Archive for Web Design

May
21

Meet the Professor at WebDesign.com

For those of you that might not know, I am a member of WebDesign.com, that offers “from beginner to advanced topics, [their] live webinars walk you through how to do all kinds of fun stuff with WordPress” and MORE!

WebDesign.com offers free, for a fee, and members only webinars, that I believe is the best money I’ve ever spent for my business and training since starting it in 1996!

In a second I’ll tell you how you can get some free training in June and how you can join WebDesign.com; however first I’d like to introduce you to the “main” professor, Benjamin Bradley, or as the WebDesign.com members affectionately call @BB in the chat rooms AND who I FINALLY got to meet in person!

Janet Hall (me) and Benjamin Bradley from WebDesign.com

WOW Benjamin is TALL!

Hahaha, check out the boxes of Wheaties and Cola bottles in the background.

Ok, so last Valentine’s week (actually 11 days) I went over to the Fall’s Church Florist to help out the crew for the holiday (I’ve been doing this off and on for about 3 years now, when I can) and whenever I go over I contact Benjamin to see if we can meet up and finally this year we did.

So I invite him in the back area (where my station is) where I’m “greening” a basket as fast as I can, talking as fast as I can (I do that when I get nervous), because to me Benjamin is one of my hero’s!

Benjamin and other instructors and guest instructors (such as Lisa-Sabin Wilson, Michael Torbert, and Cory Miller, founder of iThemes and WebDesign) and now our newest instructor, Natham Ingram have CHANGED my life, my business, and have taken me so much further in my learning with regards to WordPress, design, coding (CSS, PHP, and HTML) and much, much more!

Did I mention it’s the best money I’ve EVER spent on training?

WebDesign and iThemes are celebrating WordPress turning TEN! The Toolkit Coupon Code is coupon code WPTENTOOLKIT and everything else coupon code is WPTEN32 – Offers expire 5/27/13

And the WebDesign community is the BEST!!!

Friendly, helpful, supportive, and we all help each other out when needed.

I promised I would tell you about some free training coming up at WebDesign.com in June and I hope you can make it – not to worry if you can’t - because all the webinars are recorded.

Intro to WordPress Web Design Workshop

Overview

In this 9-part 3-day event, attendees will learn everything they need to know to get started working with WordPress as the foundation on the web. During this training, we will dig into the uniqueness of WordPress as well as how to let WordPress do the heavy lifting so developers can focus on designing a site rather than focusing on low-level code issues. Start learning how to get WordPress to work for you instead of you having to labor over WordPress methodology. In this course, attendees will receive a solid foundation from which to base their skill when working with WordPress.

Instructor: Benjamin Bradley

If you can make it look for me as OverHall in the chat room (and please say hello), where you will also meet some other regular members, such as Kerry, Barb, Wayward, Nathan, Jeremy, Jan, CoachB, and many others. We have FUN while learning!

So click, yes I want some free training and get registered today.

Before you leave check out this little didi by Nathan Ingram about our professor, Benjamin Bradley at WebDesign.com:

Categories : Running Your Business, Web Design, WordPress Training

Jan
30

How to Set Apart Your Backlink Profile in Your Footer Links

by Janet L. Hall, Web Trainer/Developer

(This article is for website designers and web developers.)

Are all your backlink profile’s the same

in footer links of websites you’ve designed?

Mine are!

However that is going to change after reading Using Footer Links to Diversify Your Backlink Profile by Matt Morgan at SearchEngineWatch.com

You see, every so often Google has an algorithm update (about 500-600 a year!), some minor, and every few months some are major, which can be a BIG headache to website designers, high ranking sites, search marketers, and more importantly your search results.

As a website designer, understanding the Google updates can assist you with search engine optimization (SEO), especially when it pertains to you or your client’s.

I need to confess – I don’t always pay attention to these updates when it comes to my own website (client’s/students are a different matter) – so sad yet so true for many website designers that are busy – like the shoe cobbler and his kids.

However Matt’s article, with regards to backlink profile’s in the footers of websites I design made me sit up, take notice, and begin taking action! (Which by the way, I have found, can be a very long and tedious process – so I’m hoping it will pay off for both myself and my clients.)

And you know it really makes sense and I’m not sure WHY I never even thought of this before as “I know better” that when it comes to your anchor text (your link) that it should NOT always be the same on other’s sites. I was taught and teach you EDUCATE (them) and NEVER tell other sites that might link to you (such as an article, affiliate program, or a resource) to use the SAME anchor text.

I just NEVER thought about it for my backlink in the footer of websites I’ve designed.

KNOCK KNOCK!

Hello?

Have you?

In Matt’s article he writes:

“Web design by…” As SEO professionals and webmasters, we must ensure that our link building efforts create a natural and diverse backlink profile, but how?

The age old link in the footer of a website appears to Google as if webmasters are trying to manipulate the search engine rankings for a specific key phrase – and having too many links that point to their site from non-relevant websites may severely hurt you on Google. The irrelevancy is misunderstood.

Webmasters should be able to take credit for the amazing design and development of the websites they produce. It’s relevant, because they really are the one’s who designed the site.

The Problems

In order to overcome the problems that come from webmaster footer links, we need to make a simple change to these four issues:

Zero relevancy.
All links pointing to the homepage.
Too many links with the same anchor text.
Too many dofollow links from the same domain.

Well, now website designers, website developers, and web masters need, and should, begin to think about this and begin to change how they are going to add their backlink profile to their client’s footer area, and Matt’s article has just the FIX!

Fix: Zero Relevancy

The trick is to establish a relationship between the website you’re linking from to your website. You can bridge the relevancy gap by creating a website design portfolio page and optimizing your page utilizing your client’s key phrases and your key phrases. Here is a formula that might help make the connection.

