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

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.

Step three. Choose the URL for the art blog.

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.

Go to the themes section in the sidebar menu and choose a template.<p></p><p>There are lots of templates to choose from but the ones that work the best are the first four choices.</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Contempo</li><li>Soho</li><li>Emporio</li><li>Notable Light</li></ul><p></p><p>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.</p><p>Step five. The website is live so start posting!</p><h4 style="text-align: left;">My site is up and running in minutes</h4><p>I literally go from creating the website to posting in about 5 minutes. </p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Get a custom domain</h3><p>When I’m ready to launch my site I can do it right from Blogger and it’s really easy.</p><p>I go to the settings section in the sidebar menu then scroll down to the publishing section and click “custom domain”.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><p>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.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">Make as many sites as I want</h3><p>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.</p><p>But there is one more option that’s free and is also available right from my Google account.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Google Sites</h2><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><p>Google Sites is another website host that’s built into a Google account. It’s actually hosted from Google Drive.</p><p>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.</p><p>Step 1. Go to sites.google.com </p><p>Step 2. Choose a new blank template. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><p>Step 3. Then choose the name for your Google Site.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><p>The title here is how to choose the name for my site.</p><p>Step 4. Start dragging elements from the sidebar to the page and start creating pages. </p><p>Step 5. After making changes hit publish.</p><p>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. </p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Get a custom domain</h3><p>Google Sites publishes its sites to a really long obscure URL like sites.google.com/view/testartistwebsite for example.</p><p>But when I’m ready I can choose to buy a custom domain for the site just like I do with Blogger.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><p>And I can create as many sites as I want from my Google sites account just like I can with Blogger.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">In closing</h2><p>While Google sites is a fantastic service. I prefer Blogger because I create and share stuff on my website every day. </p><p>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.</p><div>
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