CharityBypass.com becomes my first what i’d call ‘proper’ website… built 100% by myself.
It’s powered by joomla, but there’s a big difference between a default joomla site and charitybypass.com 
Usually, i’ll use wordpress to build a site. It’s quick, it’s easy, it’s google friendly. But at it’s core, wordpress is a blogging platform and that will never change. Building a community based site using wordpress is difficult. I wanted more of a community feel and more interaction with Charity Bypass and although you could argue it’s now very community-like at the minute, i have more plans to open it up further to people.
That’s why i switched to joomla for charitybypass.com – it offers me something different. For example, i’ve used a plugin to integrate google maps and locations with my own articles. I’ve also installed a small forum and changed the way joomla displays content. WordPress just isn’t built for that stuff.
But it was real challenge for me. There was a lot of non-standard features needed to get charity bypass to where it is today and i had to complete them all by myself… for the first time i’ve built a fairly attractive website with lots of features with no help or without outsourcing anything (i even designed the logo).
From design to database tweaks to problem solving to editing code, i got through it all bit by bit without any major problems. That’s good. It means i’m learning and progressing.
CharityBypass.com is one of my most impressive sites. I’d hazard i’ll go on to develop several other sites using joomla as i’ll have confidence and experience to do so. I pick things up quickly and although it took a month to complete charity bypass (on and off), i could probably build a similar site 10 times quicker now that i’m more familiar with how joomla works and the sort of stuff i can do with it.
- 2 and half years ago, i didn’t know what SEO was.
- 2 and half years ago, i was paying to get logos designed. Now i can create my own.
- 2 and a half years ago, i didn’t know how to set up a website. Now i own and control dozens.
- 2 and a half years ago, i started this blog with zero traffic. 1300 posts, 376,000 words later and traffic is averaging 353 unique visits per day.
That’s progress and it doesn’t happen by not working. Without this blog, there would not have been a BeerChief or a Charity Bypass or half of the stuff i’ve done and have plans to do. This blog motivates me to do things – i’ve called myself a thinker, a creator from day one, so i’m under pressure (from myself) to deliver new ideas, new content and new sites… constantly.
But that pressure is what fuels me. Without it, i’d probably be playing games or just surfing the internet… The pressure of more work forces me in to getting rid of a backlog of work.
