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Hi Frank,
Here is a digital thank you gift for all the articles you have given me that I have put on my sites.
This is my early Christmas gift to you. Since you like to write here is a place to keep all your writings.
I have added all the articles I have gotten from you, unless I missed one or two by mistake.
I will have to come by your house one day to show you how to add articles, images, etc. to your site. It is easy, but there is a little technique to it and some things you should know about this website.
I didn’t know what type of theme (look) to make the website so I settled on this one. If you don’t like it I can choose another, but will probably have to go through the site and make changes if another theme is used. There are a few other themes on the site and I can show them to you so you can decide if you like any of them. They are not like this one however. This is a pretty unique theme.
This site is a WordPress site. WordPress is the most popular free site available, but because it is free doesn’t mean it’s inferior. In fact it’s usually the opposite. It does take some knowledge and sometimes a lot of trial and error to get various features working properly. Example - I spent a half day trying to get the site map working, but I couldn’t get it perfect. I even went into the code, but that didn’t help. The site map works on my sites and others, but with this theme some internal code in the theme prevents it from working properly.
This is a php (that’s the language) website and I do not know php well, so in most cases I cannot go into the code and change things. However there are free and paid plugins that will provide certain features. Several of them are already being used.
If you find there is something you want to do there might be a plugin available to do it. Plugins are uploaded, activated and then provide their functionality to the website. The website visitor cannot tell if a plugin is being used in most cases.
Please check over the site in your spare time (what’s that?) and let me know of any errors, typos, or other mistakes. I put the site together rapidly due to the lack of time so I may have overlooked something.
The site is the easy part. Getting traffic to your site is another matter and is not easy and is time consuming and can be costly. This usually happens over time, but the site has to be promoted. That’s quite another story and I won’t go into it here, but keep it in the back of your mind. With this .. or any site there is a real knack and usually a lot of effort to get the site to rank well in Google. If a site ever ranks well in Google it can make money through ads, sometimes a lot of money, but ONLY if there is a lot of traffic going to it.
There are some ads on the site, but I don’t expect them to make any significant money. Only if there is ever a lot of traffic will the ads pay off. I am hoping they will pay for the hosting costs and domain name after about a year. It is unlikely that will happen, however, unless I can get a lot of traffic to the site. That’s about $7 a month and $10/yr for the domain name. That’s part of the reason they are there. The other reason is they give color and break up the long text articles.
You have a choice. Wait until you get familiar with the site and how to add articles, etc. Then you can move the site to your own hosting.
However you don’t need to because you can leave it where it is on my hosting as long as you want since it is free to you.
One other choice that will be available, probably by Christmas or the beginning of the year - I will be starting a domain registry and hosting business. You could buy a hosting plan from me and put it there. If you do I will maintain it for you, free, as my time permits.
Frank, I hope you like the site. I put a lot of effort into it. But if you decide you don’t like the look don’t hesitate to tell me. The site is yours so it should reflect your preferences (if they are available in a pre-made theme), if possible. I do have some themes that I paid for (they are no better than this, only look different), that might work if I cannot find another theme you like.
Please note the word beta as there is one error (in the site map) causing several others. I have to work it out, work around it, or more than likely remove the site map and the two test pages.
Let me know what you think.
If you want to talk about it my phone is 951-678-8844.
Thanks,
Charles