How to Create Your Author Website for Free

How to Create Your Author Website for Free

if you are a self-published author, then you may be interested in creating your own author website to save money. While there are definitely advantages to having a professional web designer create your site for you, this is not in everyone’s budget. Luckily, you can still create a functional and quite attractive website without spending any money. You just have to know some of the tools that are out there and how you can customize them to create a unique site that looks as if it were professionally designed. Let’s look at some of the ways you can do that.

Use WordPress

The first tip is to use the WordPress platform to create your website. When you sign up for web hosting, which you can also get for free at sites like freehosting.com, you will have the WordPress installation tool already installed on your control panel. It comes with almost every web hosting package out there. WordPress is terrific because it is free to set up and very easy to edit, and it makes your website look much more professional than if you were to design from scratch without having the experience or skill to do so.

Find an Underused WordPress Theme

The second thing that you need to do is find a WordPress theme that you like. However, there are hundreds of thousands of themes listed on the WordPress theme website page, and you really want to dig deep and find ones that have not been overused. The ones at the beginning of the search results are the most popular ones because people tend to choose one as soon as they come across it, which means that the ones at the top are overused.

Customize the Theme with Your Own Graphics

Next, use Photoshop or another graphics editing program to create your own logo or header images to replace the ones that come with your WordPress theme. This is another way that you can make your site unique while still using the WordPress platform. You do not have to do anything fancy, so don’t worry if you are not that adept at using Photoshop. Sometimes, simply changing the color of the background header or the image to something you get on a stock photo site will make all the difference.

Change the Text of the Site

Another thing that you can do to customize your WordPress theme and make it your own is to change any tax that is included by default with the WordPress theme. Most of the text you will be able to change fairly easily, but some you may have to actually go into the code and change and this can be difficult for someone not familiar with WordPress.

Add Widgets & Plugins, Back Up Your Site

Finally, you can customize your site even further and make it more friendly for your readers and visitors by adding widgets and plug-ins that are useful and decorative. For example, you can add an opt in form that will allow people to join your author mailing list. In the worst case scenario where your site gets bricked, you can consult NYC Hard Drive Recovery companies like Onsite in 60 for help.

 

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