How your web host could help or hurt your website performance

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One of the first questions people may ask web designers when planning out their website is: Does it really matter where my website is hosted, or if it is hosted at all? In short, yes! The hosting environment you choose for your school website can impact security, SEO, user experience and more. Hosting your website…

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Google Core Web Vitals for your school website

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Your website’s user-experience is critical to reaching your long term marketing goals. There are many elements that make up your school or non-profit website’s user experience: site speed, interactivity, responsiveness, etc.  In 2020, Google announced that “Core Web Vitals” would be used as ranking signals in 2021. What does this mean? It means that Google…

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4 reasons why WordPress is perfect for small school websites

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At DesignTLC, we proudly use WordPress to design websites for our clients. There are plenty of other platforms available, like Wix, Weebly, and Squarespace, and Finalsite is a big name in school websites. WordPress is our favorite for four reasons:  Ease of Use Ownership Extendabilty Community  1. Affordability  It’s no secret that good quality website…

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4 Great Private School WordPress Website Designs

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There is a different level of scrutiny that is involved because private schools are under more pressure to create compelling, interesting websites in comparison to public schools. In general, private schools are more competitive than public schools in terms of creativity and design, and it shows in their websites. Because private schools are concerned with…

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SEO – Writing good content

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I am pleased to welcome guest blogger Grant Price III. Grant is a WordPress Tutor and Consultant in the Washington DC area. He has been training individuals and corporations about the web and WordPress since 2012. For WordPress tutoring and training, visit WPtutoring.com. Today Grant is sharing some tips about Search Engine Optimization, or SEO.…

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Here’s why you absolutely need to back up your website

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Today’s awesome guest blogger is Nat(alia Real), Website Superhero, a Web Designer/Developer + Strategist helping world-changing women entrepreneurs get more clients and make a bigger impact with a strategically designed website, while making the tech stuff fun and easy. She posts about all things websites + dogs + pop culture on Twitter and Instagram. Nat…

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Need A Membership Site? Join The Club. How to Choose a Membership Plugin

There are a ton of blog posts and tutorials about creating a membership site and choosing the right WordPress plugin. Chris Lema has covered this territory in depth, with a recent review of 30 different membership plugins. Marcus Couch is soon launching Membership Coach to advise WordPress users on generating revenue with membership sites. I am…

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How to Use the Chrome Inspector to Edit Your Website CSS

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My life as a web designer was changed once I figured out that I can use the Chrome Developer Tools Inspector to play with the CSS on my websites. There are many uses for these great tools, but here I am focusing on using it for CSS specifically. I did my first ever screencast to…

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10+ Favorite Free WordPress Plugins and Why You Should Use Them

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I have used a lot of plugins over the years and I love listening to podcasts and reading blog posts to learn about new plugins and other’s favorites. Here are the Top 10+ Free Plugins I use on my WordPress websites: Yoast SEO: This plugin is one of the most popular in the WordPress Plugin…

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Why I Love WordCamps

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I attended my first WordCamp in Baltimore in 2014. I found out about WordCamp by accident. I had hired a developer in Florida to do some php work for a client of mine, and he mentioned in passing that he was presenting at WordCamp Tampa. I googled “WordCamp” and discovered the Baltimore WordCamp was coming…

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The Blogging Challenge: Blogging For One Month

I met the sister team from @sumydesigns, Susan Sullivan and Amy Masson at WordCamp US. They impressed me with their commitment to blogging about website and WordPress design and development. As a result, I have set myself a goal of blogging every day (or almost every day!) for the month of March. The Design TLC…

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Jumping In

The ball just dropped in Times Square. There’s no time like the present to jump in and begin a new challenge. How many times have you put something off because you are not “ready?” I recall mornings when I rose early to swim in the open water, training for a triathlon. I was never a strong…

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