Time and effort
I decided that I wanted to start a business creating websites for other businesses (I'll write about that story later on). I spent 2 months going through The Odin Project, foundations and the intermediate and advanced html / css sections. Just so I could have a decent technical baseline for creating websites. I knew how to code, but I didn't know how to code for the frontend (websites and stuff). I then took a week or two going through a course for the static site generator 11ty. I then took another 2 weeks learning some basics of UI design. Then another 2 weeks going through a different course on creating service based business website landing pages. It takes me a while to get through courses since (at the time of writing) I still have a full time job an hour total commute each day. 45 hours of my week are spent on my day job.
I built it
With all that learning done it was time to finally create my website. I spent a week or two (I can't remember) on the first design of my website creating multiple iterations of each page. All things considered, the design was decent for my first try. I then spent another 2 weeks or coding out my website in 11ty. So after about 4 months of wanting to start a business creating websites, I had finally created my own website. Some friends and family knew I was working on it and it was finally time to share
But no one came
I shared out the link to my live website to anyone who I had told that I was working on it. I only the link via direct messages. I never made any public post on any platform. I had analytics turned on my website and it was great to see the page views go up. I got the website listed on google. I was excited. "Time to let organic google traffic flow" is what I thought to myself after my site was listed on google. But after a about a week with consistently declining page views I realized, no one will come. As of writing, a total of around 1,500 page views in 30 days was the peak. It is currently (582) as of writing with pretty much every single one of those being bots. This is also when I realized that SEO did matter.
I had built something, but no one knew about it and I hadn't done anything to promote it, it makes sense that no none would come. For some reason I was expecting for people to just find it and I would start getting calls. But without proper SEO, promotion, or advertising, this of course wouldn't happen.
Looking Forward
I still have yet to promote my site publicly because I have chosen to improve my skills related to the service that I will provide. I'll take the extra 6 - 12 months that It takes form the skills needed to provide a killer service. I am going to finish my UI design course, and learn Tailwind CSS. I'll then do a redesign of my site and a redesign of my first, and only, client's site, for free. After that is when I will finally start promoting my business and trying to create lead flow.
PS
The irony of my original idea for this blog hit me. My plan was to create posts without actively promoting it. I'll need to rethink this.