Most CMS programs are free, open source programs, meaning that they are created and maintained by a community of individuals and offered free of charge to you.  They vary a lot in their complexity, learning curve, and features they offer.  They allow you to change your site’s appearance using templates and provide, and provide search engines, news feeds, site statistics, file managers, among many others.

If you don’t need all those bells and whistles and instead just want a simple site, you should read the Free blog hosts article. 

List of free Content Management Systems (CMS)

WordPress Content Management System

One unique thing about WordPress is that you can use it as a true content management system (CMS) or as a regular blog.  As a CMS, WordPress is quickly becoming the most popular.  WordPress is easy to configure, yet has a lot of cool features and has a ton of “plugins” that make it highly customizable.  For a more detailed description, you should check out the Review of WordPress Content Management System (CMS) article.  I recently switched this website over to WordPress, so you can expect a whole bunch of tutorials on how to set it up and navigate in the near future.

Drupal

Drupal is an open source content management system (CMS) that uses PHP and MySQL. Drupal is modular, very customizable, and has many advanced features.  For a more detailed review of Drupal, you should read the article, Review of Drupal Content Management System (CMS).  Having used Drupal previously for two of my websites, I also have created a bunch of tutorials on how to set up Drupal and some of the more advanced features.  If you already decided to use Drupal, you should probably check out the Starting a site with Drupal article with pointers to get you started and a list of other related Drupal articles.  It allows an individual user or even a community of users to publish, manage and maintain your website. You can use it to create blogs, forums, picture galleries, file upload and download sites, forums, collaborative authoring environments, podcasting, peer-to-peer networking sites, etc. The system is modular and highly customizable. It is licensed under the GNU General Public License.

Joomla!

Joomla! is an open source content management system (CMS) that you can use from an online interface where you can edit Joomla! using a WYSIWYG editor.  You can add features by installing their extensions that include dynamic form builders, blogging software, email newsletters, shopping carts, image galleries, and chat software, among others.  In order to run Joomla!, your web server must have Apache, PHP, and MySQL installed.

Movable Type

Movable Type is a Perl Based content management system (CMS) that you to build multiple websites and blogs.  They have both a commercial version and an open source/free version, and this article will refer to the free version.  They provide custom fields to organize data, a revision history that track changes you make, customizations using plugins, and several different themes.

eZ Publish

eZPublish is a content management system (CMS) that uses a MySQL database and allows you to publish your content form within your web browser (like almost all CMS programs).  Some of the features of eZPublish are its multimedia publishing, extensions, user management, and the ability to publish using Microsoft Word. 

TextPattern

TextPattern is an open source CMS that uses a Textile syntax to create “structurally sound and stylistically rich web content”.  It is fairly easy for anyone to modify and does offer quite a bit of flexibility. It also meshes well with CSS so that fonts, colors and sizes can be edited using CSS.

In general, CMS programs are a good choice for those of you who don’t have the time, aren’t technically savvy, or are not interested in getting too deeply involved in web design. More specifically, CMS might be good for those who want to create a site themselves, but don’t want to get involved in a lot of the behind the scenes work and don’t want to worry about having flexibility in site design. Individuals who expect to have a more complicated site (like myself) but do not feel they are technical enough to do it themselves might benefit from CMS.

I wouldn’t use CMS at first if you want to get your hands dirty and really learn how to create a site. You may find out later that CMS is a better option, but you should first try using a web editor. Also, unless you really understand CSS and creating code, you won’t have as much flexibility in the look of your site.

If you are interested in using a CMS program, go to the Free Content Management Systems (CMS) article for a list and description of several of them.

Drupal is a free and open source content management system (CMS) written in PHP and distributed under the GNU General Public License.  You must have PHP and a database like MySQL installed in order to use Drupal. 

Some of Drupal’s features include RSS-feeds, customized page layouts, and the ability to set up forums, shopping carts, and community websites for user-generated content.  You can customize using Drupal’s core plug-in modules contributed by open source community members.  You can change the look and feel of the site using several contributed “themes.”

Here are my thoughts…

Drupal is meant for more advanced web designers.  Drupal has many advanced features like the collaborative story-writing feature I mentioned and they have support for multiple sites and multiple authors.  But it is quite complex to use.

