Why I Built a Website
(And some principles I’m adhering to)
Why I built a website:
1) For fun!
2) I’ve planned, briefed and owned websites in work roles before, but always had someone else build and manage them. I wanted to learn how the building part worked (albeit on a small scale).
3) Because I occasionally read, think and do some (moderately) interesting stuff and wanted a place to record it, and potentially share it with others.
4) I think the rigour of recording things I feel are important to me will help me process them better and get more out of life.
5) I don’t particularly like sharing this stuff on social media: it gets lost in the melee, I don’t get to structure it how I want, all my data gets harvested, and who knows whether the Metas and ByteDances of this world will still be around when I’m senile and need some help remembering what I got up to.
Principles I am adopting:
1) This is a space for me to play. I’m not going to take it too seriously.
2) I’ll prioritise learning stuff over getting it perfect/right.
3) I’ll focus on what I love rather than what other people might be interested in.
4) I’ll do what fits into my life: Live first – website second. Not vice versa.
5) I don’t care about SEO. I’ll share this directly with who I want to.
6) I’ll do my own writing (i.e. not use an LLM). I think AI can be super helpful, but the writing here is about digesting my own experiences. Plus, I enjoy writing, so this is part of the fun for me.
FAQs That I imagine you might have (obviously no-one's actually questioned me on my site, let alone frequently).
David, your website looks a bit crap. Can you make it more professional please?
No. Also, kind of rude! Take it or leave it.
You said you read, thought, and did some (moderately) interesting stuff. Where is it?
Wow. I refer you to the answer above. Nice use of the Oxford comma though!
I’m an SEO expert. I can get you top x ranked in Google searches for x. Can we talk?
Go away. I know some banging SEO experts. If I cared I’d talk to them. Frankly I’d be embarrassed if this site had a wide audience.
There’s barely anything on your website yet.
That’s not even a question. It’s a fair point though. I only started this in October 2024, so it’s probably still under construction.
Check out some of the resources I used to learn how to get a site up and running, and to build it, in my Links I Like section.