Creating a website isn’t a big task. Though it depends how big your project is. But believe me, you can create free website in minutes without any need of coding. You don’t need to know anything before you start because everything that you should know will be provided to you here. Believe me or not, with this tutorial, the website you are going to create will have free domain and hosting for 1 year.
To create a website all we need is –
- A Platform
- A Domain
- A Hosting
Let’s go step by step and learn what a platform is.
What is a platform?
A platform is nothing but a place where you can build your website. But why should we have need of a platform? It is hard to create free website by self, since we don’t have any web developing skills. We are here to build website with no coding skills, so we need a platform.
A Platform provide us an environment where we can manipulate our website in a few clicks. How it looks when you don’t have to read bunch of codes just to change font color, just a single click to add a portfolio of photos, embed (attach) any social network posts and tweets into your website in a single minutes, embed YouTube videos into your website and lots more things.
You may create your website a social networking website such as Facebook, twitter or you may create an E-commerce site within half an hour. It’s so simple with a content management system.
Name of Popular platforms are:
- WordPress
- Weebly
- Cargo
- Squarespace
- Magento
- Joomla
- Wix
There are more than 200 Content Management System (CMS) in the market, but we will focus on WordPress, despite other platforms in later chapters.
What is a Domain?
Domain is nothing but the name of the website e.g. https://keepitbro.com
What is a website?
A website name is a combination of protocol, subdomain, domain name, subdirectory and filepath:
There are variety of domains are available on the Internet. You may choose any domain name with character size between 3 and 63. That means, you cannot choose domain name as – a.com because a has size 1.
Here, protocols defines the rules through which the data transfer is done from source (Server) to client machine (Our mobile or Computer). You don’t have to go in detail with this, though our main goal is to build website, A free Website.
You may aware of some domains like .com, .net, .org, .in, .co.in etc. These are all paid domains as they costs between Rs.1 – Rs.1000/month
But we are not going to pay any money during this tutorial. So, how do we brought free domains? There are many free domains available in the internet viz .tk, .ml, .ga, .cf etc. We will use one of these and then when you become confident in creating website. You can switch to paid domains, I let you know how to switch to them also.
What is a Hosting?
Here is the main thing comes, Hosting, a space where the whole data of website is going to be stored. It is storage to all the contents of website, from domain information to our website user information. The data of each and every website resides in a storage which may be a cloud or a local server.
A Host is no one but a storage provider. We will bring host storage and put all the data used in website in it. Hosting means storage (a website or other data) on a server or other computer which can be accessed over the Internet.
It’s like pay rent for a small room of a big mansion with some monthly plan on it. Hosting plans comes with costs between Rs. 50/month – Rs. 2000/month.
Some of the paid hosting providers are:
- Hostgator
- Domaincontrol
- BlueHost
- eHost
- GreenGeeks
- Hostpapa
- ipage
While free hosting providers are:
- Infinityfree
- 000webhost
- biz.nf
- ByetHost
- Jimdo
We will use free hosting services, despite paid. But remember, free hosting are not unlimited.
Paid hosting means they will provide space and services accordingly with their plans, while in free hosting, there will be limitation in each service. The best thing is that you can switch to free to paid hosting whenever you want.
Since we are going to create a free website, if someone asks which language did you use to create the front end, you should have an answer. So, we are using HTML and CSS to create the front end of our website. Though HTML and CSS are part of coding, and we do not need to learn them, but having knowledge of these would give you much benefit.
What is HTML?
There is actually no need to learn HTML, because there is no need of this. But since, HTML is well known basic building block of Website, You should learn some of it, at least what it is.
HTML stands for HyperText MarkUp Language. You should be aware of each word from it.
HyperText : It is a simple text which contains a link, that means a text with a URL (or website name or link) is called HyperText or HyperLink. For instance, keepitbro.com, This is a HyperText. You can clearly see it different from other text.
Mark Up : Have you seen any web page till yet? This is also a web page where you are reading this paragraph. Do not get confused. Whenever you open a website in any browser, it opens a page of that website, not the whole website. This page contains a lot of things which can be differentiated. Like a button, image, text etc. But it is us who can differentiate them easily just by looking, but how can a computer understand this? To make him understand, we use Mark Up tags. MarkUp tags are used to put a tag on each and every element of the webpage to differentiate them from one another.
