Skip to main content

Two websites I use to make my art business blogs that are free, easy and quick

illustration of two monsters making a website
Here is a drawing I did of some monsters making a website 🙂

Have you been thinking about making a website for what you do?

Looking to make a website that is something beyond just building a cart? Something that shows what you do artistically to talk about your process and just let people more about you as a creator. Then I hope you find this useful.

Here's a way to set up a website, that is easy to use, free, and should only take about 10 minutes to get it up and running.

The first is a service I use for several of my own sites - including this one!

(Related Post: Why I create a free website for all my ideas)

Blogger.com

The first one is Blogger by Google

This is how simple it is to create a Blogger website right now.

  1. Go to blogger.com
  2. Enter the title of the website
  3. Choose the URL for the art blog
  4. Pick out a template
  5. The website is live

I'm going to walk through the steps of creating a new website myself

screenshot of a webpage

Step one. Go to blogger.com

If you already have a Gmail account, you can just use that and sign in automatically to create a website.

Step two. Enter the title of the website.

screenshot of pop-up window

Step three. Choose the URL for the art blog.

screenshot of pop-up window

When first making a new website, I don't even need to buy a domain. I can start with a blogspot.com address until I officially launch the site.

Note: The URL may already be taken. Don’t worry you can get your own “dot com” address later. Try different URL names until finding one that’s not taken. Even adding a 1 to the address sometimes helps.

Step four. Pick out a template.

screenshot of blogger template chooser
Go to the themes section in the sidebar menu and choose a template.

There are lots of templates to choose from but the ones that work the best are the first four choices.

  • Contempo
  • Soho
  • Emporio
  • Notable Light

All the other templates on the list below those are from a much older version of the Blogger and are not mobile-friendly. So I just ignore those.

Step five. The website is live so start posting!

My site is up and running in minutes

I literally go from creating the website to posting in about 5 minutes. 

Get a custom domain

When I'm ready to launch my site I can do it right from Blogger and it's really easy.

I go to the settings section in the sidebar menu then scroll down to the publishing section and click "custom domain".

Screenshot of website

In the pop-up choose "Buy domain" and it will take me to Google domains where I can get my own URL for just $12 a year. Not too shabby.

Screenshot of pop-up window

Make as many sites as I want

And I can make several websites right here in Blogger. I can switch between working on this website, my pop-culture website, my band website, and more. All from this account.

But there is one more option that's free and is also available right from my Google account.

Google Sites

screenshot of website

Google Sites is another website host that's built into a Google account. It's actually hosted from Google Drive.

You can create pages, add pictures and text, and more. It’s a type of site to post to if I don't plan on updating it much. It's more just a portfolio page.

Step 1. Go to sites.google.com 

Step 2. Choose a new blank template. 

Screenshot of website button

Step 3. Then choose the name for your Google Site.

screenshot of website form

The title here is how to choose the name for my site.

Step 4. Start dragging elements from the sidebar to the page and start creating pages. 

Step 5. After making changes hit publish.

It's just like a Squarespace site. But a more, minimalistic version and has a drag-and-drop interface. It’s an alternative to a Blogger type of site if I don’t want to update it very often. 

Get a custom domain

Google Sites publishes its sites to a really long obscure URL like sites.google.com/view/testartistwebsite for example.

But when I'm ready I can choose to buy a custom domain for the site just like I do with Blogger.

screenshot of pop-up window

And I can create as many sites as I want from my Google sites account just like I can with Blogger.

In closing

While Google sites is a fantastic service. I prefer Blogger because I create and share stuff on my website every day. 

Also, I can make as many websites as I want. I actually have about 10 sites that I run right now for different subjects using Blogger and Google Sites.


Listen To The Podcast

Popular

To Do: Multitasking My Business, Music, and Comics

Sometimes balancing my multiple projects can often feel like an overwhelming task. I sit and think out loud about the tasks I need to juggle this week from my vintage reselling business, my band, and my webcomic series. In this video vlog, I begin the week by prioritizing tasks and setting goals. I'm going to mark them as I go along. ✅ = Done ⏲ = Still waiting Vintage reselling business - The Pop Culture Roadshow With a vintage reselling business to run, the first order of business is to pack orders from weekend sales on platforms like eBay and Mercari.  As I pack these items I need to record a 'What Sold' video for my Pop Culture roadshow YouTube channel , turning the task into video content. ✅ Pack orders ✅ List new items I got from estate sales (See my latest eBay store listings here ) ⛔ Create a new "What sold" video for my YouTube page (Recorded not edited - Laptop upgrade issues) Band - Lorenzo's Music I've also got a new song out this month so I nee...

Artwork for the original Candy Land game by Milton Bradley from 1955.

I have a vintage Candy Land game from 1955 by Milton Bradley and I was about to sell it so I thought I would add it to my personal art history course concept I've been doing . I'm going to try and see if I can find out how this game was created, designed and why? Here is what I found out about this game https://candy-land.fandom.com/wiki/Candy_Land_Wiki Candy Land is a board game about children exploring a world made out of candy and other sweets that originally came out in 1949. In every version of the game, there are a group of children that go through Candy Land. In the earliest versions of the game, it was a realistically drawn boy and girl. Drawing of the Candy Land kids I did on my phone ☝ https://board-games-galore.fandom.com/wiki/Candy_Land The game was designed in 1948 by Eleanor Abbott , while she was recovering from polio in San Diego, California. It's rumored that Eleanor also did the original artwork but I didn't find anything that...

Art Inspiration: Digging on old Scooby-Doo cartoon background artwork

Can we all just take a second to appreciate the background art of the 1969 Scooby-Doo cartoons ?  Easily the most inspirational artwork from my childhood right here.  I think this scene from the cartoon is what inspired my recent nostalgia for the Money Island computer game I wrote about in my webcomic . Who did these background paintings? I wrote a post about the artist Walter Peregoy who did the background artwork for the series over on my pop-culture roadshow blog . Some of the things I learned about the artist He had a modernist 50s style Designed the 101 dalmatians cartoon look Was an artist for one of the Liquid Television cartoons on MTV Go here to see more... Read more about the artist and their  artwork  on my pop-culture blog.  Go here to see more background artwork

A quick peek behind-the-scenes of a new webcomic series. Coming soon!

I've recently paused my usual diary comic to dedicate my attention to an exciting new project—a fiction webcomic series featuring two characters that may be familiar to my long-time followers.  These characters, Bobert and the Monster have made appearances on my website before , and now they're taking center stage.  I'm working diligently with the hope of launching the series shortly.  In the meantime, I'd like to share this behind-the-scenes video of the drawing process for one of the upcoming pages.  Stay tuned for more updates as I bring this creative vision to life.