The Part-Time Investor Newsletter website was commissioned by Robert Hodges, the author of The Part-Time Investor.
When I first built the Part-Time Investor (PTI) website, Mr. Hodges (the client) had designed the entire website, in a free design tool and asked me to copy it in WordPress. After we completed the project, he decided that he wasn’t as happy with his own design as he thought he would be. So, he re-hired me to redesign the website.
We had to make a few alterations during the build process, but he was extremely hands-on and very actively participated.
I assisted in hiring a graphic designer to work with Mr. Hodges on designing a new logo, which is the current logo on the website.
Once that was completed, Mr. Hodges asked me to design the new homepage without his help. I think he wanted to see what I would come up with. However, he changed his mind and asked me to include the new logo on every single page of the website. He also wanted the primary navigation bar (menu) to appear under the logo.
This meant I had to remove Divi’s stock menu and create a custom header. We worked together to accomplish this and he was more than happy with what we came up with.
In order to accommodate the new header, I had to also create several new page templates.
As I said, this website was built on the Divi theme, so we used pieces of a pre-made Divi layouts on the new homepage. This not only expedited the project’s completion time, but it also reduced the project cost, which made the client very happy.
Originally, the site was to be a conduit for sales of his book and a monthly newsletter.
I used Divi (and a Child Theme) to build the site and WooCommerce and two extensions for the e-commerce functionality. WooCommerce’s Subscriptions and Memberships extensions were both used.
MailChimp was also integrated into the site.
This project took an extra long time to complete, because it took on a life of its own. There were a lot of changes, additions and so on. For example, Robert wanted to include spreadsheets full of stock data on the portfolio pages. So, I had to find a way to embed the spreadsheets in the website, while retaining the ability for him to update the data from within Excel. We settled on using Google Sheets and a plugin called, Inline Google Spreadsheet Viewer.
One of the biggest changes was after the site was completed and Mr. Hodges accepted a job writing for another website. However, this website balked at the idea of him selling the same/similar content on his own site, for a cheaper price. As a result, the paid subscription newsletter was removed in favor or free blog articles and a mailing list – receive an email informing you when new articles/content is posted.