Web Development - Web Design - SEO - Mobile Apps - WordPress - Illustrations

how do you find a web developer?

The web profession is a varied field where the right e-commerce developer or web designer could literally be your neighbor. so how does one go about finding the correct developer for your project?

First, I would ask a business  friend how they choose their developer, word of mouth can get you a great professional at a fraction of the cost all because of who you know.  If that tactic doesn’t seem to give the results you need turn to the powerful Google machine.

There are 3 ways to use Google to find a web developer

1. Search for you projects main function on developer message boards like github.com or share point.com. Those site have tons of quality developers looking for projects.

2. Add the word freelance agency to your search to filter out larger players from your results.

3. Use Google maps to make a list of area developers and check their contact information for completeness. If a developer isn’t using Google maps for advertisement he probably won’t have the resources you need.

Another often over looked spot to find web developers is Craigslist, though I caution accepting every post as legitimate I have made many great partnerships with other developers from simply emailing local services offered posts.

So here’s a foothold to start your business up the right path to discovering an amazing front-end developer, magneto wizard, or WordPress guru. If you have any comment or questions leave them with gusto.

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Simple WordPress Backend information

Some the websites that Creative Automaton Design creates these days Most of the websites, single webpages, and web developments Creative Automaton Design make for clients use the powerful CMS WordPress. And though every client who is not comepletly familiar with the way WordPress is setup gets a crash course in how it works I thought it best to spend this weeks blog post on explaining a few WordPress nouences.

WordPress WordPress Posts

At the Top of the Dashboard right after you login there is a sidebar to the left which has many links to the functions of WordPress. The “Posts” link takes you to a listing of your most recent blog posts. These posts can be organized by date or given an order of importance by you.

Making a new post is as simple as clicking the “Add Post” link at the top of the page and a new post page will be ready for you to add text, images or even videos. When finished click the ” Publish” button to make the post live on your site.

WordPress pagesWordPress Pages

Pages in WordPress are exactly like posts yet they serve to put permanent content on your site which can then be used for menus to make your content easily accessible. You create WordPress pages in the same way as posts but by clicking the “Pages” link from the dashboard, and then publishing the page when finished.

WordPress  widgetsWidgets in WordPress

Widgets in WordPress serve to add custom content to the sidebar of your website in a clean no fuss manager. To add a widget hover you mouse over the “appearance” link on the dashboard to reveal the widgets link then click on the “Widget” link to go to the homepage of your widgets. On this page you can now drag and drop any number of widgets to specified sidebar locations which are shown on the right side of the page. If the widgets or sidebar locations are hidden you can reveal them by clicking the down arrow on each widget or sidebar. Widgets and sidebars need to be saved once dropped or re-arranged to make them live on your WordPress site.

WordPress Trick

Logging into and out of WordPress:

Now we all can see log-in and register links at the top, side, or bottom of most websites  but in the case of WordPress these can sometimes not be enough. A nice trick when looking for a shealthly placed login is to add this ” /wp-admin” to the end of any WordPress sites addess (i.e. www.sample.com/wp-admin ) This only works if the file structure is simple and placed in the root of the hosting server.  Give it a try the next time you are looking for a way to login or register but someone forgot to mention where it is located.

4 amazing Free SEO websites your business should know

Woorank SEOKeeping up with the website jones is getting harder and harder everyday. Along with managing your business you need to be able to monitor and make decisions on the direction your small business website is going. What better way is there to do that than with a price tag of free? none.

So for a brief overview your website is ranked, and this ranking is done by search engines vieing to put the best information first. And what your business should be doing is trying to be first, if not than you could be missing out on the millions of customers looking for your business. The best way to do this is with Search Engine Optimization or SEO for short. Being in the web design business we know that best for here are a few for you to try, and as promised they’re all free.

  1. WooRank
  2. Google Page Speed
  3. Pingdom Tools
  4. Seo Workers

The importance of SEO cannot be understated in your marketing plan. The right SEO for your website can bring untold amounts of customer traffic right to your door step. Creative Automaton Design can take your needs in SEO and make it a reality. Offering fast service we give your business the advantage it is looking for.

Understanding web design and hosting packages

web hosting laptops

Web hosting is global.

Okay Great you need a website, and hey you even have a pretty good idea what you want it to be like. But that’s the easily stuff what about who is going to design it and then keep it up and running? What you need is an amazing web designer with the ability to host your site in the long term. That’s the big picture the huge enchilada great web design with great web hosting.

