I’ve been developing websites at 1955 Design for several years. I’ve designed and implemented dozens and dozens of websites. In that time, I have only had one contract go south on me. The client simply was not willing to comply with the terms of the original contract, wanted to keep adding additional features and time consuming modules to the project, and finally the lines of communication broke down. Even though I had a cause of action against him, in my opinion, we parted ways with me having done 95% of the work for the original 50% deposit paid.

That has been the exception. Each and every one of my other projects has been completeled smoothly and to the full satisfaction of the client. Sure, there have been some bumps along the way and some issues that need to be worked out from time to time with a given client, but for the most part the process works smoothly.

In fact, the process works so smoothly that it reinforces my faith in human nature. My typical project goes something like this:

• I receive a cold contact from a client about their website project
• Communciation begins, with quick replies to their email questions & concerns
• After gaining an understanding of their needs, I develop a web design proposal and submit it to the potential client for review
• Once the project is approvoved, and a 50% deposit received, I begin work on the project according to the timeline specified in the contract
• Sometime thereafter, the project is completed and the client completes payment before the files are transfered to the client site and made live

What Intriques Me the Most

The thing about this process that I find most intriquing is that in almost every case I have never even spoken to the client, either by phone or in person. Most of my projects are completed for clients distant from me, often in states hundreds or thousands of miles away. But somewhere along the way a trust is developed between us. A trust that causes the client to send me hundreds or thousands of dollars, sight unseen, with the promise that I will perform work for them.

And the beauty of it is that I do perform the work for them. Everyone ends up happy and satisfied with their end of the bargain.

The internet can be a scary place, full of tricks, hazards, and pitfalls. But I have found it to be a comfortable spot where reasonable people conduct business, often times by simply trusting the person on the other end of the transaction.

What has your experience been?

If you are reading this article, you probably already have a blog for your business or are interested in having one developed for it. I can tell you from personal experience that having a blog has been good for my business. I can’t over emphasis the impact a blog may have on your business, too.

Establishing Expertise

Consumers prefer to deal with a business that they have confidence in. Once your business has established a blog it becomes the ultimate online newsletter. It has world wide reach, but also touches your client base on the local level.

Writing competent articles about your industry and aiming those articles at your target audience is a terrific way to demonstrate not only your knowledge, but your interest in passing this knowledge on to your customers.

In the world of higher education and professional fields, those most respected in their individual fields of expertise always write about their knowledge. Why should your business or industry be any different?

Establishing Trust

There has always been a consumer interest in shopping on Main Street. Although suburban sprawl has forced the large and impersonal shopping center onto all of us, most people still feel comfortable establishing a relationship with an individual business – a business that actually has a face and a personality associated with it.

Your blog can help establish this relationship. Don’t underestimate how important establishing a realtionship with your customers is. Although most customers no longer have the luxury of physically “visiting” your business on Main Street, they can still achieve this same level of comfort by stopping by and reading your most recent blog articles. Everybody wins once this relationship has been established.

Join the Ranks of the Big Boys

Did you ever wonder that Microsoft has a blog? So does CNN. Ditto for ABC News and the other major broadcasting news networks. The major daily papers, including The New York Times, also have an assortment of blogs. The list goes on and on. You get the picture. If these giants have recognized the impact a blog can have on their business, how come you haven’t come on board with your business?

Search Engines Love blogs

Truth be told, the search engines don’t even know what a blog is. What the search engines do love is fresh content. Your blog, updated regularly, provides the fresh content that the search engines are looking for.

Your business needs a web presence. Everybody knows that. Why not imrpove your rankings in the search engines by providing fresh content on a regular basis. Isn’t that worth the time it takes to write an article each week?

Like Nike Says, Just Do It

Isn’t it time your business had a blog? Contact me today and let’s get the process started. Your business can begin to reap the benefits of a business blog and now’s the time to get started!

Getting this blog off the ground began in 2007 (essentially) and continues toward 2008. Most of my articles have something to do with web accessibility, or web design, or the WordPress content management system. Sometimes I toss in an article about a charitable organization that I find worthy or about something that has nothing to do anything I have already mentioned.

