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These days, starting your own blog, website, or even business is not a rare thing. Also, it’s not limited to a particular social or age group anymore. Since the job market and the socio-economic situation have been unpredictable recently, people have been looking for additional sources of income and ways to create their own income generation solutions.
For instance, students create their own blogs to share their ideas, tips, and recommendations. These blogs don’t always cover global problems or potential career challenges. Sometimes, they’re just about recommending do my homework for me cheap services, how to get through college, which major to choose and which ones to avoid, etc.
Others build their own businesses to sell unique goods or promote environmentally friendly practices and initiatives. There is one thing that unites all these people — they live in a digital era and need an online presence.
Despite the existence of Tilda, Wix, WordPress, and similar tools, having an original website is much more beneficial. And what if you could build one yourself? Read on to find out what technologies and tools you’re going to need to do it.
Vector Graphics Editor
Any website requires a mockup with a proper design. To create a new mockup or open a finished one, you’re going to need an editor that will also allow you to tweak some details and look up exact values for margins, paddings, font size, color codes, and so on.
The most popular editor that offers a not too complicated interface is Figma. It was created for web designers and developers as a simpler substitute for Photoshop. However, there is a trick: Figma doesn’t open PSD files. So, if you have one of those with your mockup inside, try some other editors:
- Avocode (also converts Photoshop files into Figma ones)
- Photopea
- IrfanView
- GIMP
- Artweaver
Code Editor
A code editor or integrated development environment is actually the place where you will write your whole project. The most widespread include:
- Visual Studio Code
- Sublime Text
- Atom
- Vim
Visual Studio Code is the #1 choice among developers due to its features, plugins, and interface. The auto-completion of code, numerous shortcuts coming from plugins and in-built features, and different themes for convenient highlights of the code syntax are the main reasons to choose this editor.
Bundler
It’s no longer enough to upload a couple of files and be done with the development. To be more accurate, it’s okay for a fully static page or small website with a purely informative purpose. Otherwise, your website will either be slow or have limited functionality, or simply, it won’t work.
Bundlers were created so developers could delegate all the integration issues to the machine instead of focusing on doing magic like combining scripts and modules in a specific order. All the JavaScript modules get combined into one file that is then given to the browser.
The process of development becomes easier as the coders don’t have to deal with many under-the-hood methods and details they probably won’t make use of. In addition, with a bundler, it’s easier to use libraries offering off-the-shelf solutions and install them as dependencies of the project, npm packages, not just scripts that pile up your HTML file. The most popular bundlers are:
- Parcel
- Webpack
- Rollup
- Closure
However, if you’re a beginner, start with Parcel.
Git & GitHub
Before you can host your project on a static domain, you go through a development stage. That means that you need to store your code somewhere and preview the website. In addition, you’re going to need to use the Git terminal to manage your project, install packages, and handle changes.
HTML5
This old but gold technology and its latest fifth standard version form the skeleton of the project. Even if you’re going to write the website using JavaScript mainly, knowledge of the rules regarding the markup syntax is still vital and will be the foundation of your website.
CSS3
When it comes to making the website attractive and appealing to users, CSS comes into the picture. As soon as you recreate the structure (i.e., markup), the design details taken from the mockup are the next thing to handle. You can also use Styled Components or preprocessors like SASS, but it will depend on your type of project. To start, CSS3 will be enough.
Image Optimizer
All the static images (i.e., the ones you won’t retrieve from the backend) will be stored in your project, so they should go through the optimization stage for your website to load and operate faster. For this purpose, consider the following tools:
- Squoosh
- Tiny PNG
- GIMP
- Web Resizer
- Photopea
- SVGOMG
- Icomoon (not an optimizer as such, but it helps to create sprites out of SVG icons)
JavaScript
For your website to function properly, JavaScript is a must. It’s the programming language that follows ECMAScript 6 — the standard that allows for the universal display of websites among different browsers. All you need is to choose one frontend and one backend tool.
Frontend Tool
As soon as you’re done with mastering Vanilla JavaScript, it’s up to you to decide whether to choose it for frontend development or not. Keep in mind that there are much better and modern technologies out there. If we distance from that fact, the main options are as follows:
- Vanilla JavaScript
- React.js
- Vue.js
- Angular.js
Before even starting the project, make the decision on the framework or library you’ll use since it will influence other aspects of your work. For instance, React.js runs on Webpack. So, if you choose Parcel initially, you’ll need to make a serious overhaul as soon as the programming stage comes.
Backend Tool
Without a backend, your website won’t be able to function in full if you need a database, arrange profiles of visitors, and so on. The top tool intended for these and other purposes is Firebase from Google. You can also try Node.js, however, it will take longer to master it.
Hosting
This is where your website will live. In case you don’t need a unique domain, GitHub is still an option. Otherwise, you can try using Netlify, which chooses free domains, or Firebase.
Summing Up
These are the tools that will be sufficient for you to create you own website from scratch. It’s a lot to manage, but with the help of samples, libraries, and API documentation, the process will become easier. Good luck!
