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.

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 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.

Widgets 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.

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.

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.

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 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 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

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.