Another important piece of the puzzle is having reliable hosting. If you are using a free service provider or one that is not reliable, your website will look unprofessional (if it's even up and working).
In fact, the free service providers often have their own advertisements in place on YOUR website (which are distracting), or just do not look professional.
If your host is too cheap and not reliable, your website might not even be there for people when they want to sign up. Having reliable hosting is a very important first step if you want to build a massive list.
If you need reliable web hosting, you might want to check out these hosts:
They are both good. LiquidWeb is far better, but Namecheap is still better than the rest. If you're serious about your online business, don't let free or cheap hosting sway you – you need quality, with excellent customer service, uptime, and performance.