This is a 2-sided Media Kit for an online reality business news site

This was another redesign. The original website was built with a Flash header and coding that was not up to standards. Built a custom WordPress theme to make it easy for the client to update the site on their own and to help with SEO.

View Live Site

Logos are the centerpiece of a company’s brand image. The quality of a logo will give the impression to the consumer how much a brand means to the company. An effective logo can help sell products, and conversely an ineffective logo can potentially hurt sales. So what makes a great logo?

A great logo needs to be the following:

Make your company stand out from your competition

Don’t try to copy someone else. Instead of trying to emulate the competition you should be trying to set your company apart.

Use meaningful colors

Colors carry meaning. For example green is associated with the environment or money, black with elegance or luxury. Think about adjectives that describe your business to find colors that would be the most appropriate. For more information on color association check this link out

Use the right font

Just like colors, font typefaces have meaning. If you have a construction company you probably don’t want a curvy, feminine-looking font.

Keep it simple

Your logo should be simple enough to make a quick impression on your target audience.

Make it memorable

Your logo should make an impression on your customers.

Also, if you need a logo designed for your business you can always contact me.

Now that Google is allowing businesses to participate in its Google+ social network, through new Google+ Pages it’s time for you to find out how to create a Google+ page for your business.

Creating a Google+ Page takes only a few minutes. However before you can create a Google+ Page, you must create a Google+ Profile (if you don’t already have one). Read on to find out how easy it is.

1. Log in to your Google Account

Log into your account, If you don’t have one you can create one here. Once logged in click the ‘You+’ link at the top left of your Gmail dashboard.

2. Creating a Google+ Profile

Enter your first and last name, or the name of your business. Click the ‘Add your photo’ link to add the logo of your business. Click ‘Join’ once done.

3. Creating a Google+ Business Page

You will then be offered to create a Google Plus Page For Business. This link will be helpful if you have trouble: Google+ For Business. You will be directed to a page that allows you to create a Google+ Page dedicated to your business,similar to a Facebook Fan Page.

Add any information that you would like on your Google+ business page.

Google Plus For Business will then suggest to you some things for you to do to finalize your page or you can do it later.

If you’d like to see how a Google+ Business Page looks like check out mine.

Your website needs improving. Really though, everyone’s website needs improving. Websites are like living, breathing creatures. If you don’t put anytime into nurturing them they will die. Below are 5 Free ways to improve your website. Even if you only do one of these items on the list it is a step in the right direction.

1. Update your site content

Start with a single page like your Home page. Invest in some copy writing help or photography, a little will go a long way. Write a new blog post. Anything you can do to update your website content will not only let users see that your website is indeed active but it also helps in search engine optimization.

2. Analytics

Get an overview of your website traffic with Google Analytics (it’s free). If you already have Google Analytics, spend time each month looking at them. What are your most popular referral sources? What search engine words are people using to find you? If you find Analytics too confusing you can always ask a professional for help.

3. Add Social Media to your site

Do you have a Facebook fan page yet? If not here’s how to create a fan page. If you do make sure you have a link to it on your website. I like to keep my links to Facebook and Twitter in the header or footer of websites I design so that they will show up on any page a user happens to be on.

4. Revamp your existing copy

Make sure that the copy you have on your website is in small, digestible chunks. No one likes to read a ton of text on websites. Use headings, bulleted lists and white space to help readers scan the page quickly.

5. Navigation that makes sense

Look at your navigation. No really look at it like you are just coming to the site for the first time. Does your navigation make sense? Do you really need to have every item listed or could you put items in a drop down menu? Does the actual text in the links make sense to users? Should you be more specific? Don’t make users think when it comes to navigation or they will just leave.

That should give you enough to work on for now. Do you have any other tips for improving websites for free? Comment below.

This was a redesign of this website. The original was built with Intuit but had a poor design and coding that was not up to standards. Built a custom WordPress theme to make it easy for the client to update the site on their own and to help with SEO.

View Live Site

I do want to go into more detail about designing HTML emails in the near future but came across a couple of awesome resources that I just wnated to get up right away.

Emailology is a website that guides designers and developers to use good cross-client compatibility code. It is very well-commented, includes hacks and gets you off the ground quickly. There are also tips and tricks categorized for each e-mail client.

