Mark Williamson

Managing your business website

Mark — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 13:16:30 +0000

When most business owners realize they need a website, the first thing that comes to mind is the design of the site. They will then hire a “Website Designer” to come up with some vision of the look and feel of the company’s website. This process could drag out for a while, depending on the owner of the company and how solid a picture they have of their prospective website. The web designer then creates a layout, some graphics, and ultimately some files to be uploaded to a server that in turn are displayed in the browser.

A few months later, the boss wants to make a change, or add some pages to the company website. The company now has to re-engage the designer to make these changes. In some scenarios, the designer is no longer available and they have to contract with someone else to make changes. This process repeats itself for every change the boss wants made.

My advice would be to hire someone to plan out the implementation of the website first. In this planning phase, your needs are assessed and documented, internal resources are identified, and plans are made for the ongoing maintenance of the website. Questions that can be asked during this phase are:

Do you have someone in the company that can make edits to the website?
How many products / services do you plan to put on the website?
Are you accepting credit cards for online sales?
Will you need user account management, login, profiles, or other social networking features?

There are many more questions that need answering but these are just a few to get you thinking about your website as more than just a pretty face. Thinking of your website’s design first fails to address these and other issues that will come up.

One of my services is Website Planning and Implementation. Once contracted, I will go through a series of questions with you and your team to develop a solid plan that will address all of the crucial issues in getting your website designed, implemented, and maintained. Whether it is a brand new website or a redesign, the issues are the same. If it is a redesign project, you will have likely experienced first-hand the issues I am talking about, so you can see the value in this planning phase.

Click here to contact me regarding website planning services and I will be glad to give you a free estimate.

Creating Links in Wordpress

Mark — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 16:24:32 +0000

In this demo, I show you how to create links in Wordpress posts/pages.

Adding images in Wordpress 2.5

Mark — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 13:15:13 +0000

Quick demo on how to add media to Wordpress 2.5 pages/posts

Using Wordpress as an E-Commerce platform

Mark — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 16:29:59 +0000

Using Wordpress to promote products *and* sell them can be challenging. Wordpress is great for providing a detailed, visual description of a product, which can include text, images, video and even audio. However, E-Commerce software lacks these features. Using the two hand-in-hand, we can provide the customer with a detailed view of a product, as well as the shopping cart functionality. This video demonstrates how I implemented this for a customer.

Woman A New.com - semi-final site design

Mark — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 17:13:48 +0000

This is the semi-final Wordpress powered website design for WomanAnew.com

Ordering a Domain name - demo

Mark — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 16:52:53 +0000

For many of you first time website owners, you may be wondering where to start. This demo shows you how to register a domain name at Godaddy.com (the cheapest place to do so).

Brandon Hong - Wordpress or Blogger?

Mark — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 15:57:52 +0000

Brandon Hong makes a Video-Ebook Markting Rampage for Blogs and RSS

[admin note: to all those of you who thought you could not create podcasts because of an Accent, please don't let that stop you from creating podcasts. As you listen to Brandon, you have to appreciate what he had to overcome to create his large library of pod/video casts.]

How to Create a Happier Life (audio)

Mark — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 05:31:14 +0000

Law of Attraction

How to create a happier life as presented by Abraham-Hicks

Law of Attraction (audio)

Mark — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 05:25:56 +0000

The Law of Attraction explained by Abraham-Hicks

Woman A New - Wordpress Demo

Mark — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 22:53:10 +0000

This is a demo I created for WomanANew.com. I created a Wordpress theme and re-implemented the website using Wordpress 2.5 (it was previously static HTML).

First video is early draft, work in progress. It also serves as a quick introduction to Wordpress.

More to come

Mark — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 23:00:18 +0000

This section is not finished yet. Please stay tuned.