Create Your Own Web Site
Have you ever wanted to create your own web page, or maybe one for an organization you belong to? Have you hesitated because you don't have the experience or you don't have the money to hire a web designer? Hesitate no more! Not only can you create a web page easily (and yes, I really do mean easily), you can also create it for free (yes, "free" as in zero cost). No gimmick. No hassle. Interested? Read on.
Historically (if the past 15 years or so can really be considered "history") you had two options. You either learned a whole lot of programming to create a web page, or you paid somebody to do it for you. Now, let me say this, if you have the funds available, you will not go wrong hiring a professional web designer, in fact, I would be very happy to recommend an excellent web designer at this link. If you have a business that is doing fairly well, you probably don't have the time to create your own web page anyway. But if can't afford to pay someone there is an alternative. It might not be as flashy, but it will certainly be functional and easily update-able (which is very important). Here is what you can do.
1. Go to www.weebly.com and sign up for an account. It is completely free and according to their web site it will always be free. They do have a "Starter" version for $4/month and a "Pro" version for $8/month (both plans are cheaper if you pay by the year). But you can also use their free plan. In fact, you can do a whole lot with the free version. If you want to try the Starter or Pro version you are best to sign up through a referral. Both you and the person who referred you get a $10 credit towards of the paid versions. If you need a referral, just sign up through this link here.
2. Once you've created a weebly account you can create your first web site. Each web site can have as many pages as you like. In the free version, you can manage up to two completely independent web sites on your account (with the pro version you can manage up to 10 different web sites). When you create a web site, weebly will ask you for a website name. Your web site's address will be something like: www.mywebsite.weebly.com. What this means is that your web site will be a "subdomain" of the weebly web site. That's kind of what you get because it is free. If you have your own domain name already - you can create your web site on weebly and link that to your own domain.
3. Once you have created a weebly account (free or pro), you are ready to start creating pages on your web site(s). Most of weebly web designing is drag and drop. They do have a very good "help" section. Poke around with it. Try it out. If you've used computers, it probably won't take long to get the hang of it. Just remember, any time you make changes, when you are ready to apply those changes to the web site, you need to click "Publish" at the top right corner.
4. If you want your own web address, independent of the weebly.com web address, you can do that too, but to do that you will need to register your own domain name. If you haven't done this before it could be a little tricky but it's not all that difficult. Registering a domain name is not free (but, it's not necessary either - you do it only if you want to point people to your own web site address - for example, instead of www.whitehorsenazarene.weebly.com people can go to www.whitehorsenazarene.org because we have our own domain name).
5. To register a domain name, the easiest way is to do it through weebly. They will take care of it and make sure your web site is automatically connected to it.l I believe weebly charges around $25/year for domain name registration. If you don't mind tinkering and checking online "how to" stuff, then you can get it much cheaper. One time I registered a domain name for our daycare (www.nazarenedaycare.org) for a cost of $75 for TEN years (and back in Feb/2012 I was able to register a domain at a cost of $33 for TEN years - unbelievably cheap - wish I could find that deal again). More recently, the best I could find is about $10/year for domain registration. It's not "hard" to register your own domain name and link Weebly to it, but the first time you do it, it can be a little confusing.
One last thing: there are lots of free services online - but most of them the "free" version is very crippled. The weebly free version is very powerful. The other thing about weebly is that the free version has just a small line at the bottom of each page indicating that it is a weebly created web site. There are no large, disgusting, and potentially offensive advertisements (as other free web services do). Ya. I'm impressed - and I don't get impressed easily.
1. Go to www.weebly.com and sign up for an account. It is completely free and according to their web site it will always be free. They do have a "Starter" version for $4/month and a "Pro" version for $8/month (both plans are cheaper if you pay by the year). But you can also use their free plan. In fact, you can do a whole lot with the free version. If you want to try the Starter or Pro version you are best to sign up through a referral. Both you and the person who referred you get a $10 credit towards of the paid versions. If you need a referral, just sign up through this link here.
2. Once you've created a weebly account you can create your first web site. Each web site can have as many pages as you like. In the free version, you can manage up to two completely independent web sites on your account (with the pro version you can manage up to 10 different web sites). When you create a web site, weebly will ask you for a website name. Your web site's address will be something like: www.mywebsite.weebly.com. What this means is that your web site will be a "subdomain" of the weebly web site. That's kind of what you get because it is free. If you have your own domain name already - you can create your web site on weebly and link that to your own domain.
3. Once you have created a weebly account (free or pro), you are ready to start creating pages on your web site(s). Most of weebly web designing is drag and drop. They do have a very good "help" section. Poke around with it. Try it out. If you've used computers, it probably won't take long to get the hang of it. Just remember, any time you make changes, when you are ready to apply those changes to the web site, you need to click "Publish" at the top right corner.
4. If you want your own web address, independent of the weebly.com web address, you can do that too, but to do that you will need to register your own domain name. If you haven't done this before it could be a little tricky but it's not all that difficult. Registering a domain name is not free (but, it's not necessary either - you do it only if you want to point people to your own web site address - for example, instead of www.whitehorsenazarene.weebly.com people can go to www.whitehorsenazarene.org because we have our own domain name).
5. To register a domain name, the easiest way is to do it through weebly. They will take care of it and make sure your web site is automatically connected to it.l I believe weebly charges around $25/year for domain name registration. If you don't mind tinkering and checking online "how to" stuff, then you can get it much cheaper. One time I registered a domain name for our daycare (www.nazarenedaycare.org) for a cost of $75 for TEN years (and back in Feb/2012 I was able to register a domain at a cost of $33 for TEN years - unbelievably cheap - wish I could find that deal again). More recently, the best I could find is about $10/year for domain registration. It's not "hard" to register your own domain name and link Weebly to it, but the first time you do it, it can be a little confusing.
One last thing: there are lots of free services online - but most of them the "free" version is very crippled. The weebly free version is very powerful. The other thing about weebly is that the free version has just a small line at the bottom of each page indicating that it is a weebly created web site. There are no large, disgusting, and potentially offensive advertisements (as other free web services do). Ya. I'm impressed - and I don't get impressed easily.