Ever since my Youtube channel started to grow, I thought about potentially making a website and social media pages. I did some MATLAB coding in college, but a whole website seemed daunting. Not to mention, I still would need to figure out the whole domain name thing, and find a place to host my website. Just the fact that many people hire web developers to make their sites had me nervous.
I decided to start out just with social media, creating a Facebook page and adding DIY Sportsman to Instagram and Twitter. Nevertheless, I was still a bit limited in how I could present my content. Youtube, for instance, allows you to add annotations to external links. That only works for a verified site tied to the Youtube creator, not just any website… or any social media page. In addition, getting those nice big preview images on Facebook shares is really tough to control unless you do so through something called Open Graph settings. Again, that’s done through a website.
Then, a few days ago, I found an interesting video on Youtube from Tyler Mooore. It was an hour long video about how to create a website from scratch, with no steps skipped. I watched the entire thing. He talked about getting web hosting and a domain name (even provided a coupon code!) and installing WordPress, which allows you to create a website without using code. Then I discovered he had another video updated in 2014 with almost two hours of material. So I watched that one, too. This was on Wednesday, New Year’s Eve. With the holiday the next day I decided to go for it. I Bought the domain and hosting and started building. I ran into some issues along the way, but was able to resolve most of them searching Google and installing new plugins. Now as I type this on Sunday, January 4th, I’m excited to say that the hard work is done!! The back-filled content is up, and I have an easy, streamlined method for adding new posts.
I designed the site to be very compatible with social media, allowing easy like and sharing capabilities. If you think the content is helpful, feel free to share it with others! Comments can also be posted right onto Youtube videos. There are some very good observations and extra tips buried on the videos, so when I find them I do my best to add video annotations or update the descriptions. If you want notifications when I make a new post, I added a subscribe box on the right sidebar.
-Garrett
http://diy-sportsman.com
