I remember when the internet was young. Every moment spent on that home computer was precious, for the phone line was blocked. Given the fact that my personal browsing interfered with my entire family’s central mode of communication, the telephone, said browsing had to be worth the cost.

In those days, the fruits of “surfing the web” were easier to harvest. The internet was full of strange homemade website focusing in on niche interests. The internet allowed for expanding of a person’s obsessions into what could only be described as a series of digital shrines. One need only look at the Internet Archive’s backlog of Geocities style sites to get a sense of that early digital landscape.

That internet was built of websites. If we liken the internet to the American Frontier, a website was like a settlement. I am not here to romanticize that brutal time period, or condone land theft from the indigenous, but the metaphor is apt. The earlier a person claimed their stake online, the more lasting their impact on the new digital world, provided they kept up with their site’s maintenance.

When I encourage today’s business owner or creative person to make a website, I am instructing them to claim a stake on an internet that, in many ways, operates in the same way as it did at the dawn of its emergence. Your website is stable. Your instagram page, your facebook profile, your tiktok account, your youtube channel, these are like little rooms you rent in the giant boarding house of someone else’s whims. If those propreitors go broke or sell the place, your out of luck, kid.

A website, and it’s requite domain name, is literally that- your own domain. It responds to you. You give to it, and it gives back. It is place all your own, where those searching for your offerings and services, your gifts and talents, may come to pass and stay a while, nourished from that which you yourself have grown. A website is the storefront of your brand. No matter what you are sharing with today’s world, a website ensures that others can find you in all seasons.

As your web designer, your marketing strategist, and your brand storytelling partner, I help you steward your website the way you would your home or garden. Together we develop that little corner of the world you call your own. On a practical level, the website in 2025 is definitive. It allows you to have complete authority over your own work in a time when the competition throws caution to the wind, making their brands and businesses dependent on platforms that, as we have seen with tiktok, can be banished overnight.

So make the sane and stable choice. Create a outpost of value and quality in this time of digital chincy-ness. Allow me to help you craft that perfect website, one which acts as a home for all you do, and gives your audience, clients, and customers the authentic experience of your work. Make the choice today, before your current platform goes the way of myspace or tumblr. You’ll be glad you did.

All images from The John Margolies Road Side America Photograph Archive, Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov/free-to-use/john-margolies-roadside-america-photograph-archive/