS tiers. For a brand-new business that just needs a clean, credible online presence, none of that matters yet.

Sign up at hubspot.com — choose the free plan, and you don't need a credit card to get started.

3. Set Up Your Website and Connect Your Domain

Build your starter site

1. After signing up, go to Content > Website Pages.
2. Click Create (or Get Started), then choose a theme. HubSpot will suggest free themes based on your industry — pick one that looks closest to the layout you want (you can change colours, fonts and logo later via Brand Kit).
3. Select the Homepage template from your chosen theme and start editing using the drag-and-drop editor (more on this in Step 5).
4. Set up your Brand Kit (Settings > Website > Pages, or the prompt at the top of Website Pages) — upload your logo, set your brand colours and a favicon. This automatically applies across your site.

Connect your domain

Once you've registered your domain (Step 1) and have at least a homepage ready:

1. In HubSpot, click the Settings (gear) icon in the top navigation.
2. Go to Content > Domains & URLs.
3. Click Connect a domain, and choose Primary (this is the main domain your website will live on).
4. Choose the content types you want to host on this domain (website pages, blog, landing pages — for a basic site, select all).
5. HubSpot will show you the DNS records you need to add:
   • For a subdomain like www.yourbusiness.com.au → you'll add a CNAME record
   • For a root domain like yourbusiness.com.au (no "www") → you'll add an A record
6. Log into your domain registrar (from Step 1) and find DNS Management or DNS Settings.
7. Some registrars (GoDaddy, Cloudflare, IONOS, Namecheap, AWS) support a guided sign-in directly from HubSpot — click Sign in with [provider] if offered. Otherwise click No, I'll set it up manually and copy each record HubSpot shows into your registrar's DNS settings exactly as displayed.
8. Save your DNS changes, then return to HubSpot and click Verify.
9. DNS changes can take anywhere from 15 minutes to 48 hours to fully propagate — if it's not verified straight away, wait and check again later.

Tip: it's a good idea to set up www.yourdomain.com.au as your primary and add a redirect from the bare domain (or vice versa) — HubSpot's domain wizard will prompt you for this.

4. Email Setup

If you're happy with free email

If keeping costs at zero is the priority, just use a free Gmail or Outlook.com address (e.g. yourbusiness123@gmail.com). It works, but it doesn't look as professional as an email address that matches your domain.

If you want a branded email (e.g. you@yourbusiness.com.au)

This is genuinely worth the small monthly cost once you're trading — it builds trust instantly. Here are the most common options:

• Google Workspace — Gmail interface with your domain attached, plus Google Docs/Drive/Calendar. Paid plans only (no free tier), but the interface is identical to Gmail, so there's nothing new to learn.
• Microsoft 365 Business Basic — Outlook with your domain, plus Office apps (Word, Excel) and cloud storage. Good fit if your team already uses Microsoft tools.
• Zoho Mail — A budget-friendly option with a genuinely useful free tier for very small teams, scaling up cheaply if you need more mailboxes or storage.
• Registrar-based email (e.g. Namecheap Private Email, GoDaddy Email Essentials) — Often the cheapest entry point and convenient since it's bundled with your domain purchase.

General setup steps (all providers are similar)

1. Sign up for the email plan and enter your domain name when prompted.
2. The provider will give you one or more DNS records to add — typically MX records (which tell the internet where to deliver your email) and sometimes TXT records (SPF/DKIM, which help your emails avoid spam folders).
3. Add these records in your domain registrar's DNS settings (same place you added your HubSpot records in Step 3).
4. Wait for verification (again, can take a few hours), then create your mailbox(es) — e.g. info@yourbusiness.com.au.
5. Set up the mailbox in your phone's mail app or webmail, and you're sending and receiving from your branded address.

