I’ve been designing and building custom WordPress themes from scratch since 2009. Back on January 1 I switched to custom theming using the Genesis framework – not a huge transition but still something of a learning curve! A few months ago I needed to create a sliding toggle menu for mobile browsers for a client’s site (see the final version to the right). I’d done this for other frameworks numerous times and had the code snippets for it. But getting it working in Genesis took some extra steps. Here we go… I’m assuming here you’re already familiar with the Genesis… Continue Reading
Responsive Web Design
Weekly Links Roundup – Mobile Design, Plugins, Web Fonts, HTTPS
The top website and marketing links of the week. It’s common for clients to make assumptions about mobile design (users never scroll; I have to cut back on content for phones). But many of them just aren’t true! Learn about mobile design myths and how to go beyond them to provide a truly useful and enjoyable experience for phone users. Is there such a thing as too many WordPress plugins? Maybe… I’ve seen as many as 35 on a single website, and IMO that’s a bit much… but it really depends on the plugins themselves. You can have one badly-built… Continue Reading
Weekly Links Roundup – Website Problems, Nofollow, Android vs iPhone, Local Competition
The top website and marketing links of the week. I’m on a constant campaign to get my clients to overcome these common problems that hold their websites back. Mobile-unfriendliness, low-quality (or mostly absent) content, free website builders, and lack of trackable conversions are always issues that can be fixed to make your site a more powerful marketing tool. What is the “nofollow” tag, and when and how would you use it? Learn how to use nofollow to avoid passing linkjuice to sites that may be in any way questionable. Here’s something interesting (if a bit clickbait-y): did you know that… Continue Reading
Weekly Links Roundup – Social Media, Responsive Websites, Website Maintenance
The top website and marketing links of the week. Is your business late to jump on the social media bandwagon? Are you unsure if or how social media can help your business? This post is for you – learn 3 ways that social media can help drive business growth. I’m in the process of convincing clients with older sites that yes, it really does matter that their 2009 site is unusable in phones. Here’s a post covering 8 stats about responsive websites that you may not have considered. If you have a mobile-unfriendly site, please put a redesign in the… Continue Reading
Friday Link Wrapup – Mobile Friendly Sales, SEO Basics, Online Payments, Getting People to Sign Up
The top website and marketing links for this week. Still clinging to that old website that isn’t mobile-friendly? Techcrunch reports that yesterday was the biggest shopping day on Thanksgiving ever – $1.15 billion in sales by 5pm. And 54% of visits – $449 million of sales – of that was on smartphones and tablets. Do your customers and your business a favor and upgrade to a mobile-friendly site – I can help. If you’re new to the world of SEO or thinking about how to get your website to rank higher, here’s a good introduction to SEO basics for small… Continue Reading
Friday Link Wrapup – Mobile yet Unfriendly, Security Threats, Marketing Stats
The top website and marketing links for this week. Is your website mobile-friendly (yay!) but ridiculously hard to use on a phone? If that’s the case, you need to read “How to Poison the Mobile User” to understand how your website may be impacting your customers and sales. And then contact me because I can help you. Ever been hacked? Ever known someone who was? It’s very common, impossible to prevent, and can leave a big mess to clean up for the website owner. If it’s all Greek to you, here’s a quick primer on the 3 most common types of… Continue Reading
Friday Link Wrapup – Mobile Friendly Websites, Single-tasking, Pomodoro
The top website and marketing links for this week. How does your website look in a phone? Is it a breeze to use, with easy to understand navigation and a clear call to action helping users do what you want them to do? Or is it embarrassing – it looks just like a miniature version of your site on a desktop, and so can’t be read without zooming way in? It’s 2016. More than half of all web searches are done on phones and other mobile devices. If your site still isn’t mobile-friendly, you’re just shooting yourself in the foot… Continue Reading
Quick Poll: Smartphone Users’ Behavior on Sites That Aren’t Mobile-Friendly
I’d really appreciate your answer to this one-question poll! It will help me better answer clients when they say ‘I don’t need a mobile-friendly site – do I?’ or ‘in my industry it doesn’t matter if my site works well on phones.’ EDIT: The poll is closed – the results were: 48% said they leave a non-mobile-friendly site immediately. 47% said they will zoom in to view content. I guess I was expecting a less evenly distributed result…