I love WordPress – I really do. It allows you to build an amazing website (including a blog, if you want one) filled with great functionality that’s friendly to search engines and easy to use. This site is built in WordPress.

And there’s a reason it’s currently the most popular website platform out there. But the people behind WordPress made a mistake when it came to making sure people understand the difference between their two primary offerings, and you need to understand what that difference is:

1. WordPress (often referred to as WordPress.org) is open source content management system software that runs on your web hosting server.
2. WordPress.com is a network of blogs that runs on that software on WordPress.com’s web hosting server(s).

Even that explanation is confusing if you don’t know what I’m talking about. So let me break it down for you… (more…)

There are lots of things to figure out when it comes to creating a website, such as what information is best to include & how to position yourself/your brand. In addition, you’ll need to figure out what your website should look like, aka: the aesthetic of the site. And it’s easy to become overwhelmed. After all, there are so many examples of successful aesthetic choices.

But when you’re an author it doesn’t have to be daunting because lots of the work that goes into figuring it out has already been done for your book jacket(s). (more…)

Web designers have online portfolios — that’s just the nature of the business. I’m a web designer here in (currently) rainy Portland, Oregon, and my own portfolio has been through multiple iterations since I started in the year 2000: outboxonline.com.

So, if you’re looking for someone to be your web designer, you’re likely going to see lots of online portfolios. It can be overwhelming, but with some simple things kept in mind, you can increase your confidence in creating your short list of who to contact. Here’s a checklist to get you started (more…)

My husband, Graeme, is into comic books. So much so, in fact, that he’s dedicated part of his professional writing career to writing about them. As the wife of one so enamored of words-with-pictures, you can imagine that I too have enjoyed some comics in our time together, sometimes if only by proxy.

You might be wondering what this has to do with making websites… you see, comics rely heavily on color to help tell stories, and that’s a great lesson for creating websites. (more…)

I recently ran across this wonderful illustration:

It’s funny because it’s true! How many times have you seen these same posters for one movie or another? But you know what? With a single glance, you instantly know lots of information about the movie & whether it’s something you’d like to learn more about. Wouldn’t it be awesome to be able to leverage that same idea for your business? Imagine a potential customer having the same instant recognition when they visit your website, for example, so you can capture their attention and encourage them to learn more about what you do or sell. (more…)

Because I live in Portland, Oregon one type of project I regularly work on is for local Portland small businesses like Classic Sash & Door. I love working on local projects because helping great companies in my home town succeed also helps me & my community. And something nice about small business websites (regardless of where you’re located) is that good ones act as a 24/7 sales person working for you on the internet.

Simply, your goals (online and off) as a small business owner are to raise positive awareness of your services/products and increase the number of people who contact you and then hire you, or purchase your product(s).

On the internet, this means the desired result is being on the front page of Google results for your search terms, but also strategic placement of links to your site in places that list services contextually (eg: Angie’s List).

So how do you achieve this holy grail of searchability and being listed in the right place? Here are some pointers… (more…)

Many of the websites that I create are for authors and books. And while every project is different, and each project is tailored to the author or book in question, there are some similar elements I almost always recommend people include on their site Home pages – the most important landing page of the site. I’ll break it down by author sites and book sites… (more…)