Maybe you are considering a hosting plan for the website of your employer or client. How about building and hosting your own website? It’s easy to build your own website.
Why Having a Personal Website is Important for a Web Developer / Designer?
This is the most vital way to build up your own digital presence and reputation which will:
- establish you as an expert in web development / design fields
- serve as an online portfolio for yourself
- earn you a reputation for your web development / design expertise
- allow you to experiment with new technologies which you can bring back to your day-time job
- help in future job search
- accumulate your digital assets
- earn you extra money and explore a new career through your website – quite a few people have earned enough passive income through their website to quit their day-time jobs and this is the dream I am working on
The Story of edward-designer.com
I have a full-time day job as a web designer and developer. After years of studying and honing my web design / development skills, I seem to have reach a ceiling that I have no further way to go or excel. It was during a seminar which I heard of online reputation that gave me a clear and actionable direction for further development. I began working on my LinkedIn profile and created edward-designer.com.
My website edward-designer.com was created on 2 August 2013 which was less than an year old. I begin posting articles on web development and I.T. certification during my free time. After 2 months of hard work (including learning and applying SEO techniques), my website ranks high in many keyword for search engine result pages and traffic flowing in. About 5 months later, edward-designer.com has a monthly page view of over 10,000.
I then try to add Adsense in my website and my hosting bills are virtually taken care of by Adsense. My Adsense earning also gives me some extra money to spend on online web development courses. I find a new way to develop and hopefully a new career direction. My ultimate target is to quit my day-time job and live on my own website earning.
Is It Difficult to Build Your Own Website?
No. Not at all. You will only need:
- basic HTML / PHP knowledge, better with WordPress experience
- a web hosting plan
- a domain name
It is not costly either. For as low as US$4.95 per month (3-year contract, cancel anytime), the hosting plan by Bluehost includes everything you need:
- one domain name (you may choose your name as the domain if it is not taken)
- unlimited storage
- unlimited traffic bandwidth
- unlimited number of hosted domains (you will need this if you are seriously about earning money with websites, you may register more domain names for US$2.95 for the first year to drive targeted visitors)
- no hidden fee, you need to pay only as low as US$6.99 per month only which your own website can pay for itself using ad services like Adsense
- almost 100% up time
- round-the-year help desk
- automatic backup of your files
- 1-click installation of WordPress (I use WordPress to easily and simply add blog contents)
- Cancel anytime
You may have found cheaper website hosting plans from the internet search, however most of them have hidden fees on the bandwidth or storage space. These would add up to be much more expensive.
Follow this 3-step guide on how to build your own website, you can have a professional looking website up and running in an hour.
I have documented the techniques (called Search Engine Optimization SEO) I used to quickly get to the top of search engine in this post. You can do the same for sure. Act now and build yourself a website, probably a new career too!
Starting building your online reputation by creating your own website now!