Why I Keep Building Websites

I don’t really know why I keep building websites.

Well, I do know some of the reasons. I like making things. I like learning how things work. I like having an idea in my head and seeing it become an actual website that I can open in a browser.

But I don’t always have a proper reason for starting one. Sometimes I have a business idea. Sometimes I want to build a news site. Sometimes I see something on the internet and think I could make something similar, or maybe a little better. And sometimes I just have a strange idea and want to see if I can actually build it.

I have been doing this for years now.

I don’t have a degree in web development, and I wouldn’t call myself a developer. I don’t know a bunch of programming languages. I have learned bits and pieces along the way, enough to build what I want to build, and then I usually forget half of it if I don’t use it for a while.

I am just someone who likes to learn.

That has probably been the biggest reason I keep coming back to websites. There is always something I don’t know. One day it might be PHP. Another day it might be WordPress. Sometimes it is CSS because something looks fine on my computer and completely broken on my phone. Then there are domains, hosting, databases, servers, design, and all the other little things that come with putting something on the internet.

I don’t think I have ever mastered any of it, but I enjoy figuring things out.

I also spend a lot of time complaining about websites. Government websites are probably my favourite targets. I have complained about websites from Nagaland and from the Indian government more times than I can count. Some still look like they were made for a different time. Others are difficult to use on a phone, or simply don’t seem to have been designed with mobile users in mind.

Maybe that is one reason I care so much about responsive design when I build my own sites.

I want something to work on a phone. Not just technically work, but actually be comfortable to use. The text should fit. Buttons should be easy to tap. Things shouldn’t disappear off the side of the screen. It should look like the same website whether someone opens it on a small phone, a tablet, a laptop, or a larger screen.

I don’t always get everything right, but I think about it.

Most of the websites I have built have been news sites. I have probably built more than 50 websites in total by now. I usually start with an idea, build the site from scratch, spend a couple of months working on it, and then eventually sell it.

Then I start thinking about another one.

That is probably my biggest problem. I am quite good at starting websites. Staying with them is another matter.

I can spend weeks thinking about a name, finding a domain, designing the site, and getting everything to work. Then, after two or three months, another idea comes along and suddenly I want to build that instead.

So I have a collection of websites that existed for a while and then disappeared from my life. Some were probably bad ideas. Some might have worked if I had stayed with them longer. I don’t really know.

I don’t regret building them, though. Even the ones I abandoned taught me something. Sometimes it was technical. Sometimes I learned what I didn’t want to build. Sometimes I just learned that I lose interest in certain things after a while.

There is also something peaceful about building a website that I find difficult to explain. I can sit there and work on something for hours without really thinking about anything else. I might be fixing a small problem that nobody else will ever notice, changing the spacing between two things, trying a different layout, or figuring out why something isn’t behaving the way I want it to.

And then it works. That little moment is enough.

I don’t need every website I build to become a huge success. Of course it is nice when something makes money or people actually use it, but that isn’t always why I start. Sometimes I just want to make something.

That is probably why I keep coming back after all these years. I can build something, learn something, mess something up, fix it, get bored, sell it, abandon it, and then start all over again with another idea.

Maybe one day I’ll stop doing that. Or maybe I won’t.

I do hope this site is different, though.

I have started enough websites to know that starting is the easy part for me. The harder part is staying with it.

So I hope Unheard is still here after the excitement of starting it wears off. I hope I keep writing when I have nothing particularly clever to say. I hope I don’t get distracted by the next domain name or the next strange idea that appears in my head.

For once, I’d like to see what happens if I actually stick around.