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Solo Web dev is very competitive. It’ll take a while before you are able to get paying clients, especially if you’ve not got a portfolio already. Be prepared to do a fair bit of free work first.
Do not do free work. Ever. It sets a bad precedent, and exposure does not pay the bills.
Look at it this way: you will spend maybe 10% of your time wooing the client, another 20% designing and building the website, and the remaining 70% maintaining it and answering questions. If you do any (or all) of that for free, you’re opening the door for trouble. People may not set out to take advantage of kindness, but in the end, they will take advantage.
Value your time and efforts. You may start out with a low hourly rate if you think it’s help. I’d personally go no lower than $75/hour. Get you a few clients under your belt, and you can start raising that price as you see fit.
But NEVER do work for free.
I absolutely see your point, and agree to an extent. However, I was on this exact journey a decade ago and a few free sites (for local charities and orgs) to establish a presence genuinely helped attract paying clients. Obviously I set some firm boundaries that any support would come at a cost and that both established expectations and got a few, admittedly small, income streams going off the bat.