Category:

Website Design

0

WordPress Crash Course – learn it all in 30 DAYS!

May 27, 2013, Website Design
http://www.schoolforstartups.com/wordpress-crash-course-learn-it-all-in-30-days/

From the Desk Of: Angela Wills

wp-blacksmI don’t have to sell you on the benefits of using WordPress as a website. Heck since you’ve made it here I’m sure you’re already using it for yourself and some of your clients, even.

You’re likely already getting people asking you to help them setup their websites or you’re aspiring to get clients and build a get living designing WordPress websites for clients.

I’m sure you also know the ‘old way’ of doing website design isn’t working anymore. You already know that business owners want WordPress. They want to do their own ‘quick site updates’ and they want one of the most popular CMS website and blogging software programs of all time – WordPress.

YOU can be the answer for them. You already have some WordPress skills you’ve been putting to good use, now it’s time to take it to the next level…  Word Press Designer School!!!! 

0

Dashboard Elements for Websites

February 22, 2011, Website Design
http://www.schoolforstartups.com/dashboard-elements-for-websites/

I was asked to build a list of the elements needed on a website dashboard.  Luckily, I ran into this list, which looks great to me…..

What Do I Need to Track in Real Time?

When choosing your tactics and strategy, focus on the metrics that matter and keep measuring in real time how they affect your business. Here are three tips on key indicators you should track, measure, and analyze:

Tip 1: SEO Indicators

  • Keyword Ranks: Keep an eye on how you’re doing on your specific keywords on Google, Bing, internationally, locally, etc.
  • Page Scores: What do you need to do to get your pages noticed by search engines?
  • Link Opportunities: Make sure you’re going after the right link opportunities and getting links to align with your keywords and page content.

Tip 2: Social Indicators

  • Track Likes, shares, and comments on Facebook, as well as retweets and followers on Twitter.
  • Make sure these are coming from users with authority and social influence.

Tip 3: Business Indicators

  • Monitor page views, visitors, conversion and revenue.
  • Tie back SEO and social indicators to business metrics and results. This will give you a full understanding of how effective your campaign is.
0

How to Start a WordPress Website Video

January 18, 2011, Bootstrapping, Technology, Website Design
http://www.schoolforstartups.com/how-to-start-a-wordpress-website-video/

The Entrepreneur School just released an updated lecture on how to get started with your website. This is part of module 6, lecture 6 about How to Sell Your Products online.

The previous lecture discussed ways to build a website using Dreamweaver. Dreamweaver is a great tool, but times have changed, and websites are now being created using Content Management Systems (CMS) such as WordPress and Joomla. CMS allow you to edit a website through an administrator login. The benefit is that you can set up your whole company to make changes to your website without the worry of people destroying the website template.

For more information about this shift in how websites are built, please read here.

Here is a brief section of the new lecture on how to get started with your business. This video walks you through the process of getting set up with a domain name (www.yourwebsite.com), WordPress-specific hosting, and the initial setup of your new website using GoDaddy. The full lecture goes on to show you how you can start working within the WordPress admin area to create and edit pages on your website.

2

Minister turns entrepreneur and learns to program!

January 17, 2011, Bootstrapping, Entrepreneurship Stories, Website Design
http://www.schoolforstartups.com/minister-turns-entrepreneur-and-learns-to-program/

Virginia Wood is my first cousin and is a really important person in my life.  She is a minister, but is currently out of work.  When I was married 16 months ago, Jenny (as I think of her) officiated the service.  She will be baptizing my new son, William, now 5 days old.

Since she is out of work at the moment, she needs some extra income and has some extra time.  Jenny especially needs the income from weddings, which can be a big financial boost for any minister.  She decided to build a website to promote her wedding services.  We talked several times about how to get a site launched and the importance of Google. Jenny had several people offer quotes for her website development.  Her niece, a graphic designer, offered to build the site using a purchased template for $2,000.  Jenny’s daughter offered to do it for free, but is rather busy planning her flash wedding in Central Park for the summer.  (Doesn’t that seem funny and contradictory, planning a flash wedding!)  My recommended designer and SEO expert proposed $750 for a from -scratch site and SEO.  I strongly encouraged her to pay the money and get it done professionally. This business will thrive based largely on on it ranks on Google.

Jenny did the unexpected but exciting.  I am so proud of her.  She did it herself!  I love it.  Bootstrapping, and now she has a new skill set to add to her resume.  At her next church, she will be able to run , or create, the church’s website, saving the church lots of money and making the site much more useful.  It should be one of the many small things that help her land her next placement.  At The Entrepreneur School, we always advise entrepreneurs to learn to do their own web programming.  It saves so much money and makes the their sites much more personal.  In the case of Jenny, I am concerned that her Google results are going to be a problem.  The site currently ranks 6-7 for her exact URL.  It needs to be number 1.

