How to Create the Perfect Hobby Website
In this blog post I’m going to walk you through the steps you’ll need to take while creating the perfect hobby website.
The structure you’ll want to follow is the same whether you’re planning to eventually use this website for talking about a small side business you’re going to start, or just plan on keeping the site active as a hobby project.
Let’s get started.
The Technical Details
I’ll probably get around to writing several blog posts on the topics of hosting providers, domains and all that. Since I’m already publishing this blog one day late, I think I’m gonna just give you a few tips before I end up launching off onto a whole different topic.
In order to have any kind of website at all you have to host it with someone (unless of course you are a tech wiz and have a way to host it yourself). There are a lot of different options to choose from since there are literally hundreds of different hosting companies.
Because you are just creating this website as a hobby or for personal reasons you can go with a free hosting provider. Wix is the one I would recommend for this, but just remember that your website's domain name will include Wix’s name as well.
You’ll also have ads that you can’t remove if you use Wix’s free plan (this will be the same for every free hosting service). Again, if this is just a hobby or something you're putting up for friends and family only those things probably won’t be that big of a deal to you.
However, you may still want something that is “all your own'' so to speak, or you might want to make sure you could use this website in a more professional way someday if you need it. Lots of people run side businesses and have websites with their general information on them.
If you fit into either of those two scenarios then I’d advise paying for one of the less expensive plans from one of the many well known hosting providers.
I personally like the “Personal Plan” offered by Squarespace, but of course I’m probably biased because they’re the company that I use for this website.
If you want to go with the absolute cheapest option, Hostinger has record low prices on most of their plans, so you could go and check them out.
Once you get everything set up you can start figuring out what your copy is going to look like.
Figuring out Your Website’s Purpose
Before you even write the first word of your website’s home page you need to sit down and ask yourself what your website’s purpose is.
You might think that’s a needless step, but here me out.
Remember when I mentioned you might want to use this website to promote some kind of side hustle you’re working on some day? That’s totally fine, but until you actually start that side hustle you shouldn’t be promoting it on this website; that’s not its purpose yet.
If you’re just going to make a website for the fun of it, center the website around something you’re interested in. There are a lot of crazy websites out there that just talk about things like chocolat or dishwashing (don’t laugh at me, you never know what’s out there). A lot of the times those websites are just blogs, but you could definitely be a bit more elaborate if you so choose.
Another really popular purpose for setting up a website that’s going to be mostly visited by family or friends is announcing an event of some kind.
Two of my friends did this once. They were getting married, and since they knew a lot of people they decided to create a website that had all the information about the wedding, where it would be located, etc. That way everybody could find all the information they needed on the website instead of the bride and groom constantly getting calls and texts from people who forgot whether or not they were supposed to bring a dish for the reception dinner.
Once you’ve got your website’s purpose clear and in front of you you’re ready to write.
Gathering Your Information and Outlining
The next order of business you should attend to when writing your copy is to create an outline for the website and each of its individual pages.
The outlines for the individual pages should include an introduction explaining what the purpose of the page is, information about whatever your website is telling visitors about, and some kind of call to action if you want your visitors to do something (email you, read your blog, click on the link to the tootsie roll company’s website, etc.).
Make sure you have all the bits of information you want and then start typing. Since this is a hobby website feel free to let your creativity flow, use whatever tone you want (just make sure it’s in line with the website’s main purpose).
Keywords
The last thing you need to take into account while creating your hobby website is your keyword placement. Just because you’re doing this as a hobby doesn’t mean you shouldn’t put some effort into having well-placed keywords.
Pick a few phrases and words that apply to the topics you are covering on your website and use them wherever they fit naturally.
Well that’s my overview of how to put up the perfect hobby website. Like I said, I’ll probably put out some other articles on this blog that go into detail on other aspects of creating a website.
If there is a topic that you want me to cover, or something you feel I left out while writing this blog post let me know in the comment section.