You've just finished creating your website, and now you're ready to share it with the world. But before you do, there are some things you need to know.
As anyone in the web design business knows,
the hardest part about building a website isn't the coding — it's the deployment!
You have to make sure that there is no broken code, that all of your links work correctly, and most importantly, you have to find a free hosting account!
In this guide, I'll show you how to deploy your website for free. You will learn how to publish your website on various platforms in a few simple steps from the comfort of your computer. There are many benefits to deploying your website yourself, one of which is cost savings. This method is not only free but provides you with full control over how and where your website is hosted.
Hosting it on your own server.
First, let's get some things straight: there are two ways to publish your website: by hosting it on your own server and by using a platform like WordPress or Blogger.
Hosting means that you have an actual physical server (which can be expensive), while platforms like WordPress or Blogger require that you pay for their services (which can also be expensive).
So, which way should you go?
If you're looking for something simple, hosting may be best for you.
Hosting will give you more control over how your site looks and feels, but it also means that you'll need to do all of the work yourself when it comes to content management systems (CMSs), security threats, etc.
Hosted sites can also be slower than platforms because they tend not to offer as much bandwidth and processing power for their users—if this is important to you then hosted may not be the right option.
Host your website on GitHub or Netlify.
All you need to do is create a repository on GitHub. Create a branch on GitHub called G H pages, put all your code on that branch, and follow the instructions.
After you create your branch called a G H page, those are the called Kita pages. You want to push your code to your repository, to the GH pages branch, and that's it.
So your website is now online, essentially. So if you have your index page in the root folder of your repository on that brand, you and that index page, meaning index HTML, which has all the contained of your website. It could just have a div, and it could just say hello, world.
That could be your website for now, too, just to get started and testing. After you've pushed that index file to the GitHub repository, all you need to do is go to github.io and put your username at the start of your website.
So it can be your username dot GitHub dot. And that should take you to whatever you have pushed in that index. HTML. Once you have the index.HTML you have built on top of it, you can simply add other pages like the about me homepage, contact me, testimonials, anything your projects, anything you want, you can.
Upload your media on GitHub. I would suggest using a CDN-like content delivery network, essentially, where you can upload your videos and images and then serve those media files through a CDN server instead of hosting it yourself. That has many benefits using CDN.
Netlify is one of my favorite tools. You can create an account for yourself, and there is an option to drop your website files. If you create an index relay stream and drop that integral HTML on Netlify in that toolbox, it will host it.
It will also give you an online URL. So basically, you can share that URL with your friends and family, and they can see what you've written on that index HTML, and that's it. Once you have your index, you need to build on top of that.
Using a web-based IDE such as CodePen
Many online apps allow you to add HTML, CSS, and JavaScript and then show the finished product as a website — all in the same browser tab.
These apps simulate a website building environment.
In general, these tools are simple, excellent for learning, wonderful for sharing code (for instance, if you want to share a technique with or request debugging assistance from coworkers in a separate office), and free (for basic features).
Your rendered page is hosted there at a special web address. However, these apps typically don't offer hosting space for assets, and the functionalities are limited (like images).
Try playing with some of these examples to find out which one works best for you:
- JSFiddle
- Glitch
- JS Bin
- CodePen
To sum it up
As a whole, there are many hosting providers who either offer free hosting (or a very low cost) to encourage new users to try out their platform. The best thing to do is use an independent review service to find the cheapest and best options for your organization.
Top comments (0)