Creating A Personal Website

Part 1. Finding a spot on the web

As I start to wind down my time as a student of Flatiron School’s Software Engineering Course, I find myself once again heading face first into the job market. As a code newbie, I think to myself, how can I set myself apart from my peers? More so, how can I present more of who I am and what I am capable of, other than a resume and a LinkedIn profile? What better way than to build my own website that serves as a portfolio and as an example of work? Other reasons to build a personal website include: to control your personal brand, to express your creativity (a resume is a poor place to demonstrate creativity), to demonstrate ability (expert css, complicated algorithms, API usage). In the following blog, I will do my best to help guide you through the first steps of building your own website. Let’s begin!

Understand Your Website Requirements

When embarking on this journey, your first considerations should always be: what am I going for here? What is my motivation for building a personal website? What is my budget? Who is my audience?

Answering these questions is crucial to understanding how much time and money to invest in your project. There are possibly hundreds of combinations of services and methods to set up a website, many of which could be overkill for your needs. Since we are focusing on building a personal website, I’ve identified the three most common types of personal websites:

• Simple “About Me” (static, resume extension, low usage, low upkeep, inexpensive)
• Advanced portfolio (multiple pages, custom styling, user interaction, possibly custom built, moderately expensive)
• Dynamic (multiple features (blogs, videos, forms,…), user input (potentially profiles), potential business platform/monetization, custom built, most expensive)

How you answered the previous questions will determine which of the types above you are going for. Once you understand what type of website you want to create, you’ll then need to think about how you are going to create it.

Building Your Site vs Using a Service (SquareSpace, WordPress, etc.)

In general, the more work you are willing to put in, the cheaper your cost to operate will be. On one end of the spectrum, you can build a website completely from scratch (coding required), only utilizing a domain registrar and a host service to stage your page (most cost effective). On the other end of the spectrum, you can use a site like Wordpress, which charges a monthly fee based on the requested features and customization needed, and never type one line of code. Most of these webpage service sites can be a one-stop shop for building a website (domain registrar, web hosting service, webpage builder, security, etc.). What you gain in ease of use, you pay for in a monthly cost that isn’t cheap.

Its incredibly important to research what each prospective web building service provides, as no two services are alike, and prices swing dramatically between all choices. Also be mindful to calculate long term costs, as most services only present introductory prices. Once you’ve decided how your website will be created, then you’ll want to focus on nailing down a domain name.

Finding a Suitable Domain Name

A domain name is the url address for your website, such as “mysupercoolwebsite.com”. You’ll want to come up with at least 5 potential names, as there is a good possibility that your first few choices are already taken (even if it’s just your name!). In addition to availability, some domain names are considered “premium” and are prohibitively expensive. In addition to the domain name, you will also want to consider what top level domain (TLD) to use as well.

A TLD can be generic, like .com or .org (also known as gTLD), or it can be a more customized “new gTLD” (nTLD) such as .tech or .store. If you want to learn more about nTLDs, visit the ICANN website HERE. Typically, the generic top level domains are the least expensive, but can be more difficult to find a specific domain name.

To search for a desired domain name, your best bet is to go directly to the The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) website. They have a lookup page where you can search through all registered domain names, found HERE. Simply type in your desired domain name, with TLD, and if nothing is registered, that name is available.

Once you have your your name figured out, you are now ready to register the name. In order to register, you’ll need to enlist the services of a domain name registrar that is ICANN-accredited, such as Domain.com or Namecheap.com. You cannot register a domain with ICANN on your own, you must use a registrar. One thing to keep in mind: some web building services and web hosting services will offer domain name registration with their services. You’ll want to leave domain name registration for last since most services will offer free domain name registration for a period of time. Another thing to keep in mind: domains must be registered ever year. Most registrars will allow you to set up registration renewal for a period not to exceed 10 years, often at discount.

Now that you have determined your domain name, let’s move on to finding a web hosting service.

Finding the Right Web Hosting Service

What is web hosting? Web hosting is the process of storing your website’s data on a server that can be accessed through the internet. It is possible to host your own website on a personal server, say your computer at home. Just keep in mind that you will be completely responsible for security and traffic that visits your server. With how inexpensive some low-level hosting services are, you are better served enlisting the help of a dedicated service.

You first consideration when finding a web host service is usage. What are your needs? Going back to our use cases above, if you’re looking at putting together a static site, you’re probably not going to need cloud servers or dedicated hosting. You’ll most likely benefit most from shared hosting. TechRadar has a great article, HERE, that goes over the different types of hosting and the benefits of each. Hosting services will be the majority of the cost when building a website, so choose carefully. As mentioned before, some one-stop shop web building services such as WordPress will offer hosting as a part of their service.

Pulling It All Together

At last! You now have a basic understanding of what it takes to reserve a spot for your personal website on the world wide web! Although I’ve introduced some basic jump off points, there is still quite a bit of research you must do on your own to find the right combination of services that meet your needs.

In Part 2 of this subject, I will go over how I created and uploaded my very own custom built website. Stay tuned…