[GUIDE] How to Blog for Free

[Faceless Men]

Many newbies struggle with blogging as a good hosting provider charges anywhere between $9-35 per month to host your wordpress website. And wordpress websites are king of slow. They load a ton of features which you won't need for blogging. And it is more resource heavy.

That's why I have switched to Jekyll. Jekyll is a static site generator. And it uses markdown. Its very fast because it just generates static sites. My blog scores 100 in Google Pagespeed, 100 in Pingdom tools & 99 in GTMetrix. There are tons of themes out there for jekyll but I chose a paid one. I didn't purchase it, I downloaded the entire theme demo (3-4 MB) and edited it and added liquid syntax to make it jekyll compatible theme.

If you are wondering, here is the theme demo https://frostnfeather.github.io

Source code here: https://github.io/frostnfeather/frostnfeather.github.io

And best part is, GitHub Pages lets you host your entire site for free with a free Let's Encrypt SSL. I personally use Netlify as I use pagination plugins which are not yet supported by Github Pages. You can use custom domain on both platforms and free LEX3 SSL.

For non technical people this may sound confusing but actually its easier than using wordpress. If you want to use CMS instead of markdown then you can use Siteleaf which is free and you can create, edit & delete posts just like Wordpress. The theme I edited was not SEO friendly so I added various SEO tags & I wanted to add structured data too but I am currently busy with MaxBounty CPA & influencers. I will update the theme after few weeks by adding structured data.

How to Use This Theme:
1) Create an Account on Github & Create a repository named username.github.io
or just fork my repository after you create account & rename it to yourusername.github.io

2) Go to settings and scroll down & enable github pages for you repo.
3) If you have custom domain then add it there. For more info on adding custom domain go to https://help.github.com/articles/using-a-custom-domain-with-github-pages/

Edit the _config.yml file. Its well commented, you just have to enter your site name, url etc.
If you have github subdomain then add https://username.github.io or if custom domain then add https://yourdomain.com

That's it! Your website is live now. Free forever!!!

 

[vishy]

Bookmarked for future use. Sounds interesting!

 

[syabah]

In need of fast website. Surely bookmarked

 

[Boriss]

Bookmarked. Thanks.

 

[terrycody]

This is indeed the next big thing, I have read 1-2 times before this. But I am not a tech guy so I have to give up on this option.

I actually need static sites like Jekyll. I know there are other static site generators maybe try those later, though we are know github will be always the NO.1.

Such a pity have no tech background when doing IM things.

 

[Boriss]

This is indeed the next big thing, I have read 1-2 times before this. But I am not a tech guy so I have to give up on this option.

I actually need static sites like Jekyll. I know there are other static site generators maybe try those later, though we are know github will be always the NO.1.

Such a pity have no tech background when doing IM things.

There is another one:

https://gohugo.io/

I believe this is faster than Jekyll.

 

[WPRipper]

First of all, WP is not slow. Those premium themes loaded with plugins and scripts are causing that. Second, blogging is free And third, if you can't afford to buy a domain and a $5/m hosting, then I'm sorry to say that you do not belong in the online world. Writing an article is easy, anyone can do it. Promotion ... this is where you need more cash.

 

[terrycody]

There is another one:

https://gohugo.io/

I believe this is faster than Jekyll.

Thanks for the share!

There are tons of such static site generators and I am desperately need to try for my next project, because I want to generate maybe thousands of pages at once and you know such work is better not choose wordpress platform.

I never done such thing before but I have the right direction - static site generator.

Jekyll I think it will be always a good option, because you dont need pay the hosting fee and its blazing fast.

 

[Boriss]

Thanks for the share!

There are tons of such static site generators and I am desperately need to try for my next project, because I want to generate maybe thousands of pages at once and you know such work is better not choose wordpress platform.

I never done such thing before but I have the right direction - static site generator.

Jekyll I think it will be always a good option, because you dont need pay the hosting fee and its blazing fast.

Hey, your welcome.

This might help you, check out the video:

 

[ponting99]

Such a nice adwise! I use it right away 5stars!

 

[Faceless Men]

First of all, WP is not slow. Those premium themes loaded with plugins and scripts are causing that. Second, blogging is free And third, if you can't afford to buy a domain and a $5/m hosting, then I'm sorry to say that you do not belong in the online world. Writing an article is easy, anyone can do it. Promotion ... this is where you need more cash.

Compare WP to Jekyll, WP is resource heavy and is slow no matter which themes & plugins you use. And anyone can afford a domain and hosting, its not about that. Dynamic websites are good for forum, web apps & other stuff but static site is good for blogs & of course static websites. I have a VPS where I host my landing pages. Before i knew html & css, i used to build my landing pages using wordpress but they would not load fast & consume too much VPS resources but a static landing page not only saves bandwidth but loads blazing fast. Many top affiliate marketers like Charles Ngo recommend static landing pages.

 

[Faceless Men]

Hey, your welcome.

This might help you, check out the video:

hugo is fastest static site generator and it does not have to install dependencies. But currently only Jekyll is supported bu GitHub & hugo lacks many features like pretty permalinks etc. Hugo is must if you have site with 1000s of pages.

