1stwebdesigner |
- Learn How to Build A Website 10x Faster Using WordPress Premium Tools
- #EspressoMonday Nr.4 – Coding vs. Plug-ins, Our Podcast, Losing Motivation
- #Espresso Monday Nr.3 – WordPress Themes, AwesomeWeb, WordPress Custom Solutions
- #Espresso Monday Nr.2 – Scaling Business, Graduate Advice, Transparency in Business
| Learn How to Build A Website 10x Faster Using WordPress Premium Tools Posted: 04 Feb 2015 01:58 AM PST In order to be the most effective in their work, it is very important for professional web designers and developers to learn and utilize the right tools. Today, I wanted to clear once and for all why using WordPress is the best choice for most freelancers. I will also cover how to make your workflow super productive by using theme framework.
You can build websites for clients in lightning speed and be able to spend more time helping them reach their goals.  Learn how to use WordPress as a pro to deliver rapid results to your clients!
WordPress is truly the best solution you can use when building most client websites. Few exceptions would be web applications because you really need to build everything from scratch. For example, in building AwesomeWeb job search site, we used Ruby on Rails. We started out by using the WordPress/CodeIgniter combination but for such custom development solutions, WordPress just wasn’t flexible enough. Most clients, however, won’t need custom solutions. In 98% of cases, clients will need something common, like an online store, personal brand, portfolio, membership, blog, to get simple business websites done. You can build all of these easily with WordPress. Why WordPress? There is a reason why even big brands start using WordPress. Speed and simplicity.
WordPress is the most popular content management system (CMS) for a reason. Twenty-two percent of all websites online – that’s around 80 million websites – are built using WordPress. Some of the major reasons why WordPress is so popular are because:
There are thousands of free and premium themes available online. It can be tempting to go for a free theme without paying anything, but before you make that decision, read on.. Why use a Paid WordPress Theme vs Free Theme?The benefits of using a premium theme provider versus a free theme are many. The most important reason why you shouldn’t use a free WordPress theme is its lack of support, documentation, and updates. Think about it, if developer creates and releases theme for free, he doesn’t make any money from it. But he still needs to earn living some way. Free WordPress theme cannot be a long term choice, because developer doesn’t have the incentive to support theme for free, provide documentation and update it during the years. Would you do all this work for free? You cannot expect training resources, documentation, free support and updates, when a developer isn’t making any money from it. Even if he is the kindest person on earth, earning his own livelihood will always be a priority. Moreover, free themes will almost always be of lower quality than a premium theme. You get what you pay for.  Investment vs being dedicated freebie seeker. I say it’s not worth the gamble, not here.
Premium themes come with cleaner code and better functionality. All premium theme providers offer a high quality design, in-depth documentation, and world class support. Support is extremely important because something always goes wrong or doesn’t work as expected. If you choose a free theme, you rely on other people’s goodwill to help you in forums. When you choose to buy premium WordPress themes, you pay for support and theme providers are liable to helping you. Best of all, premium WordPress templates are very affordable because of the steep competition in the market. That’s good news for you! You can buy one premium theme for around $50 or get access to all theme shop themes and support for around $100-$300/year. You can easily make that money back from one client! I started 1stWebDesigner 7 years ago with a free WordPress theme but now, I don’t even look at free themes. Simply because it’s not worth the trouble. I suggest you pay $50 for a beautiful, customizable WordPress theme you like with the assurance that there will be documentation and support included, which will save you a lot of time. This also means that you’ll spend much of your time trying to figure out things on your own. Paid WordPress Themes vs Theme Frameworks vs Custom WordPress DevelopmentWhen you’re going to build a custom WordPress design, there are only few ways you would start. Many professional web designers follow these steps:
Some web designers start directly with HTML/CSS and then move to WordPress; while others go directly from PSD to WordPress, which is already a pretty effective way to work! Smart and experienced web designers, however, begin with a starter theme or framework, pick the layout and functionality, and design the website around it. This is arguably the most productive and efficient way to create a website. We, at 1stWebDesigner, are big believers of this approach. For example, the previous 1stWebDesigner design took us more than a year to complete when we did it the “good” way starting with sketching, wire framing, and custom coding everything into WordPress. The recent redesign, however, only took us 2 weeks to deliver. We started with Genesis framework, picked a child theme with the layout we wanted, customized the design, added functionality, and we were done. Talk about being efficient. Custom WordPress theme creation is a good choice if you are working with high-paying clients, who are ready to pay for custom solutions. Custom code is necessary for apps, web software creation, and really big brands. In those cases, you won’t even use WordPress. However, most clients don’t need that. What they need is a simple business website which fulfills their goals. They will not appreciate your super clean code as much as they will appreciate fast delivery and a website which was converted to help them make more money. What is a WordPress theme framework? What is under the hood?
