Sometime before the Corona Virus hit countries around the world, I planned to redesign my website. It was not because the website was designed badly (it absolutely was, by the way!), but it was really because the website was no longer a true representation of whom I had become.
Just so you know, this domain name, tobisalami.com has been renewed till the year 2033. This website is here to stay.
Why redesign?
First off, this was not just a redesign. It was an overhaul. But let’s start from the beginning. About 8 years ago, I wrote my first line of code. I was newly introduced to the idea of developing websites. But at the time, my knowledge of web development was very limited. I was very enthusiastic about building things, though. So, I tried to! Although, at the time, I made use of web builders online, I thought it was all there is to web development. When limitations hit me, I thought to myself- it’s either I get my hands dirty and actually code my website line by line, or I find something that abstracted content from the code so that I can manage my content and code my layouts.
Enter, WordPress
First, I got introduced to wordpress.com and of course limitations hit me there too – like, the ability to use a domain name of my own. I just could not do certain things. Then I saw this article from WPBeginner about the difference between wordpress.com and wordpress.org, and my eyes opened clearly to all the possibilities of WordPress as an open source content management system. It was time to redesign.
Designing without design
When I bought this domain name in 2018, what I really needed was a blog where I could put up all my written works – poetry, short stories, and long-form articles. I was interested in offering web development as a service, but why offer something you cannot give competitively? For many months after then, I tried to perfect the science of web development and was disappointed once again – no one really succeeds at perfecting the art of web development, the attempt to do so only leads to disappointment.
This website was first launched sometime in 2019. In retrospect, its design left a lot to be desired. It was so below par!
But what is “par”?
Learning UI Design
Soon after I launched the website for the first time, I started to learn what makes a website usable – the tips for designing beautiful websites. It was not the AI era of course, so there was not much to rely on in terms of tools. I started to learn Adobe XD (which has now been retired by Adobe), and really it was like learning to swing a hammer well when what I really wanted to be was a carpenter. It was a step forward, but there was still a lot to learn.
YouTube and Tuition fees
A spoken word artist, Ofem Ubi, said and I quote him “if YouTube had a portal, I’ll pay my tuition fees in there.” And I totally agree with him. YouTube was the place where I learned most things concerning designing and developing a website. It was time to implement what I had learned. Like the blocks used to map out a building’s foundation, my website was abandoned until I had built quite a lot of other websites.
Coming Soon?
At some point in recent years, I had developed websites that both function and look great. I had learned a ton! But my website still looked below par. Par still has no definition. I was too embarrassed to have a website that didn’t agree with my “senior web developer” claims. So, I took it down, and put up a coming soon page that looked like this:
Many clients who contacted me during that period asked again and again why my website was not up yet, and I kind of blamed them for it. Haha. I was jumping from one client’s website to another after all.
Why launch now?
There are a few reasons why I waited a long time. I love the WordPress Core, and though its development is quite slow with a lot of missing features, there were those features I just could not start without – and the major one was components – it’s what WordPress calls “Synced Patterns and Overrides.”
Put simply, you can create something once and reuse it multiple times all over your website or web application while changing only its content.
This card-looking information box was implemented using Synced Patterns and Overrides. It’s a custom implementation of the feature, but its advantage is that it’s all manageable from just one place.
If I decide to change the way it looks in the future, I won’t have to go one-by-one to everywhere it was used to make any minor modification to its design or structure. This feature was key because the relaunch was to come with a blog that I intend to manage on here.
Google eyed me
One day, I thought to search my name “Tobi Salami” on Google and was met with this beautiful page.
I was recognized by Google as an individual. This was a big thing for me, because it’s not everyday you find someone who considers himself unpopular (even with about 12k followers on LinkedIn) on Google. So, I thought, why not relaunch the website and pay attention to Search Engine Optimization?; maybe I could make something out of this.
What tools were used?
I will keep this part really short because not everyone reading this is technical.
The website is hosted on AWS (Amazon Web Services). On AWS Lightsail (a service offered by AWS), I provisioned a custom Ubuntu server. On the Ubuntu server, I installed CyberPanel (a web hosting management application). CyberPanel makes use of Litespeed – a web server that I have come to know and love.
On CyberPanel, I installed WordPress, proxied it all through the Cloudflare CDN for additional protection, and speed considerations. On WordPress, I majorly use Bricks Builder (a Page Builder for WordPress) along with ACSS (a CSS Framework for Bricks Builder, put simply), Bricksforge (an addon for Bricks), Jet Engine (a dynamic wordpress development plugin), Litespeed Cache (a plugin that integrates deeply with Litespeed and makes for a faster website) and a few other tools.
What can you expect?
Lots! The major intent of this launch is not to reintroduce myself. I am still a web developer who is madly in love with my wife, but also in love with the complexities of developing websites and I intend to share that a lot here (web development articles, I mean. Not my wife, of course. What were you thinking?)
You can expect to get a new article at least once a week that explains how developers can get better at developing websites.
You can expect more links in the comment sections of Facebook groups I belong to, instead of long-form comments that I make to assist other developers who have problems developing their websites. The aim will not be profit, as the content on this website for the foreseeable future will be free of charge.
How do I intend to keep it free?
Well, I have thought about this. And being that I learned most of what I know for free, I will adopt the same strategy that those whom I learned from employed – my revenue streams would be affiliate links that will cost the reader nothing, sponsored content, and donations. That’s it. I will never sell the data of my users.
Because I have decided to put out content for free does not make them any less valuable than content people charge for. I am sure that in most cases, they will be even more valuable than paid content.
How can you support this?
The most important way is to share it with others. The advantage is two-edged. First, others get to benefit from it, thereby giving me the satisfaction I set out to find. Second, you increase the likelihood of letting someone use my affiliate links to purchase a product or service and that adds a few more coins to my wallet.
The second way you can do that is by making a donation. Soon, I will launch a small portal for this and update this part when the portal is up and ready.
If you are reading this with a smile on your face, you are marvelous! And you can let me know you saw this by shooting me a message and saying something encouraging. I will appreciate it very much.
See you in the first non-rant article that comes next.
Ciao.