As a special promotion, I will provide a free personal professional website to anyone connected to me on LinkedIn if they meet the requirements below. There is no cost to you, you don’t need a credit card, and there’s no future financial obligations

Qualification

What you will need to qualify for this offer:

• You must be a current connection of me (Robert Thivierge) on LinkedIn.
• You don’t yet have your own website or domain name.
• You must be a real person (not a corporation), using your real name, and real photo of yourself on your LinkedIn profile. The new website must be for the same identity.
• Your LinkedIn profile, your name, your city (or general area), and photo, must be public and remain public for the duration of the website
• You must use your LinkedIn profile and the website for legal and ethical purposes. Looking for work, promoting your talents, and marketing your art are all good examples of what’s welcome. Promoting hate or scams (like pyramid schemes) are not allowed (whether legal or illegal).

Offer: What you get

• I will create a free website for you, using WordPress. This site (RobertThivierge.com) is a WordPress site. You don’t need to know anything about WordPress.
• I will register a new domain for you, using your name (like “johnsmith.com” or “robertthivierge.com”) and I will cover the first year’s cost of registration (normally around $20/year). After that, you may be asked to pay the $20/year if you wish to keep it, but the money will go to the registrar, not me.
• I will start the new site off, after being given information and content that I will request from you. We can decide together how much I write and how much you write, based on what suits you. I will do the technical part. You can write content for the site, or give me info, to write the content.
• I will create a user account on the site, which will allow you to create a blog (news) section of the site, to post new posts(articles) as often as you wish, using your computer, tablet, or phone. If you don’t wish to do that, you can send me emails, to periodically update the site as needed.

Who this is for

These are a few examples of people who may benefit from having their own site:

• A graduate looking for a job, who wants to control their online presence. Protentional employers should see it when they Google you, and you can include a web link on your resume, so they get up-to-date information of you.
• A service provider or consultant who wants potential clients to read about what they provide. For example, a music teacher, accountant, or exercise coach.
• A musician promoting their music. The site can include embedded video, sound, and images. Larger video and sound recordings would be embedded from YouTube (or other streaming service), but appear to the user on your website’s pages.
• A model displaying their portfolio for potential clients.
• A graphics artist who wants to showcase their work.

What I get from you

While I will not charge you for the site, or ask you to “upgrade”, I do get something out of this:

• I ask for professional credit for my work. So, for example, there may be small text at the bottom of a page saying “Site Created by Robert Thivierge” with a link back to my site. I also ask for a mention on LinkedIn (e.g. create a post introducing your new site and mention who made it).
• I will use the site that I create in my portfolio, in seeking future paid work and other business opportunities for myself. The portfolio will include the site URL, screen shots, your name, and LinkedIn link.
• I retain a copyright to anything I create. You have a non-exclusive license to use what I create for your site, but I may use a similar design on other websites.
• This is a collaborative process. So, you will need you to invest a modest amount of time providing information to create a proper site. I’ll let you know what’s needed. At a bare minimum, the site will show your real name, photo (can just be the headshot you use for LinkedIn), your city (or general area) of residence, a mini-bio/profile of who you are, a statement of profession, and a means of contact.
• We’ll probably use email for most communication. But, we may need to use Zoom (or similar service) for some communication, and to verify I am talking to who I think I am.
• If you like what I make, you tell people. If you don’t, you tell me.

Who this is not for

While not a rule, I would say that if your tech savvy enough to build your own website, you’ll probably want to do that without me. This is more for people who don’t feel comfortable going alone, and want a significant degree of help. Also, if you want to precisely control everything, you won’t want this offer. I’m offering a collaboration. Neither of us will work for the other. We’ll work together, to create something we both like.

Additional details

• I can have a site up and running in 24-48 hours for a simple site with little customization. If you want something to look like my site, it will be quick. But expect a week for a site with some greater depth/customization and to have time for you to review everything, give feedback, and review everything before release.
• Typically, I’ll respond to requests within a 24-hour timespan.
• I retain the right to exclude or remove objectional content at my discretion. If we can’t agree on something you have a right to terminate (see below).
• I won’t normally charge you anything. But, if you want something that would cost me something extra, I’ll ask you to pay for that. For example, I’ll include a very basic mail service for the domain (mail@yourdomain.com) but if you wanted Microsoft or Google hosted mail for the domain, that would cost you.

Termination

If I make a site for, then you, or I, can elect to end our relationship at any time, for any reason, without further obligations. You will then have these two options:

• Terminate the site immediately, and it becomes permanently inaccessible. You pay nothing to me or anyone, ever.
• You repay me the $20 I paid for domain name registration, and I point the domain wherever you ask me. You can choose any host you want, or do your own hosting. You can also change who the domain is registered with to whoever you wish. The domain becomes your property for as long as you keep it registered.

After termination, you retain copyright of any original content you created (e.g. blog posts you wrote yourself). I retain copyright to any original content that I created. You retain a sufficient usage license to keep all the content on the site I contributed to. I retain a license to continue to use the site’s content, to use in my professional portfolio. For example, I can continue to use screenshots in my portfolio, and say who I made the site for.

Summary

So, if your a LinkedIn contact, feel free to get in touch, either on LinkedIn, or by email to thivierr@gmail.com. I would love to work with you to get a site going.