Top 4 Checklist: Creating A Website

  1. Domain Name and Sub-Domain

There's a lot of options for domain registration and website hosting, but based on my experience, one of the best is Go Daddy. I've been using GoDaddy since 2016, and I highly recommended this domain registrar and website hosting. Why? Because I never experience downtime or issues in using their platform, they also have reliable technical support. I once forgot the username and email for our church website, but they give me all the options I need, and the issue was resolved in just a few minutes, no stress! I also love the look and feel of their finder and the process of choosing a domain name.

It's convenient and easy. You'll simply type your preferred domain and click "Search Domain," then they will provide significant results and alternatives if you're preferred domain name is taken. In my case, I want a personal website with my nickname and surname.

Search your preferred domain now in GoDaddy's website

Make Your Own Way | GoDaddy PH
GoDaddy offers domain names, web hosting, online marketing, phone services, web design and an easy to use website builder.

2. Design/Mock-up

I used Sketch 30-day free trial to design the landing page of my website. If you are like me and don't have the skills and expertise to design, Sketch is a good platform for beginners. It's genuinely not complicated or technical. It's flexible and super easy to use. I don't need to pay the $99 for a one-time payment for 30 days is enough to finish my design.

Landing Page of my Website (design via Sketch)

For more information about Sketch,  click the link below.

The digital design toolkit
Sketch is a design toolkit built to help you create your best work — from your earliest ideas, through to final artwork.

3. Hosting Platform

I used Firebase to host my main website, and it also comes with analytics since it's part of the Firebase platform. Firebase can manage your data resources in real-time that's why people love it. What's the best thing about Firebase? It's free!

Checkout the usage of my storage and downloads

For more information about Firebase,  click the link below:

Firebase Pricing
Get started with Firebase for free, and scale worldwide to millions of users, paying only for what you use.

For my blog (where you are currently reading lol), the hosting platform I used is Digital Ocean. Digital Ocean "is an American cloud infrastructure provider headquartered in New York City with data centers worldwide." It's easy to understand, performs very well, and cheaper compares to conventional ones. I availed the most affordable hosting plan fitted my blog for only $5 per month.

For more information about Digital Ocean,  click the link below.

DigitalOcean – The developer cloud
Helping millions of developers easily build, test, manage, and scale applications of any size – faster than ever before.

4. CMS for Blog

I used Ghost for my content management. Ghost is now one of the most popular CMS and is now being compared with WordPress. I chose Ghost instead of WordPress because it's pretty straightforward, effortless, and has a friendly interface. They also have tons of free templates readily available for your website. All you need to do is acknowledge the creators and add them to your website's footer. You can check my website footer to see where did I get my current template. The templates are easy to explore and customize.

All New Free Ghost Themes – Fully open-source themes for publishers
We’ve shipped three shiny new free Ghost themes to the Marketplace that are ready to use & open-source. Find out how to install a beautiful free theme 👉

Here's a screenshot of Ghost CMS Admin Panel.

For more information, visit Ghost CMS website

Ghost: Turn your audience into a business
The world’s most popular modern publishing platform for creating a new media platform. Used by Apple, SkyNews, Buffer, OpenAI, and thousands more.

There you have it, that's my checklist on how I created my website! If you are still confused and need more assistance, I'm happy to help! You can reach me at hello@mahabernardino.com