HTML : HyperText MarkUp Language is a MarkUp language used to display webpage on your browser. It is used to create a free website. It is so much easier to learn. You may learn it from- W3Schools.com.
What is CSS?
CSS is Cascading Style Sheets. It is used to create interactive layouts of a webpage. CSS also take part to create free website.
You may have seen themes in old Nokia phones, which is also used to do similar task. Themes were used to change background, foreground, alignments, sizes, wallpapers and more. This type of functionality over internet comes under Web Designing. CSS is the basic building block of Web Designing.
All the major interactive and attractive websites are done by CSS only. Currently, CSS3 is currently used by most of the websites. In our tutorial of creating free website, CSS has no use. So, If only you want to learn some basics or advance, you may visit here- W3Schools.com.
There is one more term you missed out above, Front End.
What is Front End?
Front end is what you see when you open the website. All the design comes under front end. While what you cannot see i.e. the functionality of website is called back end. These terms are for developers. Let’s not deviate from the path and learn how we can develop our own website.
As we have see above, The most popular CMS is WordPress, and we are going to use it to create our website. But what actually WordPress is?
What is WordPress?
WordPress is a Content Management System used to simply manages the content of our website. With WordPress, we don’t need to worry about coding. Just drag and drops and clicks can create website and manage it’s content. That’s why it is so simple to create free website with free domain and hosting for 1 year.
Comparing to Other CMS, WordPress is 60% used and rest CMS which are more than 200 just covers 40% in total.
See how powerful WordPress is?
The most believable thing about WordPress is that, WordPress covers 30% of the entire Internet’s Websites. Can you believe this? 30% of all the websites use WordPress. And you are going to be one of them.
How To Create A Website With Free Domain And Hosting For 1 Year
Alright, let’s gear up and collect our prerequisites –
- A Domain Name
- A Host
- Computer (My advice to you is to not try in mobile phones)
- Internet Connection (As all the work is going online)
Be clear with all the required tools:
A Domain Name: A website name through which you can access your website.
A Host: You must have a hosting account which handles all the data of your website.
I think you already have an internet connection, but please don’t try this in mobile. Don’t blame me for this, If it won’t work well in mobile.
WordPress Set-up: WordPress is a content management system (CMS). It must be installed in your website before use. So, you have to download it through the following link- Click here and then download WordPress.
To be Noted: This is not required in the procedure that we are going to follow, however you must be aware of how WordPress looks like. So, download this setup, It is a .zip file. Extract it, check all the non-understandable files (If you are unaware of PHP). Ignore how they work and why they are created. Just be happy that you are going to control them all graphically in a while.
We have done enough reading till yet. It’s time for us to do some practical. At first, we are going to register a domain with desired name (if available).
How to Register your Domain?
Step 1: Goto – Freenom.com (For free domain registration)
Step 2: At the middle of the homepage, You can see a text field, type your desired domain name and click on Check Availability. (Note: put domain name without top-level domain, example- Trafficsolder)
Step 3: See the list of domain names available on the newly loaded page. You may see .tk, .ml, .cf, .gq, .ga domains are totally free to register while below them are paid domains. Choose whoever you want (Choose from free domains only) and click on- Get it now. Then click on Checkout.
Step 4: Set period to 12 months from 3 months@free, if you want to register for a year and click on continue.
Step 5: Now, it’s time to register yourself. Enter your email address to verify or use social login to register using Facebook or Google.
After you successfully register yourself, you will be redirected to Shopping cart page. Fill your details, tick true to terms and conditions and click on Complete Order. Now go to the Client Area and see what you did. You have registered a website.
Click on My Domains
Don’t close this page. You can register a paid domain as same as you did this, either from freenom.com or from other websites like Godaddy, Bigrock etc.
Well, you have successfully registered a domain name. Now, let’s start with hosting setup.
Warning!
Do not use .tk domain (free). Because once your Domains gain good traffic they will stole those domains without any notice and park them to earn money from the back link traffic. My advise to you is not go with .tk
How to register Free Hosting?
Step 1: Open a new tab and Goto Infinityfree.net and go to Sign Up Now.
Step 2: After you have successfully registered, you will see this page –
Step 3: This step is the most important step and must be done carefully. After you click on New Account, you will be asked to enter your domain, verify the capcha and click on CREATE ACCOUNT. But before doing this, your domain must be pointing to the nameservers given.
