A personal site gives us the freedom over our own means of expression:
- a blog around a topic we’re passionate about
- a photo portfolio
- an online notebook documenting a trip or a short-lived project
If we’re going to express ourselves publicly on the web, why not do so on our own terms, and disseminate it on our social accounts afterwards? This technique is known as POSSE, which stands for Publish on your Own Site, Syndicate Everywhere. Publish your content once, then share it to the rest of the world through all your other channels!
You’ll also remain more in control over the content you own and have to rely less on third parties, such as Facebook, for the stuff that matters the most to you.
CMS to consider
CMS stands for Content Management System: software that allows you to write things on the web without coding skills.
Here are a few notable ones (but there are hundreds more out there):
- Wordpress: the most popular platform in the world to manage content on a website. With a global community and an abundance of resources, you’ll feel in good company (website).
- Ghost: a widely used platform with a seamless editing experience (website).
- Kirby: excellent software for managing website resources, lighter and faster than the most popular solutions (website).
- SiteJS: a promising solution for the “small web”—or a web manageable at human scale, against the current of bloated, complicated software like Wordpress (website).
Other CMSs:
Federated platforms and micro-blogging
- Write.as: a simple, minimalistic and privacy-first blogging platform (website).
- Plume: a federated blogging platform (website). There is an instance in QC, Canada.
- Telegra.ph: publish an article instantly and share it with anyone (website). You’ll probably find the minimalistic format very appealing.
Static site generators
Static site generators are a little more technical, but they can ultimately lead to much leaner solutions.
Instead of dynamically regenerating a page each time a visitor lands on the site, a static site is served as-is, like a simple document, which makes it a reliable, fast and secure solution.
A few generators:
- Jekyll: one of the most widely adopted generators, loved by bloggers from all backgrounds (academics, professionals and hobbyists) (website).
- Hugo: one of the most popular site generators, very versatile and incredibly fast (website).
- Eleventy: a fast, simple and versatile generator, Eleventy is one of the hottest generators right now (website).
- Pelican: a generator written in Python (a simple and widely used programming language) (website).
…and dozens of others!
Hosting
Your site must live somewhere: you’ll need a little hosting spot on the Internet.
Here are a few platforms which can be used to host static sites conveniently, for free:
…or else, bring your own server or share one with a friend!