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Creating a Web Site - Free and Low-Cost So you want to have your own Web site . . . low cost or free! So you want to have your own Web site. You can create a Web site with a bit of effort, minimal software, and at low cost or free! Read exactly how to do it, step by step. This long article will cover all of the steps and provide links to Web software and how to use it. Step 1 Google Yourself Google yourself or your organization to see what's there already; then save the Google search page. You will need this info to measure your progress and for search engine optimization (SEO). You might try Googling a few other related names or organizations for more ideas. Step 2 Pick and register a domain name I recommend GoDaddy.com for registering and hosting. Try your own name first. I found "Phil Reagan" was available as a domain and I am using it for my personal Web site (PhilReagan.com). And btw although your Web site URL will be given to you in lowercase, you can also use uppercase as I have done; it works fine . . . and you can also give it to people without the "http://" because browsers will automatically supply that info. If you want a completely free site you might try searching for "free Website" on Google or elsewhere. A completely free site is certainly possible with a bit of careful searching. But avoid a "free trial" as you will eventually have to pay and might not get a good service that way. I will be adding more on this subject. One completely free way to do it is to use the services of your internet service provider (ISP). Most likely they offer you a free Web site and tell you how to set it up. I have one at http://www.mindspring.com/~preagan/ that I was using to develop a learning portal. It's more than a year old and is on my list (back burner). With an ISP you do not even need to register a domain name as they will provide one, typically based on your e-mail address with that ISP. Another way to get much of the value of a free site is with Facebook, LinkedIn, or a blog service such as Blogger.com. WordPress allows you to build a blog site that looks and acts very much like a website. Here is an example: Taking My Fish for a Walk. Step 3 Organize your site Decide what topics you are going to have on your site: yourself, your projects, photos, etc. To make it easy to find your site start on search engine optimization (SEO) immediately by putting the search topics people are likely to use into your home page title. The HTML source code is <title> search words </title>. You won't have to get into the HTML but that is what it looks like. For an example look at the page title or source code for this site and for Montclair Presbyterian Church: mpcfamily.org. As you design the home page these words should appear in the text. They may also appear as links. Step 4 Design Your Home Page This is a very big subject. Many books have been written on the subject, there is lots of good, and not so good, information on the subject, and there are services that will help you for a fee. I'll suggest some good, easy ways to do it. Continued below . . . For starting out you might do something similar to my home page for this site. For inspiration consider Google's clean, elegant design. This one was up on 4/2/10; the more usual "Google" replaced for the day by a graphic commemorating the 205th Birthday of Hans Christian Andersen.  For now, however, do something simple as a working home page. Maybe include a photo or graphic, but don't labor over it. You could include an "under construction" graphic but it is not necessary: all Web sites are under construction all the time. Dave
Taylor has a nice page and also has tips on links into Facebook's
"walled garden." You might like the cartoonized face he
uses from WebFace. Before you add a page you should know where the link to it will be. There might be several places including:
Consider at the beginning that you might also want one or more of these pages:
These subjects can also be on a part of a page by using a named anchor. I used that method with the about-this-site info. If the subject gets lengthy, it can later be split off to a separate page, blog, or even another site. Web Authoring Tools There are many useful articles on HTML Editors and Software for Web Development at About.com; tools for both PCs and Macs. And you could find much more about tools and recommendations with a bit of searching. Mozilla Editor, aka 'Composer', 'KompoZer', is the free, open source, HTML editor and web authoring module of SeaMonkey). Its main user interface features four tabs: Normal (WYSIWYG), HTML tags, HTML code, and browser preview. The generated code is HTML 4.01 Transitional. As of version 1.1.13, SeaMonkey Composer supports basic text formatting and styling, insertion of hyperlinks and images, and the creation of tables. I have been using KompoZer version 0.7.10 with good results. Step 6 Validate and Update Your Site You need to validate your site as to spelling, legit HTML, and valid links. Spell checking is done in Microsoft Word of course, but should checked in your page editor (To validate the HTML in Dreamweaver: Check Page > Validate Markup. This will produce many non-standard errors that you can ignore but is worth doing as you may find errors that should be corrected. See Tools. More info coming soon; I expect to add to this at least every week.
This article was originally written for an Adult Ed course at Montclair Presbyterian Church.
Last updated
June 4, 2010
This area is used for material that would be a separate page on a less-limited site (GoDaddy.com free hosting has a five-page limit).
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