Drupal is only meant for you if:

• You know CSS and HTML and are comfortable modifying code.  If you have just a basic understanding of code, don’t use Drupal.  Just don’t.  In order to make Drupal function properly, you need to decipher Drupal’s code.  Since you will be modifying code that someone else created it could be more complex than creating the code yourself. 
• You know how to write PHP programs.  PHP is basically a more advanced type of code.  If you don’t have experience with PHP, you will have a very difficult time using Drupal. 
• You need support for multiple sites and multiple authors.

I found out the hard way that Drupal was meant for people with advanced knowledge of code, PHP, and web design.

Beyond that, just the installation was very difficult and took MUCH longer than I expected.  I felt that their administration interface was very confusing, hard to follow, and simply not user-friendly.  They do not have a very good support forum, either.  If you need support, it seems that you need to ask 10 different people to get an answer.  Remember, most of the people that use Drupal are advanced web designers, and if you’re not one of them, you will be confused quite often.

However, if you have a good understanding of web design and code, you might be very pleased with Drupal.  If you want to give Drupal a shot, you can find all the information you need and instructions to get you going in the Starting a site with Drupal article.

Note: WordPress has a CMS version and a blogging version.  I will examine the CMS program in this article, but you can read my overview of the WordPress blogging software in the Free blog hosts article.

WordPress basic information

WordPress is a free, open source software built on PHP and MySQL and licensed by the GNU General Public License.  WordPress might just be the easiest of all the CMS programs around.  First of all, it is pretty easy to install WordPress using what they call their “famous 5-minute installation.”  Although installing any CMS program is a bit confusing if you haven’t done it before, installation of WordPress is much easier than most.  If you have trouble with the installation, I will create a full step-by-step WordPress installation tutorial soon.

WordPress features a very logical and easy to follow “dashboard,” which is the main page where you make all of the changes to your site.

Automatic filters make creating article “posts” very simple.  These filters create automatic formatting and styling of text without the need to dive into the HTML code.  For those who are comfortable with code, you can easily switch over to code view to make edits.

WordPress has a templating system that allows for quite a bit of customization.  A rich array of plugins allows users and developers to extend its functionality beyond the features that come as part of the base install.  They also include widgets that can be rearranged without editing code.  In addition, they have well over 1,000 visual themes that you can choose from to change the look of your site. 

Other features include integrated link management; a very search engine-friendly design, clean permalinks and cron, and the ability to assign multiple categories and tags to articles.  Also, upgrading to newer versions of WordPress requires hardly any work at all.

Finally, if you have questions or need help, WordPress has a pretty good support section.  I was particularly impressed with their getting started tutorials.  You can find many answers using their FAQ section or through their discussion forum pages.

My thoughts

In my opinion, if you don’t want to create your own site from scratch, but don’t just want a simple blogging platform, I feel WordPress is the way to go.  It is much easier to use than some of the other content management systems, yet offers a lot of advanced features and customization options.

Here are a few other points regarding blogs:

Features of free blogging hosts

1.     Blogs are intended for simple sites

Blogging hosts are generally intended for people who want to create a simple site without any of the hassles of a typical website.  If you just want to create a personal blog or hobby website and don’t plan to make money from your site, a free blogging host is perfect.

However, if you want to create a legitimate site that generates income, sells a product, or simply want to create your own site, a free blogging host is not for you.

2.     Blogs don’t offer much customization

One clear drawback of a free blog host is that you don’t have much flexibility in the look and structure of the site.  You generally have just a few templates to choose from and are limited to the structure they provide.

3.     Issues with advertising

Some of the free blog hosts will not allow you to place advertisements on your site.  Some of them also will place their own advertisements on your page.  That may not be a problem for you, but it is certainly something to keep in mind.

Other considerations

When you decide to use a free blogging host, you don’t really “own” your own site.  First of all, if your free blog hosts disappears, your site disappears along with it.  Also, your blog name is their property, so you can’t take it with you if you switch to another blog host or create a new site on your own. 

