This is one article I have been wanting to write for a long time and got the required impetus from an email I received a couple of days back from Shani who asked “how can I create my web site for free?” Heck! There are just too many ways to go about this. So the problem in front of me was how can I make it simple for a newbie?
Assuming Shani wanted to create a personal and not business web site because the latter may involve a little expense (more on this below), here is my take on how to get a personal web site for free in less than an hour.
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What kind of personal web site would you like to create?
Web sites are simply a bunch of web pages and their associated multimedia files like images, video, audio, flash animations etc. FYI, web pages are written in HTML (HyperText Markup Language) which is, technically, not a programming language but rather consists of tags that provide a structure to the document. There can be different types of web sites based on not just the content but also the way they are managed and created.
Broadly, there are two ways to create a personal web site, actually, any web site for that matter. The first option requires you to learn HTML or at least know how to work with a WYSIWYG HTML editor, a program that will “write” the HTML code for you. The second is much simpler and involves creating a blog web site from one of the several free services available online.
In this article we shall explore the latter option through which you would be able to create a personal web site for free in less than an hour! However, if you want to tread down the alternate (and more difficult) path please refer how to make my own web site by learning HTML or an HTML editor.
How to create your personal web site blog for free?
A blog is a type of web site in which you create and manage web pages through a web based system. In fact, if you know your way around Hotmail, Gmail or Yahoo! Mail email accounts, you’ll find creating and managing a blog “kind of” similar. There are many free services that allow you to make a blog of your own from the popular Blogger from Google to the less famous vox.com.
Get a blog web site in less than an hour
- Choose your service: as mentioned above, there are tons of free blog services. Refer the link to get a listing and then decide which one you want to use. I don’t have any recommendations but personally use Google’s Blogger. Why don’t you register for both services and see which one you are more comfortable with?
Time taken: about 10 minutes - Create your account: Once you’ve decided on the service you want to use, you need to create an account. And this process is quite the same as creating an account on Hotmail, Gmail or Yahoo! Mail. In fact, if you already have an email address from one of these services, you can use the same login details to create your account on their respective blog services. Cool!
Time taken: 10 – 15 minutes - Sign in and choose a template: You get a blog the moment you successfully create an account on the service. However, the design and layout template would either be the default or you may be asked to choose one during the registration process. Assuming you get the default bland design, you can quickly change it to something you like.
Time taken: 5 minutes - Start posting: Your blog is ready with a first “demo” message. You can now start posting new blog entries which are akin to individual web pages of a web site. And to do this, you have all the tools available. As I mentioned before, if you’ve used a web based email services (Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail etc.) to compose and send messages, you’ll find adding new blog posts quite similar and simple. Since each service offers a different interface, options and features, it is not possible to go through all of them here and I leave you to do the exploring.
That’s it! You’ve successfully created your personal web site blog.
Note: Depending on the blogging service you use, your web site address will vary. For instance, blogs created with Blogger have the URL your-blog-name.blogspot.com.
