Need a community website for your volunteer group, club, church, or other community organization? Are you a curious, hands-on beginner that would like to DIY (do it yourself)?
If so, you’ve come to the right place!
Lynda.com has just released its newest course: WordPress and Genesis DIY: Community Website
What does the Course Cover?
DIY isn’t just about copying/pasting and blindly following instructions. The course will give you the “whys” behind every step, so that you end up with not only a website, but also a better understanding of how to plan and scope a web project.
In a little over an hour, you will learn how to create a website complete with:
custom home page
blog
events calendar
discussion forums
contact and submission forms
and more, of course 🙂
You will learn everything from site planning and finding the right plugins, to installing a new child theme and customizing the appearance of your site to make it match your organization.
This course also requires that you have a copy of the Genesis Framework from StudioPress. While you can use ANY Genesis child theme to build your community site, you will need to pick up a copy of the Education Pro theme if you want to follow along exactly with the course.
Start Your Free Trial
* I’m an affiliate for both Lynda.com and the Genesis Framework. Some of the links above are affiliate links.
– By Marcia Coffey
Find Marcia on Google+
Call Marcia at 561.906.3436
Responsive Web Design
How much should a website cost?
Website cost? You won’t like the answer … because there isn’t one!
A one-off website quote is nearly impossible. Here’s why:
1) Website design and development should be viewed as a service, not a product. Websites are not commodities like flour, oranges and grapefruit.
Websites are something that someone, often many people, have to put together. Viewing it as service-based will help you understand why a one-off price isn’t simple to give — building a website takes continued time and effort.
2) Building a website involves a complex level of planning. Detail is an integral part of web development — and this greatly affects pricing.
3) Quotes are far too subjective. Building a website can be accomplished in hundreds of different ways. Go out for a quote and I guarantee by asking just a few developers for a price, you’ll get responses all over the map. How can that be possible?
4) The definition of success for your website may vary from person to person. A designer may think a great website should look like a piece of art, a developer may prefer a site using the latest, greatest code, and a marketer will focus on SEO optimization.
The truth? The real success of your website comes down to your business goals and how you want your website to fulfill those goals.
5) The web development industry has very few standards. How one person or company goes about building a website may be completely different than another. For example, there are dozens of languages used to program a website, as well as many platforms and systems. This is made even more intricate when you factor in that each solution can be reached in 1000 different ways. This lack of uniformity certainly causes an issue when determining price.
There’s truly no good answer to the question, “How much should a website cost?”
After all these years I still can’t answer this question!
– By Marcia Coffey
Find Marcia on Google+
Or, call Marcia, WordPress web designer, at 561.906.3436.
Follow @jmgroupdesign
Web Design. Tale Of The Window Dresser
For many years I would walk down Fifth Avenue and get stopped in my tracks by the remarkable characters dressed or undressed in the windows at Saks Fifth Avenue, the stunning juxtaposition of jewelry displays in Tiffany’s windows, the luxe shadow box displays of antique Faberge eggs at A La Vielle Russie.
Window dressing, like web design, does not require a degree. It is “part production, part fantasy, part art, part fashion” as described by Erin Cunningham in her quite fascinating Daily Beast article -> Tales of a Bergdorf Goodman Window Dresser.
But, for those of us in the web design business, there is something to learn from this little known, quasi show biz medium.
Reaching your target audience
“You have to do all sorts of things to make a stream of pedestrians into an audience. It’s extremely ephemeral. It’s very of the moment, ” notes Bergdorf’s resident window dresser.
How well we know about such things when it comes to designing a homepage that is a victim of instant technology and impatient behaviors. How little time we have to put on a show to grab people’s attention. But showtime we must have …
In our case, it must be design elements like fonts, colors, photos that tell a story or paint a concept. Our homepage show also must look bigger than it is even though we lack beautiful mannequins and real-time texture, fabric and objects.