This is going to save me and other designers a ton of time in testing.

Fractal is a web application (beta) for validating HTML-CSS code across 24 most-popular e-mail clients. It not only tells you what is wrong with your code, it also suggests fixes too. It works by pasting the code into the application and running the validator.

Two new resources in the battle for HTML email design. Anyone else try these or are there even better ones out there? Let me know.

In a previous post I covered 5 SEO tips for beginners. Those tips still apply to SEO and WordPress so make sure you check out that post as well. So in no particular order here are 5 SEO Tips for WordPress websites.

Use Images in Your Posts

Using images serves multiple purposes:

Write Compelling Titles

The title of your page or post should contain the keywords that you want to rank highly for. Once you get your content to rank well in Google or other search engines you also have to get the user to actually click through to your website. Look at the titles of other similar websites in SERPs (Search Engine Results Page). Which ones are getting you to click through? Ranking high will get you nothing if nobody actually clicks on your link.

Use Tags for Extra Keywords

After WordPress 2.3 was released you have the option of including tags. This allows you to assign keywords to your blog posts. Each tag gets its own webpage so you’ll be generating your own keyword-oriented internal backlink pages.

Install the WordPress SEO Plugin

This plugin by Joost de Valk is just awesome. It really makes Search Engine Optimization super easy.
Once installed the plugin:

Use “Pretty Permalinks”

Pretty permalinks changes the default file structure of WordPress from numbers in your URL to basically keyword URLs and it’s super easy to do.

To enable or change them, first login to your WordPress website, then go to Options > Permalinks.

Never have them set to “Default” or “Numeric”. You should set them as either:

SEO is a huge topic so I will be covering it some more in the future. If you have another tips you’d like to share please feel free to comment on this post.

Designing for yourself instead of for your clients

One of the biggest issues I think that happens is that website owners put too much of their own style into their websites. Remember that you are not the one using the site, your potential clients are. Just because you may personally like a certain style does not mean it solves your website’s design problem.

Lack of Consistency

Make sure your layout is consistent throughout the website. A radical change in layout could confuse the user into thinking they have left your website.

Content That’s Not Written for the Web

Writing for the Web is different then writing for any other medium. It means making content

Poor Layout and Design

You do not need fill every available pixel on the page with something. Open white space is a good thing. It allows the eye to travel around the page. Leave plenty of white space between your text and images.

Restrain yourself when using color

A sign of inexperience is someone that uses every color in the rainbow on one page. Pick two or three colors that represent your business. If you need more then that you can use different shades of those colors but take it easy. A good designer knows when to stop.

Those are just a few mistakes you should try to avoid. Agree, disagree, have more to add? Let me know.

As a web designer you need all the help you can get to make sure your sites are working and as an added bonus they are free. Below is my list of the Best Firefox Extensions for Web Designers in no particular order. These are just the ones I use the most in my day-to-day production.

1. Firebug

Indispensable and deserves to have the number one spot! Highlights of this extension are:

• The ability to view and edit HTML and CSS on any webpage live (Note: this will not effect the actual pages just what you see on your screen.)
• The Inspect tool allows you to click on an object on the webpage and see what styles are effecting it
• A powerful JavaScript debugger

I could go on and on but enough already, download it!

2. Web Developers Tool Bar

This extension has a 5-star rating on the add-ons page and rightly so. This is just ever so slightly behind Firebug but not by much. It is awesome. You can validate your HTML and CSS with one click, you can measure items on your screen, you can resize your screen to whatever dimension you like and more!

Download it here.

3. Xmarks

Once you create an account with Xmarks and download the extension and sync you can get your bookmarks anywhere you have an internet connection. Great for those of us that work on multiple computers.

4. FireFTP

This extension turns your Firefox into an FTP client where you can upload and download your files from remote servers.

Download it here.

5. ScreenGrab

Another great tool! From their description:

Screengrab! saves entire webpages as images. Just right-click on the page you want to grab and look in the “Screengrab” menu.
It will capture what you can see in the window, the entire page, just a selection, a particular frame… basically it saves webpages as images – either to a file, or to the clipboard.

You can download it from here.

Your Turn

Do you agree with my choices or have any to add? Let me know!