Should I make a site?
Yes, you SHOULD make a site.Reasons why:
- You get a little center to showcase yourself on the web! Showcase your passion for a hobby, a comic series you like, that one car you take care of very much, really anyhing!
- Like writing? Like ANY kind of writing? Poetry, fanfiction, venting? You'll LOVE writing a website.
- Want to showcase your creations? A website's a great portfolio (please avoid that this color is yellow and doesn't contrast well with the rest of the site I had to go for this for the rainbow)
- Want to show some support of a cause or a person? A website can help!
- Want to contribute to a internet made for the people, free from one person's idea of the internet? A personal website is almost akin to REBELLION against the coporitization of the internet! It's weird! It's strange! It's HUMAN!
- Really any reason, even if it's stupid or strange! The internet should be fun!
You're probably saying,
"but Picel, isn't web development hard?"
and I say NO.
To make webpages, all you need is:
- The ability to write.
And that doesn't mean like... a 100% Ivy League-level shakespearean comprehension of English, so good you'd bring any professor to tears with your almost thematic, dreamy writing, about unicorns flying in the air and why they contribute to studies of the human subconsciousness, neither needed it to be an amazing piece of art with animations and graphics that amaze the eyes and touch the heart or soul.
Doesn't even have to be English! Spanish, French, Chinese, Arabic, Japanese, Tagalog, Esperanto, Nahuatl, Evilish, Kirby-ish, weird symbols, any language is fine!
Sure, you're not going to make a real looker, but you basically established your spot on the web, and maybe along the way found a new passion! Maybe you can add an blog or add a guestbook - or even more - websites are truly versatile lemonade stands, but instead of lemonade, your passion is the product (in a good way!).
But enough talk - go make a website now. Doesn't matter if you wrote entirely by yourself or you used a program to design it from modern site generators like Google Sites or strawpage to stuff like Microsoft FrontPage (if somehow that still works). Hell, if you want me to check it out, add it to my guestbook, https://picelboi.atabook.org! I check it often - maybe not in like 20 years when I'm 36 and slaving away to pay the bills however.
Resources on Web Development
If you do want to write a website yourself without a site generator though, here's some guides (not endorsed or actually recommended by me though!):
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HTML
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CSS
The code for this site can be found in its GitHub repository - I've spent some time organizing it if you want to use it as an example!
Web Hosting
If you're making your own website in HTML, you're gonna need to find a web host, or you can host the site yourself. This is required to have your site on the internet.
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Web Hosters
Neocities and nekoweb are popular with beginners, however GitHub Pages/Cloudflare Pages are good options as well and allow you to use custom domains without donating (keep in mind may be slightly more advanced - Neocities and nekoweb really makes web hosting very simple!). Netlify and Vercel are more on the complicated side of web hosting, so you depending on your needs you may want to go for the simpler and straightforward options such as Neocities and nekoweb.
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Web Server Software
Keep in mind these may not be user-friendly and you'll have to do a lot of setup depending on your internet plan, network configuration, etc. You'll also need a server running 24/7 unless you want your site to be online for certain periods of time.
GitHub Repository
This site has the source available on GitHub. I also worked on organizing the HTML/CSS with comments if you want to use the site as an example.