Where do you start? The best place to find a web designer is of course searching for one online. This is because a web designer without a website is a lot like business man without a suit, yeah they might be great at what they do but it sure doesn’t look like it. And you don’t want to look like that either. Catch my drift?

So search google for a local web designer I suggest a mid-range one in cost and skill because the small fries never match up to the big guys and the big guys inflate their costs because of their perceived notoriety. Find a middle of the road designer somewhere between $400-1800 on price for certain web skills (WordPress, Jquery, Flash, PHP, Joomla etc.) and services, anything more or less will end up costing you sooner or later.

Fantastic, you found a local quality web design guru.

Now to the easy part of finding a suitable hosting situation. I say this is the easy part because you have countless choices when looking for a host because SHAZAM!!!! they can be anywhere in the world. Seriously your host could be in Timbuktu and it wouldn’t matter when you customers come to your XYZ.com site, it will always take you to the same domain you buy.

With that being said there is however a benefit to finding closer more reliable hosting solution in that they will be answerable to problems, have a faster  (i.e. Closer hosting server ) ability to serve your pages, and bring a solid peace of mind for a slightly higher investment. So the best way to find a good host is to ask that designer you just hired who they use, because who would know better than a person whose employment depends on good hosting at reasonable rates? That’s right a web designer.

So once you get the low down from the designer if they hand over any trade secrets you should they use that as a benchmark for searching the net for other comparable companies. Godaddy.com Vs. GatorHostonline.com or 1and1.com Vs. bluehost.com it really doesn’t make too much of a difference but be satisfied with what you choose and ask the designer about your best options.  Another great place to search is a hosting directory like www.webhostdir.com.

Once decided your host should be able to provide you with multiple domains and the ability to have your designer create and edit all the necessary databases and file structures. So in a nutshell your pretty much home free after you settle on a domain.

This can be a very complicated process though and shouldn’t be taken lightly the first time around so make sure you choose wisely and ask questions when your not so certain.

If you like this blog and would be interested in hiring me for my freelance web design services, you can contact me here or call 314.327.6282.

Being a freelance designer in St. Louis

Saint Louis Art Museum

Saint Louis Art Museum

Freelance design can be a lonely trek into new territory, so for a bit of insight into being a freelance designer in saint Louis I decided to write a little about freelancing in the beautiful city of my birth–Saint Louis.

Having an artistic mind in the Saint Louis region is not without its perks. Saint Louis boosts a large amount of traditional artistic and design orintated associations. Some of the more notable are SLAM (Saint Louis Art Museum), The Regional Art Commission, and the Saint Louis Chapter of the AIGA to name a few. These orgaizations promote and incourage the development of artists and graphic designers by hosting numerous events all year round all of the city.

toky logo

Toky Branding logo All Rights Reserved

It is no small leap of the imagination that within these organizations spurs a large amount of healthy competition between those in the graphic arts. So much so that Saint Louis is home to its fare share of Design Agencies ( Momentum, Moosylvania, The Firecracker Press, TOKY ) and talented individual freelance designers. Freelance designers in St. Louis seem to be formed out of the promotion of these and other design agencies.

The firecracker Press Logo

The firecracker Press Logo All Rights Reserved

This makes being a freelance designer in Saint Louis an absolute feast for creativity and collaboration. As per my experience you can hardly throw pixel across Saint Louis cyberspace and not hit a friend of yours in the web design or graphic design world. I for one think this is a perfect environment for any freelance web designer or illustrator to grow. So this rant and rave about saint louis design is just oververtly stating that my hometown is a fantastic example of what can be right with your city, so take a look around and embrace the love of the arts.

Freelance Design saint louis

Freelance Design

If you would like to know a little more about what I do as a Freelance Designer here in STL, you can call, E-mail, or submit a contact form here.

WordPress as your business CMS

wordpress metal iconThrough out the history of web design there have been many advances in the development of front-end software for designers. In this post I am going to be discussing one of the most recent and powerful content management services WordPress. Though WordPress is primary used as a blogging software, the ability and ease of use to transform it PHP code into any other type of website plate form are numerous.

WordPress can do this because of it’s etensive network of community coders and designers. The people who would normally be charging to create or develop an outstanding widget for you company also do this for other designers in large open source community. Though the basic strengths of a CMS platform are in it’s ability to perform WordPress gets a boost from these dedicated open source developers.