 

[Faceless Men]

Thanks for the share!

There are tons of such static site generators and I am desperately need to try for my next project, because I want to generate maybe thousands of pages at once and you know such work is better not choose wordpress platform.

I never done such thing before but I have the right direction - static site generator.

Jekyll I think it will be always a good option, because you dont need pay the hosting fee and its blazing fast.

if you have 1000s of pages then go for Hugo, its blazing fast and can generate 10000 pages in mere 5-8 seconds. And use netlify if you need free hosting. You just have to push to your github, gitlab or bitbucket repo and netlify will install all dependancies, build your site and publish it to their CDN. They also offer free Lets Encrypt SSL. I host my personal blog there.

 

[WarLords]

Nice guide we have here would use this for other test projects thanks.

 

[emgh]

Wordpress isn’t slow. Stop spreading lies and start investigsting. Setup wordpress the easiest way possible? Yes, it’s going to be slow.

Get a vps, install nginx cache, optimize, get a lightweight theme, for example Genesis and the difference will be very marginal. Just because you personally don’t take the time to make Wordpress work dosen’t mesn that it dosen’t work.

In addition, you can find deals for virtual private servers for a few dollars a year on sales. If you don’t have a few dollars a year I have no idea how you’re going to survive at all, no matter your blog.

 

[Faceless Men]

Wordpress isn’t slow. Stop spreading lies and start investigsting. Setup wordpress the easiest way possible? Yes, it’s going to be slow.

Get a vps, install nginx cache, optimize, get a lightweight theme, for example Genesis and the difference will be very marginal. Just because you personally don’t take the time to make Wordpress work dosen’t mesn that it dosen’t work.

In addition, you can find deals for virtual private servers for a few dollars a year on sales. If you don’t have a few dollars a year I have no idea how you’re going to survive at all, no matter your blog.

who said I don't have money. The technology wordpress is built on is outdated. Look at how many companies are switching from LAMP stack to MEAN stack. And even if wordpress is fast it needs too many resources. I have a VPS where I host one of my client's woocommerce store. For a store you will need a CMS but you won't need a CMS which uses database for a blog. Lots of big news sites have switched to GatsbyJS which is another SSG.

 

[weshare]

Many newbies struggle with blogging as a good hosting provider charges anywhere between $9-35 per month to host your wordpress website. And wordpress websites are king of slow. They load a ton of features which you won't need for blogging. And it is more resource heavy.

That's why I have switched to Jekyll. Jekyll is a static site generator. And it uses markdown. Its very fast because it just generates static sites. My blog scores 100 in Google Pagespeed, 100 in Pingdom tools & 99 in GTMetrix. There are tons of themes out there for jekyll but I chose a paid one. I didn't purchase it, I downloaded the entire theme demo (3-4 MB) and edited it and added liquid syntax to make it jekyll compatible theme.

If you are wondering, here is the theme demo https://frostnfeather.github.io

Source code here: https://github.io/frostnfeather/frostnfeather.github.io

And best part is, GitHub Pages lets you host your entire site for free with a free Let's Encrypt SSL. I personally use Netlify as I use pagination plugins which are not yet supported by Github Pages. You can use custom domain on both platforms and free LEX3 SSL.

For non technical people this may sound confusing but actually its easier than using wordpress. If you want to use CMS instead of markdown then you can use Siteleaf which is free and you can create, edit & delete posts just like Wordpress. The theme I edited was not SEO friendly so I added various SEO tags & I wanted to add structured data too but I am currently busy with MaxBounty CPA & influencers. I will update the theme after few weeks by adding structured data.

How to Use This Theme:
1) Create an Account on Github & Create a repository named username.github.io
or just fork my repository after you create account & rename it to yourusername.github.io

2) Go to settings and scroll down & enable github pages for you repo.
3) If you have custom domain then add it there. For more info on adding custom domain go to https://help.github.com/articles/using-a-custom-domain-with-github-pages/

Edit the _config.yml file. Its well commented, you just have to enter your site name, url etc.
If you have github subdomain then add https://username.github.io or if custom domain then add https://yourdomain.com

That's it! Your website is live now. Free forever!!!

Man, thanks for the share but I think it's better for you to open a premium service from this
So a business man like me can only focus on what matters to me and let the techie stuff done by you

Or is it already available in BST?

 

[Faceless Men]

Man, thanks for the share but I think it's better for you to open a premium service from this
So a business man like me can only focus on what matters to me and let the techie stuff done by you

Or is it already available in BST?

no, i don't sell any premium service. I am not a techie person too but I learned it myself by experimenting. If you don't have time for this then I am sure someone on upwork will help you. There are plenty of people doing this. I get all my designs & landing pages made on upwork. I ask them not to use any libraries and build using vanilla html/css/js. And ask them not to use font awesome. Ask them to use evil-icons or only SVG icons

 

[BadPanda69]

Here's a Good tutorial

 

[stepannnn]

So basically, this is a website which is ... totally free?
Sorry for the stupid question Im a newbie.