You can make a website and put it online for for free in less than 2 hours
You probably fall into two categories: A) You know at least basic web dev, B) You do not know web dev.
If you are in category A, building a personal website will likely take you less than 2 hours. If you are in category B, this is a great way to get started learning basic web development!
Why Make a Website? (It is Free)
Making a personal website is likely not going to be what gets you a job. However, you never know what might come out of it!
- Some job applications might have a 'website' field and actually having one will make you stand out
- If you link your website on your resume and have a portfolio section, you never know what jobs might actually look at it! (A big reason why I got a Google internship offer was because of my website)
- You will learn something by deploying something to the Internet
How?
You need a GitHub account, know basic HTML, and be familiar with how to use Git. If you do not know any of this, take 3 hours of your life and try to learn these skills because they will be extremely useful. Watch this 15 minute video to get started.
Spend another 4 minutes looking at this post on how to make your website look decent.
- Make a GitHub repository named
username.github.iowhereusernameis your GitHub user name. - Make sure it is public
- Create an
index.htmlfile in this folder.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>REPLACE_ME</title>
</head>
<body>
<div class="container">
<div class="blurb">
<h1>Hi there, I'm REPLACE_ME!</h1>
<p>Who am I?</p>
</div>
</div>
<footer>
<ul>
<li><a href="mailto:REPLACE_ME@gmail.com">REPLACE_ME</a></li>
<li>
<a href="https://github.com/REPLACE_ME">github.com/REPLACE_ME</a>
</li>
</ul>
</footer>
</body>
</html>
Here is something to get you started. Be sure to replace REPLACE_ME with the actual content. You can add links to your LinkedIn, your GitHub, your Resume, and whatever else you see fit!
- Commit and publish to GitHub! You should be able to see it on your GitHub repo and if you go to https://YOUR_USERNAME.github.io/ you should see your web page.
How to get free a custom domain?
You can actually get a custom domain for free through Namecheap! University students can get a .me domain for free here: https://nc.me/
This will only last for a year so keep that in mind!
Then you can link your Github repo to your free domain by visiting here!
How can I get a university website?
You can get a subdirectory to host a website like http://sites.pitt.edu/~you/ through the university for free.
The technology department has created a detailed guide here
.
Examples
Be creative!