So you might ask how does this help my business or website grow?  Well as per the hiring of a designer it dramatically cuts down on time and cost to produce a much higher quality web presence. For example, if a talented web designer have created a sweet looking layout and userinterface flow that would bring any business to the top of there game on the web, WordPress has widgets and code that allow the difficult part of functionality to be interlaced into that web design. The ease of these goes from a long list of difficult PHP, JAVA, or ajax programming to a few installions and if needed modifications to code.

All of this over time save hours on work and billing towards your website, Though there are many CMS’s out there only wordpress provides the strongest safety net of community for your business in the future.

Technorati Claim Code: 6DJ95T5338W2

Get more sales leads from websites, not social media

facebook-ads-moneyThis maybe shocking to those who use there social media to perfection but yes your website is the main go getter when it comes to  sales.

Social media may not be the marketing gold mine it has been cracked up to be as a new survey reveals a more traditional, and reliable, source.

Although many marketing agencies, retailers and more business players are looking at social media as the last frontier for reaching out to consumers, a new study suggests that they might be wasting their time — at least for now.

A company’s corporate website was found to be the top source of new sales leads online — second only to personal referrals, according to a study conducted in partnership between marketing technology company Demandbase and online business network Focus. In fact, corporate websites are seven times more effective than social media right now. For more information your can reach me by e-mail here to discus why websites have stronger ROI.

Here’s a look at some of the other more telling stats:

  • The website was cited by executives as the top online source of sales leads (23 percent), followed by e-mail (14 percent), online advertising (7 percent), and social media (3 percent).
  • IT respondents said they are “far less aware of website’s shortcomings,” with roughly one-half (52
  • percent) reporting that it was not living up to its potential, vs. non-IT respondents, who recognized its limitations (90 percent).
  • Enterprises emphasized the importance of measuring volume (44 percent total), while small businesses emphasized quality of leads (40 percent total).

Design student’s tribute to Apple founder Steve Jobs

Steve jobs apple shilloutteA 19 year old Hong Kong student Jonathan Mak, a student at  Polytechnic University School of Design, came up with the fantasicly beautiful and simple design of incorporating Steve Jobs’ silhouette into the bite of the Apple logo, symbolizing both Jobs’ departure.

The design spread  faster in this past week then when he first created it. The design drew hundreds of thousands of posts, and even commemorative caps and T-shirts peddled on eBay featuring his design.

The logo was even used as the twitter profile picture for Hollywood actor Ashton Kutcher. Mak who had recently received a job offer because of the design said that he is speechless on twitter. Apple’s co-founder Jobs, who created revolutionary products and reshaped the way the world approaches computing and personal communications, died on Wednesday at the age of 56. Mak, who first created the logo after Jobs’ stepped down as Apple’s head in August hadn’t noticed that it made much of a splash until he reposted it earlier in the week.

“Originally, I was going to put a black modified logo against a white background,” said the bespectacled Mak who paid tribute to Jobs at Hong Kong’s Apple store.

The 7 scariest words in freelancing

 

Scary words scare this womenFreelance work can be fun. Yet the fun and excitement isn’t without an all consuming fear of bad luck, economy,  partners, clients, timing, projects, or resources.

These seven items can fuel the disaster of a freelance career. Careers are always under attack though so no surprise here.

Businesses and entrepreneurship are not exempt from this discussion either since a freelancer is technically a small business, employing just one person. A large part of this list of seven scary words is out of your hands and so you have got to roll with the punches and dodge all the silver bullets to keep your ship sailing at full speed.

Take a short look at these seven ideas, you can pick and choose which ones you really think are important. But all are singularly important so take what you will as light commentary on business.

To help here is a little more detail on these frightful words.

#1 Bad Luck

We all have had it once and it can seem to be a recurring theme with some professionals. Bad luck will put you out of commission yet doesn’t always come all at one its is in reality a combination of small faults and missteps that happen to mash together.

#2 Bad Economy

The several factors of economic boom and bust can drain your business faster than Dracula on a young maiden. She like you could be lost to the darkest depths without being aware of your surroundings. Keep your eye on the economy locally and seriously debate moving your business into new markets if you see a bad trend.

#3 Horrible Partnerships

We might have been there before and are wiser but a solid partnership is a must for all endeavours. And the scary thing about partnering is being dependant on someone else for integral piece of your business. Even great partners can good bad so be able to keep yourself afloat if one goes sour.

#4 Bad clients

You can’t classify a bad client from the start. They all seem promising and beautiful relationships. It is only after months or years of bad dealings that you have to cut bait and move your separate ways. You have to cross your fingers to find the best of the best. This scares the hell out of me.

