Why you should have a website

There are many, many reasons why you should have you own website.

Here are just a few of them:

1. Unlike social media platforms that come and go, a website can be your permanent home on the internet
2. Your friends will always have a way to contact you
3. You can list all your social media accounts on one page so people can follow you where you’re currently active
4. Writing about what you like is the best way to make new friends online
5. Everyone can see your stuff, whether or not they have an account on a specific platform
6. You own your website, so it can’t be taken away from you against your will (unlike losing a social media account)
7. You can import and repost everything that’s important to you
8. It becomes an incredible repository of your life
9. You can simply direct someone to a post that answers the question you’re so so so very tired of answering
10. It’s a great way to highlight your professional proficiencies in a way that can help you get new jobs
11. No matter how shitty a social media site gets, you’ll always have a place to post
12. You don’t have to fit inside artificial character counts
13. You can display your photos in the format and aspect ratio you want, not however the app-of-the-moment wants
14. You can post whatever you want and not worry about being moderated for some reason
15. There’s no algorithm you have to somehow please
16. It’s a home for your hobbies
17. Creating is better than consuming
18. You can collect email addresses and send emails directly to your subscribers
19. You’re allowed to link to whatever sites you want to
20. Unlike the firehose of social media, what you write isn’t immediately lost into the ether—you can display any post(s) as prominently as you’d like, no matter how old they are
21. You can design your site however you’d like without regard to any platform’s limitations
22. It’s a creative outlet for things you’re passionate about
23. Writing is a great way to think more deeply about a topic
24. Curate interesting links you want to keep
25. Write a scathing and detailed review of that company that totally screwed you over
26. Celebrate your accomplishments! Let the world see what you have done
27. You can make your own custom linktree
28. Escape the shallow swiping dating platforms with a webpage of who you are and what you’re looking for in a partner
29. Earn some goodwill by offering the solution to an obscure problem that took you forever to figure out
30. It’s the central hub of your online identity, however multi-faceted you want it to be
31. Have your own branded email address—using whatever usernames you want!
32. Promote your website every time you use your email address
33. You can create a lasting “body of work” that just can’t happen on social media
34. Document your travel adventures in a more coherent and lasting way
35. Getting random emails from people who your blog has helped is pretty rad
36. If you have things you want to sell, you can easily integrate that into your own website
37. You can profit off of your own website, not create value for some external company
38. You can design your site to look entirely unique and reflective of your own personality, unlike social media platforms
39. When you post on a website, you can link to that same post, forever, on whatever social media platforms come and go
40. You can design your site to outlive you (if you want), especially if you add your posts to the Internet Archive
41. With subdomains, you can have an infinite number of website URLs with just one domain name
42. It’s way easier to look back at your blog posts than it is to look back over your social media posts
43. It’s fun, surprisingly fun actually, to get visitors from across the world
44. It guarantees a high degree of online independence
45. It’s way easier and cheaper than you think, but offers incredible ROI value
46. There’s no algorithm to “punish” you for not posting on a regular schedule or following trends or any of the other hoops you have to jump through so your friends can see your posts
47. You can send people to your website, not some billionaire’s company website

Ok, that’s enough for now. Go get yourself a website! Register a domain (not sure what name to use? start with your name). Connect a simple blogging platform.

Just get started. Thank me later.