Hello, I’m Francis O’Neill, and, among other things, such as looking after the website I’m about to tell you about, I now view myself as a writer. I write on spiritual health and mind, body & spirit topics. I have a couple of books out at this time. In many respects this also encapsulates my business.
I’ve just hit the big seven-o so I’ve been around the block a few times – or as I like to say, I’ve been around the Sun a few times. I could swear the Earth is speeding up on its journey. It seems I get back to the starting point that bit quicker with each passing year.
As you may guess by my name, I’m Irish by birth. I have however lived in England for most of my life.
Road to Damascus
Let me give you a brief backdrop to my direction of travel. This is germane to what I’m doing on the Web.
Back in my twenties I wasn’t so spiritually inclined or oriented as I consider myself now. I had by then become secular and existential in my beliefs. I had walked away from a Roman Catholic upbringing. I was in my teens when I began to question my beliefs. Later I went motorcycle racing as something far more preferable to do on Sundays.
It was from this position, and my developing interest in psychology, that I later came across a book I want to just mention. This was by C.G. Jung; his Memories, Dreams, Reflections. Reading this book literally was a road to Damascus experience for me, a turning point. From that point on I began to look at things differently, exploring life from a different perspective. It helped to give structure to my own thoughts and experiences. And it has since become a lifelong endeavour, that is to gain a clearer understanding of the human situation from a spiritual viewpoint – and to write about it in posts and books.
My first book, Life and Death: Making Sense of It, is an outcome of my search. It took some years to research and write. I see the work as a reporting back on what I have discovered on my travels.
The book could be a challenging perspective for anyone who has yet to think out of the box regarding their existence – or also for the person who has been brought up in a religion that doesn’t incorporate the concept of previous existence and karma. If it interests you, you can easily find out more, and get hold of the book’s Introduction, off lifeanddeaththebook.com.
Just to finish the bit about me, I have a degree is in Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychology. I’m also a practising astrologer having studied with the Faculty of Astrological Studies and the Mayo School of Astrology in the UK. I’ve spent a good chunk of my life as a field archaeologist, supervising excavations, and also as a qualified lecturer in adult education.
I live in the Cotswolds (UK) with my partner, Annie Locke. Annie is a musician/composer of essentially classical and romantic melody; that a lot of people also find nostalgic and relaxing to listen to.
Some Inspiration website
I began the SomeInspiration.com website back in 2012. This was after being made redundant from a teaching post the year before. Redundancy was a blow but it was also an exciting time of potential. I was given the freedom to begin new adventures.
From the bat, the site was intended to carry, what I considered, interesting or helpful and inspiring posts, gain visitors and be able to help me to make a living – the latter through affiliate marketing.
In practice this has entailed promoting my partner’s music plus self-help products. The plan was to also include my book/s at a later stage.
Although I had been building websites from some time back, using html, for this website I used WordPress. I looked into a number of content management systems and decided upon WP. I love it, and wouldn’t use any other program now. It never ceases to amaze me the work and sophistication that goes into its development – and the amazing array of plugins (such as CleanTalk), which make life so much easier than it was in the early days. To my mind it is one of the better reasons for the Web being in existence.
Today the website continues to provide the service it more or less began as. But there have been one or two important changes.
I discovered I was getting a raw deal with the self-hypnosis company I originally had affiliate links with, and so cancelled my relations with them.
There has also been a change of identity from my earlier use of the site. The site is now more focussed on mind, body & spirit topics than previously was the case.
Issues in the development of the site
This mind, body & spirit identity is really a recent development. A website, or blog, having a clear identity, I know now, is key to helping getting traffic, but it took me a while to realise this. When, earlier this year, I decided to create a new website for my first book, I found myself in a bit of a quandary. The Some Inspiration site carried posts that were more appropriate for the book site.
Rather than replicate them, or cross-link them, I decided to move them across and use redirects. It took a bit of sorting. It was at this juncture that I decided upon the “mind, body & spirit” focus for the site, while the book site was better served carrying articles/posts akin to the content of the book, which is primarily concerned with “spiritual health.” Meanwhile I had also decided to use Some Inspiration as the publisher for my books.
If mind, body & spirit, and spiritual health sound like the same area of interest, you’re right. They are the same but at different levels, as I perceive them. People interested in mind, body & spirit matters (largely of a self-help nature), are not necessarily interested in, for example, UFOs, ghosts, the paranormal, or the Other Side – as covered in the book.
Going forward
I’m now happier with the site and the direction it is going in. There is still a lot more to do to bring it up to speed in the way I envision it. I’m bringing on-board new products. My second book, Steps to Health, Wealth & Inner Peace, is one of those products that is a good fit with the site. I might add that I’m using ClickBank and Amazon for some of my affiliate products.
All I need now is greater footfall. Well if you are anything like me then getting more traffic is a perennial concern – without which I’m dead in the water, or may as well be. Going forward I’m looking to build more backlinks and to build up my email-list/s as my approach to dealing with this concern. Wish me luck. If you have any tips they are most welcome.
Well that’s about all I can tell you right now. Stay tuned – and do visit the site. In you write posts, around mind, body & spirit topics, why not consider writing one for Some Inspiration – I won’t bite I promise.
Related posts
How to reduce a possibility of brute force attacks on WordPress
Why You Must Be Using SSL on Your Website and for e-Commerce
Happy Winter Holidays!
How to protect the search form on the site from spam and fraud
Breeding Business: from ordinary blog to extraordinary magazine
The new version of the anti-spam mod for SimpleMachinesForum
In the New year without worries on holidays!