I have decided to proceed with blogging on this website before making any other effort to dress it up.
I would like to select fonts, choose header images, set up an email sign up form, choose a newsletter delivery platform, and a dozen other things to make the site more presentable.
And eventually I will do all of these things. But I have realized that in my current workflow, all of these tasks remain out of sight, out of mind, and so they remain undone.
It is interesting to consider that all of these accoutrements are really just that – accoutrements. They do nothing to advance the primary function of the website: a platform for publishing my creative work.
By publishing the blog instead of making the site look nice, the website functions as intended from the publication of the first post.
By cutting to the chase and blogging right away, I am creating meaningful content for the site from the beginning. I also place myself in the context of the website on a regular basis and thus within range of working on it drip by drip. In the meantime, the website functions as intended – a platform for publishing my creative work.
I am not worried about anyone finding the site inhospitable while I focus on function. I am not even planning to publicize the site until I have established a solid track record on the blog. That way, by the time most anyone finds it, it will be filled with substantive content. Doing so also insures I have developed a process that reliably generates new material on the site.
I believe the content is more valuable than the aesthetic appeal of the site anyway, and over time the appearance will also improve.
So, how does one make a website functional? Ultimately that will depend on the intended function of the website. But the principle undergirding my process should apply in all cases: begin by using it for its intended purpose.
Leave secondary purposes in second place among your priorities: first things first, second things second. In my case, email sign up forms, site structure, appearance, etc., all of these can wait until a solid practice of blogging is established.
Secondary purposes are only meaningful in support of primary purposes, so I will focus on primary purposes first.
In the next several posts I will go into detail about my process of creating the blog and how I am bringing to bear certain specific tools and principles along the way. While your process is sure to be different from mine, I am confident these tools and principles are universal in their utility and thus can be adapted to fit any process.