You need a website and you’re thinking about building it yourself from scratch because you’re awesome and good at things, and like, how hard can it be anyway?

Many people shy away from building their own websites from the ground up because of the difficulty that comes along with it (they’re clearly not as awesome as you), but there are many advantages that outweigh the disadvantages.

Coder

When you build a website from scratch, you have more control over how your website acts and looks, you get to learn about everything that goes into a website, and it will be easier to troubleshoot in the future essentially because you built it your damn self.

So here’s an overview of what it takes to build a website from scratch.

Learn How to Use HTML

The first item of business you must take care of before building a website from scratch is learning how to code in HTML. Oh, is that all? Yeah, that’s all.

HTML is the language that all websites are coded in, and it’s essentially how web browsers know how to display a webpage. Let me be real for a moment: Learning HTML is not the easiest thing in the world to do. This is a huge undertaking. But there are online tutorials all over the place (Look! Here’s one). And once you learn HTML, you can take over the whole world.

Not really, but you can build websites, not just your own, which is a pretty marketable skill to have.

Create Your Images

Before you can begin writing your HTML, you’ll need to create or gather all images that you’ll use on your website. You can either take the photos yourself, buy stock image packages  on a site like Deposit Photos, or look for other royalty-free image sources.

Once you’ve got your photos, save them all to a folder titled “images” (duh) that’s in the same directory as the HTML file that you’ll create. This makes it easier and less confusing for you to specify in your coding where your images are located.

Create Your Website Coding in a Text Editor

This is the time to begin writing the code for your website. Depending on how complicated your website is in terms of bells and whistles, layout, or how many pages it will include, this could either take a short or long period of time. If you embrace the true coder lifestyle, you’ll be up all night, every night mainlining Monster energy drinks and writing code, which will take you less time than if you continue to live life as a normal person.

Pro tip: Be sure to save your work frequently. Nothing is more frustrating than diligently working on a file only to find a few hours down the line that the program inexplicably crashes with no remorse for your unsaved changes. Save the file every five minutes to keep the margin slim for losing work, and punching out your cat in frustration. (Do not ever punch a cat. Ever.)

HTML web code

View the HTML File and Improve

As you work, check the file visibly in an internet browser to watch your changes. This way you can catch mistakes along the way and fix them before building the entire website and having to comb through countless lines of coding to find the culprit of a single error.

Proofread Your Coding

Before you launch your website, it’s always a good idea to proofread and make sure the coding is free of mistakes. Make sure there aren’t any grammatical errors and check for closing tags. A single typo can mangle a webpage beyond belief, so be sure to proofread closely.

Once you’ve done this, your website is ready to launch and go live!

Ain't Nobody Got Time For That

Like I said, learning HTML and building your own website is an amazing accomplishment, and one that you should not shy away from if you have the time and temperament to take on an undertaking like this.

But if you don’t, and you still need a website, there are options available to you:

Buildicus DIY

The Buildicus DIY website builder gives you the satisfaction of building your own site without the time commitment of having to learn HTML. You choose a template and literally drag and drop your images and text boxes around the page until it looks how you want it to look. It’s 1,000% easier than building a site from scratch, and not as pricey as you’d think.

For $19 a month, Buildicus will host your site and provide maintenance and upkeep.

Buildicus Concierge

If even using a DIY builder sounds like too much work, have Buildicus build your site for you. You give us the copy you want to include on your site, and we do everything for you.

If this sounds like something you’re interested in, give us a call at (559) 202-3055 or email us at [email protected] and we’ll get to work on your site today!