Her plan so far is exactly what we propose and teach.  Low, low start-up costs.  Do something that is an extension of your normal income stream.  Start small and cheaply.

Her site is up and running here.  She did it entirely by herself and has learned so much in the process.  Several of the pictures on the site are of my wedding.

I will keep you posted on Jenny’s entrepreneurial adventure….

1

PCI Compliance

June 2, 2010, Website Design
http://www.schoolforstartups.com/pci-compliance/

What is PCI Compliance?

First off, PCI stands for Payment Card Industry and PCI is usually followed by DDS which stands for Data Security Standard.

Basically, if you have a website and you take credit cards in any form or fashion, you must be PCI compliant.  If not, they will come after you, fine you, and probably eventually take down your site if you don’t comply.

I have worked on two websites needing PCI compliance.  One was a very easy process.  The second has been a more difficult process.

The easiest way to pass the PCI compliance test is to have all credit card data collected on a 3rd party site as opposed to having it be collected through your own website.  PayPal is an example of this type of payment.  If your client makes a payment using PayPal, they are directed to the PayPal website.  You can make the page look similar to your website, but the user will be on PayPal.  Therefore, no credit card information is passed through your site nor is it collected within your site’s database.

Another option in this arena is the Virtual Terminal by Authorize.net.

The more difficult way, and the way my second website is set up, is that credit card information is entered in my website and is then passed through my website to Authorize.net.  And although I don’t collect any credit card data whatsoever, this puts me in a different category according to PCI Compliance tests.  The reasons for doing this are so that my website looks more professional and my payment portion looks the same as the rest of my website.  But it also requires more security in all aspects of the website and hosting.

So here are the major steps you need to take as a site owner in order to be PCI Compliant on the second type of website listed above:

  1. First and foremost, your payment pages must be secure.  You must purchase an SSL certificate from your hosting company and make sure all payment pages load under the certificate.  This is easy to determine.  If your domain is http://abc.com, it is not secure.  If it is https://abc.com, it is secure.
  2. Second, you will need to have your website scanned by a PCI compliance testing company.  I used Control Scan.
  3. If your site comes back and doesn’t pass, take a look at the error report and see if these are items you can fix or if your hosting company needs to fix.
  4. For my site, I had hosting with Register.com and needed to switch to a hosting plan that is PCI Compliant.  This cost more money and included a migration fee (for moving the database), but should now be PCI compliant.

Don’t put off PCI Compliance.  They will find you and fine you.  It’s in your best interest to make sure you are PCI Compliant because you need to keep your clients away from hackers and fraud that could result from a non-secure website.

0

What's a Baidu and Is There a Remedy For It?

May 13, 2010, International, Marketing, Website Design
http://www.schoolforstartups.com/whats-a-baidu-and-is-there-a-remedy-for-it/

Now that Google has left China, there is a missing piece in the Chinese search market. The largest competitor to Google was always a site called Baidu. It is now the best way to reach the 340 million Chinese Internet users.

There are two issues about having a Chinese website, hosting and translation. The Chinese market of 1.2 billion people, some 25% increases in web users, and a quickly growing middle class make China too small to ignore. Hosting remains difficult for American firms. You may need to know someone there to get a site established. I will be working on this issue and will blog about it soon. As far as getting a site translated, I would use odesk or eLance to find a local Chinese that can do the work for you.

Baidu offers direct accounts for Chinese speakers and an international support site that makes things easier for us non-Chinese. There are companies that offer full service Baidu help for US companies. These firms offer ad placement and writing, keyword tools, translation, and cultural advice. Baidu offers PPC and is susceptible to SEO manipulation just like Google.

Until recently, most results in a Baidu search were bought and paid for.  In other words, to get ranked one number, you pay. Baidu’s new program, called Phoenix Nest, makes the service look just like Google, with all the ads on left. Since this change, the CPC has gone up, but the results are now more honest.

Improving traffic on Baidu can be done in several ways. Normal Google methods work for Baidu too. Links play less of a role on Baidu, which makes it easier to rank higher, sooner. But, the site must be in Chinese, it must be hosted in China, you must post your own site map, content must be high on the page, and no flash is allowed.

We will be posting more articles about international websites and how to start a business in China.

4

Gianduia – Apple's Flash Alternative

May 10, 2010, Apple, Technology, Website Design
http://www.schoolforstartups.com/gianduia-apples-flash-alternative/

We saw Steve Jobs blast Flash during his iPad presentation, even pulling up a page in Safari showing the big Flash sign, but no Flash presentation.  We’ve all been waiting to hear what will be used instead of Flash, and it seems like Apple is starting to advertise it’s version called Gianduia.  Apple has been using Gianduia for a while now within their retail store.

