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WordPress Means Do It Yourself, Right?

September 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment

3 Popular Misconceptions

WordPress is becoming one of the most widely used website platforms these days with over 25 million installs. Just to clarify, I’m not talking about the blogging site WordPress.com which is a way for people to sign up for a free blog on Automattic’s servers. I am talking about the WordPress software one installs and creates a website within ones own server environment, sometimes referred to as ‘self hosted WordPress’.  Some major players are now using WordPress such as CNN and The New York Times. An excellent article on why WordPress is such a good solution [Read more...]

Filed Under: CMS, WordPress

A Great Deal For Designers

September 7, 2011 By Leave a Comment

BundleHunt 5 Now on Sale with Unprecedented Value for Designers and Creatives

What follows is a press release – but just on a personal note, I really recommend ColorSchemer App – I use it all the time.Shame that I already have a licence – but the value of the rest of the bundle made up for that! [Read more...]

Filed Under: Graphic Design

Website Management for Non-Coders

July 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Non-Coders Website ManagementPeople today want to manage their own website, and it seems a good idea – on the surface.  I get a lot of calls for little updates and tweaks on people’s sites and much as I love my clients it does break into the day a bit. On their side they hate getting the little bills from me!  I’m not saying I’m not available – far from it! But people kind of like being in charge of their own stuff. What many people don’t realise, though,  is that there are many pitfalls to running your own website – because they don’t understand what websites are.  Here are some simple rules to help you come to grips with your own website. [Read more...]

Filed Under: CMS

SEO And The Moving Goalpost

July 14, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Are you relying on your SEO expert to keep you up to date with the latest trends? Then you need to read this. SEOMOZ.com come out with an annual report on the Google algorithm and what is interesting are the changes that have occurred over just the last two years.

This chart is available from the SEOMOZ.com website and it shows some interesting changes.

2011 Overall Ranking Algorithm

2011 Overall Ranking Algorithm

Compare this from SEOMOZ

2009 Overall Ranking Algorithm

2009 Overall Ranking Algorithm

Have a look at this website and then do a pop quiz with your SEO professional to check whether they are up with the play. After all you are paying them.

Filed Under: SEO

RapidCart – A Rapidweaver Shopping Cart

May 13, 2011 By 3 Comments

A Case Study (Part of the e-Commerce Series)

Mangawhai Party Hire websiteThis article is a case study of one shopping cart solution. Note that I am not an affiliate of either Realmac Software (Rapidweaver)  or Omnidea (RapidCart) but have used both these products on client’s projects, and am offering my opinions as a web designer.

My client, Mangawhai Party Hire, wanted a shopping cart that wasn’t actually a “shopping” cart. they wanted their customers to load up a cart for a quote rather than a purchase. Their aim in this was to have personal contact with the customer to ensure the customer was completely satisfied before committing to the hire booking. So for this project I needed a cart which could have the invoice customised to read “Quote” and not “Invoice” and surprisingly this wasn’t easy on some carts. [Read more...]

Filed Under: e-commerce, Rapidweaver Tagged With: , , ,

And Now The Beautiful

March 25, 2011 By 1 Comment

After my recent rave about CMS sites I have to eat my words in way. I have become an avid fan of WordPress websites and this is my latest creation – my own site.  I am working towards some video which will help my clients be able to get the best out of their WordPress sites.  I do however [Read more...]

Filed Under: CMS

Content Management – The Ugly Truth

October 4, 2010 By Leave a Comment

One thing I get asked a lot is “Can you manage my CMS for me?”, and digging a little deeper I find it’s not the content they really want managed but the looks, or styling, of the website – which is a completely different kettle of fries.

There are many different ways of building websites, and many different types of CMS sites. [Read more...]

Filed Under: CMS

Do Your Customers Find You or Do They Find Your Competitors?

May 8, 2010 By Leave a Comment

The world is changing. Fast. What used to work does not seem to be effective any more and not grasping this can cost a business a lot of money.

Let me explain. Five years ago we still used the Yellow Pages to look up a business. Now most of us reach for Google, the Yellow Pages propping up our computer monitor while Yellow (the corporation) post eye watering losses. [Read more...]

Filed Under: google, google analytics, Marketing, SEO

I’m Googled Therefore I Am…

July 8, 2009 By Leave a Comment

The purpose of a website is not be be found on search engines, but without being seen there isn’t a lot of point is there? Paradoxically the more that people try and ‘game’ the search engine pot of gold the more they are at risk of being penalised by Google. I have been reading about the blacklisting that can happen to websites who’s webmasters resort to ‘dirty tricks’ such as keyword stuffing. [Read more...]

Filed Under: google, SEO