If you aren’t comfortable with either of those options, you might want to consider getting your own domain name and using a paid web host.  It does not cost much and ensures that your site is your site.  If you don’t know the first thing about creating your own site, you could always use a commercial blog host like TypePad.  There are several services like Content Management Systems (CMS) that are not very difficult to set up.  Or you could

List of free blog hosts

Blogger

One of the most popular free blog hosting services, Blogger is a Google program that provides the online interface and hosting for your blog.  You can publish your blog online using their free service or through FTP to your web host.  You have several templates to choose from, you can customize the templates, choose which posts to display, as well as archives and news feeds.  Blogger let’s you create as many blogs as you want and they provide you with a subdomain name like yourwebsite.blogspot.com, although they do place advertisements on your blog.

WordPress.com free blog

In addition to the content management system (CMS) version of WordPress, you can create a site using their free blog service that is even easier.  They have many themes to choose from, spam protection, ability to back up your blog posts, spam protection, traffic statistics for your blog, and support for multiple authors.  You are not able to put ads on your blog and you are limited to 50MB of uploads.

Live Journal

Live Journal allow you to customize your blog’s appearance, create a community, post photos, lets people post their own comments, and generates an RSS news feed.  You can post your articles through its website or through their desktop client software that allows you to post on your desktop.

BlogText.org

This free blog host allows you to create customizable topics, view statistics on your visitors, and notify visitors of new posts.  They don’t provide many customizable options, but you can post photos.

What exactly is a Domain Name?

As I mentioned in Introduction to domain names, your domain is really nothing more than the name you will give your site, like “cnn.com.”  It is the URL “address” where people can find your site.  When someone first starts their website, they will choose a domain name and register it through a domain name registrar.  Then they “point” their domain name to a website, so that when people type that URL address they are taken to the site. For instance, typing siteforstarters.com takes you to the main page of this website.

Reasons to park your domain name

When most people create their own website, one of the very first steps they take is to buy a domain name from a domain registrar like GoDaddy.  Since most people haven’t actually created their website at this point, they don’t have a place to point the domain name and they basically have a domain name floating in space.

Parking your domain name is not complicated at all.  Basically, if you don’t have a website when you buy your domain name, the registrar will allow you to use a placeholder web page so that when people type in your domain name, they actually go to a real page.  You can’t add any of your own content to the page or anything – you literally are just parking your domain name until you have your own real website.

Sometimes you might actually want to choose to park your domain name.  One example is to buy domain names just in case you will use them in the future.  Or maybe you bought a few domain names for one website and can’t decide which name you want. 

Reasons not to park a domain name with your registrar

For most people, parking your domain name is just not an issue since you probably only plan on parking it until you decide on a web host and physically design your site.  Since you won’t have it parked for very long, using their “phantom” page won’t really matter. 

But if you park your domain name for a while, you might want to consider what content is actually on the placeholder page.  Most people can notice right away that you are just parking your domain name, but some people will believe that it is actually your website.  Therefore, they will consider anything on that page to be something you put there.  Most registrars will just have some simple advertisements and endorsements, but you might want to check out the ads that they place so that they aren’t sending your visitors to scam sites.

Other options for parking your domain name

If you decided not to park a domain on your registrar’s page but aren’t prepared to develop your own website, you do have an option (but you will need to have a web host already).

The best situation for this specific scenario is if your web host allows unlimited web sites with your account.  If that is the case, just point your domain name to your web host.  You can create a blank page or a very simple page and deal with designing the site later.

If you use a web host where you need to pay for each website you use (which is the way most hosts work), you need to decide if it is worth it to pay for an empty site just to avoiding parking your domain.  That decision is up to you.

What Next?

As you can see, parking domains is not rocket science once you figure out what it means.  If you are considering parking a domain, there’s a good chance you are in the beginning stages of starting your own site.  If that’s the case, you might want to read my How to Register Your Own Domain Name article.  But your best bet is to read the How to Start your own website article.  There are many other articles on SiteForStarters, but this one will get you headed in the right direction.

Good Luck!

Before moving forward, you need to have both of the items listed below.

1.     You need to already have a domain name

In order to transfer your domain name, you need to have a domain name already registered.  If you do not, read the article How to register your own domain name to find out the necessary steps for getting your own domain.

2.     You need to already have a web hosting account

A web host is essentially a company that has a network of computers that connect to your website in order for it to be seen on the internet.

