Helping You Rock Out Your Site Like A Rockstar!

As an individual business, you want to stand out, right? Of course, it might be daunting to wade through the large crowd of other businesses in your niche to come out ahead, but how are you doing it? Is your business modeled after another, even your mentor or others in your niche that you admire?

If so, stop! Your business should reflect you, not some other person out there. That goes to your business model, your business cards, and especially…. your website. I find it disheartening to see so many businesses with similar designs. It might be due to inspiration or even lack of investment (or ability to invest), but a business is important. If you start one, you need to invest in it.

Of course, with WordPress powering more than 15% of the Internet at the end of 2011, many businesses are sporting themes that are similar because they were cheap, even for premium themes and frameworks. Its not that purchasing and using them are bad, but not customizing them for your particular business, especially for branding purposes, can hurt you.

So, how can you break out of accidentally being another copycat?

While you can definitely get ideas of what is working in your niche, think about what you are all about. Hiring a designer to put together a clone of another site defeats the purpose of stepping out as a brand and sometimes can create negative flack between yourself and the site you copy. While imitating might be know as the best way to flatter others, it confuses your followers and clients, especially if they follow the other business you have copied. And in some cases, you may need to be careful when you copy another’s design as they may have licensing or trademarks in place that could put you in a load of legal hot water.

There are millions of sites, but always ways to make a unique design, even with already available frameworks. Child theming can work wonders in making you stand out. If you are not a web designer or developer, you need to make sure that who you hire is flexible in designing for your tastes. Both the designer and yourself will need to think outside the box.

While some designers may be really talented, never leave your website’s design and development to 100% creative reign. Your opinion matters as it is your website that you will have to be proud of using and showing off to others. Your designer, even if they say they care, really is just being paid to produce a product for you in exchange for money. You would not tell your hairdresser to cut and style your hair however they want, right? If you did, you might end up with a hairstyle you are miserably stuck with for the next few months. In the case of websites, you have the same result if you do not become active about your site’s design and development. And… above all, you waste time and money spent investing in your business.

So, make sure your website’s design is about you and not one of your competitors in your niche. Be yourself, not a copycat.

Blog commenting as strange as it sounds has become somewhat of a science. In the past few years alone there have been trends that still exist in order to help bloggers obtain the comments they want. If you give good comments, there are noticeable results. 1. Your blog receives comments back that may also be great feedback. 2. You meet others with the same interests. 3. You are creating a link back to your website for others to follow. There have been quite a few ways to allow people to connect with other bloggers throughout the past few years. 1. Read More →

For those who have not heard of a WordCamp, it is a WordPress conference. In fact, WordCamps happen nearly every week in just about any major city in the world. The conferences are sometimes 1,2 or 3 days and are jam-packed with topics from using to designing and developing with WordPress. Becoming a speaker at a WordCamp can be fun, but not necessarily easy to become one as there are many people that apply. There are many things you should know before you send a speaker proposal in to any WordCamp. You have to fully embrace the WordPress license. Nothing Read More →

Liz Strauss (@lizstrauss on Twitter) had been at WordCamp Chicago (June 6-7, 2009) and talked about many basics behind blogging. However, it was one thing that I could not pass up to blog about and share. I am always finding time to pull up notes from presentations I have attended because there is a meaningful lesson to be learned or reminded of. When you blog, you need to be authentic- be yourself. I found myself nodding while listening to Liz. I can remember all the wank through the years from bloggers not being who they were. I even remember people Read More →

A lot of people I have heard from like the idea of using a framework to use as a base to design their website. There are quite a few free and premium frameworks out there available that are great. However, it might not be for everyone. The pros for using these are that these frameworks work and have been developed carefully. They can be applied to themes, however, if your has a big difference in design elements, you might have to move code or even add code to get what you want. Premium frameworks usually have become commercially GPL supported Read More →

I freelance and one of things I come across a lot is that even though there are some really great designers, their coding skills lack big time. It is common for me to fix some of the WordPress issues where something was hard- coded when there could have either been a widget or a theme option put in place. This post is mostly directed toward those who do use the freelance boards to post their projects. Simple things like that help a client with how they can manage their website, especially if they are not as web savvy. A lot Read More →

Sometimes blog inspiration might seem hard to come by. What can you do to prevent hitting that dry spell? Inspiration can come from many places, but it is how you harness it that counts. However, there are factors that can get in the way of getting your words to jump to your mind and onto your blog. Well, you need to think about your blogging habits: When do you normally blog? In the evening? In the morning? Midday? Have you eaten properly? Are you having some type of exercise, even in small increments of time, like 10-20 minutes. Have you Read More →

Those who have been loyal readers and supporters the past couple years know that I have been speaking at WordCamps every year. Last year I spoke at 6. WordCamps are WordPress conferences where people come to learn more about using their WordPress-powered site to its maximum potential… whether you are a newbie, intermediate user, a designer, or a developer. Every WordCamp speaker is a volunteer, so the money comes out of our own pockets. I am speaking at WordCamp Kansas City in June 2012 and need your help to cover my travel and accommodations. My topic is typography. This is Read More →