Originally posted to HubPages in 2014. Updated at the end of the post.

I read a post with this very title (see above) on another site. Great title, low on real content. They talked about what you need but in generic terms. There was nothing there to really help anyone. It was a post created to generate traffic, get readers but it would not keep many of them because it did not back up the promise given in the title.

I’ve been publishing my own sites online since 1998 and I have done in with a sadly modest (miserly) budget.

WordPress Versus Blogger or Other Options, Like Joomla

I will not bash Google Blogger (blogspot.com) because that is a long-lived, free blogging platform which keeps up with trends quite well, has a lot of features and the ability to be customized. You get a lot from Blogger and pay nothing. I still think Blogger is a good way for anyone to start a site, give it some time to see how you like it and evolve your ideas. You don't need to rush into buying a domain, a web host or templates.

However, when you do have your plan and you know what you want to blog about (or create a site for, it doesn't always have to be a blog) take a look at WordPress (not the .com, I mean WordPress.org).

One of the best things about WordPress is the community support. People who like WordPress, get into the spirit of open source and giving and free exchange. This is why you can get such a variety of really good plugins and themes to take your site from out of the box (as is) to something of your own creation. Take a moment to thank the WordPress developers and theme makers who give so much without asking for payment.

Update 2025:

I would not recommend WordPress now. It's lost the focus of being about self publishing for individuals. Now its for WordPress site designers (NOT web designers, I don't think many of them know HTML) to build cookie cutter sites for clients. The software is bloated with things you don't really need and the things you could use are gone. Instead they are plugins you need to pay for. It is VERY hard to find any open source/ free plugins on the WordPress plugin directory now. WordPress is not what it once was. It's a good money maker for the people who sell their services for WordPress, its themes and plugins.

If you need a small site for your business, Blogger has not been entirely abandoned, but people tend to look down on it. You can use the Blogger software with your own domain. That would work well enough to put up a few pages to promote and give information about your business, while using your domain.

My best advice, in 2025, is to go back to the basics, build your own site with just plain HTML and text. You can find lots of guides for using HTML online.

Add images to your site from your own photographs or find someone who can draw and scan the images for you. Don't use images right from the digital camera unless you have settings to keep the images from being huge files that will take time to load or be very large in the space they take up on the web page. There are free image conversion services online. Make sure the one you use does not leave a watermark (ad) on your image.

Instead of a contact form, offer an email address people can reply to. That keeps it simple for you and them. Include your business name, address and phone number too. A photo of your business if you have a location people can come to.

If you want to have something more with a lot of posts, like a weblog, look for software like Chyrp Lite. This is the software I'm currently using. I like AlternativeTo, a directory of software alternatives if you want to look for something else.

Other than the cost of web hosting and the domain, you don't need to spend anything but time to have a site online.

If you only need a simple site to get your business online, keep it simple. Not only will it load quickly but people will not have trouble accessing it. It will be easy for you to update yourself, no need to pay someone to make changes and updates to your site.

Even in 2025, it does not need to be expensive, complicated, or troublesome to have a website or self publish for yourself online.

I miss webrings. They were a great way to find new links, interesting ideas and people. Social media is an offshoot of webrings. Most of the webring software I used to know is gone. Swallowed up by marketing. The new webrings are different, lighter, and they tend to be personal.

Sadgrl Webring Listings

I've looked at so many interesting things related to minimal web site designs yesterday and today. My mind is full of this and that. I created an idea for this site, doodled the layout I'd use. Then, I found this software, Chyrp-lite.

It has enough features to work with my old site and yet its simple to deal with. So far. I've thought others were going to work, gotten enthusiastic and then found they just didn't work for one reason or another. I wondered if I was just being too picky. Or, finding ways to nitpick and procrastinate about getting the site up again. I hope not.

Installing it wasn't difficult. Looks like it uses markup which I will have to get used to. Unless there is another option. This is my first post with the software. No problems found.