Last week, you would have found me in a very specific state: eyes glued to a laptop screen, muttering about permalinks and probably drinking my tenth mug of lukewarm tea by 11:00.

Whilst we wait to complete on the bookshop property, I decided it was time to build a proper online home for the bookshop. My original plan was to hire a professional branding and web expert, but when I mentioned this to my husband, he suggested I have a go at doing it myself.

I should probably hold my hands up and admit I do work in IT but as anyone working in this industry knows, we all have our niches and website creation is definitely not mine! Still, my husband seemed to have (misplaced?!) faith in me and directed me towards YouTube.

It did take a couple of days until I eventually came round to the idea and the prospect of saving a few pennies for higher-priority spends (books!) was too tempting. I convinced myself “How hard can it be? I will have a professional website up by the weekend.”

It is, in fact, hard. And as this is my very first blog post, I am officially documenting the journey of this DIY adventure.

The Deep Dive

The first couple of days were pure research/training. I was following along, feeling like a genius because I understood it. I learned about themes, plugins and the magic that is Elementor. I felt empowered. I was going to be architecting a digital empire. I was deciding on colour palettes, font, with the confidence of a seasoned pro.

And then, I actually started building it.

The Inevitable Meltdown

You know that moment where you click one button and suddenly your perfectly curated header disappears, your contact form decides to exist in the footer for no reason and the whole site looks wrong? No? Consider yourself blessed.

That happened about three days in.

I hit a point where I was staring at a blank screen, convinced that I had actually deleted the entire internet. I had a mini “I am not a tech person, what was I thinking?” meltdown. At this point, I did genuinely consider if paper and pen were a better way to comminucate to the world.

The Comeback

The thing about these projects is, they get under your skin. After stepping back (and some deep breathing), I realised that no one has built a house, just by staring at blueprints! So, I ventured on.

I found the mistake/s (single setting, obviously), fixed it and felt a lovely surge of adrenaline that was entirely disproportionate to the task.

I am happy to report that the ‘draft’ – which you will have seen if you are reading this – is live! It is even starting to look like a real website. Not perfect but good enough.

The ‘Not Done Yet’ List

Until we are in the throes of fitting out the bookshop – and able to upload our books, gifts and subscriptions services to the site – I am looking behind the scenes.

• The mystery of Google – I am still digging into SEO basics to figure out why I am not popping up in search results yet.
• The Form audit – Testing is ongoing to ensure messages actually reach me and do not just vanish into the void
• The Boring-but-Necessary stuff – Updating our Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy. Not very glam but important for anyone visiting our website

It has been a week of highs and lows but I am happy with the progress and learning news IT skills!

I am getting there, one broken layout at a time.