I have always wanted to build my own website. In the past, I have wasted a lot of money on domains that I never put to work and blog sites that I never updated. I have decided to stop being lazy and to commit at least one week to build a website.
Since I do not have coding skills, I used WordPress website builder. I bought a domain+hosting from Hostgator and a social networking theme from Thrive Themes. The total cost for these services and tools was around $100.
It took me at least 2 days to build the site and it will probably take weeks for the site to be fully functional. Although users can sign up and use the site, it still requires a lot of work. My friends are complaining about the design once they sign up for accounts. This is forcing me to watch videos and read forums and articles on how to make the site better.
Here is the link to the site that I built: Login – Haki Yetu (Our Right)
(a platform where young African political leaders can network and exchange ideas. The platform allows users to share political experiences, events, ideas, files, and to seek support from each other).
Why?- I have been involved in African politics as a youth. I was a candidate for local government office in Kenya (2016-17). I found out that young leaders in Kenya were not winning any seats because they lacked political networks. The older generation of politicians had better informal networks and did not have to work as hard to win. This is the case with much of Africa. The youth is heavily exploited by these older politicians only to be neglected after the campaigns are over.
Having a social networking site where young African politicians can connect and share ideas would be very helpful. This is one of the reasons why I built 'Haki Yetu', a Swahili word which means 'Our Right'.
Although this website will probably remain underground, I am happy that I actually took the time to build it. I now feel a little comfortable with building WordPress websites. The website is not Fastlane. but I am looking at the 'experience' side of it.
I showed it to one of my friends who sells stuff on Amazon and he was impressed. He now wants me to build him an affiliate website. I agreed to do it for free and all he will have to pay for are the costs for the domain name+hosting and a professional theme. I will not be charging for the work since I am still in the learning process.
One of the biggest lessons that I have learned from building my website is:
Just Do It! I am sure that if I keep practicing I'll be able to build much cleaner websites in less than a year.
Since I do not have coding skills, I used WordPress website builder. I bought a domain+hosting from Hostgator and a social networking theme from Thrive Themes. The total cost for these services and tools was around $100.
It took me at least 2 days to build the site and it will probably take weeks for the site to be fully functional. Although users can sign up and use the site, it still requires a lot of work. My friends are complaining about the design once they sign up for accounts. This is forcing me to watch videos and read forums and articles on how to make the site better.
Here is the link to the site that I built: Login – Haki Yetu (Our Right)
(a platform where young African political leaders can network and exchange ideas. The platform allows users to share political experiences, events, ideas, files, and to seek support from each other).
Why?- I have been involved in African politics as a youth. I was a candidate for local government office in Kenya (2016-17). I found out that young leaders in Kenya were not winning any seats because they lacked political networks. The older generation of politicians had better informal networks and did not have to work as hard to win. This is the case with much of Africa. The youth is heavily exploited by these older politicians only to be neglected after the campaigns are over.
Having a social networking site where young African politicians can connect and share ideas would be very helpful. This is one of the reasons why I built 'Haki Yetu', a Swahili word which means 'Our Right'.
Although this website will probably remain underground, I am happy that I actually took the time to build it. I now feel a little comfortable with building WordPress websites. The website is not Fastlane. but I am looking at the 'experience' side of it.
I showed it to one of my friends who sells stuff on Amazon and he was impressed. He now wants me to build him an affiliate website. I agreed to do it for free and all he will have to pay for are the costs for the domain name+hosting and a professional theme. I will not be charging for the work since I am still in the learning process.
One of the biggest lessons that I have learned from building my website is:
Just Do It! I am sure that if I keep practicing I'll be able to build much cleaner websites in less than a year.
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