Client’s Industry + Your Service

Fix: All Links Pointing to the Homepage

The next part of the puzzle is to adjust the way you program your footer links on your client’s website.

Now that you have a portfolio entry on your website that is relevant to your client’s website, your footer link can point to your portfolio page instead of your homepage.

Fix: Too Many Links With the Same Anchor Text

The common anchor text for a webmaster’s footer link would look something like “web design by…” You can diversify your the anchor text in your backlink profile by using anchor text using the formula “client’s industry + your service“. For example “Travel and Tourism Website Design by….”

And so my journey has begun to fix all the footers of all the websites I’ve designed!

First I’ve moved my portfolio page from under About to Web Design (which I renamed from Web Development) on the navigation menu.

As of this writing, the only thing on the portfolio page is rotating images of websites I’ve designed, that will change.

Then I created my first “show case” page of a web site I designed according to Matt’s instructions (please read the full article for some other fixes and image examples, Using Footer Links to Diversify Your Backlink Profile)

I went to the client’s website and changed my backlink profile in the footer.

Backlink Profile Before:

Backlink Profile After:

While I was there I ALSO separated the name of my company, as I use to string it all together (KickStartWebSites vs. Kick Start Web Sites), and a member of my team, Jason Saeler, told me last year I should separate the words – working on it Jason!

One footer and “show case page” down – about 30 more websites to change my backlink profile and create their pages – stocking the shelves correctly!

Categories : SEO, Web Design, Wordpress, WordPress Training

Oct
23

The Do’s and Don’ts of Building a Web Site

by Janet L. Hall, Web Trainer/Developer

The Do’s and Don’ts of Building a Web Site

In September I had the honor or presenting a workshop, “The Do’s and Don’ts of Building a Web Site” (slides below) at the 3rd Annual Women Educating Women Conference in Columbus Ohio.

The purpose of Women Educating Women is to provide workforce education grant dollars to micro-enterprises owned and operated by women. The dollars are to be used to upgrade business operation skills such as learning a book keeping software; setting up a website, learning the ropes of Internet and social media marketing; getting a certification in their industry and much more. Women Educating Women requires that recipients of workforce education grants seek out established women business owners to provide the services required to learn the skill they need.

The Women Educating Women organization was founded by Connie Spruill (that’s Connie in the picture on the left), a long time women business owner-advocate and entrepreneur in Ohio.

The event was filled with women from various locations in Ohio and they were all THRILLED to meet other like-minded business owners, network, and learn from all the presenters.

Here are what a few said about my workshop:

Attending the WEW Conference and participating in Janet’s break out session, The Do’s and Don’ts of Building a Web Site, – learning the things I’ve been doing wrong – was the best investment I have made in my business to DATE!! – Elde Shepherd of Premier Collision Center

I learned from a trusted source, critical do’s and don’ts of creating, developing, and maintaining a web site. Janet gave fact specific tips and information, and not just general information. I learned a lot about the pitfalls and what to avoid. – Edana Essa

Great information that’s helpful to the novice web site owner given in an energetic manner by a dynamic speaker/educator! – Mary Anne White

Janet is a good presenter and gave good overall view of website development. – Kathy Ivan

Janet’s class of The Do’s and Don’ts of Building a Web Site was stuffed full of information I didn’t know. – Frankie Szamatouilcz

I broke the The Do’s and Don’ts of Building a Web Site into several sections (the PowerPoint is below with more information):

Internet/Web Site Terms
7 Places You SHOULD Add Keywords
Three Things to Know About Images and Videos
Four Things You SHOULD Include on Web Site
Three Things You DON’T Want to do on Your Business Web Site

: Janet L. Hall WordPress Expert; Photo by Lisa Heartsell

The Do’s and Don’ts of Building a Web Site from Janet Hall

If you need help with your web site or a consultation please email me at info @ kickstartwebsites.com or call me at 410-586-9440 to set up an appointment.

Categories : Web Design, WordPress Training

Jun
28

Latest Project Just Released: Columbus Bike Tours & Bike Rentals

by Janet L. Hall, Web Trainer/Developer

ColumbusBikeTours.com just completed!

I wanted to share my latest web design project and tell you a little about it – I hope you enjoy it!

ColumbusBikeTours.com Design and Plugin Information:

Used Builder by iThemes and customized the child theme called Adept

Home Page: Used PluginBuddy’s DisplayBuddy Rotating Images

Side Bars: Installed three widgets and installed the WP Wunderground plugin and customized the colors

Installed three widgets on bottom of pages

Customized the footer

Uploaded Banner created by Andre Hawkins of Kenosisdi.com

Created a custom navigation menu

Customized Style Manager

Installed Gravity Forms with PayPal add on onto the Bike Tours and Bike Rental pages

Installed Gravity Forms on the Contact Page

Installed Q and A Plugin by Raygun for the FAQ’s on the Bike Tours and Bike Rental pages

Other Plugins installed:

BackUpBuddy by PluginBuddy Team

Builder SEO by Chris Jean of iThemes

Builder Style Manager by Chris Jean of iThemes

Easy Theme and Plugin Upgrades by Chris Jean of iThemes

MapPress Easy Google Maps by Chris Richardson

Simply Show Ids by Matt Martz

TinyMCE Advanced by Andrew Ozz

Widget Logic by Alan Trewartha

WP Super Cache by Donncha O Caoimh

So what do you think?

Darren, the owner of ColumbusBikeTours.com grand opening and ribbon cutting is July 10th, so if you live in Columbus, OH, stop by and tell Darren Janet says hi!

Or if you ever visit Columbus, OH, consider taking his historical bike tour or renting some bikes to cruise around the city.

Do you need a web site? I’d be happy to speak to you about your needs. Call 410-586-9440 or email me.