Making Your Website Just Right

There are many ways to build a Website. Some of these ways take longer to learn than others.

There is no "right" way to build out a website, only the individual builder can decide such issues.

Part of the problem is what exactly do you want?

Free Themes

The easiest way to build a website is through free themes. For example, there are very good theme builders that have free versions such as Astra and OceanWP. These two are rated at the top for free page builders which have free pre-built themes available.

All you have to do is to use these free themes as a starting point for individualizing them to your needs.

Of course, you will not have total control over everything with a free builder but you can make most free themes today look really good. Then with a few (usually) free plugins, you can add additional functionality.

But suppose you want more control and build out a theme that is not in a prebuilt theme? Suppose you saw a website while browsing on the Internet and decided you would like to build your own site - or modify your existing site - to look like that.

Paid Themes

One solution that might help is to get the paid version of some of the free themes you already used. This will certainly give you more options and you will almost certainly be able to do more modifications.

But suppose you want more - you know, graphics that pop out at you, modals, special effects on hover, special blogging effects - just some features you want but can't find on your paid theme version.

Then what?

Divi and Elementor (among others)

These are the two most popular theme builders for those who want more granular control and options than on most of the paid themes.

Elementor has a free version that while limited, and be expanded with plugin addons - although many of these are paid plugins. The free version otherwise is rather limited although it has more functionality than it used to have.

The paid version of Elementor has recently gone up in price which is a shame. It is now much more expensive than Divi and even the paid options have limitations on the number of sites you can use with one subscription.

Divi does not have a free version, but the paid version allows you have as many websites as you can build. It is competitively priced compared to Elementor. They have opened upon a "marketplace" where third-party developers can place their products that add additional functionality or features.

You can probably build just about anything you want with these two builders - just about. If you still more, you might be able to integrate CSS / Javascript to do more, or you might just want to start from scratch.

Coding with CSS - HTML - Javascript - PHP - Bootstrap (etc)

If you are really adventuresome and have some (OK, a lot) of free time on your hands, you can learn to code. Learning to code will enable you to do anything you can think of - eventually.

Of course, the problem with this approach is that it takes time - sometimes lots of time - to code. There are all kinds of places somebody can learn to code WordPress Websites such as Udemy and even classes on YouTube.

I have done all of the above and even make sites as a kind of a hobby.

What do you think? What have people used to make their sites - and particularly, has anybody coded their sites from scratch?

I'd be interested to know how long it took people to learn how to make their sites and whether they would do it all over again if they had the time or inclination.

Dave.