I mentioned in an earlier post that previously, I hadn’t posted to this site since last April. I was working on too much at once, and nothing was getting done. I felt like I was just spinning my wheels and getting nowhere, so I had to shift my focus. Part of that focus went to Niche Site 002 (see My Projects list for reference). I worked on this site for over a whole year, trying to make it perfect. Something I have learned along the way is not to try for perfection, you will waste a lot of time. Focus on good content and a decent design an just get your site out there. You can always tweak it later.

Site 002 is centered around an interest of mine, here is how it evolved to what it is today.

First evolution
Niche site 002 first started out as a forum. I put a lot of time looking at the phpBB code to make a custom looking forum. I did a little SEO and people were visiting, but no one was joining…

Second Evolution
So, I decided to completely re-design the forum to a better looking, more web 2.0 looking design. I was really happy with the design… it had rounded corners and great images, but still, no one joining. I was getting visitors, so I treated the forum as a blog, just adding good content as posts, hoping at least a couple of people would register and join in the conversation. Visitors still were coming, and in fact increasing, but still… no one registering. As I would learn, forums are very hard to start from scratch and they are also very high maintenance. Forum spam is a daily battle. Since I was getting readers, I thought I would re-design the site again, this time taking more of a regular content-site approach, with readers also having the ability to easily submit their content, if they wished, without registering….

Third Evolution
Excited with a new direction of the site, I started to work on the site again. Since I am also a web developer in my day job, I decided I would design everything from the ground up. I designed and created a custom database design, a custom made authentication system for users to register and join, if they wanted additional priviledges as registered users, etc, etc… As you can imagine, this all takes quite a bit of time. By this time, over a year has passed since I first registered the domain and started working on this site, but I was still not finished with the custom coding and all. I had recently read about Wordpress being configured to work as a content site, so I did a little research, and decided this would be the direction to go, after all this was getting ridiculous. Over a year later, and still no complete web site.

Fourth Evolution
I have to say, I am impressed with the flexibility of Wordpress. I researched the Wordpress code, and in one weekend afternoon, I was able to make a custom Wordpress template to look just like my previous site. Sure, I had make a couple of concessions on the functionality, but that was a small sacrifice to finally have a working web site! Obviously, this was the way to go for me. I’m finding, with plug-ins, I can probably find the fuctionality that I wanted initially. If not, one can be made. But that can come later. For now, at least I have a functioning site. I have added some of my own content, and I’m starting to get some user generated content on the site as well.

Webservations and Lesson Learned
Use open source content management systems, and templates whenever possible - even if your a developer yourself. You will save a ton of time. After all, whole teams of programmers have made applications, like Wordoress, what they are today. You can always add custom tweaks and images to make the site look unique. Why re-invent the wheel if you can find one already made that will work. It sounds like a no-brainer, but it took me over a year, and a lot of work to learn that lesson.