beginnerâs guide to the indie web
âi miss the old internetâ âweâll never have websites like the ones from the 90s and early 2000s ever againâ âiâm tired of social media but thereâs nowhere to goâ
personal websites and indie web development still very much exist! it may be out of the way to access and may not be the default internet experience anymore, but if you want to look and read through someoneâs personally crafted site, or even make your own, you can still do it! hereâs how:
use NEOCITIES! neocities has a built in search and browse tools to let you discover websites, and most importantly, lets you build your own website from scratch for free! (there are other ways to host websites for free, but neocities is a really good hub for beginners!)
need help getting started with coding your website? sadgrl online has a section on her website dedicated to providing resources for newbie webmasters!
HTML (HyperText Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) are the core of what all websites are built on. many websites also use JS (JavaScript) to add interactive elements to their pages. w3schools is a useful directory of quick reference for pretty much every HTML/CSS/JS topic you can think of.
there is also this well written and lengthy guide on dragonfly cave that will put you step by step through the basics of HTML/CSS (what webpages are made from), if thatâs your sort of thing!
stack overflow is every programmerâs hub for asking questions and getting help, so if youâre struggling with getting something to look how you want or canât fix a bug, you may be able to get your answer here! you can even ask if no oneâs asked the same question before.
websites like codepen and jsfiddle let you test HTML/CSS/JS in your browser as you tinker with small edits and bugfixing.
want to find indie websites outside the scope of neocities? use the search engine marginalia to find results you actually want that google wonât show you!
you can also use directory sites like yesterwebâs link section to find websites in all sorts of places.
if you are going to browse the indie web or make your own website, i also have some more personal tips as a webmaster myself (i am not an expert and i am just a small hobbyist, so take me with a grain of salt!)
if you are making your own site:
get expressive! truly make whatever you want! customize your corner of the internet to your heartâs content! you have left the constrains of social media where every page looks the same. you have no character limit, image limit, or design limit. want to make an entire page or even a whole website dedicated to your one niche interest that no one seems to be into but you? go for it! want to keep a public journal where you can express your thoughts without worry? do it! want to keep an art gallery that looks exactly how you want? heck yeah! you are free now! you will enjoy the indie web so much more if you actually use it for the things you canât do on websites like twitter, instead of just using it as a carrd bio alternative or a place to dump nostalgic geocities gifs.
donât overwhelm yourself! if youâve never worked with HTML/CSS or JS before, it may look really intimidating. start slow, use some guides, and donât bite off more than you can chew. even if your site doesnât look how you want quite yet, be proud of your work! youâre learning a skill that most people donât have or care to have, and thatâs pretty cool.
keep a personal copy of your website downloaded to your computer and donât just edit it on neocities (or your host of choice) and call it a day. if for some reason your host were to ever go down, you would lose all your hard work! and besides, by editing locally and offline, you can use editors like vscode (very robust) or notepad++ (on the simpler side), which have more features and is more intuitive than editing a site in-browser.
you can use ctrl+shift+i on most browsers to inspect the HTML/CSS and other components of the website youâre currently viewing. itâll even notify you of errors! this is useful for bugfixing your own site if you have a problem, as well as looking at the code of sites you like and learning from it. donât use this to steal other peopleâs code! it would be like art theft to just copy/paste an entire website layout. learn, donât steal.
donât hotlink images from other sites, unless the resource youâre taking from says itâs okay! itâs common courtesy to download images and host them on your own site instead of linking to someone elseâs site to display them. by hotlinking, every time someone views your site, youâre taking up someone elseâs bandwidth.
if you want to make your website easily editable in the future (or even for it to have multiple themes), you will find it useful to not use inline CSS (putting CSS in your HTML document, which holds your websiteâs content) and instead put it in a separate CSS file. this way, you can also use the same theme for multiple pages on your site by simply linking the CSS file to it. if this sounds overwhelming or foreign to you, donât sweat it, but if you are interested in the difference between inline CSS and using separate stylesheets, w3schools has a useful, quick guide on the subject.
visit other peopleâs sites sometimes! you may gain new ideas or find links to more cool websites or resources just by browsing.
if you are browsing sites:
if the page youâre viewing has a guestbook or cbox and you enjoyed looking at the site, leave a comment! there is nothing better as a webmaster than for someone to take the time to even just say âlove your siteâ in their guestbook.
that being said, if thereâs something on a website you donât like, simply move on to something else and donât leave hate comments. this should be self explanatory, but it is really not the norm to start discourse in indie web spaces, and you will likely not even be responded to. itâs not worth it when you could be spending your time on stuff you love somewhere else.
take your time! indie web doesnât prioritize fast content consumption the way social media does. youâll get a lot more out of indie websites if you really read whatâs in front of you, or take a little while to notice the details in someoneâs art gallery instead of just moving on to the next thing. the person who put labor into presenting this information to you would also love to know that someone is truly looking and listening.
explore! by clicking links on a website, itâs easy to go down rabbitholes of more and more websites that you can get lost in for hours.
seeking out fansites or pages for the stuff you love is great and fulfilling, but reading someoneâs site about a topic youâve never even heard of before can be fun, too. i encourage you to branch out and really look for all the indie web has to offer.
i hope this post helps you get started with using and browsing the indie web! feel free to shoot me an ask if you have any questions or want any advice. <3
