OMG! My website comes up on Google

Yes, you read that right chaos gang, through some miracle and admittedly many hours of staring at my computer screen saying ‘I really don’t understand what I’m doing here’, I have a beautiful website, that actually comes up on Google.

As I have mentioned in my previous entries to the small business diaries, this version of my website is only the most recent regeneration in a long line of failed attempts. Having a website has always been at the core of what I have wanted for my little passion project, as a hub for my writing and sharing what I create alongside my social media pages. I had created blogs with little direction in the past, so when creating TT as you know it, I really took some time to brainstorm my ideas and find my niche for what I wanted to produce.

If you’re like me a relatively well versed in the basics of how a PC and the internet works, but terrified of the world of coding, then a website builder is 100% the best way forward. I have used Wordpress in the past which I have found very user friendly, but via my year of journalism study delved deeper into the wonderful world of Wix, which hosts my current website. Whatever platform you use, if you are a total beginner you need to be prepared hours on tweaks and minute changes, but Wix was great at providing checklists when everything seems to overwhelming or when you have no idea where to start. Even routine things like adding a new blog post come with their own set of tasks related to tags and SEO, but Wix makes everything so easy to navigate.

A huge part of really giving this whole thing a proper go for my 1 year experiment was having my own domain name – tremortextiles.wixsite/blog doesn’t quite have the same catchy ring to it. I actually bought the domain name tremortextiles.co.uk years ago on GoDaddy – it costs me about £30 a year. I was paranoid that by having my Instagram account the domain name would quickly get used up by someone else – of course, I am really not as popular as I imagine – but it was good to have regardless and it was very easy to connect my Wix site once built to my domain name. Again, your website host should make this very easy.

With Wix or any other website design host, you have the option to use a template or just start from scratch. I found it easiest to pick a ‘blog’ template, and then chose my own colour scheme, fonts and links to really make it my own and match my brands aesthetic. I drew a lot of inspiration from other craft blogging sites, and also looked through a lot of themes and ideas on Pinterest. I wanted to create a simplistic and cosy feel that did not overwhelm readers with colour, that’s what my art and tutorials are for!

Setting up my site from scratch probably took a week’s worth of long evenings, however I have a tendency to hyperfocus on things and not stop until I am happy with the end product, so it does not have to take this long. By using a pre-made template and following the easy prompts provided my whichever website host, you could easily have your won site up and running in a couple of evenings. I found that publishing a self-made deadline, in my case the 13th March, really gave a me a goal to aim for to get everything finished and looking exactly how I wanted it before I went live.

Of course, the monumental task of creating your own site always comes with its frustrations. One of my main ones was creating my site in a way that made it easy and accessible for mobile users, which does in fact mean re-mapping the whole site to fit the portrait layout. This is done relatively easily through Wix, but I still found I often missed buttons that had been moved out of place or words not sitting in the way I wanted them too. I was so focused on making everything perfect before I went live, and editing the tiny details that only I would notice, that I’m sure I eventually detracted some of the joy from creating the site. If I was to do this all again, my advice to myself would be to just launch the thing, and worry about the details later.

So, if you’ve been sitting on the idea of building your own website but keep putting it off because it sounds too complicated—take this as your sign. I’m living proof that you don’t need to be a tech genius or a coding wizard to make a website of your own to share your dream with the world. With the right platform and a bit of patience (plus a healthy dose of trial and error), you can create something that really feels like your vision has come to life. Just give it a go!