You don't need to know how to code to build a website
Websites have so many different uses. You can build a space for your school club to announce events, keep track of your activities, and share thoughts. You can use it to put on display your best work as an artist or writer. You can use it for fundraising and to build awareness of a campaign you’re part of, and the list goes on. This is a great component to have on your college application. We did a separate post on why that's the case here.
The idea of creating a website can feel a bit daunting when you have so many other things to do, but it essentially boils down to five steps. Here’s how to get started.
Step 1: Plan the site
First things first, decide what the website is for. Is it a solo project that chronicles your time as a high school student? Is it going to be for one specific club organization? Are you already in a club and now you want to start a separate site for a side project?
Write out what you want to do and who your audience will be. Once you have this defined, think about what pages should go into your website. If the website is to introduce yourself as a photographer, you might have pages like these below:
About me
Portfolio
Essays about photo shoots
If your website is for a charity that you’ve established, it might have a more complex structure like this:
Our mission
Our team
Our work
Upcoming events
Partnerships
There is no one way to plan a website so think about the elements that will best showcase what you’re trying to say through the site. Do remember that your audience down the line will be admissions officers, so be thoughtful and professional in your planning.
Step 2: Build the site
Right, so you have the skeleton of your site, now you need to actually build it. You can learn how to do this using website builders, many of which are very intuitive to use. The nice thing about a student site is that you won’t need the high-end security features often required for businesses, unless you have payment processes involved such as selling charity merchandise on the site. In this case, you will need some adult help with the paperwork, but if you’ve grown your club to a point where you can sell merch, this is a good problem to have.
Check out some easy-to-use site builders to understand how they work. Use the free templates offered and give it a go; you can test out different options until you find a site builder that you like the best. You’ll find there will be many different plans available with differing price options, so weigh the benefits and see what makes the most sense based on the needs of your website.
https://weblium.com/website-builder-for-students
https://www.squarespace.com/website-design
https://www.wix.com/website/design
Step 3: Host the site & give it a name
This is the step that can seem the most challenging. Finding a web hosting service is basically like reserving a place on the Internet to park your website. There are many different services available and the great thing is plenty of these places offer domain name registration as well. Your domain name is essentially the address to your website. It makes sense that the place that helps you park your website would facilitate registering the address as well. You can, of course, do this all with separate providers, but using the same service will streamline the process.
One more thing to keep in mind: there’s a good chance the website builder that you chose from Step 2 will provide hosting and a domain name, so if you want to keep things simple, that is another option to consider.
Just know every single one of these companies offers either excellent live chat, telephone support, or ticketing. Getting over this step is critical because it will make this entire process much easier if you need to make a site again for something in college later.
Here are more resources on web hosting:
https://www.hostingadvice.com/how-to/web-hosting-for-students-teachers/
https://cybernews.com/best-web-hosting/student-web-hosting/
Step 4: Promote the site
You made the site and everything is finished, but fewer than expected are coming or you want to get some serious growth. What do you do? You can promote the site on your personal social media accounts, or you can take things further and create a social media account dedicated to your website. This is a great way to learn how to promote your work and engage with audiences online.
Another thing to keep in mind is search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is essentially providing information to search engines (like Google) so they know that your site exists and understand where it should show up under search terms. It is a long-term effort that requires some investment of time, but the great thing is that many website builders have SEO mechanisms embedded in their site manager. You should be diligent about inputting SEO data (known as metadata) so that people can find your website more easily on search engines.
Step 5: Keep the site lively
It will depend on what you are trying to accomplish through your website, but making sure it is updated regularly is a big component of running a website. If you have designed it to keep visitors engaged, it will be important to create a content calendar and plan your posts ahead. Say you run a blog on a specific topic. You can brainstorm the different ideas you want to talk about, think about the timing for each post and write the upcoming ones first. This is a great way to hone your planning skills and showcase your commitment to the subject matter. Make sure to be realistic in your planning so that you build a schedule that you can actually stick to.
