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Some basics
Some basics
Domain names
Domain names
A domain name is the base name for a website, for example uwc.ac.za or bbc.com. As an individual it is not necessary to own a domain name.
Domain names cost money, but not a lot. However, most website builders will charge to link a domain name to a website.
It is easy to build websites using free plans. Most will give you a simple enough url for example using their domain name. (for example carolinaastro.wordpress.com if I were to set up a website on wordpress.com, one of the many website builders available.)
Website Builders and Advertising
Website Builders and Advertising
Most free website builders and hosts will put advertising on your page in exchange for a free plan to build and host your website. Most academics will not like having advertising on their professional portfolio so it is worth looking at how intrusive the advertising is.
The worst is when they put third-party advertising on your page. I recommend staying away from that option. Most providers of free websites will simply put a small text on your site advertising their own website services, like "build your own free website with xyz.com". This is usually fine.
The less intrusive the advertising, the more professional your website will look.
Features to look for
Features to look for
When you don't want to design a website, many providers offer templates that you can easily adapt for your own purposes. Using a nice template immediately makes a website look professional.
You want to look for an easy backend as well. The backend is the interface to build the website. Some offer simple drag-and-drop elements, while others have more complex interfaces that come with a learning curve. It's up to you if you want to learn a particular platform, or if you just want to copy-paste, drag and drop and be ready to go.
So where should I go?
So where should I go?
There are many reviews of free website providers out there. Most are aimed at small business owners who wish to establish an online presence. However, this review is quite thorough in the examination of features. Feel free to read it, or just see below for a short list of recommended free website providers.
What is a responsive website?
What is a responsive website?
This is a feature that you will certainly want to pay attention to. When a website is responsive, it adapts to the screen size of the browser. This means that if someone looks at your website from their cell phone, it looks nicely designed for the phone and not way too wide with the text beign so smallfor example. Make sure you choose a responsive template. In most cases you won't have to worry about what it looks like on a tablet or a cell phone, it will be built in to the template.
Do I need to worry about SEO or ecommerce?
Do I need to worry about SEO or ecommerce?
Many website hosting providers will boast about how your webpages will be SEO friendly or can include ecommerce features. For an academic porfolio site, however, this is not relevant. SEO means "Search Engine Optimization". It is the set of invisible bits of code that make a commercial site appear high up in search engine results. Companies will typically use that to appear high up if someone googles their competitors for example. It is not relevant for academia.
Ecommerce is the ability to have an online store and sell things online. Unless you have a side gig selling home-made soap bars or something like that, you really don't have to worry about ecommerce features.
Short list of good website hosting solutions for portfolio.
Short list of good website hosting solutions for portfolio.
Here is a list of places where you can build your own website for free. Up to you to choose one that you like, this list is given in no preferential order.
Pros: Ads are not prominent, modern templates, extremely easy building interface, simple url
Cons: It appears that from South Africa, we get automatically redirected to webnode.co.uk, so the url we get for a free site is a .co.uk one.
Pros: No ads, modern-looking templates, although not a huge collection, easy build interface, easy to make more than one page
Cons: The url is not the nicest one. The address of your website will be something like sites.google.com/yourusername/yoursitename. If your institution uses google services, watch out that your website with institutional email may disappear if you leave the institution and your account is deleted, so it's better to use a person gmail account.
Pros: Non-intrusive advertising. Wordpress is open source so has a vast community of developers contibuting templates, plug-ins, etc.
Cons: The building interface is a little complicated. Because wordpress was originally a blog platform, this leaves a legacy in how wordpress sites are built, and this often leads to a website that is very hard to maintain if the information is not very well organised in the wordpress philosphy.
I am a long-term user of wordpress and can assist if you want to use it for your site.
Pros: This is one of the biggest website builders out there. There are lots of templates to choose from. Easy interface to build a website
Cons: The advert for wix.com appears as a banner on top of the page and doesn't go away, it can be quite intrusive.
Pros: Easy to set up, modern templates, non-invasive advertising, easy interface to build a webpage.
Cons: None that I could see.
For those of you who are more keen to sticking to your programming habits, github offers GitHub Pages, where your website is a simple github repository. The pages are written in markdown, or in HTML, up to you. You can make individual or organisation pages, as well as pages for your projects. Many open source projects use github pages. This solution are for those who are happy to code and the result is generally quite elegant, but this is a very different approach to the tools described above.
Building a website from scratch
Building a website from scratch
Some people prefer to go the long route and get a website hosting package, install a content management system like Wordpresss and have to code the design and features of their website, etc. This is all possible of course, but it is really not necessary. However, if you want to go that route and wish to get some assistance, feel free to get in touch.
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