Making your own website

[BlackCurtains]

Hello

Lately I've been thinking of setting up my own website for my arts and crafts stuff. I guess more of an online portfolio than anything. I've looked around and am at a loss. I don't know if I should go with a free one or paid. A lot of the paid hosts use Wordpress which I know nothing about. I do know basic HTML. I'd rather have a drag 'n drop type interface though. Go Daddy has that kind of interface and is one of the top best paid hosts.

I'd like to hear more about the free hosts. I'm not interested in selling from my site, at least not yet. And I'd rather not have forced ads everywhere. From my own experience, Wix is terrible. It never loads right and looks awful in 1920x1080

[Beth3346]

i've never been much of a fan of go daddy. they've had issues in the past with adding tracking scripts without the consent of their clients. but they are very popular still. it might be a place to start.

usually anything free with a drag/drop interface is going to have ads or some other monetization. there are a few free or cheap hosting services i've used but they are more for web developers. i don't use drag/drop since i'm a web developer and it's just faster and easier for me to code.

i used to be a WordPress dev and it's kind of a PITA but once you get used to it's ok. however hosting can get a little pricier because WordPress uses a database to store content, logins, etc. usually and hosting solution is going to charge a little more for all of those features. it's also more maintenance because you'll need to make updates to the WordPress software. i'm not too familiar with the paid Wordpress.com solution. this is based on the self hosted WordPress.org solution. WordPress does have templates and a visual, drag/drop editor. it also tries to be friendly to people who don't have high level coding skills. you can kind of add functionality as you learn. WordPress is actually how i learned to code at first.

i tend to always lean towards self hosting since i don't want to be dependent on a service that can go away or raise prices. given the state of tech today i don't trust anything to be around long term. but it's a trade off. if you want to get something up fast i've heard good things about squarespace but it's a little pricy IMO.

[BlackCurtains]

Thanks for the info. Wouldn't I need a server to self host?

[Beth3346]

yes but you can use a hosting service for that. you don't need hardware or anything like that. i use Netlify because they have a free tier that serves most of my needs. however, they're hosting is more designed for developers.

do you have a website url?

[BlackCurtains]

No. I signed up for Go Daddy's 7 day trial, but now that you've said you don't trust them, I'm not going to use them.

I guess buying a domain is the first step, huh?

[Beth3346]

yeah i would buy a domain first. but only if you're ready to setup a website. i'm saying this as someone with several unused domain names. it's pretty quick so it's not something you need to do early. i would wait until you've decided on a hosting service.

i use https://www.namecheap.com/ to buy domain names. i would avoid .com and .net and go with something more obscure since it will be more cost effective. something like .info. it looks like there is a .art too. generally the renewal prices will be higher. https://www.namecheap.com/domains/#pricing

[BlackCurtains]

They have hosting too ^

Thanks. I'll have to do some more poking around for hosts and think about it some more.

[Beth3346]

sounds like a plan feel free to also PM me if there's anything i can help you with.