I Built My Personal Website in 20 Hours: Here’s How You Can Too
I had no experience in website design, but after 20 hours of work, I launched my professional site
Here’s how I did it:
Step 1 — Purchasing Domain & Hosting (2 Hours)
I chose Hostinger to buy my domain name and web hosting. Since tomhughes.com wasn’t available, I opted for tomhughesx.com to keep it simple.
Step 2 — Benchmarking & Inspiration (4 Hours)
I started by listing 10 public personalities I admire, then used ChatGPT to expand that list to 20. I reviewed each of their website landing pages, capturing my thoughts and feelings in a Google Doc. I then asked GPT to summarize the key takeaways, which resulted in a clear list of what to do and what to avoid.
Step 3 — Creating a Wireframe (2 Hours)
A wireframe is a basic visual guide that outlines your website’s structure. I used Figma (free) to draft the wireframe, starting with the mobile layout since most users will likely be on mobile. One tip here is to paste your favorite landing pages from benchmarking into Figma for a direct comparison.
Step 4 — Building My Website (4 Hours)
Now it was time to build my website. I chose WordPress for this task because over 40% of websites are built on it, presumably making it a reliable choice. At first, I struggled with navigating Wordpress, but this YouTube tutorial came to the rescue. Within 3 hours, I had a full draft of my site using the Kadence theme (highly recommended).
Step 5 — Refining the Website: (4 Hours)
I used WordPress’s customization tools to select fonts, colors, and edit the menus in the style I wanted. Then, I added the necessary icons and images to specific pages.
Step 6 — Testing the Website: (4 Hours)
Finally, I tested the look and feel on both desktop and mobile, and shared the website link with close friends for feedback. After a few tweaks, my website was ready to go live!
It took me just 20 hours to go from no experience to launching my first website. With these steps, I’m sure you could do it in even less time.
Now that it’s live, feel free to check out my website, I’d love to get your feedback.