If you haven’t signed up with a web host yet, you need to register for one before you can point your domain anywhere. If that is the case, read the article How to choose a web host to find out the necessary steps for getting your own domain.  If you want to know which web host to use, read my Affordable web hosts article or my Which web host do you use? article.

How to point your domain name to your website instructions

1.     Find your web host’s list of name servers

The first thing you need to do is to find out the list of name servers used by your web host. They are generally called “Name servers”, or “DNS servers”, and they direct your domain name to the actual location of your website. Basically, in order to display your website when someone searches for it, the browser needs to know the real address of the site.  For that to happen, the internet needs to know the IP address (just like a home address) of the computers from your web host’s server, which is displayed as a series of numbers like 127.0.0.1.  Every computer (including the one you are using now) has an IP address, and in this step you are telling the internet that when someone looks for your domain name, they can connect to your web host’s servers.  Don’t worry if you don’t understand any of this.  All you are doing here is finding these IP addresses and telling your domain name registrar.

How do you find the name servers used by your web host for your domain?  Your first option is to open the email you received from your web host when you first signed up.  This is one of the most common first questions your host will receive, so there is a very good chance it is right in that email.  (Quick tip: save that email.  You may only reference it once or twice in the beginning, but it is a great way to make sure you have this information available). If that doesn’t work, search around in your web host’s site.  You can probably find it in a FAQ’s section or some place on their site.  If that doesn’t work, email them directly.  But this might take a while, even up to a day or two, so I would suggest avoiding email if you can.

Name servers will often look like ns1.example.com, ns2.example.com, etc, where “example.com” will probably be replaced by some other domain name used by your web host for their servers.

Your web host will generally give you two, three, or more name server addresses. Keep track of all of these names and be ready to enter these names later.

2.     Provide the name servers to your registrar

The next step after getting the list of name servers is to enter them into your domain name registrar’s system.  First, log into your registrar with the login information you used when you first registered your domain.

Now you need to find out the place where you can enter your domain’s name servers.  How easy that is depends on the set up of your domain name registrar, and each registrar will do it a different way.  Since they are all set up differently, I will give you an idea of what to look for. 

The following general instructions should help you find where to enter your name servers:

• You probably want to look for the place where you list all of the domains you set up with your registrar.  The page is probably called something like “My Domains”.
• Pick the domain for which you want to enter the name servers. That’s a pretty obvious step, but you want to make sure you pick the right domain.
• Look for a “Manage DNS” menu link, a “DNS” button, or a “Nameservers” button. Basically look for things that say “DNS” or “Name Servers” or “Nameservers”, whether to “set” it or “change” it, or “manage” it or some other thing.

If you finally get to the right page, you should see a form that lets you enter things like your “Primary Name Server”, “Secondary Name Server”, “Tertiary Name Server”, etc.

Enter your first name server from your list, usually the name beginning with “ns1“, into the “Primary Name Server” field. Then type your second name server, the name beginning with “ns2“, into the “Secondary Name Server” field. A domain name should have at least 2 name servers associated with it.  Enter as many names as you are able to. Don’t worry, it is fine if you only can enter 2.  Once again, do your best to find out where things are, but you can always email them if you need to.

Well, that’s it.  Then you just need to wait before you can access your website using your domain name. This could take a few minutes, hours, or even a couple days depending on the registrar.

What’s Next

Congratulations!  You’ve finished the first steps towards starting your own website.  Now you get to the fun part of actually creating your site.  If you want some help with how to do that, you definitely want to read the article, How to start your own website.  It will give you step-by-step instructions on the entire process, plus plenty of other articles on all things related to starting your site.

Possibly the best benefit of creating a newsletter or ezine is that it gives people a reason to continue to visit your site.  You get the opportunity to provide your audience with your information, and it gives them a chance to get the information they wanted, which is probably why they subscribed to the newsletter in the first place.

First steps for creating an electronic newsletter or ezine

In order to run a newsletter, you first need a way for visitors to sign up or leave your mailing list.  Then you need a method to post the newsletter to your mailing list.  I will describe how to do just that in this article.

Use a third party mailing list service

Probably the easiest way to run your newsletter is to use a third party mailing list service.  Both commercial and free mailing list hosting services are available. If you are interested in the free mailing list hosts, you can find a list of them with brief reviews on the Free mailing list hosts page.

