The biggest opportunity for most web developers is actually assessing the business problem that needs to be solved. A scenario I keep observing in the web industry is focusing too much on the technology and not enough on the business problem. This scenario plays out in different ways, but usually with newer developers, or fledgling […]
Web Design Discovery Helps Solve Business Problems
What Makes A Website Design Good?
Let’s face it. Most web design is judged rather subjectively. Oh sure, the new design of your website may win design awards. Or perhaps look exquisite — which is important. But does that make the design great? I’d argue that one thing above all else makes a website design successful. And that’s whether it delivers […]
The Truth About Slow Web Pages
Here’s a truth about slow websites that business owners don’t want to hear. Page speed directly affects how well your website supports your business objectives. There are two critical ways that slow web pages impact your business. First, page speed affect whether your potential customers become actual customers or not. A 2010 study by Gomez.com […]
Why I Don’t Bill Hourly On Large Projects
For large projects, I don’t have an hourly rate. In fact, I don’t even worry about measuring increments of time until we get down to smaller things like maintenance agreements, or smaller projects less than a few hours in scope. A rate implies that you’re measuring effort in increments of time, not return on investment. […]
Don’t Use Google Images On Your Website
Where do you get images for your website? If you’re like a sizeable chunk of the population, you might just do a Google Image search and get images from there. But if you’ve been uploading these onto your website, there’s a reason why you stop doing this immediately. The issue has to do with copyright […]
SEO Tip: One Page, One Search Phrase
There is one common misstep I see people make when they are doing their own SEO. This misconception is to make either their home page, or every page on their website a catch-all for every single term that they want to rank for. If you do this, it is highly unlikely you will get to […]
Planning For Client Training
Well-organized web development projects follow sequential stages: discovery & research, design, development, testing, launch. But there’s a step that occurs before a new site launch that deserves it’s own attention — and that’s training. Training clients to use their website is an incredibly important project stage. Here’s why. We could build the most beautiful website […]
Calculating Shipping Costs In WooCommerce
Calculating shipping costs on products from your e-commerce store can be involve a bit of guesswork — if you’re not automating the process. There are reasons you might not want to do this, but if you do choose to calculate shipping based on the buyer address, there are tools for WooCommerce that will help you […]
Using WordPress Custom Admin Styles
Sometimes, it is advantageous to add custom CSS to the WordPress admin area. Perhaps you want to show an admin area that does not resemble the default WordPress back end. In other cases, you may want to serve specific admin styles, based on the user role of who’s logged in. Here’s how you add WordPress […]
How Long Does It Take To Make A Custom WordPress Theme?
One of the first questions people ask when they’re searching for a WordPress developer is “How long does it take to build a custom WordPress theme?” Like everything else in web development, the answer is “It depends.” Keep in mind that development is one stage of the web design cycle. (Most projects have discovery, strategy, […]