The Millennial’s Guide To Building Your Own Website
There are so many reasons why a young millennial Might want to create their own website. Perhaps you’re looking to build an online portfolio for job applications. Maybe you’re looking to create a little side-hustle that brings you some extra money. Perhaps you’re starting your own business, and you need a website to mark your territory.
Whatever the reasons behind your decision, it’s now easier than ever to get started. You don’t need any fancy graphic design skills. You don’t even need to know any complex coding languages (though, a little coding will help you go a long way). Are you ready to learn the secrets, and get your site up and running? Here’s what you need.
An idea
First of all, you need to know the purpose and reasons for your website. That will help you decide everything from the layout to the software platform you choose. If you’re looking to start a fashion blog, for example, you might choose Tumblr over other platforms. It’s always a good plan to know exactly what you want from your website before you get started. Otherwise, you’ll spend hours (or days) going back and changing things. What is the goal of your website?
Domain and hosting
This is the trickiest aspect of creating your website, but we’ll try to keep it simple. A domain is simply the address that leads to your website, ie. www.my-website.com. You can purchase yours from the likes of GoDaddy or Shopify. As for web hosting, think of it like renting a small corner of the internet. It’s like buying the land to build your website on. When you’re just getting started, these are relatively cheap, and they’ll walk you through the process.
Design
The fun part starts when you design your website. Choose a platform to build your site (we recommend WordPress), and they’ll guide you through. The design process is simple, and you can start by choosing from a series of templates and mockups. You’ll choose your favourite design and colour scheme. From there, it’s just a case of making small tweaks and changes.
Digital marketing
Once you’re happy, you can publish your website! Now comes the tricky part, getting people to visit. It’s not easy to get your first trickle of visitors and that’s where digital marketing comes in. We recommend taking some SEO training, which will teach you the basics of search engine marketing. You should also read up on social media marketing, and start to build a community around your site. You’ll soon see your visitor count increasing online.
Monetization
The advanced stage of running a website is turning it into a money machine! You can monetise the website with adverts, which will bring in a small amount of income. You can use affiliate links to refer and recommend products. Or, you can introduce a product or service yourself.
Trust us, it’s easier than you think to get your website up and running. In fact, you could get it all done in a weekend. Try it yourself, and let us know how it goes.