Gianduia (Italian hazelnut chocolate) is a client-side framework and will work on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch.  What that means, is that you will not need to install a plugin like Flash to be able to view the content in your browser.

As an entrepreneur, this is an important topic to watch.  If you currently have Flash on your website, no one using an iPhone or iPad will be able to see the content of the Flash presentation.  Your objective is to use technology that the most users will be able to access.  It appears that Gianduia will be accessible to more internet users than Flash is.  Your other objective is to make sure that Google and the other search engines can read all content on your page so you show up for those keywords.  Google cannot read Flash.

Gianduia looks like it will be running off HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS, which should make it readable to the search engines.  We at The Entrepreneur School will keep an eye on Gianduia developments.

3

Google now factors site speed in determining ranking!

April 10, 2010, Blog, General Thoughts, google, Marketing, Ranking #1 on Google, Website Design
http://www.schoolforstartups.com/google-now-factor-site-speed-in-determining-ranking/

Google announced today they will factor in site load speed in ranking  its search results.

What does that mean for you? Using a bigger and more reliable host, perfectly dedicated instead of shared.

Shared hosting usually cost around $5 – $15 a month while dedicated starts from $150.

You can read more about it here, google’s official blog for webmasters.

P.S. if anyone have questions or concerns, I will try to help as much as I can.

0

How to Analyze your Website

April 9, 2010, General Thoughts, Website Design
http://www.schoolforstartups.com/how-to-analyze-your-website/

You’ve started your business, you have your website up and running, and you’re wondering what to do next.  How is your website faring?  Are you getting business or leads from the website?  How can you improve your website?

Here is a great (free) tool to analyze your website and obtain feedback on how to make it better.  It is called Website Grader – http://websitegrader.com/

I just graded one of my websites, and here is some of the information that Website Grader advised:

  • An overall score that shows what percentile your website is in based on marketing effectiveness.  For instance, if you score a 91, your site is better than 91% of the other sites on the web.  If it is a score of 40, you need help.
  • If you have a blog and how effective it is.  You get a blog grade.
  • How many pages Google has indexed.
  • The level of readability on your site (keep it simple)
  • An image summary and insight into how many of those images are optimized for the search engines
  • When your domain is set to expire and the importance of registering for long periods of time (to show the search engines you are serious about this site)
  • If you are in the Yahoo Directory or not
  • How many inbound links are coming to your site.
  • Your twitter grade
  • THE BEST PART – An analysis of competing websites – you type in who you would like to be compared to (hint, top 3 google results for your field & location) and compares website grade, page rank, indexed pages, traffic rank, blog grade, inbound links, and del.icio.us bookmarks.  A great tool.

Based upon this information, you should have a pretty good indication of where your weaknesses are and where you need to improve.

Here are some other good tools:

http://www.marketsamurai.com/
http://www.seomoz.org/linkscape/
http://www.google.com/insights/search/#

36

Designing Websites on the iPad?

April 7, 2010, Apple, Website Design
http://www.schoolforstartups.com/designing-websites-on-the-ipad/

The best description I’ve heard about the iPad so far is that it is made more for content consumption than content creation.

As a web designer who creates websites, the iPad doesn’t hold as much sway for me as a MacBook.  At this stage of iPad development, in my dream world with an unlimited budget, I would choose a MacBook Air or MacBook Pro over the iPad.

My prediction is that the next generation iPad will contain more utilities for designers, as designers are a core Apple consumer.  And maybe these features will exist in 3rd Party Applications making website design possible, natural, and a joy to complete on a tablet device.  But for now, one program that I often use during the website design process is Adobe Fireworks.  Many others use Photoshop, Illustrator, and Dreamweaver.  These are not available on the iPad.

Thoughts on Designing Websites on the iPad
One way around this would be to design the Website in WordPress.  The admin area of WordPress could be accessible through the Safari browser on the iPad.  One could then download the App “FTP on the Go” which is available for both the iPhone and the iPad in order to control files for the site.  Files can be directly altered within the program.  But with the iPad only allowing one program to be open at a time, one would need a pretty good understanding of html, css, & php to make changes to a website page without being able to view the changes immediately.

As far as image editing goes, there should be a wave of new apps arriving soon that allow for these types of capabilities.  Perhaps even some from Adobe.

At this point, I think website design is much easier on a MacBook, but I hold out hope for future generations of the iPad to contain more abilities for me to design on a tablet, either through native Apple components or 3rd party applications.

If anyone has further information on website design on the iPad, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below.

Previous

1/2

Next
Copyright © 2013 School for Startups