The Setup
My new site is live! cPanel’s installer took care of the server, database, and files and had WordPress up and running in a few minutes. The hard part was finding out where everything lives. The server is cPanel. The dashboard is where you build. The public site is what visitors see. As soon as I saw that split, everything else just clicked.
Taking It To Heart
I deleted the sample post, page, and comment, and wrote an About Me page. Next I installed the Twenty Twenty Four theme. It came loaded with demo content for a fictional architecture firm, including a fake testimonial from its CEO. I changed my About page to be the homepage so visitors land on it instead. I also activated Akismet to block comment spam.
How to Change Design with CSS
I inspected my site title using DevTools and got its class, which is wp-block-site-title. I changed the title to navy and bold in the theme’s Additional CSS, and made links turn red on hover. Little things, but I wrote it, and I could see it working.
How I Will Use It
I am going to use this site to do data projects like my Flourish chart of baby names and classwork that I would want to show friends, family, and perhaps potential employers.
Owning vs Renting
Having my own site means I control the design and the content. No ads. No algorithm deciding who sees what. My site will stay the same if Instagram or LinkedIn change the rules. The tradeoff is responsibility: updates, security, and backups are on me. I’d still like to have it for a portfolio.
Hey George, I really like the way your website looks and that’s a nice picture you chose! I’d also have to agree on the idea of responsibilities being possibly tradeoffs/negative parts of owning a website. But the upsides compared to renting / using someone else’s software or site are definitely worth it like you were mentioning, portfolio’s and professional use are also great ideas that i might try too.