4 tips to build your own small company website and save some time.

Before I start, outsourcing is always an option however as a startup, sometimes cash is invested elsewhere and time is more readily available. Also before you outsource it can come in handy to understand the basics so you can verify future bills for maintenance and upgrades. After reading this you will find out if this is a route for you or how you can spend your time and money wiser. Having sifted and researched the various alternatives I will give you some direct links throughout the article.

in 2017 I knew I needed at least two websites; one site with a booking- and payment functionality for an escape room business and a simpler site to showcase my interim project management services. From asking around I found out that a simple website would quickly set you back 1.000 to 1.500 Euros. My long time resolution to learn a new language could also be fullfilled. Languages on the shortlist were French, website or iOS related. You might have heard of Wordpress as I did and was intrigued by the ease of use and professional looking websites build on this platform. So my journey started in this order: Learning a website language, arrange hosting and configure my own website.

Website development languages

The fundamental language of the web is HTML (HyperText Markup Language). It is basically a text file with markup coding to explain the specific nature of your content; text and images. Another important language is CSS (Cascading StyleSheets). It is more power-full and easier to style your HTML markup. Instead of inserting code on each page or sections that specifies the color, fonts etc you can just enter this one time in your CSS file and you have a easy repeatable way to style. I learned these languages @ Codecadamy. there are many vendors out there but this is one is free and the excersises are nicely increasing in difficulty and always building on what you just have learned. It took me about 20 hours to complete the exercises and created some simple pages and styling. This is exactly what it does for you. You can read the language and will appreciate the craft of webdesigners more. Knowing the alphabet does not yet make you a famous poet.

Domain & Hosting

Since I wanted to do all myself I ended up searching for hosting alternatives. My main requirements: dedicated server hardware (So less performance issues because of other popular websites on the same server) and a vendor that also offers domain registration under the same roof. Based on excellent reviews I ended up with Antagonist. 51 EUR for the hosting and 9 EUR for the domain for a Total of 60 EUR per year. Affordable, fast and dedicated hardware. Their support team quickly handled my questions and their FAQ will easily guides you through installing Wordpress (or any other platform on your server) on your own server. Since performance is a main factor you are better off with a server close by your audience so therefore no link to a Dutch review site.

Wordpress and CMS platforms

Creating your own website is easier than ever because of CMS (Content Management System) platforms such as Wordpress. Wordpress* is the most popular platform, used by 29% of the websites on the internet. It is best suited for beginners, if your are more advanced you can read here a top 3 CMS comparison review. The CMS allows you to buy website themes packed with templates (think of websites for various businesses) and functionality that can be bought and installed as plugins. In other words your template website, with plugin functionality and demo content is up and running in minutes, yes you have read that correct, minutes. The theme I use cost 60 USD and comes with 40 templates. First lesson learned is that you have to mind continuity. That is, themes and plugins are from a 3rd party and are upgraded over time. Some are not. So you need to check how active it is supported, a good sign is if it is used by thousands of other users. You do not want to loose functionality or run the risk of vulnerabilities because a plug-in is not upgradable. Secondly, before you upgrade you need to check the upgrade notes for compatibilities issues with your template. Further than this no worries, upgrading is only one-click away.

Configuring your website

So far so easy and here comes the hard part. The builder/configurator of your theme and plugins comes in with all the explanation you need you only have to read carefully. A lot of menus can be clicked through and adjusted. So no need to write or read any website coding language, yes there is your big saver already. Mind you it can come in handy but is absolutely not needed. Also before you update your site you can preview your changes before making anything final. It is a lot of clicking, adjusting, previewing and updating. A lot of experimenting and trial & error. In case you are going to build websites more often using the same theme you can gain here the most time. For a first time this took me 2 days. Another big chunk of time I have spent on searching and preparing image content. Do not underestimate this, especially if your website is image heavy and you want the images in the same size neatly aligned and in the same tone of color. Shooting, finding, resizing and color adjusting photos took me another 2 days. Your PC or Mac comes equipped with free simple photo editing software, however for advanced editing or a custom high resolution logo you need to spend some extra cash on software. As soon as you have found your theme and template website think about the number of images you need and use the google advanced search settings for finding high resolution settings. Alternative you can use websites that offer royalty free high resolution images.

Your journey

My out of pocket expenses were around 100 EUR for the first year and 4 days of configuration work. Multiplied against your hourly rate this easily falls behind the option of outsourcing. If you want to invest your time than you can skip the HTML + CSS courses and buy a theme for a popular CMS platform. Either way most of your time and effort will be spent on delivering high quality content in text or pictures. You will be surprised how easily you can configure your own professional looking website.

How about you, what website idea is spinning in your head? Let me know if you have questions or you have some tips.

Rianto Koosman is a interim Finance Project Manager and escape room enthousiast publishing his lessons learned.

*Wordpress comes in two forms Wordpress.com and Wordpress.org. For your own company website I assume you want to use your own domain or run your own webshop. this can only be done on the Wordpress.org platform. Check this article and a infographic visualizing the exact differences.