Do you recognize Gwen? She quit her job during Super Bowl Sunday. No, I’m not about to quit my job but I’m going to do something I’ve wanted to for quite some time: starting my own website.
GoDaddy.com has an absolutely irresistible offer of $1/month for your own domain hosting and I went ahead and bought myself two right away.
My First Website: ashleyburk.com
Formerly asheyhoogstraten.com, this site serves as a personal resume/accomplishments page for my corporate career. I’ve always wanted to get one set up; I think any competitive, young professional should have one, especially in certain fields i.e. graphic design, marketing or other fields where you can link a more extensive portfolio of your work.
Note, given my career shift in 2020, this site is currently offline but still in my ownership for potential future plans.
My Second Website: thefoodiesfithome.com
This second website is my hobby. Or, was my hobby. Now it’s my career, which was always the goal. I purchased the domain, originally foodwinediy.com, to be a blog, geared toward the modern Millennial working on a budget, looking to make the most of new experiences and things. While I’ll have some local-specific content, a majority will be applicable to Millennials across the country, and even world.
Topics to be featured when starting my own website:
- Big events in Chicago
- Trending media topics
- Food and recipes
- Entertainment news and commentary
- Easy DIY projects
- Health and wellness
Update: June 13, 2019
It’s now five and a half years later and things have been going GREAT! I’m thrilled I took that leap of faith in 2014, and I hope you do too if that’s what you want. Since originally hosting on GoDaddy.com, I’ve moved to Bluehost.com. I’ve found their customer support to be unbeatable and the interface is incredibly user friendly. Highly recommend Bluehost.com for your domain hosting needs.
If you do, drop your website in the comments and we can be each other’s hype man. I love to help new website owners and bloggers!
Update: December 27, 2021
Even still two and a half years later I have more amazing news! As of October 2020 I left my corporate job to pursue my job as a full-time creator and blogger. As long as you don’t mind managing your own books, and not outsourcing much, you can stand to make a good profit.
Of course, eventually you can really make large profits and can justify hiring some help, but at first, you have to put in the work yourself. It’s a lot of hard work, and it takes a lot of rejection to get to the big golden opportunities, but it’s all worth it.
Starting my own website was the best thing I’ve done for myself, professionally speaking. It took me years of 60+ work weeks, getting through both my corporate job and then putting in time on my own site, but it was worth every second.
If you enjoy making your own website and/or writing, I strongly encourage keeping a blog. Even if it’s just private for yourself at first, that’s how mine was. Everyone deserves a creative outlet, even if you’re not looking to share it.
Looking to start your own website?
Check out these key resources, several being part of a series, on how to help you get started. Information includes things I’ve learned, how to do it all yourself, the best tools I’ve found and more!
- Blogging 101: How to Get Started
- My Go-To Website Management and Creator Tools
- How to Support Creator Friends for FREE
- Blogging 101: Monetizing Your Website
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