The reason I have a personal website which I own is pretty straightforward.
I can use any HTML tag I want
I can upload images of any size, and share those images uncompressed with my readers. You have a better experience here than on Medium, Reddit, or Facebook.
I have full control.
If I write something a company doesn’t like, no one can take it down.
It gives me the freedom to do anything I want.
Since I am using a VPS I can make subdomains and run multiple programs on my server.
It is a fantastic learning experience.
Everyone should make a personal website.
You keep more ad revenue than on a website someone else knows.
My code is cleaner than if I were to use some whizzy wig bloatware like Wix. If I want to change something later, it is much easier with WordPress than any other blogging software I have ever used.
Now what you need to do to start, is do the following steps:
- Buy a domain name. It’s not very expensive, but it is the first thing you need to do. While you can make a website with a subdomain of something like wordpress.com it is better to own your domain. I bought mine on Dreamhost.com and I absolutely love their service.
- Start with a shared hosting plan, Dreamhost has good prices and good service. It is affordable and easy. It will automatically spin up your server for you, you don’t need to know a lot.
- Eventually, you will find your server feels sluggish because you are using a shared hosting plan. You will want to upgrade and that means you will want to move over to a Virtual Private Server. I use Ionswitch which gives me amazing service at very good prices for the industry. Now you have full control over what you do and can do basically anything you want.
- If your website’s traffic becomes too heavy for your VPS you can move to having your server on a rack which gives you even more control. I have not gotten to this step yet.
that’s how to start your own website in my opinion, and this is why I choose to write my things here instead of on another service.