By launching this site (after decades) I am getting exactly what I want out of it – learning the current landscape of technology available to start and setup a website – and hopefully find ways to get a few cents by monetizing my random thoughts. But I am finding out there is are some pain points setting any website up.
First and foremost, the details of WordPress themes and their configurations are massive and provide plenty of customization options to ensure the look you want can be achieved with a number of clicks and drags and drops. And although it is nice to have plenty of customization, the backend WordPress organization and structure make the exercise a bit convoluted and includes plenty of clicks. So far, all I can recommend is try to stay in the theme’s settings – which gives you live previews of your modifications and organizes the customizations in a clear and concise manner. Try and publish, that is how you get going and find what work.
As for monetizing my little site, I decided to start with displaying ads and leverage ad networks. I have started with Adsense, and really have not gotten far. Four days after configuring Adsense, I am still waiting for the review process to complete to even test out an ad for fit and function. The frustrating part is waiting for the approval to then see if my customized theme, the placement of ads, and the plugins (of hundreds reviewed) will all work with Adsense. I really do not want to start over with setting up display ads, but each day makes it seem more like a possibility since I have made little progress with the Adsense review process.
By the way, I have yet to find an AI tool that provides this level of website creation, they will give you the basic structure and design, then you add and enhance.
More to come, as you can see, these website setup pain points have just begun.