WordPress Web Design

The Real Reason To Avoid Site Builders

marciacatlin · May 26, 2019 ·

rock climbing, why you should avoid site builders

For most of us, the days of building websites from scratch have come and gone. That is the good news. Better still website prices are all over the map so you can even get a decent site for the best price of all — zero. But, what is the real reason to avoid site builders?

Should you even have a website? If it’s to build your brand, reputation and customer base, don’t you put quality first and focus on the long-term?

Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

If you can turn on your laptop and check out your Facebook page, does that qualify you to create a website on Wix or one of the other scores of easy, automagic website builders? Not to mention optimizing it for Google search.

It does! But here’s why you shouldn’t. When things go wrong, who is there to help you out? No web designer who is ready and able, and knows everything about the modern web, digital marketing and much more.

Sadly, support among site builder services varies widely from email-only service to online FAQs, etc. If you can fly solo, you will be fine with this arrangement!

The WordPress Advantage

How many web designers/developers out there specialize in Wix, Weebly Squarespace, and Shopify? Not many. On the other hand, WordPress now powers 30% of all websites on the web so there is plenty of help when you own a WordPress site.

Scarce Support and No Migration

In order for a website to grow, you have to water it. When you create a website with Weebly, Wix or Squarespace, you don’t get the support you need or deserve.

What if your website goes down or something stops working? Do you have the skills to fix it before your customers notice? Certain parts of a website can stop working and you may not even know it. Customers may be trying to contact you, but you’re not a webmaster. How would you know?

Want to move say your Wix site to another site builder or to WordPress in the future? Unfortunately, you can never export this site so you’ll need to rebuild it from scratch — which means you don’t even own your site builder website!

WordPress vs Website Builders

WordPress is a content management system (CMS)— not a website builder. CMS’s are flexible but have a learning curve. Website builders are less flexible but easier to use.

The Genesis Framework

When starting a business, it’s more important than ever to establish and maintain an online presence. I use the Genesis Framework and StudioPress themes for WordPress exclusively for all the websites I build.

Genesis provides the secure and search-engine-optimized foundation that takes WordPress to places you never thought it could go.

Need to get started on your new website? Fill out our discovery questionnaire and/or give Marcia a call at 561-906-3436.

“I’m not against page builders, but here’s the deal … if you have 300+ posts/pages full of your page builder blocks, it’s going to cost a ton of money to redesign your site or switch to Gutenberg or anything else.
– Rafal Tomal

5 Simple Changes to Turn Visitors Into Customers

marciacatlin · April 11, 2019 ·

Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen

How do you create websites that grow your business? Start by making these five simple changes to your website’s homepage and you will convert more browsers into customers. Here are simple changes to turn visitors into customers. These five changes will surprise you!

Why?

Because they aren’t expensive. They’re not involved. They’re dirt cheap and straightforward. And if you’re not doing them, you’re losing sales every single day.

And because consumers’ average attention span is now 8 seconds – 1 second less than a goldfish.

Getting Started: Does your site answer these questions?

What do you offer?
How will it make my life better?
What do I need to do to buy it?

Step One:
Your header image is very important. Does it say what you do? Both the image and the text overlay.

Step Two:
Be sure you have a call-to-action button/link in the navbar top right. It must be a larger button in a different color. Repeat the button link in the middle of the site.

Step Three:
What does failure look like? Start painting the picture, writing a paragraph about what will happen to the visitor’s business if he/she DOES NOT buy your service or product!

Step Four:
Lastly, your website should spell out a plan for customers to get started with you, ideally in three steps.

GET ALL THE DETAILS & LEARN MORE
<== Click above to watch 3 videos that will increase your revenue.

Courtesy of Donald Miller, CEO of StoryBrand and The 5 Minute Marketing Makeover course. He is the author of Building a StoryBrand and the co-host of the Building a StoryBrand Podcast. Don teaches a workshop in Nashville, Tennessee in which over three-thousand businesses have clarified their message to create better websites, elevator pitches, and marketing collateral.

This is the best web marketing free video course I have ever seen. Period. Brillant & simple. It answers many of the questions I have had over 15 years in the web design business. Finally 🙂

Good Website Design

Remember to focus on your headline and your hook. You want to create engaging intro copy that draws the reader in. Tell the reader what he or she will get from reading your page. Set expectations, and demonstrate why your page is valuable.

