Quinte Website Design
Going back some thirty years at least I was reaching the age where I was getting too old to hire. As I had done many times in my life I knew that I had to do something on my own to earn money. When I moved to BC I got serious about designing websites and built websites for various organizations like the Kelowna Eight Ball League, Breaker's, a local bar, and several of my own projects like the Okanagan Manufactured Homeowners Association and Heritage Developments.
After doing the same in Panama, then Ecuador and then Mexico I started the same thing with this website. I've built several websites for various bands and other businesses, all of which are shown on my Website Design page.
The biggest difference here is that I used to get around five hundred dollars to design a website, even in other countries, but now I am down to just $129 and I do a lot more work for it. I pay to register the domain name. I always build far more than just a basic three page website. I host the sites for free and maintain them. In more than five years I've barely scratched out a little extra money from all the work. Now AI has made the business even more difficult because people can build their site in mere minutes. Something that would take me weeks to replicate. .
Discover Travel to Mexico
This very large project started a few years ago. The idea was to provide all kinds of information for people who both lived in and, or wanted to travel to, various countries around the world. It started with TraveltheGlobe dot info, which was available to register, plus the same domain dot info for every country except Mexico. At the time domain.com had a promotion on and you could register dot info domains for only $1.99, so I registered all fifty domains.
The project ended up on the back burner for a while, although I did get a good start on TraveltoMexio.info, which was going to be the model for all the other countries. Then I got a notice from domain.com that the domains were up for renewal, and they wanted an absurd $39.99 for each renewal. Clearly an illegal "bait and switch" tactic, but they didn't care.
After searching out other domain registrars they were all crooks and wanted the same $39.99 to register, so I started searching all over again.
I was forced to change the whole concept to Discover Travel to (country) dot com First I registered DiscoverTraveloftheWorld.com, then DiscoverTraveltoMexico.com and DiscoverTraveltoPanama.com. I moved all the content from TraveltoMexico.info over to the new domain. Due to other projects more work on this site has been delayed.
BellevilleNow.ca
After being forced to return to Canada from Mexico in November, 2019 after losing my GIS pension, and having built various city portal sites in other countries like Panama, Ecuador and Mexico, I searched for a website that would promote Belleville, provide information for both residents and tourists, and keep up on the news. Although I already created a Belleville Today Facebook page, there was a BellevilleToday website for Belleville, New Jersey, so I registered BellevilleNow.ca and started building.
Having built other city portal sites in other countries, all of which got very good reviews and tons of visitors, I feel that I met all my goals on this city portal for Belleville. Not only do I have all the normal features, I also created an Entertainment Guide called Encore where I have a calendar of upcoming events and reviews with photos and video of the events that I manage to attend. I have encouraged venues to let me know what's coming up, but only Sal at the Smokin 116 Bistro does this. Everything in the guide is free.
I am constantly updating the site with local news and I would like to add other features like a Real Estate Guide. I have also encouraged local businesses to let me know about promotions, staff changes, new openings and so on, but so far the business community has been lacking on this. Recently over a very short period the site got eighteen thousand views, some from BOTS, I know, but there's still a lot of folks visiting the site.