Before you start picking out a theme framework or using one at all, it is important to understand exactly what theme framework is and what it can do for you. WP framework basically is an advanced WordPress theme on drugs. Whenever you build a website, you often use the same components. You lay the foundation first, you pick the design and layout (header, footer, single column, 2-column). Next, you take major functionality into account – online store, sales page, membership, andblog. Lastly, you consider additional functionality, like contact forms, security, SEO optimization, and responsiveness. WordPress theme frameworks are starter themes you use as a foundation to create your own designs. Frameworks significantly speed up website development process. As a web developer who constantly creates custom WordPress themes, you are probably fed up with all these repetitive tasks, like writing the same code over and over again and frequently checking your mark-up. Theme frameworks offer a lot of built-in functionality and customization options, so you don’t need to code everything from scratch. Frameworks are designed to work as parent themes (themes you use a foundation). Parent theme is the core you do not touch. You would use a child theme to create unique designs and additional functionality. Why web designers and developers use WordPress theme frameworks?The biggest reason why designers use framework is to speed up their development process. Theme frameworks drastically reduce the development time because you don’t need to start from scratch. You use framework as a foundation WordPress theme, then you add functionality by using different modules – like drag-drop functionality, sliders, online store. You can usually access functionality by simply activating built-in WordPress framework short codes. Instead of creating and coding a theme from scratch, creating a WordPress website can be as simple as creating a new style.css file, customizing some functionality, and adding visuals your client needs. Then, you are done! Your client is satisfied because of rapid delivery! On the other hand, you are happy because you just hacked your way through the development process and created the website the client wanted super fast! Now, you can invest extra time working with your client and ensure that the website fulfills your client’s goals and yields the right results. Benefits and drawbacks of using theme frameworkIt is a fact that there will always be pros and cons to your decision. Pros of using WP framework:
Cons of using WP framework:
Should I use a framework?While there is an extra learning curve and cost involved, you MUST definitely use theme framework if you are serious about WordPress website development . Your speed and performance will significantly improve 10x! You will be able to handle more and better clients. What more, you will be able to satisfy their needs and spend more time understanding their goals. By doing so, you will be able to grow your business. Building a website from scratch is like building a house without a blueprint. Starting with a framework is like using a blueprint. I asked Nicholas Tart, a designer with 5 years of experience, about his opinion on this question:
It is really a no-brainer that you should use WordPress and that you should learn and use framework or starter theme to serve your clients well. We intentionally focus on recommending WordPress because we believe you want to be a successful freelancer. For most freelance designers, their issue is not the programming and designing knowledge, but the lack of business skills. Clients will pay you for the results you bring in to them by creating converting website. In order to do that, you need to focus less on technology and learn some marketing skills. In the next article we will review in detail two of the top and contrasting WordPress theme frameworks you can use to speed up your web development process. Learn about the best WordPress framework for your specific needs soon! Have you used WordPress frameworks or starter themes? What has been your experience?     |
| #EspressoMonday Nr.4 – Coding vs. Plug-ins, Our Podcast, Losing Motivation Posted: 26 Jan 2015 11:13 AM PST #EspressoMonday Q&A Episode Nr.4 Coffee and MotivationIt’s Monday and coffee is a good motivation to start the day right. However, there are times when you lose the drive. In this #EspressoMonday episode, we will talk about how to keep yourself motivated but not only that. We will also talk about coding and plug-ins as well as our new project – podcasts. So be excited and jump in. Question #1 Which is more important to become a successful web designer – using plug-ins or learning js/jquery?There are web designers who struggle whether they will use plug-ins or js/jquery. Some would prefer one from the other and would tell you about the benefits and advantages of each. The truth is, it is just a matter of preference. If you are comfortable with plug-in, then you can go ahead and use them. On the other hand, you can opt for js/jquery if you feel more comfortable using them than plug-ins. However, a lot of web designers would always go for WordPress plug-ins because it is easy to learn and use. In fact, a great number of designers started to learn coding through WordPress and recommend using it for many reasons. Some of them include:
WordPress, in short, is less complicated. So you can start with WordPress and once you become comfortable with the plug-ins, you can start learning other codes to adjust anything on WordPress. Question #2 What’s the most important languages for a newbie web designer/developer?When it comes to choosing the best language to learn as a web designer, every web designer/developer will give you a different answer. Why? Because there is no single best language but a matter of preference and also on the type of project he is doing. For new web designers/developers, however, two of the most important and basic languages to learn are HTML and CSS because they are used to create almost all webpages on the Internet. They provide the basic structure and style information you need to create a static webpage. HTML is the standardized markup language that is used to structure and format all web content. Page elements, such as headings, titles, links, and texts, can all be found in the HTML document. CSS, on the other hand, is paired with HTML to define the format and face of various webpages at once. Webpage elements, such as layouts, fonts, and colors, are specified in a file which is separated from the core code of the web page. Question #3 How do you keep yourself motivated?This is a no-brainer for the 1stwebdesigner community. Lost your momentum? Then get a caffeine kick – coffee will always keep you up and moving. On a serious note, the best way to keep yourself back-up whenever you lose your momentum or motivation is always look at the great things which are already in your life rather than focusing on the negative. When you think about the good things going on in your life, there is really no reason to gripe or complain. Think about it – losing motivation is not as bad as losing your talent or skills. Lost motivation can always be regained but not so when you lose your skills, talents, or even your limbs, like Nick Vujicic. However, even if this guy has no limbs, he is one of the most grateful people in this universe. Which brings us to conclusion that motivation is just a matter of choice – you can choose to stay motivated or be eaten up with the negativity. Just remember – no matter what choice you have, it will affect your future. Envision the future you want and make a choice which one should be it.
