Make a Web Page for Free | The Easiest Guide Ever!

There are so many ways for you to make a web page for free, everything from free website builders that let you do it all online and in your browser, to free web hosting accounts that allow you make a web page using html and upload it to their servers.

Think of a line with these two examples plotted one at each end, a continuum of complexity ranging from the very simple (free website builder) to the very challenging (hand coding html). This guide to making a web page for free sits at about the half-way mark.

I'm going to show you a way to make a web page for free that gives you total control over the result, and with enough easy step-by-step instruction that even your Grandma could do it.

Here's a quick overview of what you're going to make over the next 30 or 40 minutes.

1. A Plan for Your Web Page
2. Setup a Free Web Hosting Account
3. Install a Content Management System
4. Choose a Design and Layout for Your Web Page
5. Write Content, and
6. Promote Your Pages

Don't start anything without a plan! Your web page will end up being a chaotic mess, and I've seen it too many times before to let it happen to you.

Remember, I'm here to teach you how to make your free web page, I'm not going to tell you what to write about or how it should look, those parts are up to you, but I'm going to give you a plan for planning your web page so that you keep on track and get it done.

First you need to have a topic to write about, I have a two dogs so I'm going to pretend to setup a free web page about my two dogs. One is a pure bred Jack Russell and the other is a Jack Russell crossed with a West Highland Terrier, I'm going to call my web page "My Two Dogs, Phoebe & Coco".

I'm going to have a page about each dog, then a page about training them and treats they like.

Try and think along these lines for the pages you want to include, you should end up with a diagram kind of like my one, although just sketch it out on paper, I'm a nerd so I like to use all the computer tools I can get my hands on.

Once you've got a plan for your web page we'll move on to selecting the right web hosting provider for you.

This is easy, but you have to stay with me on this one. We're going to go off to another website and find a web hosting provider which is where your web page will live.

There are a couple of requirements to check out, your host needs to allow PHP, MySQL and FTP and you also don't want to have to display ads, or give out a link back to the host on your web page. But don't worry, I've got a link to a web page that lists the free web hosts that fit these requirements:

Free Web Hosts - Totally Free Hosts

Check out the list there and sign up for the one that sounds the best to you, you'll just need an email account to verify your hosting account.

Once you're all signed up you will be sent some instructions on how to access the account via FTP, you will need this info for the next step...

Ok, this parts really easy. We're going to use the best (in my humble opinion) content management system on the net... Wordpress.

There is a really easy way to get this going if your free hosting provider allows Fantastico Scripts, you just go to Fantastico in your Control Panel (CPanel as it is referred to in your welcome email) and select Wordpress. Enter in a few details like the name of your site and click install! Nothing could be easier!

Now, if your host doesn't have Fantastico, or if you'd like to install it yourself for the experience then it's also a simple process. First you'll need an FTP Client, which is a program that allows you to upload files to your web host, and lucky for us there's one called FileZilla that works across Windows, Mac and Linux:

• FileZilla Project Download Page

You'll create a new connection to your web page host using the details in your welcome email, or from the Control Panel on your account.

You need to download the latest version of Wordpress from the Wordpress.org Download Page and upload it to the web page host, for full instructions on how to do this... and explained in much better detail than I ever could just read the Wordpress Installation Guide.

Great! Now you're setup and ready to choose a design for your new web page!

Choosing a design and layout for your free web page is the most fun, simply login to your Admin area go to Appearance - Add New Themes and browse all the free web page themes from Wordpress. 

You can trial each one out, and change it any day of the week that your mood changes.

The key here is to choose one that really fits the theme of your web page, so if you have a site setup about dogs you wouldn't choose a theme with cats all over it. Stating the obvious, I know.

There are also heaps... actually... tonnes! of free Wordpress themes around, and people put them into top 10 lists all the time.

Do a search on google for "free wordpress themes" and you'll waste the next 2 hours just drooling over them all.

In the Content Management System we're using (Wordpress) there are two types of Content you can create. There are Pages, then there are Posts.

Think of Pages as pieces of content that are absolutely vital to your web page for it to make sense. So if you were building a free business web page you would probably build an About Us Page, Contact Us Page, Our Services Page, and so on.

And Posts are more like brief snippets, more informal pieces of content, more like news. As an example if you had a web page about your pet dogs you might create Post's about what they did on the weekend, or their new toy, or even a new dog food that hit the supermarkets that week.

By default Wordpress displays a list of your latest Post's as your homepage, for different websites it makes more sense to have a more ... static... home page. Bringing it back to the business website, the home page would probably include an overview of what you do, your contact details and links to your most important pages.

To get a static Page to display as your home page instead of a list of your latest Post's, simply login to your Admin area, go to Settings - Reading and change "Front Page Displays" - "Your Latest Posts" to "A Static Page (select below)".

Of course, you would have to have already built this Page for it to show in the drop down list. To do this click on Pages - Add New and create a new Page called something like "Home".

Yay! You're doing it, you are actually making your own web page for free... well done!

The key ingredient to all of this is getting it out there into cyberspace and get some eyeballs on your work. If you're writing on a topic that has a lot of commercial interest like "web design", "pet food", "iphone cases"...

Then it will be quite a bit harder to get those eyeballs to your page, just because there are a big bunch of people out there making money from these key terms that Googler's type into the search engine, so they spend a whole bunch of money doing the things below:

To Promote Your Pages there are some simple, free and mostly fun ways to go about it. These are all huge topics in themselves which I can't go into here, but with a bit of time spent reading you'll get there!

• Sign up to forums in your area of interest, post some really great comments and fill out your "Signature" to include a link back to your web page.
• Read Weblogs about your topic, and if you have something to say in the discussion, leave a comment at the bottom and fill out the URL box with the URL of your free web page.
• Create a page here on HubPages with heaps of good info on your topic and link back to yourself where it makes sense
• Email other webmasters (Remember: You ARE a webmaster now) and ask if you could write an article for their website and include a link back to your web page.

Well, you get the idea. Basically the more links you have pointing back to your free web page, the more important Google and other Search Engines thing you are. They see links as votes for your web page, and obviously the more the better.

I really hope you've had a good time reading through this stuff, there sure is a lot to get through, and as I said it will take a good 30-40 minutes to get through it all.

Keep up the good work!

Jason Hawk (iWebDeveloper)

Other hubs on a similar topic: build a free website