Keep the most important information at the top of the page. Journalists have been doing this forever — keeping all of the critical information in the story’s first paragraph, or “lede”. Copy their lead.

Words Matter

Effective writing plays a significant role in any web design strategy.
Writing for mobile has also become a critical skill. Good writing makes the web page look complete and increases the impact it has on your audience allowing you to reach your goals effectively.

Bad websites are cluttered and confusing, indicative of companies that can’t communicate effectively with their visitors. Good websites achieve objectives through a combination of great visual and user experience design.

To get started on your new website, get in touch with Marcia Coffey at 561-906-3436 or by email.

Authority Pro. The theme that shows expertise.

marciacatlin · October 27, 2017 ·

Authority Pro is the latest, inventive design by StudioPress, perfectly aimed at you and other digital coaches. The big idea behind this specific theme? To help you put the full extent of your expertise on display.

How Do You Build An Online Business?
This is the theme that helps you answer that question for visitors.

A web design that accentuates the most important elements of your expertise, while delivering on your value proposition in the first few seconds of the visit. Do that, and you’ll get your chance.

Authority Pro perfectly highlights your knowledge, years of experience, and acquired wisdom. Even if it’s early in your journey toward building expertise and trust, this carefully-constructed design will accelerate how quickly your audience grows.

When you consistently demonstrate your likable expertise over time, you build meaningful and lasting trust with the audience members you’re interested in reaching.

Among the notable features of Authority Pro:

It has a built-in area for your lead capture form to make building your list a simple, integrated part of your website experience.

It has an optional hero image section you can deploy if you have a compelling image that will help you capture and keep attention.

There is a built-in section for recent content — including your latest blog posts and podcast episodes — so your audience can stay up-to-date with your latest content.

Have a product you want to promote? Authority Pro makes this easy and seamless to integrate.

If you have a special message you want every visitor to see, the call-to-action message strip at the top of the page gives you a clear, conspicuous way to do so.

The Authority Pro theme comes with two PSD files. You can use them to easily create stylish ebook covers that fit the overall look and feel of the theme — just like the ones in the demo.

Are you ready to put your expertise on display and develop ironclad trust with your audience? Then you need to build Authority.

There’s no better way to do that on WordPress than with Authority Pro by StudioPress.

Click to demo theme

Get in touch with Marcia to get started on your new Authority Pro website.

Mobile Website Checklist

marciacatlin · November 20, 2016 ·

Mobile is changing the world. Today everyone has a smartphone with them, constantly communicating and looking for information. So a mobile website checklist is more important than ever!
If you don’t know if your website is mobile-friendly, take the Mobile-Friendly Test now!
Mobile visitors tend to be in more of a hurry, on their way somewhere, and have slower download speeds as well as the obvious smaller screen. The mobile website checklist below outlines the top ten essentials which the mobile version of your website requires.
The Mobile Website Checklist description and graphic below are provided by my creative friend in New Zealand, Web Designer Jo Lees of Creative Web Ideas.
mobile-website-checklist-small2 CLICKABLE LOGO – Make sure your logo is clickable and links to your homepage to give visitors an easy way back to home. Your entire logo should be visible at the top of the page.
MOBILE MENU – Include a mobile menu box (also called a hamburger menu) instead of standard menu. This could be beside the logo or directly underneath.
PHONE AT TOP – Put your phone number at the very top as this is often all mobile visitors are looking for. Most mobile phones will be able to click on your phone number to call.
LOCATION – Put your location at the top of the page & include a link to a google map which mobile visitors can use interactively to get to you if they are enroute.
SEARCH BOX – If you have a lot of info on your website, it may be easier for mobile visitors to enter a phrase into the search box than try and navigate via the menu.
BUSINESS DESCRIPTION – Say what you do near the top of the page. You don’t want your visitors to have to look around to figure out if they are in the right place or they will leave.
MORE SPACE – Add more space between sections and links so that they are easy to click on with a finger and not too close to other elements.
LESS WORDS – Use less words, more buttons and images. Especially on your homepage, make sure your visitors can see how to get to important sections quickly.
CALLS TO ACTION – Use call to action buttons at the bottom of pages so people can take action immediately rather than having to navigate to a contact or shop page.
CONTACT FORM – Use a contact form (not just email address) so if visitors don’t have an email program setup on their phone, they can still send an inquiry.