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| #Espresso Monday Nr.3 – WordPress Themes, AwesomeWeb, WordPress Custom Solutions Posted: 19 Jan 2015 11:12 AM PST #EspressoMonday Q&A Episode Nr.3 A Cupful of WordPress and EspressoIt’s Monday once again and another #EspressoMonday episode for you. Today, we will talk about WordPress and AwesomeWeb, topics which go well with your cup of coffee. In this episode, we continue to share to you more of the benefits of WordPress as well as some question about our marketplace, AwesomeWeb. So what are you waiting for? Let’s jump in. Question #1 Does using advance and fully customizable WordPress themes, such as divi and theme x, dramatically slow down your website?The Internet is full of opinions that could provide misinformation to a designer. These opinions might be based on a designer’s experience but they cannot be used to generalize everything. Such is the issue about advanced WordPress designs slowing down your website. Themes are not the culprit why your website is slowing down. Rather, this situation is due to different factors, such as the type of hosting you use, third party plug-ins you installed, how your website is set up, how optimized your website is, and many more. Using these factors as clues, you can speed up your website by identifying the plug-ins that are slowing you down, compressing your website and the images in it, leveraging your browser caching, minimizing your CSS and javascript files, and many more. It also helps that you keep the minimum requirements of your website to make it load faster. Question #2 Why do you impose such a strict screening on Awesome Web when you can gain more membership when you just let it go?Whether we admit it or not, web designers are opinionated people, especially when it comes to their works – and this is where most of the problem lies. A lot of web designers think they are good. Sad to say, however, they are not as good as they need to be to pass the screening we have in order to get into Awesome Web. In addition, we are not just looking for quantity, but also for quality. We are looking for the best of the best in this industry because the clients that we have are demanding but also ready to pay the big bucks for such high quality designs. So unless you think you are the best of the best in this industry and you can pass the screening we have, you can’t get on Awesome Web. Question #3 Why do you always recommend using WordPress themes instead of custom solutions for clients since each of them have different needs and wants?Contrary to what a number of WordPress detractors believe, WordPress can actually cater to even the craziest of demands offering functional solutions to various website problems. Moreover, most WordPress themes are well-supported so looking for solutions if you encountered a problem is not difficult. You even have the advantage of extending website with various helpful tools, such as polls and contact forms, without having to hire a group of web designers. However, if you are trying to build a website similar to Facebook, then you have to code everything from scratch; otherwise, using WordPress themes is enough.
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| #Espresso Monday Nr.2 – Scaling Business, Graduate Advice, Transparency in Business Posted: 12 Jan 2015 11:11 AM PST #EspressoMonday Q&A Episode Nr.2 Espresso, Web Design, and YouAnother Monday – new day, new challenges, and new projects. When we’re talking about something new or a fresh start, there are sure to be a lot of questions. We, at 1atWebDesigner, are here to answer some of the questions you have. For our second episode, we will be tackling about scaling your business, graduate advice, and transparency in business. So what are you waiting for? Let’s jump in. Question #1 Does fluency and time spent on coding help scale your web design business or are there any other factors? If so, what are they?Spending most of your time coding and learning new coding languages does not help your business. On the contrary, it hurts your business more than it helps it. Instead, you have to think more like a businessman than a coder. Why? A web designer only thinks of the small picture – codes and design, while a businessman thinks of the big picture which includes efficient time management and viable solutions for your clients. Moreover, a web designer only thinks of getting the job done while a businessman has a vision of where he is going as well as has clear-cut goals to give more value to his clients. Here are more valuable advice from web design professionals who have been successful in the niche they have chosen.
Question #2 What’s the best advice a new graduate entering the Web Design industry can get?If you are a new graduate and has decided to enter the web design industry, it is much better to decide a specific niche you can focus on. This advice goes also to those who already have a career in the industry but are trying to make a breakthrough. As mentioned in the previous question, you should not just think of yourself as a web designer, but also as a businessman and one way of thinking like one is to decide which niche he or she wants to focus on. This gives you time to grow your skills making you more well-equipped in providing viable solutions to your clients. Focusing on a specific niche also establishes you to become an expert voice in that area. Finally, it helps you create effective marketing strategies because you already know what works and what doesn’t in that niche. Question #3 Is it advisable to be honest to my clients that I am not building their website from scratch but, instead, using WordPress?Being transparent in dealing with your clients is your most attractive tool to attract them. In this era of information where no secrets remain hidden for long, transparency is very important. For one, transparency makes you more authentic which, in turn, makes your existing and potential clients trust you. Transparency also makes your brand more attractive. In addition, there are a lot of benefits your clients can get from using WordPress. Aside from ease of use on your part, WordPress is very searchable in different search engine sites because the code behind it is very simple and clean. Moreover, each post, image, and page can be optimized using specific keywords, meta tags, and description.
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