I have worked “in the web” for 25 years now, which is a challenging thing for me to think about. It’s almost like passage of time doesn’t just happen to other people.
I have never really worked in the ‘glamorous side’ of FAANG companies, or startups. I have worked for county governments, large Florida-based, mouse-eared companies, agencies and other companies that needed websites or web applications; and, I spent a good stint (about 10 years) working ‘for myself’ as a freelancer, or agency owner, or contractor, depending on who you talked to. There’s probably an article in that last sentence there about making sure what you think you are is aligned with what the people paying you think you are, and vice versa.
Over that time, I’ve built a few websites. I’ve built websites and web applications and have spent just as much time learning how to build the applications as I have spent learning how to host and deploy the applications. I can truly refer to myself as a “full stack developer”.
But I don’t develop anymore.
What does that mean? Professionally, I manage teams and I work to find alignment across those teams, with my colleagues that also manage teams, but I still like development.
So. How to build a website. And why? That’s probably the first question you should be asking yourself, it’s certainly the question I’m asking myself as I write this. What am I hoping to accomplish with this particular website?
Do you want to sell something online? Do you want to build a brand? Perhaps you have the next big idea that will surpass social or crypto, maybe you’re ready to combine them both and need to make that happen.
Let’s start with a goal for this website. This website (eriksays.com) is meant to be a personal / professional writing space for me to ‘have a digital footprint’; a space to put my writing and links and CV. A place to express myself.
A blog, for lack of a better word.
So how did I build this?
This website is using Astro.js - I’m hosting the website using Cloudflare Pages and the codebase is in GitHub
The workflow for deployment, I have my blog installed on my local machine. I write here, on my local machine. I check the work locally and, once I’m happy with it, I push the changes to GitHub. Cloudflare Pages picks up on the changes to my GitHub repo, rebuilds the website and deploys that to eriksays
This is a long way from the ‘early days’, when you might have to login into a server via FTP (not SFTP, FTP) and manually move files over to a server.
Another thing, aside from the annual cost of my domain name (eriksays.com) - this structure is free, to me, at least. GitHub has a free account, Cloudflare Pages has a free account. Astro.js is open-source and also free.
So I can have a blog, a website with writing and links, and it’s free, as long as the organizations (GitHub and Cloudflare) keep their current models.
So having a website, in 2026, is not actually that challenging. I’m probably making it even more challenging, because there are other, more push-button solutions that don’t require the small level of effort I’ve made.
This does, of course, only touch on one aspect of a website (a blog or a personal website - primarily defined by ‘static content’).
I had a sub-title above — or do you even need one, anymore ¯_(ツ)_/¯ — related to the big question. Do you even need a website anymore and, I suppose, that depends on your goals.
You can build a brand on Instagram and TikTok or YouTube or Twitch and if you’re selling something, you can set up a payment page for that product you are selling and you, perhaps, don’t actually need a website anymore.
You can also rely on Substack or Medium to be your writing platform.
Maybe you can get by with just using the platforms that are available and the days of individual publishing are, indeed, gone the way of the dodo.
I, however, disagree. I think it’s more important now, with the platforms in question focusing more and more on AI-generated content and algorithms, to focus on maintaining your own space, your own property, that is not contingent upon the business whims of a corporation.
I’m at risk of this too, to a degree. Should GitHub or Cloudflare stop offering free hosting, I’ll have to figure something out. But the difference is: I own my domain. I own my content. If the platforms you rely on disappear tomorrow — or simply decide you’ve violated their terms — your content goes with them.
Whereas, relying solely on the platforms, there is real risk. You have to ask: are those platforms actually working to your benefit? Or are you, as an individual creator, just another piece of candy to offer up to the algorithm?
These are questions we have to ask ourselves: as writers, as content creators, as artists, as business people. The question itself isn’t unique. It’s about risk. Do you own what you produce or are you relying upon some other entity? In the business world, this question can be referred to as ‘vendor lock-in’; the notion that we can’t perform our business without this vendor.
I suppose, as a final question, does the platform work for you, or do you work for the platform?