4 Steps to (Actually) Building a Personal Website
“56% of all hiring managers are more impressed by a candidate’s personal website than any other personal branding tool — however, only 7% of job seekers actually have a personal website.” — Forbes interview with Charles Pooley, CEO of Workfolio.
Over the past week, I built my own personal website. What I thought would be the easiest part - finding guides and articles on how to a website - turned out to be the hardest. The guides I found were either overly simplified (just create a Squarespace account!) or highly technical. If you aren’t interested in learning how websites work or how to code, then there are much simpler platforms like Squarespace, Wix, or About.me that you can use to get your personal website up and running in minutes. However, if you’re interested in actually coding, building, and hosting a personal website, and learning some web development skills in the process, then this is the guide for you.
Step 0. (For Students) Get the GitHub Student Developer Pack
This free set of developer tools has been invaluable while creating my website, and significantly lowers the cost of hosting a website. We’ll come back to some of the resources in this pack later.
Step 1. Learn How to Code a Website
When I began this project, I had no web development skills, and no idea how to start building my own website. The courses at Codecademy have been invaluable in showing me the basics of web development, especially their course called Make a Website. Once you’ve finished that self-paced course, you’ll understand how to use HTML, CSS (the two languages used to build websites), and Bootstrap (a framework that helps you quickly develop clean, modern-looking websites).
Step 2. Write Your Website
The first thing you’ll need to start writing your website in HTML and CSS is a code editor. Atom and Brackets are the two best free options. I prefer Brackets, because it allows you to preview your website live as you are editing it. Once you’ve downloaded your editor, you’ll want to download the Bootstrap framework, which will make building your website much easier than having to code from scratch. You’ll be able to get an idea of what you can implement with Bootstrap by scrolling through their Components page. Open the Bootstrap folder in your code editor, and you’re ready to get started. At this point, you can start implementing just about anything you want into your website. At the bare minimum, personal websites should include a short biography, a platform to showcase anything you’re proud of and want others to see, and an area where others can contact you and find your other accounts on the internet (like LinkedIn and Medium). If you’re struggling with creating your website, try looking up Bootstrap themes that others have created. Bootswatch is a great source for free themes and inspiration.
Step 3. Buy Your Domain
The next step in building your own website is to buy the domain name that you’d like to host your website with. The GitHub Student Developer Pack comes with a free year of domain registration with Namecheap, however it only applies to domains ending in .me. I wanted a .com domain, and the cheapest option I found for registering domains was through Google Domains. For personal websites, it’s best to use the format of firstnamelastname.com, adding a middle initial or hyphen if the domain is already taken.
Step 4. Find a Web Host
Once you’ve registered and secured your domain, the final step is to find a company to host your website on, allowing anyone to visit your site at any time. The best and cheapest host that I’ve found for a personal website is Amazon Web Services. They offer their services free for the first year, and students who register for the GitHub Student Developer Pack get and additional free $115 credit for their account, so you really can’t beat them in terms of affordability. Their easy to follow 7-step guide allows you to quickly get your website up and running.
And that’s it! Really doesn’t take more than a few days, and you learn some HTML, CSS, and Amazon Web Services skills. Now that I’ve finished my site, I plan on looking at some more of the tools that Amazon Web Services offers, and seeing how interactive I can make my website.