5. How to Create a Webpage in HubSpot

1. In HubSpot, go to Content > Website Pages.
2. Click Create in the top right, then select Website page.
3. Enter an internal page name (e.g. "About Us") and click Create page.
4. Choose a template from your theme — pick one with a layout closest to what you need (you can always restructure later).
5. You'll land in the drag-and-drop editor:
   • Click any text, image, or section to edit it directly.
   • Use the + Add icon in the left sidebar to drag new modules (text, image, form, button, video, etc.) onto the page.
   • Drag sections up/down to reorder them.
6. Click Settings in the top right of the editor to set:
   • Page title (shown in Google search results)
   • URL slug (the page address, e.g. /about-us)
   • Meta description (the short summary shown under your title in search results)
   • Featured image (used when the page is shared on social media)
7. Repeat this for each core page. For a basic brand site, you'll typically want:
   • Home
   • About Us
   • Services / Products
   • Contact Us (with a form — see below)
8. Add a contact form: on your Contact Us page, drag a Form module onto the page from the left sidebar. HubSpot's default form (Name, Email, Message) is created automatically and submissions flow straight into your free CRM, with an email notification sent to you.
9. When a page is ready, click Publish (or Save to keep working on it as a draft).

6. How to Create a Blog

Step 1 — Create the blog itself (one-time setup)

1. Click the Settings (gear) icon.
2. In the left sidebar, go to Content > Blog.
3. Click the Current view dropdown and select Create new blog.
4. Enter a Blog name, choose the Blog language, and add a Blog Meta Description.
5. Click Create. You'll land on the blog's settings page — this is where you can later adjust the listing template, URL structure, and subscription emails. The default settings are fine to start.

Step 2 — Write and publish your first post

1. Go to Content > Blog (or Website Pages > Blog depending on your account layout).
2. Click Create blog post.
3. Write your content in the editor — same drag-and-drop tools as website pages, plus HubSpot's built-in SEO recommendations panel on the right (keyword usage, readability, etc.).
4. Before publishing, check the Settings tab on the post:
   • Edit the title and URL slug
   • Select an author (required to publish)
   • Add a featured image
   • Add a meta description
5. Click Publish now, or Schedule to publish at a future date/time.

The free plan allows one blog with up to 100 posts — plenty of runway for a small business just getting started with content.

7. How to Create a Menu Bar and Link It to Your Pages

1. Click the Settings (gear) icon.
2. In the left sidebar, go to Website > Navigation Menus.
3. Click Create menu and give it an internal name (e.g. "Main Navigation") — this name is for your reference only and won't be shown publicly.
4. Click + Add menu item for each page you want in your menu (Home, About, Services, Blog, Contact).
5. For each item:
   • Enter the label that will display (e.g. "About Us")
   • Use the Select page dropdown to link directly to a HubSpot page you've already created — this is the cleanest option since it updates automatically if the page URL ever changes
6. Set the Menu orientation to Horizontal for a typical top navigation bar.
7. Drag items to reorder them, then click Publish changes.
8. Now go to your Homepage (or any page using your main template) in the page editor. If your theme's header doesn't already display this menu automatically, click the navigation/menu module in the header and select your newly created menu from the dropdown.
9. Publish the page — your menu bar should now appear across every page using that header.

8. The Rest: Getting From Zero to Hero

A handful of extra steps that are easy to overlook but make a real difference:

• Favicon and Brand Kit — make sure your logo, brand colours, and favicon (the small icon in browser tabs) are set under your Brand Kit so they apply consistently across the whole site.
• Mobile check — preview every page on mobile (HubSpot's editor has a device toggle) before publishing. Most of your visitors will be on a phone.
• Google Search Console — verify your domain (free tool) so Google knows your site exists and starts indexing your pages. You can verify via a DNS TXT record, the same way you added your other DNS records.
• Google Business Profile — set up a free profile for your business; it's often the first thing people see when they search your business name, and it links directly to your new site.
• Privacy Policy & basic legal pages — if you're collecting contact form submissions, you legally need a privacy policy. There are free generators online to create a basic one for an Australian small business.
• Test your contact form — submit it yourself once the site is live to confirm you receive the email notification and the submission lands in your HubSpot CRM.
• Social links — add links to your Facebook/Instagram/LinkedIn in your footer so visitors can find you elsewhere.
• SSL check — once your domain is connected, confirm your site loads with https:// (a padlock in the browser). HubSpot provisions this automatically once your DNS is verified, but it can take a little time after connection.

That's it — domain registered, branded email (if you want it), a live website with a homepage, about page, services page, contact form, blog, and working navigation, all without spending a cent on software. From here, it's just a matter of adding content and keeping it up to date.