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You’ve just set up your business and you now need a website. Or you might have a stellar idea for an application and want to test it out by building a small website around it.
You want to control the whole process and maybe save some money.
How do you build a website by yourself? Is this even possible? What experience do you need? How do you get started? All of these questions will be answered in great detail.
This guide explains HOW you can build a website by yourself. The potential benefits, problems, pitfalls and other important aspects.
By the end you’ll know WHEN to build a website by yourself and when to seek the the help of a https://andreiclinciu/web-development[software developer, web designer] or agency.
Step 1 Reality Check
The first step before even listing all the requirements let’s do a reality check. I’ve set up some questions you should ask yourself before starting REmember, this is a NON exhaustive list.
.What’s the amount of time you’re willing to invest into this? Building a website requires time. Even if you collaborate with a https://andreiclinciu/[web programmer] you need to invest time into defining what you want and testing it out. When you want to build it by yourself, expect to invest hundreds of hours even on “drag and drop” platforms which make it seem easy. You’ll need to learn
- How to use the system
- Copywriting
- How to edit pictures
- A plethora of things such as accessibility, search engine optimization etc
.What’s the price you’re willing to pay? Nothing is ever 100% for free. Most systems which allow you to build websites range in price from $15 to $100 per MONTH for access to their platforms. And i’m only talking about the website hosting platform, not about the domain, SEO, copywriting, and other costs of various tools.
.Do you have what it takes to tackle technical problems, security issues, etc? If you are not sure you can go through hours of experimentation and frustration that something is not working properly or that potential visitors are not coming to your website.. there might be something wrong. And you might have no idea what.
.Do you have the time, money AND energy to go with a vendor lock-in? Most systems which allow you to build websites by yourself with “no knowledge” will get you in to a xhref:./vendor-lockin.adoc[vendor lock-in].
s you already see, wanting to build a website by yourself requires quite some dedication, please do not underestimate this.
Step 2 Planning What do you actually need ?
.Let’s get started with some other questions
- Do you want a static website?
- Do you need an ecommerce?
- Would a BLOG be more something for you?
- Do you need an application which does something on the backend?
- Do you need to touch a database to store and retreive data?
If you only need a simple website to showcase something then you can build it yourself. If you plan to sell online or have advanced functionalities then you might want to consider actually hiring a software developer.
Step 3 - Choosing a “Platform” or technology stack
Now’s the important part. Choosing a platform or a technology stack has downsides and benefits.
Learning programming to build everything yourself
If you’re an avid entrepreneur I always recommend learning programming so you can build automations yourself. I try to teach all my clients HOW to automate by using the command line on a Linux System. Don’t worry, it’s easier than it seems. In reality, you will probably need thousands of hours of overall experience.
// A differentiation between static websites and dynamic websites need to be made. // A static website si fixed and doesn’t change on input from a user meaning you generate it once and it stays the same. //A dynamic website has functionality to interact with users
The most basic things you need to learn to build your own website are:
- HTML
- CSS
- JavaScript
That is if you’re building static websites.
Dynamic Websites
For dynamic websites you need to add a backend programming language and a database This in itself is a complex endeavour and may take a long time to master.
Not to mention the potential downsides of breaking things, having security issues and, oh yes, deviating from your business!
Go this route only as a hobby AND if you’re serious into programming.
Using “Software as a service” websites
The next option is to use an existing platform which host websites and allow you to customize everything Most such platforms have a cost starting from 30 euro per month
.The benefits are
- You have a drag and drop system
- You can add content
.The downsides and con’s of such an approach are not directly evident
- You can’t easily export data so you’re stuck if you want to change provider
- IF the service goes down you risk to lose everything
- You don’t own the information
- If you want anything more complex, you need to rely on the service provider a
- High cost for processing e commerce payments - Think an additional 5% to 10% taken from your sales! For $100.000 revenue per year tha’ts sometimes 5000to 10.000 USD which you give someone else!
- No way to ask for integrations or hire a programmer real programmer to help you with this, all you get is bad integrations
- You get a HUGE search engine dump due to how badly these sites are optimized for the search engine
- Low flexibility
Examples of such websites include Wix, squarespace. There are more, I’ve heard horror stories from many clients who wanted to save money
If you’re already on such a platform, I can help you migrate your website by crawling it and importing the data in another system
Self Hosting Alternative
Self Hosting alternatives are either using your own servers or having someone setup a something such as Wordpress
.PRO’s of such a system
- Easy content management sytem
- Have a variety of plugins
- You own the data and content
.Con’s of such a system
- High security vulnerabilities
- Very slow
- Usually penalized heavily by search engines
- Need to have someone on call for constant updates, patches and fix things which gets broken
- Stock templates look and feel which are NOt PROFESSIONAL
- Building plugins
- Doesn’t scale - If you plan to have even 30 people use it at the same time it won’t work.
- Someone needs to take care of backups
- Uptime can be an issue
Get a professional website from a professional
The best option is to get a professional to build your website. Be sure that you understand HOW your programmer or web designer will build the website. If they use tools as wordpress or wix ditch them. Professional’s use different systems which will try to solve most of the problems mentioned .
There are ways to build static websites which will last forever and won’t suffer from the problems mentioned earlier. If you want a custom application or website built, please link:./contact[contact me].