#5 Plain Bad Timing

The best time and place for a project is out there waiting. Too bad you have no clue where to spot it. That’s the breaks for it but as bad as timing is it always turns out better over the long run. So if your timing is off now that’s no reason for it not to be better later. You’ve got to be optimistic.

#6 Losing Projects

You had it settled. The project was in your hands. Then what happened. Poor planning is usually the culprit. And losing projects can be bone chilling, freezing your bank statement with one swift blow. To deal with it take a heavy dose of variable projects that are smaller and faster on returns. Don’t be caught scrambling.

#7 Resource Loss

Raw unused funding keeps a business alive. An infusion on extra marketing cash could turn the tides in a tuff economy. You should consider the fear of not having the resources for your freelance or small business as a scary consideration.

Count ‘em all up and you get seven, a strange lucky number that will cause you a tons of strife if your not on the watch for the small trip ups in work. Do you think I’ve missed any? If so add them from the comments section below. Til next time.

P.S. For more information your can reach me by filling out this form here to discus how Creative Automaton’s freelancing mumbo jumbo can improve your business..

 

What Google Adwords can do

What google adwords can doIn the world of online advertisements you would find it difficult not to of heard the phrase “AdWords”. If you just troll the Internet a few times looking for a good marketing strategy you will see millions of AdWords references.

Books, guru’s, wizards, experts, and millionaires all viewing for a piece of your marketing budget. And with good reason AdWords makes money. AdWords makes a lot of money, for google it’s about 10,000,000,000 a year business. As for you it would probably be a lot less. This mainly because those that give advice on AdWords to people with little patients miss out on the basics of marketing in general.

With that being said AdWords can be a powerful tool if used correctly. If you have an attractive website with strong call to action you will see amazing benefits. If your ad copy and site are boring or just plain ugly you will almost never see the large type of return on your AdWords investment. This is true for all Internet marketing banner ads, Facebook ads, text links etc.

Build a strong landing page and you will have better results. Pretty boring, huh? But that’s the big idea and that’s why businesses need designers to build stronger brands. Without a powerful marketing platform like a well designed logo, website, or advertisement you might as well be throwing money at google. Because that’s all you will get out of AdWords, without solid marketing copy and graphic design.

For more Google AdWords information or a work requests you can reach me at this Form.  Find out how Creative Automaton’s freelancing mumbo jumbo can improve your business.

Starting out in illustration – tips and tricks

Photoshop Brush and PencilThere are few skills an artist cannot exploit better using Photoshop. Illustration and a basic knowledge of Photoshop is akin to rediscovering pen and paper.

The use of this versital medium comes is handy when the need for speed is utmost. A typical real world application for illustration used in illustrating an advertisement takes twice as long to develop and send off if drawn in the real world. Reason for this vary but float mainly around the fact that once an illustration is finished it has to be photo corrected do print afterwards. A simple yet banal task.

Using photoshop as your illustration medium can save a hour of your time and effort just sending a proof to your client. That hour is normally not part of your billable costs and so you get stuck spending time on things that don’t particularly do any good for your business. So just a  word to all those illustrators starting out there, it’s a mad jungle and work comes and goes just be sure you don’t work needlessly on one task.  A task like preparing a proof should be left to a medium not the artist.

If photoshop isn’t your cup of tea than here is a short list of amazing digital illustration programs and apps.

Coreldraw

- Hands down the next best thing to photoshop.  Even some of it’s brushes beat photoshop so it’s a great choice.)

Corelpainter

- CorelPainter like draw is an exceptional program but lacks some of photo correcting process required to send optimized files of the net. Still a solid pick to start illustration with.

Autodesk sketchbook pro (ipad app)

- This android and iPad application sets the standard for mobile digital illustration. With less features than a normal program this app can really only do one thing great and that is allow you to draw well, very well. A must for any mobile illustrator.

What clients need to know?

Clients-From-Hell.com

Clients-From-Hell.com

As a seasoned designer I come across many well meaning patrons of my work only to meet a few that ask alittle too much out of a designer. If you have ever been hired for one type of specific job than asked to perform a completely different but seemingly dissimilar task you know where we designers are coming from.

Though I pride myself on the ability to do more than one skill diligently it should come as no surprise that each separate skill deserves a separate salary. And this my dear friends is where designer and freelancers of all type get them selve stuck with clients. So be deligent when explaining to prospects exactly what your services will render and the extent if one provided service over another. Or you will certainly see yourself more frustrated than you should with well meaning clients.

Be timely. Be clear. Be professional.