Creating Brand New Websites for 2023 with Custom CMSRewriting and splitting my website to multiple new websites for enhanced performance and a richer set of features and custom CMS.
Over the past few months, I've meticulously redeveloped and enhanced my site (https://lonewolfonline.net) with a clear focus on improving performance, enhancing flexibility, and ensuring ease of maintainability. This thoughtful approach should reassure you about the quality of the changes.
My previous website, powered by WordPress, posed several challenges. With over 1200 posts and pages, and nearly 7000 images (plus assorted smaller images and thumbnails for each - nearly 45,000 files), managing the content became a complex task. The site covered a wide range of subjects, from photography to web design, software engineering, and the paranormal. I needed to split this content into separate sites while maintaining a single administration interface and a common media gallery. However, WordPress couldn't handle this without using hacks or complex plugins, and even then, WordPress multisite didn't provide all the features I needed.
In addition to spitting the sites and having one place to administrate them, I was also looking to decrease disc usage and improve page performance. WordPress performs poorly and requires third-party caching plugins to work optimally. These create large files and consume a huge amount of disc space, causing problems with my usage and backups.
I looked at various other Content Management Systems (CMS) before eventually deciding to write my own, built from scratch. My first website was written this way, so 20 years later, I returned to the old methods.
With my new website system, I've developed a bespoke PHP application on my own MVC framework with a MySQL backend. This unique system not only allows me to manage pages and images in one location but also enables me to link between them and perform all the standard CMS functions. Moreover, my CMS is highly extendable, providing a website CMS and digital asset management system and the ability to parse Apache log files and offer page usage statistics, visitor tracking, SEO information, broken links, redirect manager, and much more! I've set up dashboards to monitor page performance, identify broken links, and closely monitor overall performance. These enhancements should give you confidence in the improved functionality of the site.
One of the most thrilling features of my new website system is its ability to export all site contents to a folder - static HTML and generated thumbnails / watermarked images. This folder is then uploaded to the web server. By eliminating the use of PHP on the server, files can now be served at lightning-fast speeds, significantly enhancing the user experience. This should make you feel excited about the enhanced performance of the site.
The second major change I've made to my new websites is splitting all my content into six distinct websites, each of which uses the same theme and layout with a few tweaks. This strategic move is aimed at creating a sense of 'brand unity' while maintaining the uniqueness of each website. I hope this approach makes you feel understood and catered to, as it allows me to provide more focused and relevant content for your specific interests.
- My Personal Blog - Tim Trott's Blog.
- Tim Trott Photography - Photography tutorials, equipment and digital workflow.
- Perfect Astronomy - Astronomy and Astrophotography.
- Azulia Designs - Web Development and design.
- Lonewolf Online - Computers, Gadgets and tech.
- Your Paranormal - Paranormal Research.
Splitting the content across multiple new websites like this has several advantages. Firstly, it's easier for me to manage and maintain. Secondly, it allows each domain name to be targeted separately in Google, theoretically improving the SEO and for better ad targeting. That brings me to the next point, which is the addition of adverts to my sites. I've had to do this because the servers I use are not free, the domains are not free, costs keep increasing, and it takes considerable time and effort to produce all the content and keep things running smoothly. A few unobtrusive adverts shouldn't be too annoying.