Enter social media widgets such as a Twitter feed that can provide content from a respected source, an Instagram widget that can constantly be updated with whatever highlights your product and services in people’s lives, and a newsletter subscription box so that visitors know you’re an expert with a lot to say.
Remember the element of surprise
The magic of getting something for nothing keeps the attention span. Do this with a CTA button and a free download of inside information for your audience.
And tell a story.
Now even your content can have the WOW factor because of the latest web design trend called parallax scrolling. This involves the background moving at a slower rate to the foreground, creating a 3D effect as you scroll down the page and giving you a simple vertical design for easy visual eye movement and flow.
Check out the new Parallax Pro Theme by Studio Press to see what I mean.
– By Marcia Coffey
Find Marcia on Google+
Call Marcia, Genesis WordPress Web Designer, at 561.906.3436.
Follow @jmgroupdesign
The Surprising Reputation Builder
It’s not overwhelming. We just think it is. You can build an online personna as good as gold like the big guys, if you want to.
Here’s a rough outline of what you, the small business person, needs to do to get started.
1) Build a simple WordPress blog/website. Choose a StudioPress theme. They are the best. I know because I am biased and experienced 🙂
2) Define your target market, niched and narrowed … the one you are singing to, not the one that needs to be sold. List appropriate keywords (Google Keyword Planner).
3) Set up Facebook OR Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn business accounts. Pinterest is an optional candidate if you have a business that lends itself to the visual, i.e. travel, fashion, design, food, restaurant, real estate, architecture, cabinetry, many of you out there.
(4) Set up Twitterfeed to automagically stream all your posts to these platforms. Bingo. Automatic content achieved.
(5) Write one post per week. Don’t agonize about frequency! Varying lengths, 3 paragraphs certainly. Content is more important than size.
(6) What to write about? Clients’/customers’ questions you’ve answered, news about your product or service, events of interest, people you know, experiences and stories. Use keywords in your list.
(7) Build influence, improve your Klout score. Hit Share buttons whenever you find articles of interest on other sites and platforms. What is Klout?
(8) Reciprocate. Leave comments on other people’s blogs, share their content on Twitter and Facebook. If someone engages with you on your blog, Twitter, Facebook or another social web destination, be sure to respond.
Set yourself apart. Be an expert in your industry. Build your business. This you can only do for the long haul by establishing your social reputation. The above steps will get you on the right road.
Now … Nike tells you what to do.
Resources for this article:
Big Picture Marketing for Small Business – My Pinterest Account
Google Keyword Planner
Klout
StudioPress.com
Twitterfeed
How To Use Twitterfeed (video)
– By Marcia Coffey
Find Marcia on Google+
Call Marcia, Genesis WordPress Web Designer, at 561.906.3436.
Follow @jmgroupdesign
How Generate Pro Theme Can Build Your Business
In the end, it all comes down to your list. Your email list. You need to generate more and better email leads.
Next. You need to reach your prospective customers wherever they are during the day … in the supermarket, in the car, in bed at home 🙂
These days email marketing is mobile marketing. Reason: Email is the single most-used application on a mobile device. It’s following your readers wherever they go.
Solution?
The new mobile-responsive Generate Pro Theme by Studio Press with the power and flexibility to lead your site traffic to one action – join your email list.
Why mobile responsive?
A mobile-responsive theme is the latest evolution in creating sites that look great across all kinds of devices — including the mobile phones and tablets that are becoming some of the most common ways our readers see our sites.
Conclusion.
In test after test, email comes out on top for influencing reader behavior. Ahead of social media, even ahead of blogs.
The Generate Pro child theme was designed specifically to meet this need – to help you build your list so you can capture the email addresses of people who want to know more about you, your services and your products.
Click here to demo the Generate Pro Theme.
– By Marcia Coffey
Find Marcia on Google+
Call Marcia, WordPress Web Design, Inbound Marketing, at 561.906.3436.
Follow @jmgroupdesign