How I set up my website for free (with optional paid domain name)

I used a number of free tools and libraries to set up my current website, so that the only cost I have to pay for is the domain name ($17 AUD per year at the time of writing). Here is how I set up my website:

• Github Pages for the web hosting

• Contentful for the content management system

• 11ty for the static site generation

• Behold.so for the social media integration

• ShareThis for the social sharing features on the blog posts

I used the tutorial to connect 11ty and Contentful on GitHub Pages. There’s a bit of setup with getting the custom domain to work correctly, but once it’s done, it’s just a matter of updating the Liquid files for layout and other things, and populating the content on Contentful. Everything should update every time stuff is uploaded onto GitHub or when Contentful content gets published. It took me some time to set up, but it’s worth it if you have the skill and the time to do it.