There was a time when the web was young and the whole internet seemed to be filled with amateur websites created by people who just wanted to have fun and experiment. Of course most of these sites were hosted by Geocities or FreeWebs (both of which offered free hosting in exchange for covering your site in ads), and mostly consisted of lots of animated GIFs and polyphonic tunes.
While this might not have been any kind of golden age for the internet in terms of quality content or the user experience, I do believe that in some ways it was a great time. Back then the web truly felt like an open platform that anyone could use to express themselves or publish their opinions, and while it might have looked a bit thrown-together, that was actually part of the charm.
Today most websites that you’ll visit on a day-to-day basis are built by big companies and are characterized by professional-looking design and hard-sell tactics. This is partly due to Google which has arguably become too good at finding the ‘quality’ websites out there, and partly due to web design becoming so much more advanced that most people don’t know where to start. Oh, and Geocities dying didn’t help much either.
But I’m here to tell you that you should have a personal website, and you should design internet content for the sheer joy of it rather than just to make money. And if my nostalgic opening paragraphs haven’t already convinced you, then perhaps some of these persuasive points will…
Why Build a Personal Site
It’s Still Easy
While Geocities no longer exists, WordPress does and makes it incredibly easy to build a free website. There are also a ton of other free or very cheap hosting packages out there many of which come with great site-building tools. But even if you don’t feel brave enough to look around for any of these things, then there’s still a good bet you’ll be able to afford a cheap web design company that will handle the entire process for you. All you have to do is tell them what you want.
It’s Brilliant for Your Personal Development
Once you own a personal website you’ll find that it starts giving in spades. Even if you have no clear goals when you first start building the site, you’ll find that opportunities emerge simply as a result of having your website. This can act as a personal CV for instance, or the ideal place to showcase your opinions and creativity. You never know – you might just turn your hobby into a career by writing about it and monetising the site.
It’s Great for Expressing Yourself
If you have a business website then you’ll know that it’s not particularly expressive or individual. You will have built this site around market research and around your company goals and as such it won’t have much of ‘you’ left in it. On the other hand though, building a personal site will allow you to go crazy and take advantage of what is a very flexible medium to show off your personality and your opinions to the world…
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Today’s feature writer, Neena Jones, works as a developer at Trice Web Development, a professional web design company in Toronto. Through her blog posts she advises people on various topics related to website development.
