Building a Website from Scratch — NOT!

Nowadays, building a website is fairly easy. There are so many available pre-made websites, and one can easily make one using a website builder, so I see no point in building a website from scratch. There are just so many downsides in building one from scratch using hardcoded CSS and HTML.

This post is not meant to discourage one from building a website from scratch but to open his eyes to the hardships one has to go through in building one, and only to be frustrated in the end.

It takes professional programming knowledge to actually come up with a decent looking website built through CSS and HTML. The learning curve is so long that you might want to forget about it.

• Crazy organizational skills are needed to manage your posts, photos, content, links, and videos among others. The website is one complex platform mind you.
• Features and functions will not install on their own, you have to manually code their specific codes into your CSS stylesheet using HTML.
• A web page is another issue. Adding them could mean manually putting links and content you have created within the website. Now that’s one tough job! Anyway, do you know what codes to use? I bet not. Deleting them is just as tough as well. Not doing so will give you dead links all through your website.
• Search Engine Optimization is manually coded on every post and on every page of your website. How does typing codes for title, meta description, meta tags and keywords sounds like? Hard. Pre-made websites have all of these covered! And you can even check if your SEO codes are already acceptable or if something is lacking.
• Importing your hard coded website to an e-commerce or content management system website can be very difficult as it may not be compatible. Expect compatibility issues all the time.
• Creating a website from scratch is time consuming, not cost efficient and frustrating. Expect to spend lots of time building your codes and get frustrated with its result.

In this age, time is of essence this is why website builders and easy to use platforms are being used by most users. Website builders use the drag and drop options, making it easy for users to change the interface of their website, upload photos that they like, install plugins when deemed necessary. All of these can be done in a few hours with very desirable output. Website building companies also has 24/7 Support system for you to run to when something is not right.

Pre-built websites have it all organized, from the aesthetics to the content and they are all 100% customizable so I see no reason why one would prefer building a website from scratch over magically creating one from a website builder. If given the chance to advise someone, it would be “save yourself from too much stress and trouble by maximizing the use of a website builder”. It’s easy, it can be built in a matter of hours or minutes for some, the output is exceptional and most of all, it is free!