Remember, I told you to keep the freenom site’s page open. Open the page as shown Here. After opening My Domains, click on Manage Domain.
Step 4: Now go to Management Tools > Nameservers
Step 5: Now click on Use Custom Nameservers and Enter the nameservers shown in – Step 3 i.e. ns1.epizy.com and ns2.epizy.com and click on Change Nameservers.
Now you have to wait for a five minutes, you can have a cup of coffee. We just linked our domain with our hosting site. Sometimes, it take only one minute, sometimes it take two to three hours. To check if it is linked, go back to infinity free as shown in Step 3 and click on Create Account. If they are linked, you will be redirected to this page –
If you encounter with a page with Important Notice, Click on I approve button at bottom of the window. Then you will be redirected to the page shown above. Then, click on Open Control Panel.
I think you are tired of all this, no? You might be wondering, How much longer would it take to create free website? So, my dear friend, you have successfully created your website with free domain and hosting for 1 year. Just open your new tab and open the website you named. You will see something like this-
Hey Hey! Don’t stop here. It’s time when we are going to install WordPress in our website.
How to Install WordPress?
Step 1: Open the Control Panel, and go to the Software tab below. Now click on Softaculous Apps Installer.
In between, if you have opened Control Panel before, but logged out from it, then open infinityfree.net again.
You will find a number of CMS there. But we are going to install WordPress, so hover your cursor on WordPress and Click on Install.
Step 2: Now, the last step is to configure WordPress.
In Choose Protocol, select http://
In Directory, remove wp. If you forget to remove wp from this field, WordPress will install in wp folder in your website.
Enter Site Name and Site Tagline as you want. Then, set Admin Username and Admin Password. This username and password will be used to login to your admin panel. Through Admin Panel, you can add posts, pages, plugins, themes and more.
Leave rest of the fields as it is and click on Install at the bottom.
After few seconds, you will get this message –
Congratulations, the software was installed successfully
WordPress has been successfully installed at :
http://trafficsolder.cf
Administrative URL : http://trafficsolder.cf/wp-admin/
Now, open the website and see a new look that you have never imagined. You have finally made it. You have successfully created a website with free domain and hosting for 1 year.
Since, you are new to this. Let me introduce with WordPress dashboard, so that you can explore it well.
WordPress Control Panel/Dashboard
Alright, We’re done with creating our own website and now we are going to manage it.
Go to http://your website name/wp-admin
eg. http://trafficsolder.cf/wp-admin
A login page will open. Use admin username and admin password you entered during configuration to login.
The Admin Panel of your site will appear which looks like this-
Now before you start modifying your website, you must be aware of the features of WordPress.
A website is a collection of web pages and a web page is a collection of media and texts. Inside a web page, we can have posts which further contains media and texts.
Post
Post is nothing but a section of a webpage which may contain media and texts. You may create a number of posts by clicking posts section on left list shown in above snapshot.
Media
Media is where you can upload your media files before adding it to any page/post.
Appearance
Appearance is a drop menu which contains:
Themes : You can change your website themes from there.
Customize: Customization provides easy way to change header image, header text, menu, widgets, footer, sidebars etc. given according to theme installed on it.
Widget: These are additional services like recent posts, calender, text etc. (Similar to your android phone’s widgets).
Editor: It contains CSS code of your website. This is what makes your site interactive. Without CSS, your website looks very boring. To know about CSS, visit W3/CSS.
Plugins: are used to add features to your website. As we install applications in our phone from store or any other site to make it more featured, we add plugins in our website to make it more featured. Despite creating programs, we can implement them easily on our website through plugins.
Users : tells you the information of registered users in your site.
Settings : gives changing services as Facebook gives.
Website Preview
Conclusion
Before I end this tutorial, I suggest you to do some things. First thing you do is creating a few posts and a few pages. Then change the current theme of your websites from thousand’s of themes given in Add New (In Appearance > Themes). And now open your website and click on Customize (present at top of webpage in admin tool bar). Do changes, but don’t stop.
I hope you like this tutorial. This tutorial is created to teach you to build your own website. You should learn manipulating it by yours by using all the services like posting some cool posts, create multiple pages, add some plugins etc. Just get into it. 
