"Jake" Nospam@invalid wrote in message
...
On Sun, 15 May 2011 20:03:28 +0100, "Andy"
wrote:



"Jake" Nospam@invalid wrote in message
. ..

This just doesn't look right to me. This site was not designed by an
amateur. I for one would like to know the relationship between "Andy"
and "Creative Design". If, as" Andy" says in another post, he's only
got a few quid in donations, he's either an unemployed web designer
(and if he's designed this site he shouldn't be unemployed) or he's
got enough cash to pay someone to design the site or he's got some
really good friends. It's gotta be one of three.

Sorry but I think this is a commercial con trick.

Hi Jake,

Sorry to disappoint, but it's no trick.

I taught myself how to build websites, although the html Nazis will tell
you
that my code is all wrong lol, and I really could do with a job right now
(Southampton UK).

Creative Design was a name that I came up with back in the days of the
Amiga
and it's just the default settings I have at www.freeparking.co.uk where I
buy my domain names.

6 years ago I left my job as a car salesman to setup an online business
building high end PCs, but due to circumstances, run out of time and
money,
you can take a look at www.microbuild.com

Glad you think my site looks professional, at least I've picked up some
skills along the way.

Let me know if you want to know anything else, I've nothing to hide.


Andy

Andy

I'll stand by what I said - the site (and the underlying code) is
beyond what I'd expect from an amateur so congrats on that. I know
about your PC building venture as it's easy to track domain
registrations if you know how and it was that link that led me to
believe this was a commercial thing - you know, driving traffic to a
site to get advertising benefits. Also the formal bits (T&C, privacy)
are a bit too formally worded for a "private" site.

The code isn't bad at all. I might do something differently but vive
la difference as they say.

Whilst I doubt you'll make much money from the site, it will hopefully
demonstrate to those out there that you can do it. And with the
ongoing shift from MS server platforms, PhP is a good skill to market.
Good luck with that. I think IT people are definitely preferable to
car salesmen!

As to the garden, you won't find donors here but you wil find loads of
advice if you need it.

Cheers

Jake


Hi Jake,

Thanks for the comments. Just to give you some more info, I was posting all
my garden photos to my personal Facebook page and when I run out of money, I
thought 'why not put all those photos to good use?' which is why I built the
site (only took a month).

I was hoping that it would make some money towards the cost of completing
the project, but it seems that sites that rely on advertising have to have
loads of visitors (like 1,000s per day), so I've tried to do a bit of
organic SEO like Twitter/FB and a few garden forums but TBH I'm not getting
anywhere near the amount of visitors I need.

In the 3 months it has been live, the affiliate links have earned me
nothing, nobody has donated and I've only made £3.61 from Google Adsense and
you have to reach $100 before they pay out

Cheers


Andy

snip
Also the formal bits (T&C, privacy)
are a bit too formally worded for a "private" site.
/snip

Forgot to say, the T&C and Privacy pages where cut&pasted from a default
template as you have to have them as part of Google's Adsense agreement.

Andy