Using a Template to Build a Website

I was completely bored, being off work for a week and having another 3 weeks to go due to severe back pain, so I decided that I wanted to change the look of my entire website at http://www.bedtymetales.com. I had wanted to do this for a very long time now and felt that since I am not able to do much of anything that this is the perfect time to do it.

Bed Tyme Tales contains hundreds of children's stories that I have written. The present site that I used was all .html and I wanted something a little more flexible and interactive. I want users to be able to leave comments on my stories. I wanted a better look and a more personal touch.

I decided that I would try using a free blog service www.wordpress.com to build my website. I have used WordPress for a couple other sites that I have and it seemed to be pretty flexible and easy to use.

I installed WordPress onto my server and created a database using MYSQL. I then uploaded WordPress into my site. I logged into the admin area of my new site and the first thing I did was take a look at the several different free templates that WordPress has. I decided on one particular template that I really liked the look and feel of. I felt that the template, Books and Imagination, was perfect for what I wanted. I uploaed that template and started creating the different webpages and posts.

Presently, the old website contained 793 of my stories plus probably another 100 pages. I figure it is going to take me quite awhile before my site is completely up and running because of the number of pages involved. I have been working on the change over now for the past three days and I believe that I have pretty much all the 100 other pages loaded now into the new template and I believe I have posted about 50 of my stories. That means that I do have approximately 750 more posts to upload.

What I did first though, was get the template to look exactly the way I wanted to. This took me a good two full days to do. After I got the site looking exactly the way I wanted, I started concentrating on building the base pages for it, which consisted of the 100 other pages. I now have to just post the remaining 750 stories to the site.

Working on the website is not the only thing I have done either. Each night, I also write a blog and a journal entry for my website, www.myjournalwriting.com. I also have written six new stories as well. What I do is I add ten new stories to my website each month.

It takes a lot of time and effort to upkeep my website and I do not get any payment for any of it except for the little bit of advertising revenue that I have received. The advertising revenue is not a lot, however, it does pay for the hosting of my website each month, the domain renewal fees per year and I have been able to purchase all of my computer equipment, software, digital camera and other electronic items that I have. This and the fact that I know people are enjoying my websites is what keeps me motivated to keep wanting to make it better.