Create-a-Free-Blog – Part 1
This is our very first post here at LearnTechCafe. It’s all about helping you build your own blog for free, with no ads, and no trials. The only “catch”? You need a willingness to learn, using an open-source tool called Hugo (more on that later). So follow along with this series and build yourself a clean, professional website to get your thoughts and ideas out there for the world to see, all while saving you money.
Why Start a Blog?
Have you always wanted to start a blog, just to get your thoughts out there? Maybe you want to:
- Build a personal portfolio
- Write and share book reviews
- Share your tech journey
- Create a personal, digital workspace
-
Document and track caffeine consumption publicly - Or just learn how to build a website in general?
If you’ve ever gone to Google and typed something like:
- “How to start a blog for free?”
- “Best free blogging platform”
- “Is WordPress free?”
Then you’ve probably run into the same problem I did. That is: Most “free” blogging options aren’t really free.
What’s the Catch with Most “Free” Blogging Platforms?
These “free” platforms either have:
- A limited-time trial
- Reduced features
- Visually displeasing ads
- Ugly branding you can’t remove
- Or all of the above
To remove some of these features, you need to pay to upgrade.
Sure, platforms such as WordPress, Wix or Squarespace let you setup a blog with ease. However, with this ease, comes a cost – either in money, performace, or control. Yes, many people use these services. And that’s perfectly fine! You can get a professional blog up and running quickly with any one of these services.
But what if I told you that…
You Can Build a Free Blog
Not only that – it’s also:
- Completely ad-free
- Privacy-friendly and ethical
- Lightning fast
- Fully under your control – no company can take down your posts
- Did I mentioned it’s 100% free?
We’re here to tell you that this is not only possible, but completely doable, even for beginners! There are other blogging solutions available, especially if you want to save money, increase performance, and have much greater control over your blog – as long as you’re curious and willing to get hands-on and learn how to build and take control of your own blog. We’re here to show you one of those solutions.
What You’ll Learn in this Tutorial Series
We’ll teach you how to use four main tools to build your blogging website.
- Hugo – A free static site generator to create your website and site content using simple code. Don’t worry, it creates most of the code for you!
- Visual Studio Code – A free software program for you to view and edit your code
- GitHub – A place to store your site content and code for free
- Netlify – A service that hosts your site online, for free
- Bonus – We’ll also show you how to purchase a custom domain using Netlify.
*ZZZT Purchase a custom domain?
- Bonus – We’ll also show you how to purchase a custom domain using Netlify.
Yes, A.B.A2, purchase. This is the only piece of the whole puzzle that costs money – if you wish to have a custom domain (like learntechcafe.com), you must purchase it. Luckily, this is optional. If you walk through this process with us, we’ll set you up with a live, free domain – you just can’t customize it unless you buy your own domain. We’ll get to that later in this series!
With the above tools, you’ll:
- Write your posts in simple Markdown — a lightweight formatting language that makes writing and styling content easy
- Publish your posts to GitHub
- Automatically deploy your posts to the web, instantly.
It’s actually really cool once you get it running! Yes it takes some learning – but no, it’s not overwhelming. It’s not drag-and-drop like WordPress, but don’t worry, you won’t be required to become a hardcore developer, or drown in code. We’ll keep it simple.
By the end of this series, you’ll have a fully functional blog that:
- Loads super fast compared to most paid blog platforms out there
- Doesn’t track or advertise to your readers
- Costs you nothing but a domain name (optional)
- Belongs 100% to you
Why We’re Doing This
This is what LearnTechCafe is all about: building digital skills on a budget, in a fun, stress-free and beginner-friendly way!
Coming Up Next
In Part 2 of our Create-a-Free-Blog Tutorial, we’ll walk you through installing Hugo and building your first blog post! You’ll get to see your blog in your browser, and we’ll show you how to customize some basic features to get your blog ready to go live.
This blog is still super-new, so we don’t have an email-list yet. If this is something you’d be interested in seeing, please, reach out to us! Feedback is always appreciated.
💬 Send us an message!