There are some definite advantages of using a third party service:

1. You don’t need to manage the list yourself.  These services will handle the subscriptions, unsubscribing, bounced mail, etc.  Some of the services also have the ability to archive your old newsletters, as well.
2. They will handle subscription confirmations.  These mailing list services will automatically send your subscribers an email requiring them to confirm before they are added to the list. This is a good perk because it will ensure that someone’s email address is not used without their permission.  It also makes your newsletter seem more official.
3. Free promotion.  Most of the mailing list hosts will show a list of ezines or newsletters people can subscribe to on their website.  It is another way to get new visitors to your site.
4. You don’t need any extra software to get started.

There are some disadvantages to using a third party mailing list services:

1. Commercial mailing list hosts will generally charge a monthly or yearly fee.  The price is normally based on how many subscribers you have, how many messages you send, and the amount of bandwidth you use.
2. Free mailing list hosts will generally utilize some form of advertising.  They normally do this by placing an advertisement in your newsletter or ezine with each issue.  As they say, “there is no such thing as a free lunch.”
3. You won’t have the flexibility to have things run exactly the way you want.  You also do not have any control over the reliability of your mailing list host.

Use your web host’s mailing list software

Depending on who you have as a web host, you might be able to use their mailing list services.  Some are obviously better than others, and some have most (if not all) of the features of any of the third party mailing list services, including handling subscriptions, confirmation, archiving, and so on.

Since it is part of the web hosting package you already pay for, there are no added costs and you probably don’t need to worry about them placing any advertisements.  You probably also have more control over your subscriptions and confirmation messages.  But web hosts tend to be stricter about the number of subscribers they will allow in your list, so make sure you look into that first.

Run your own mailing list script

If your web host doesn’t have a mailing list service and you want to take the initiative, you could also create it yourself using one of the free mailing list CGI or PHP scripts.  It takes a little more work to set up, but it can give you more flexibility in making it function the way you want.  A list of free Perl and PHP mailing list scripts are listed below.

Free Perl Mailing List Scripts

ELists

Dada Mail

Subscribe Me Lite

NoMoDoMo

Free PHP Mailing List Scripts

Web Mailing List

poMMo Project

CcMail Mailing List Manager

AFC Simple Newsletter

Tellmatic Newsletter Machine

Use your email software

Most email programs actually have pretty comprehensive mailing list capabilities.  This is probably the easiest method because you don’t even need to sign up for anything, but it only makes real sense if you have a small mailing list.

The main disadvantage of using your email for the mailing list is that it is more manual on your part.  You will need to keep track of your subscribers and respond to them individually and need to manually delete subscribers for bounced messages.  You also need to hang around to make sure the newsletter has been sent out just in case of any issues.

What, when, and how should you send your newsletter?

There is no set rule on what to write or how often to send your newsletter since it largely depends on your particular website.  One way is to use your newsletter to make product announcements or to notify your subscribers of something you feel is important.

Generally what people do is send issues of their newsletter at specific time periods like once a month, bi-weekly, weekly, etc. providing them with the information you feel was important during that time period.  Or, to treat them as valued subscribers, you could even send them articles and information before you post it on your site or give them coupons, discounts, etc.

What you say is really your choice.  You could create new articles, summaries of previous articles, or just fun stuff they might enjoy that is related to the information on your site.

Please don’t just send them a bunch of advertisements!  People can see right through that and makes them more likely to stop going to your site.  Keep in mind that your readers do not want a newsletter if you don’t have anything important to say.  The newsletter is supposed to be meant for them, so make sure it is something worth their while.  Give them a reason to keep visiting your site.

How to format your newsletter

You can publish your newsletter in two ways: with HTML or in plain text.

HTML is the prettier version to send your newsletter.  HTML allows you to use different fonts, colors, pictures and other formatting options.  HTML obviously looks better, but some people filter out HTML emails to avoid possible spam messages.  People also may not want HTML because it is larger than plain text messages and takes up more room.  Size might also matter to you if you are paying for your mailing list provider based on how much bandwidth you use.

