Not Every Website Is A Business…
I guess that’s stating the obvious, but I thought that it was worth looking at what some of your options are if you were planning on creating a personal website or blog.
Free Hosting
There are quite a few free webhosts around, but like most hosting services they need to make money somehow. The way they usually do this is with advertising. So whilst you can get the hosting for free, you also need to keep in mind that there may be a few ads floating around your website. If you Google ‘free webhosting’ you will find a bunch of those guys.
WordPress.Com/Blogger.Com
WordPress.com offers free blog hosting, using their WordPress blog software. It’s similar to the Google owned Blogger.com. These two providers have quite a different look and feel so if you were thinking of creating your own blog you would probably want to try both and then choose the one you are most comfortable using.
Squidoo Lens
Squidoo is a site that, like many, is dedicated to sharing knowledge. They call their web pages ‘Lenses’ and like the blog hosting sites their site is free of charge. A lens is like a single page website that relates to a specific topic. They have a bunch of ‘widgets’ that allow you to add content from other blogs, polls, images, videos and most things you might want to put in a website.
Hosting Your Own Website
Having your own fully hosted website probably isn’t as hard as you think – particularly with software like WordPress that allows you to edit your content in much the same way as you would write a document in a word processor. Domains cost from around $10/yr (.com, .net) to $30 for 2 years (.com.au) and hosting is under $10/mth.
Why Would You Want A Personal Website?
The usual reason is simply to share your knowledge, an interest or perhaps a hobby. As you probably know, there are websites out there on just about every topic you can think of. I started one of my own just a few weeks ago. I have always had a love for music and have played several instruments over the years including saxophone, violin and guitar.
My site brings together some performances and performers that I think are unique, unusual or special in some way. You can check it out if you like. It’s called Inspirational Performances. I plan to continue adding to it and already have a bunch of performances in mind.
You may have an interest, hobby or passion that you would really like to share with others and there’s no better way to share it with the world than having your own personal website!
