Sharing Some TLC
Image by GotCredit.com
Here’s why you absolutely need to back up your website
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 also runs the rad DIY Website Maintenance Course that teaches entrepreneurs how to care for…
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…
Favorite Google Chrome Extensions for Web Developers
Yesterday I wrote about my favorite Basic Google Chrome Extensions. There are a number of extensions specifically helpful for web development. Here are the ones I use every day: ColorZilla This is a super easy way to grab a color from your screen and learn the hex code. WordPress Admin Bar Control I love this…
Get these! 10 Best BASIC Google Chrome Extensions
I use Google Chrome as my default browser. I am a fan of the extensions they offer to increase productivity and simplify processes. There are extensions I use for WordPRess website development, which I will cover in a different post. This post focuses on my 10 favorite extensions for basic productivity. 1. LastPass: Free Password…
How to Use the Chrome Inspector to Edit Your Website CSS
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…
Taking and Selecting Great Photos for Your Website
Today’s post is from guest blogger Lawerence Cheng, of Lawrence Cheng Photography. Lawerence is a professional photographer based in Arlington, VA who specializes in portraits and corporate photography. You’re probably aware that images do increase traffic to your website or social media feed. How much more traffic? Jeff Bullas, social marketing expert, cites the following…
5 Reasons to Add Periscope To Your Social Media Presence
Today I am pleased to welcome my first Guest Blogger! Karen Bate, of KB Concepts P.R. is a social media, public relations and marketing professional who specializes in work for non-profits and “great ideas for good causes.” She is also the founder of Awesome Women Entrepreneurs, a networking organization which began in Arlington, Virginia…
How to Make a Widget Area in a Custom Genesis Theme
I have talked about how much I love working with the Genesis framework for WordPress. While some developers don’t favor the widgetized home page often found in Genesis themes, I like this feature. This makes a Home page very flexible, so my clients can easily change the content on the Home page without having to…
What's the Beef? Taking a Bite Out of the Hamburger Debate
I have a keen interest in hamburgers. They are not my favorite food … I am talking about the small, 3-lined menu icon that has been the topic of debate in the web design community. The icon was designed by Norm Cox as part of the user interface for the Xerox Star – a “workstation”…
How to Avoid Shiny Object Syndrome with the Genesis Framework for WordPress
I suffer from a condition you may have heard of … Shiny Object Syndrome. It is easy to be distracted and frustrated by the number of options we have for WordPress themes (and plugins, and web hosts – the list goes on!). Many themes look the same … some have fancy bells and whistles. Trying…
How to Turn Radio Buttons into Big Buttons in Your Gravity Form
Radio Buttons are Ugly! Radio Buttons do not create an eye-catching set of options for a donation form. Styled, big buttons are much better looking, professional and appealing I recently reached out in Slack and got a quick solution to turning my radio buttons into BIG BUTTONS. When collecting donations on a website, it is…
10+ Favorite Free WordPress Plugins and Why You Should Use Them
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…
How to resize and prepare images for use on your WordPress website
Images are a key to a blog or website. Bad quality images will make your site look unprofessional. Images that are too large will slow down the load time of your site. Images that the wrong dimensions and shape will mess up a page layout Once you have selected an image or images for your…
5 Best Ways to Get Help with WordPress
I built my first WordPress website in 2011. At the time, I was not aware of the many avenues available for support and learning within the WordPress community and struggled to find answers and teach myself everything from css to html to plugins and ftp. Over the years I have discovered that there are many…
Why I Love WordCamps
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…
Help! The Facebook Image from My Website is Wrong!
If you have ever tried sharing a link from your website and Facebook, you may have encountered an issue where the image that Facebook is reading from your website is not the image you want to be featured. When you share a link on your Facebook timeline, you will usually have the range of various…
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…
Photo from Pixabay
ACK! HACK!
5 Ways to Protect your WordPress Website In two days I have had to repair two hacked websites. One was vulnerable to hacking with old plugins and a very out of date version of WordPress core. The other site was not out of date, but must have had a backdoor somewhere that a clever hacker or…
What Kind of Car Do You Drive – WordPress Hosting Conversation
I recently posted some information on the Facebook Advanced WordPress Group about blacklisted plugins on Go Daddy Managed WordPress Hosting plans, including several backup plugins. My intention was to share this information with the community and advise you how to choose managed WordPress hosting plans in case you may be having issues with Managed WordPress…
By United States Department of State (Official Photo at Department of State page) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Lesson from Hillary – Use Your Email Properly
Politics aside, using personal email for business is a bad idea. Debating whether or not Hillary knew or didn’t know or realize this, if her advisors did or didn’t tell her to avoid this mistake, is not the purpose of this blog post, but it is has reminded me how email is misunderstood and misused. For…