Unsolicited Advice

What to do about Twitter now that Twitter isn’t Twitter

Ohhhh, Twitter. She had a good run. I am going to preface all of this by saying that Twitter never worked well for my business (my fault!), so I abandoned my Websy Daisy account some years ago. But I was still using my personal account to follow news and people I liked. Once Twitter became… Read more »

Google Now Gives Preference to Mobile-Friendly Sites

Maybe you’ve seen it on the news; maybe you’ve received an email from Google; or maybe this is the first you’ve heard of it! As of April 21, 2015, Google is now giving search rank preference ON SMARTPHONES to sites it considers “mobile-friendly.” What does this mean? It means that if you are searching on a… Read more »

Update your Plugins – VERY IMPORTANT!

There have been some recent and VERY IMPORTANT security updates to some popular Wordpress plugins – including: Jetpack WordPress SEO Google Analytics by Yoast All In one SEO Gravity Forms Multiple Plugins from Easy Digital Downloads UpdraftPlus WP-E-Commerce WPTouch Download Monitor Related Posts for WordPress My Calendar P3 Profiler Give Multiple iThemes products including Builder and Exchange Broken-Link-Checker… Read more »

Why I LOVE WP Engine

First, a little disclaimer, to keep my conscience clear. There are some links to WP Engine below, and they are affiliate links – meaning if you click on one and you end up buying hosting, I get a little bit of cash for referring you. But please don’t let that deter you – if you… Read more »

Common WordPress Issues

WordPress is the best – really. It is amazingly flexible, expandable, SEO-friendly, and easy to use. That’s why I use it on almost every single site I build. But any web platform has its quirks, and WordPress is no exception. Plus — stuff happens. If you all of a sudden find that some aspect of your… Read more »

4 months of WordPress Hosting for FREE

I am going to post something longer later this month, but the short version is, I am having a love affair with WPEngine WordPress hosting. I recently changed cloud hosting companies and moved my site and several of my clients sites to WPEngine, and I have been so so so happy. Sites load quickly, tech… Read more »

How to Choose a Web Designer

I frequently hear from prospective clients that they have received several quotes for their project, and the prices have spanned a huge range, from a few hundred dollars, to many thousands of dollars. There is not a universal fee structure for web development, and what any given person charges can depend on a lof of… Read more »

Where the heck ARE you??

Here is where I reveal one of my little neuroses—something that crawls so far up under my skin that I have to do a few quick deep breathing exercises to shake it off and move on. Say you are searching for a service – doctor, therapist, stylist, tinker, tailor, candlestick maker, and Google gives you… Read more »

Don’t put the milk in the back!

Grocery stores organize their products so that in order to find the things you are most likely to dash in to buy (like milk, eggs, bread, etc), you have to wind through half the store to find them, thus forcing you to pass by hundreds of OTHER products that you might pick up on impulse…. Read more »

Stay Connected to Your Customers: Newsletter Marketing

These days, there is so much competing for our attention, that our business can become “out of sight, out of mind,” in a heart beat. Most experienced small business owners know that if they can just get in front of their customers, past and future, periodically, that can frequently turn into new business. But how… Read more »

How Often Should You Redo Your Web site?

Many, if not most, small businesses look at a web site as a one-time expense; once they have invested in one, they look at that as something checked off of their list forever. The reality is that the web evolves so rapidly that you really should look at a web site as an ongoing expense… Read more »

Who you gonna call? 10 Common issues and who can fix them.

As a web designer, I know a lot about a lot of things web-related – and thus, I have become sort of a default tech support option for many many people. I love all of my clients and really am always happy to help, however about 90% of the time, I am not actually the… Read more »