Today, I embarked on a journey to create a personal portfolio website in a day. I didn’t complete my mission but I know I can because I’ve done it before and think it’s pretty easy to create your own business website in a day, and for free.
It was part of an exercise to show my consultant clients how easy and simple it is to create an online presence for a company for no cost and in about a day.
At a cost of zero dollars, I created Ghatt Media (now defunct) and it served as a simple portfolio as well.
No one can tell it is created from a free blogging platform because I used an attractive landing page theme.
I also created a free wordpress site in about a day called Capitol Glam that I house digital assets, courses and other content I’ve created over the years, Capitol Glam.
Each website is hosted on WordPress.com which is a no-cost blogging platform, the cousin to the more functional and dynamic site WordPress.org, which requires separate self-hosting.
After signing up, simply select a theme. I recommend a landing page like theme, but you can search by color, type or free theme or premium price.
A lot of the themes are plug and play, in other words very easy to customize.
Also, WordPress does not allow plugins, tools that you download that add a bunch of functionality to your website, but it does permit its own Jetpack!
That’s cool because Jetpack is an all-in-one plugin and includes tools that give you page view Stats, enables engagement via Social media buttons for each page, and functionality to Auto share each update to different social platforms, Email subscriptions, a Form builder
Video uploads, polls, security scan and anti-commenting and anti spam functions along with a PhotoCDN that enables your photos to upload fast.
When you’re ready to take interested clients and potential leads, head over to Google Voice and get a free local telephone number . Before, it was looked upon as suspect but now, so many consultants, independent contractors, lean startups, organizations and other nonprofit entities use Google Voice that it has become an industry standard.
So be proud of operating a lean machine and take advantage of the free tools available out there that will help you make your presence online in no-time!
If you want to get your own domain, you can purchase one form WordPress.com for $18 but I recommend first checking out GoDaddy.com because it sometimes has $1.99 per domain deals. And also, when you’re ready to switch to self-hosting, consider GoDaddy or my host ZenStacks!
Jay Jay Ghatt is also editor at Techyaya.com, founder of the JayJayGhatt.com and JayJayGhatt.com where she teaches online creators how to navigate digital entrepreneurship and offers Do-It-For-You Blogging Service. She manages her lifestyle sites BellyitchBlog, Jenebaspeaks and JJBraids.com and is the founder of BlackWomenTech.com 200 Black Women in Tech On Twitter. Her biz podcast 10 Minute Podcast is available on iTunes and Player.fm. Follow her on Twitter at @Jenebaspeaks. Buy her templates over at her legal and business templates on Etsy shop!