If you decide to send your newsletters in plain text, here are some tips to help you get the maximum effect from your newsletter:

1. Instead of using bold, italics, or underlining, you can place emphasis on words by using “quotes”, *asterisks*, or ALL CAPS.
2. Try to write your plain-text messages with a maximum of 65 characters to a line. The reason for this is that some email programs your subscribers might use will wrap the line at the 66th character, which does not look good.
3. Put space between each paragraph.
4. If you want to use links, don’t include it within a phrase and simply paste the entire link like this: http://www.siteforstarters.com/
5. When you give email addresses, always begin it with a “mailto:” tag, like this: mailto: contact@website.com

Finally

I hope this gives you enough information to get a running start with your newsletter.  Feel free to contact me if you have any problems, suggestions, or are interested in joining my mailing list.  It’s sad to say, but I don’t have a mailing list of my own at the moment because I just don’t have the time.  At least I follow my own advice and don’t just send a junky newsletter because it looks good!

List of free mailing list and newsletter hosts

Your MailingList Provider

This is a free host who does not place advertisements in the newsletter other than an ad on the web page your visitors go to when they subscribe.  They provide you with an HTML code that you plug into your web page in order for your subscribers to sign up through your site.  Unlike many other hosts, they do not give you the option of having people sign up through email and you cannot send the newsletters using your own email client.  You can also download your subscriber and import existing mailing lists into their system.

Zinester

Zinester has a paid service, but they also have a free service you can use.  You can have people sign up directly through your site simply by adding the code they provide onto your website, or they can subscribe through email.  They allow you to created HTML and plain text newsletters that you can post through email or through their web interface.  You won’t be able to customize your subscription confirmation messages with the free version and you are limited to messages of 300k or less in size.  The free version also places advertisements in the newsletter.   

Yahoo! Groups Free Hosted Mailing List

Yahoo! has a free mailing list hosting service that lets people read your newsletter through email messages or on the web.  Unlike the previous hosts, Yahoo! allows you to use discussion groups where you interact with the subscribers and the list can be moderated or unmoderated.  You can poll your group members and they give you disk space to place files for your subscribers to download. You are able to import your existing mailing list into your new list without requiring your visitors to confirm their subscription again.

Topica

As with the previous host, Topica allows you to create discussion lists.  You can also archive old messages and import email addresses easily.

If you On Windows, this is generally done by installing a virtual PDF printer driver into your system. This allows you to create your PDF document using any program you want (like Microsoft Word) and print to the driver with that program. The printer driver will then convert your output into a PDF file and allow you to save it somewhere.

By far the most popular PDF converter is Adobe Acrobat Professional.  If you want the best program, everyone will tell you that Acrobat is what you want, so I won’t go into any details here.  But Acrobat is very expensive, which is probably why you are here in the first place.  How expensive is it?  Try $449.00.  Ouch!

If you want a cheaper (but not free) alternative, you might want to check out Nuance PDF Converter Professional, or NovaPDF.

Free PDF Creators, Converters and Virtual Printer Drivers

PDFCreator – for Windows

PDFCreator is a Windows program that allows you to create PDF files from any program that can print. Instead of sending the file to the printer, the driver converts it to a PDF file.  It uses encryption to protect your PDF files from being opened or printed. It also allows you to merge multiple files into a single PDF file. The program is open source and is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

CC PDF: Free PDF Converter – for Windows

As with PDF Creator, CC PDF allows you to create PDF documents from any Windows program that can print. This program also offers the option to add a Creative Commons License page to your document, which is basically a copyright notice. It is open source and licensed under the GNU General Public License.

Bullzip Free PDF Printer – for Windows

With the Bullzip PDF Printer, you can password-protect your PDF files and encrypt it, choose the quality of the document, set the document properties, insert a watermark, superimpose documents or put them into the background, append or prepend documents, etc. In addition to PDF, it supports various graphic output types like BMP, JPEG, PCX, PNG, TIFF. You need to have a PostScript processor in order for this to work, and they can download it for you. 

CutePDF Writer – Create PDF Files – for Windows

CutePDF Writer gets installed as a printer subsystem in Windows systems, so you can create PDF files from any Windows application that can send a document or file to the printer. It then converts the document into a PDF file. As with Bullzip, tt requires a converter like GhostScript to be installed. The software works on Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP, 2003 and Vista.