How to Publish a Website for Free

• Hosted platform — build visually, publish with a button. Fastest to launch, least control, and you are tied to their pricing when you outgrow the free tier.
• Static site generator + free hosting — you write Markdown, a tool builds plain HTML, and it uploads to a CDN. Fast, portable, free forever, and nothing runs on a server so there is nothing to patch.
• GitHub Pages — one folder of HTML and you're live. Ideal for a single page, documentation, or a project site; you push and it rebuilds automatically.

• 1. Write two or three pages. If you can't fill three, you don't need a site yet — you need a page.
• 2. Pick a template or a minimal generator. Don't customise the design yet; nobody is looking at your CSS.
• 3. Publish to a free host and get a working URL before you make it pretty.
• 4. Add a custom domain and turn on HTTPS — both are free and both take an afternoon.
• 5. Add the essentials: a title, a description, a favicon, a way to be contacted, and a privacy statement if you collect anything.
• 6. Submit the sitemap and tell search engines the site exists.

A subdomain is genuinely fine to start — free hosts all provide one, and it can be replaced later without losing anything. A real domain costs roughly the price of a coffee a year, and gets you a memorable address and a stronger impression when you write to anyone about it.

• HTTPS is free and automatic on every reputable host. Never ship a site without it.
• Point the domain at the host, then add it in the host's dashboard — the reverse of what most guides say, and the step that trips everyone up.
• Choose a domain once. Changing it later means starting your search history over.
• Prefer a .com if it exists and is unpriced reasonably; the newer extensions are fine but read oddly in print and in email.

• Compress every image. It is almost always the single biggest win available and takes two minutes.
• Use modern formats where they're supported, and never ship an image far larger than the space it displays in.
• Serve static files over HTTPS with caching headers so returning visitors get instant loads.
• Ship as little JavaScript as possible. Most sites need far less than a template assumes.
• Test on a real phone over mobile data. That is where most of your visitors are.

A static site needs almost no maintenance, which is the real argument for it. A site with a database, a login or a build plugin needs updating whether or not anyone visits it.

• If you use a generator, update it every few months — the dependencies underneath it will age regardless.
• Back up your source. If you wrote in Markdown, that folder *is* your backup, and it is the most valuable thing on the site.
• Check your renewal dates for domains and hosting. An unnoticed expiry is the most common way a working site disappears.
• Keep a copy of anything that only exists in the database of a hosted platform.