Making your Personal Website

In this episode, we explore some best practices for making your own website.

Here are some of the DIY websites we talked about:
www.wix.com
www.squarespace.com
www.wordpress.org

Steps to making your own website:

1. Look up similar sites to what you do, make a note of what you like and do not like. Try to be specific on this, rather than just "liking the vibe." How is that vibe being created? Is it color? Font choice? White space? Full section images?
2. Have the content ready BEFORE making your site. (text and pictures)
3. Make a "wireframe." Plan out what pages you want, general idea of what the website structure will be.
4. Decide whether you want to build it yourself, or hire a developer to help.
5. DIY websites like wix and squarespace also handle web hosting and domain purchase. You can do that all in house, or if you are building a website with wordpress or working with a developer, you will likely need to purchase web hosting and a domain. The domain is your website name (www.reallycoolartist.com) and hosting keeps your website running live for other users to access. I like www.bluehost.com personally for hosting and domain purchases.
6. Make the site! It can be a headache, but there are a lot of tools available to make it happen yourself.
7. Look into SEO (search engine optimization) best practices in order to increase organic web traffic to your site.

If you want a developer, Jordan is taking clients! Message him at jordan@jordansreynolds.com