Firstly, you can get a site that is hosted by another website. These tend to be "profiles" more than websites, because you don't have complete access to all the files. This is why many people will start a blog. Most of these websites give you a sub-domain with your intended niche on it. Search engines will rank your site independently of the main site. You can easily get templates that will let you to get a style that you prefer. Keep in mind that there may be restrictions as to the number of visitors you can have in a day. And remember that you may not be allowed to sell the website even if it has a lot of visits, and you can't do a thing to profit from it.
You can host your site on a free hosting site. There are a number of such online businesses that will give a free hosting in order to attract clients. They hope that you will upgrade to their paid site so that you can use all of the features. There's a good chance that you'll be limited to what you can do in using their free hosting, many will decide to upgrade eventually. They may also want to include their ads on your pages for the free hosting, and these ads most properly will not be relevant to your website. The free hosting company will actually make money from your website. Sad to say, you may be not paying for the site. But their ads turn people away, it's not worth it.
A great solution to get a free website is to find a friend who has hosting and do not mind sharing it with you. Bear in mind that there are risks involved with this solution. Many web hosting allow a person to host multiple websites at no charge, so it won't cost your friend additional money. Your friend can simply create a sub-domain for you and give the FTP access of the server so that you can upload your files. Many won't want get involve with this kind of deals, but you might be able to find someone you know who won't mind helping out. If your website starts generating money, however, your friend may ask you to help pay for the site. And if you start bringing in a lot of traffic, the increase in visitors might slow down his website. He may decide that this isn't a good deal for him and ask you to leave. Then you may lose the business that you've worked hard to get. Keep all this in mind before you try this approach.
Though there are ways to get a website with no cost, it's best to get a domain name and purchase a server to host it. It's so affordable to do this that it's really not worth taking the risks that involved with the free approaches.
