FAQs

Are you my ideal client? The clients I work best with are solepreneurs and small business who are nice people driven to do great things in this world. I take care of personal & business coaches, real-estate, fitness & wellness interests, health practitioners, authors, artists and speakers. I attract a lot of folks working within the transformational / inspirational arena – visionaries and game-changers who are excited to do what they do.

You come to someone like me because you want something a bit more personal than shipping something to Fiverr or another country – you want someone who listens, cares, sticks around, knows her stuff and wants you to win. You want someone who can handle your logo, fonts, colors, print and web design all in one feel swoop. That’s me.

I provide full digital design services, including web, logo and print design.

It all depends. It helps to do a little research by studying your competitors and compare online documentation. There are many types of websites for many types of models. I primarily use WordPress as my tool of choice for it’s flexibility and scalability – I can build affordable, gorgeous, functional websites for small businesses relatively quickly. A brand new WordPress site can start from $2000 on move up from there, depending on business needs such as optins, ecommerce, calendars, etc.

If that is too much for your needs, you may not be ready for a custom WordPress site – and that’s OK. There are other options – free web builders are fine for simple brochure sites and folks on an extreme budget. Even a well-thought out Facebook business page is an excellent start. But remember – a polished website built from a professional designer is always a sound investment.

Allow at least 3-5 weeks for a simple WordPress website with no major functionalities like eCommerce. It all depends how organized and clear you are about what you offer and the content you have on hand. Most logos take 3-4 weeks (they are small, but important), most graphic design can happen within a 3-4 days. Allow for delays such as site testing and design tweaks. Delays on the client’s behalf to provide content can stop the entire job.

It’s crazy, but a lot of people want websites but don’t want to do their part with getting content. By content, I mean written copy about who you are and what you do. You need to have your services copy written and priced. You need to provide professional photography and/or video. A website does not build itself. Take my word for it – it pays to hire pros to take care of this for you if you find you just can’t get your head into it.

WordPress is an open-source CMS, or content management system, that was originally built for blogging but has since grown into a very powerful tool to build beautiful websites of any kind for any purpose, swiftly and affordably. It allows you – the owner – to manage your own content – to create posts, upload photos, videos, even from your phone. About 25% of websites online today are built with WordPress. Want to know more? Check out this article on surprising statistics about WordPress.

Maybe. It’s one of the most flexible, affordable and scalable platforms out there. WordPress IS for everyone – and that said, there may be other options better suited depending on your needs. Most of my solopreneur clients need what WordPress is specifically genius for – managing and creating content. They blog, video, create imagery, want email optins or lead pages, share on social media – if this is you, WordPress is perfect.

WordPress itself comes pre-baked with powerful functionalities we can use right out of the box. It also comes with it’s own “theme” – essentially, a “skin” that gives it a basic style – fonts, colors, etc. There are many, many, many WordPress themes – ranging from free to a few hundred (a solid average for an awesome theme can be $35 – $170). You can have a custom-built theme – or buy a theme that matches your needs as close as possible and customize that even further.

I can help you choose a pre-built theme to suit your needs, or I can build you a custom theme. My tool of preference is a theme called Divi. What is that? I’ll answer that in the next question.

Divi is a premium theme created by a company called Elegant Themes. Elegant Themes have created many great themes, and Divi is their flagship product. Divi is an extremely powerful tool that allows me to build beautiful, user-friendly, mobile-responsive sites almost any way I want. I can use any number of child themes created for Divi (a child theme is simply a layer of additional customization on top of an existing theme), or I can build your own branded child theme using Divi as my platform. Either way, all options are flexible and affordable.

A plugin is a bit of software that extends your WordPress site to give it additional functionality. Plugins open up a massive world of opportunities – you can add calendars, forms, sliders, grids, optins, lead-pages, CRMs, galleries, social media functionalities, analytics, SEO tools, eCommerce solutions, and so much much more. It can be a bit overwhelming to a novice. But don’t worry – I use only premium plugins from established developers with a written record of success and reviews.

Glad you asked. Oh – you didn’t? Well, most people don’t. But I’m going to tell you anyway, because YOU NEED TO KNOW. A website is not a plastic plant – especially a WordPress site. Being that it is open-source, and being that we live in a world where the web is-constantly-changing-so-get-used-to-it, updates happen to the WordPress system core very quickly. What does that mean? You need to get into your site at least every few months – if not monthly – to update your site to accept the most recent version of WordPress.

This also sets off a chain-reaction where themes and plugins get updated. The updates usually have to do with security, upgrades in speed or functionality, etc.

What if you don’t maintain your site? It can crash or get hacked. And that is one expensive headache YOU DO NOT WANT.

I offer care packages to maintain your site. There are also services you can sign up with as well.

Yep! Standard practice, baby. Don’t let anyone else upsell you on “responsive design” because no site should EVER be built any other way. All my sites are fully responsive out of the box.

You should always have a plan in place for regular scheduled backups of your entire site as well as a way to secure it. I use premium WordPress plugins that take care of all this. You should also sign up with a hosting service with a great reputation. I can recommend a few.

Sure do! I provide training on using and maintaining your site.

The sites I build are specifically optimized for social media & email marketing. I can create all of your social media graphics and configure your email plugin. However, I do not handle creating, configuring or maintaining your outside accounts. If you need help, I work with a wonderful VA who works in this field and I can put you in touch.

All my sites come configured with SEO plugins that allow one to optimize the site for SEO. The site will be built using sound coding practices that are good for SEO – and the fact your site will be responsive right away is a plus. However I am not an SEO specialist and for further delving into that world, I can refer you to a specialist.

I don’t directly write your content, however if you need help with this I can refer you to a copywriter. I am a decent writer and can guide you with creating headlines that work – or adjusting the copy so it’s readable and user-friendly on your site – but if you are struggling with creating content, you will need a copywriter.

A domain is the name of your website, as in yoursite.com. I suggest you buy a domain name through any of the top domain sellers. A domain is NOT the same as a host – you will need both.

This is where your site lives. Assuming you have bought your domain name, that name would “point” to where your website would be installed on a host server. I do not host your website. You may have a host in mind. I recommend Siteground personally (I am not an affiliate). Do your research and understand cheaper isn’t always better. Siteground is wonderful because they are affordable, WordPress-friendly, and have excellent customer service – a huge priority for me.

You really, really need to maintain it. The WordPress core needs to be updated every time they issue one. Same with plugins and themes. If you don’t, thinks will go wonky, and you’ll call me or someone else and pay a lot of money to fix it.

I already covered this, but I install plugins that provide security and backups. This is the real world – stuff happens – so for whatever reason your site goes down – I have full backups to get you back in the game. We can talk about maintenance plans that fit your needs so you don’t have to worry.