Why I Built My Own Website

A quest to Hell.

Another day, another skill to learn as a self publishing writer. I never thought I’d get into website design, and I didn’t expect my website to be as good as it is. Sure I knew I’d need a website at some point, but I didn’t think I’d be building it.

So what happened?

I started blogging on WordPress.

Then I went to YouTube to find videos on how to do blogging better. That’s when I found out how to design my own website. Turns out hosting my blog on a website that I own is better than WordPress hosting it. I knew I had to make my website appear. But how did I pull it all together?

I had bought the domain name for colinswitalski.com a few years ago. A domain name costs less than $15 a year to hold, so it’s a small investment. I bought the name to save it for when I’d need it, though at the time I thought I was closer to needing it than I actually was. In fact I thought I’d be using my domain name within the year. I went through domain.com, though if you’re thinking of designing a website like I did, I’d suggest you buy the domain through your host.

I went with Bluehost to host my website, and they’ve been great. I had to transfer my domain name to use it, which was pretty painless and only cost a small amount to do, but the transfer took about a week. This is why I’d recommend getting your domain through your host.

A lot of the process was happening simultaneously, so while I waited for my domain to transfer, I could still begin doing website design.

While Bluehost is hosting my website, the actual development of it happened through WordPress… Which can be confusing, but it’s a whole different ballgame from the WordPress I was using to blog. Basically there’s wordpress.com and wordpress.org and the .com option is way more limiting. WordPress.org offers website design software. So I’m still using a form of WordPress, which is nice because much of the layout is the same from wordpress.com.

Once I had the basic Information of my website filled out with WordPress, I needed to choose a theme for my website. A theme is a number of preselected settings. I chose to buy a premium theme rather than choosing one of the free themes. The theme I chose only cost $68, though I have seen themes that are as high as $160.

During the actual design of my website, I came across some very frustrating complications which delayed my release of the site by at least a week. I spent hours upon hours trying to find out how to fix what was wrong with the site’s layout. Eventually I figured out what was wrong, but those were some tough days.

The most learning I did through this process was reverse engineering aspects of a webpage. Any theme will have sample webpages you can use. I’d take a look at the backend elements of those pages and find out how to replicate the things I liked from them. I still use this method to ensure that my webpages are uniform.

I don’t consider myself particularly tech savvy, and I’ve never attempted anything like this before. So when I say I’m happy with how my website looks, it’s really a big deal for me. There are some things I’d still like to change, but they are very minor.

I try to do background changes to the site every day during the week. A little here, a little there, so I don’t feel overwhelmed when I need something to be finished. There’s a lot of content I’d like to add to the site too, but I’ll leave those ideas for Thursday’s blog.

Until then, I hope you have a wonderful day,

Colin J Switalski