It's December! After a long weekend of sweatpants and leftover turkey, it's time to turn our attention toward the holiday season (and all the gift giving that comes with it). If you were fortunate enough to miss out on all the chaos of Black Friday, never fear! There's still plenty of time to shop for that special nerd in your life. While no web designer expects gifts from clients, those of us who spend our days glued to a computer screen can still hope that our friends and family will buy us something truly amazing. I know I can't be the only one waiting for a loved one to recognize me for the geek I truly am and get me a present that will make my little pixelated virtual heart sing with joy! Here are five gifts for web designers ... Continue Reading
What the Hook?! What Are Genesis Hooks and How Do I Use Them?
Props to Carrie Dils for inspiring the title of this post! In my free time (ha!) I volunteer in the StudioPress support forums, where users of the Genesis framework can request help with designing and customizing their websites. People often need help using and understanding Genesis hooks, and while a Google search will turn up a number of resources, I think some of them are just plain hard to understand. What Are Genesis Hooks? Think of your Genesis site's structure as a map. No matter what child theme you're using, there are certain areas included in all Genesis sites - header, primary and secondary navigation, content area, sidebar, footer, etc. Note: Hooks are not unique to the Genesis framework - they exist in all WordPress ... Continue Reading
How to Add a Widget Area to a Page Using Genesis
If your website uses the Genesis Framework, you already know how easy it is to do things like change page layouts, widgetize your homepage, or use different sidebars for different parts of your site. Those are just a few of the reasons I love Genesis and recommend it to all my clients. As part of my effort to give back to the Genesis community, I volunteer in the StudioPress support forums, where users ask questions and look for tips about different customizations. Recently, several people have asked how they can add a widget area to a specific page on their sites - not in a sidebar, but inside the page itself. Using a widget area on a page can serve any number of purposes. For example, one user wanted to create a full-page layout ... Continue Reading
5 Signs Your Web Designer Sucks
Out of all the frustrations that come with running a design business, the absolute worst is cleaning up after other designers. When a potential client approaches me after working with someone else, I hold my breath while I look to see what the previous designer did and how long it will take to fix it. Don't mistake my frustration for arrogance - I'm far from the most skilled or knowledgable web designer on the planet. But I've learned that there are some designers who just plain suck at what they do (or attempt to do). And while their incompetence makes me look good, I hate explaining to someone, "You're going to have to pay me a lot of money because your former designer didn't do his/her job correctly." I always stress the importance ... Continue Reading
How to Remove the Genesis Author Box from bbPress Forum Pages
If you have a bbPress forum on a site running the Genesis framework, the bbPress Genesis Extend plugin is a great tool. It helps bbPress integrate with your Genesis child theme so that (hopefully) you don't need to add a lot of CSS changes to your stylesheet. One thing it may not do is remove the Genesis author box from your forum pages. I nearly lost my mind trying to hide the author box on a client's site; nothing I did was working and the client was becoming frustrated. Today, with the help of the bbPress Genesis Extend plugin's author, Jared Atchison, and some other awesome people in the Genesis community, I finally found a solution that works. If You're Using an XHTML Genesis Child Theme For older XHTML child themes, add the ... Continue Reading
10 Great (and Simple) Genesis Plugins
One of my favorite things about the Genesis Framework for WordPress (other than everything) is the community of designers, developers, and end users who pool their knowledge to make Genesis better. Unlike some frameworks *cough* Thesis *cough* that seem to thrive on confusing their users, Genesis is constantly evolving to become better and easier to use. If you're using Genesis for your blog or website, you may have questions about how to do certain things or how to add functionality you've seen on other sites. While you can almost always find free tutorials with a Google search, what happens if you aren't comfortable with coding? Luckily you can accomplish a ton of customizations with any number of plugins created specifically for ... Continue Reading
Why “Free” Blogging Help is (Usually) a Scam
Recently I've noticed a disturbing trend among some of the bloggers I know. It seems that nearly every one of them have suddenly become experts on starting a blog or using WordPress - and you are incredibly lucky, because now they want to help you start a blog, too! Doesn't that sound exciting? Well, maybe not. A new client approached me last week for help with her blog. Funny enough, she started blogging with the free "help" of one of my own clients. Let me break that down for you. One of my clients, who paid me to install WordPress and a theme just a few months ago because they didn't know how to do it, is now offering to help others start a blog. Am I the only one who sees red flags here? Here's what happened. New Client ... Continue Reading
Why You Should Be Using the Genesis Framework
If you've used WordPress for any length of time, you've probably noticed that a lot of people use and recommend the Genesis framework from StudioPress. (If you haven't noticed, just search for the #genesiswp hashtag on Twitter and you'll see what I'm talking about.) I use Genesis for every single one of my own sites, as well as my clients' sites, and so do all the other designers I know. Every now and then a potential client will ask why I use Genesis instead of [insert theme or framework here]. They've seen all the rave reviews, but they want to know why Genesis is such a big deal. And while I'd like to respond, "Because it just is!" like a second grader, I know that isn't necessarily helpful, especially to someone who is new to ... Continue Reading
Reader Question: My Favorite WP Plugins
I received an email from a reader over the weekend who asked about the plugins I use and recommend for my own websites. While I have posted a list of must-have plugins before, as well as a followup post with additional plugins, I've never talked in depth about the ones I use personally. One thing to keep in mind is that there is no "one way" or "best way" to use plugins for your sites - there is always a tradeoff in terms of load times and performance, so it's important to choose wisely and use only what is necessary for what you want to accomplish. Recently I came across an awesome free service called PluginBot. Once you create an account, you can make a list of all the plugins you install regularly. The next time you install WordPress, ... Continue Reading
3 Reasons You Should NEVER Allow Your Designer to Register Your Domain
So you want to start a website and you've hired a designer to make it look awesome. Congratulations! But wait - what's that? Your designer is registering your domain for you? Stop right there. Just as I told you that you should never register a domain with your web host, you should also never allow a designer, developer, or anyone else to register a domain on your behalf. Here are three stories (all based on events that actually happened) that illustrate just a few of the reasons why. Why You Should NEVER Allow Your Designer to Register Your Domain Horror Story 1: The Designer Who Passed Away Once upon a time there was a blogger named Frank. Frank hired Jake from ABC Designs to build him an amazing blog, set up his hosting account, ... Continue Reading
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