That being said, here are the most popular (hey, give me a break, “popular” is a relative term!) articles that I wrote in 2007.

• Adsense: Cents or No Sense?
• Custom WordPress Smiley Icons
• Optimize WordPress Page Headings
• Using WordPress as a CMS
• WordPress Category Navigation

Thanks for taking the time to stop by my little corner of the inter web. May you and your family have Happy Holidays and Joyous New Year!

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Somebody over at WordPress has thought of just about everything.

The more I use WordPress and implement it into my web design projects the better I understand what a full featured Content Management System it really is. I recently wrote an article desscribing one of my favorite WordPress features which allows you to assign separate category template pages for different post categories. This article explains this concept in a bit more detail.

Most of the standard WordPress themes include a file name archive.php. This file is called each time a user accesses an archived post. Examples of archived posts are:

• Monthly posts
• Yearly posts
• Post within a certain category

When a user views the selected archived posts, the page displayed by the browser is controlled by the archive.php file and the XHTML code within that page. Often times this archive.php file is customized to offer the user information about the subset of posts that they are viewing. For instance, if you view the archives on this website for the posts filed under the category “Blogging” you will notice that the first paragraph of the page offers you a brief advisory of just what posts you are viewing.

As you can see from this example, the overall template look and feel is the same as the rest of this site, with the exception of the opening paragraph. This archive.php files displays the same format for any post that is part of the archive records.

Specialized Templates for Individual Categories

But what if you want the posts made under this category to be displayed on a page that has a completely different apperance than the rest of the blog? Sometimes this is a necessary part of a design project. WordPress has allowed you to customized the look and feel of individual category pages as well.

Follow these simple instructions to design a specialized category page for your blog:

1. Enter the WordPress dashboard and choose Manage->Categories from the menu.
2. Make note of the category ID number associated with the category you are interested in designing a template for. For the sake of this example, let us say that this is category #8
3. Copy the archive.php file and save it as a new file
4. Name the new file category-8.php
5. You are finished!

WordPress Does the Rest

Based on the heirarchy of page structure in WordPress, anytime a viewer chooses to view the files located in category 8 they will be viewing the code displayed by the category-8.php file rather than the more basic archive.php file. You simply need to customize this file to display your posts in any manner that you desire.

Who Needs Category Templates?

On first glance you might not be able to think of any use for WordPress specialized category pages. When I first read about them a couple years ago I could not think of how category page templates would be use to me.

However, while working on a recent project I found that I needed to display a scrolling list of “Appearance Dates” for upcoming events. These dates were nothing more than short WordPress posts, but they needed to be displayed in an entirely different way than the other traditional blog posts. Something in the back of my mind told me that cetegory templates might be just what I need to use. Guess what? Using WordPress category template pages solved my problem. Maybe they can solve a problem for you someday, too!

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One project I completed earlier this year featured optimizing the placement of Google Adsense code. Many blogs, including several that I control, use Google Adsense to help monetize their operation. Do you use Adsense on your blog? If so, are you all warm and fuzzy about Google Adsense? Is it worth the time and the aggravation?

There seems to be a love/hate relationship with Adsense. Some site owners swear by it, while others find the limitations imposed by Google to be difficult to deal with. Another camp feels that Adsense ads ruin a blog and cheapen it in the process.

I maintain several blogs that utilzie Adsense to try and recover some of the expense of the server costs, maintenance fess, etc. It’s nice to get that check from Google – even though it’s not very often!

• www.RecycledBugs.com
• www.SaveOurPolice.com
• www.RochesterMich.com
• www.TicketQuota.com

I Really Should Work Harder

I really don’t put much time into any of these blogs. I have not done much in the way of stydying ad placement or tweaking the Adsense code or placement. For the most part, I break even and cover most of the cost of rleasing my server and other hosting fees. Hardly the stuff dreams are made of in terms of adverstisng or click-for-pay dollars. Needless to say, much of this is a function of the realtively low traffic that these blogs attract.

Tell Me About Your Adsense Experience

What is your experience with Adsense? Are you making enough money to pay any other bills other than hosting, etc? What advice do you have for others on how to improve their Google ad revenue? What ad placement have you found to be successful? What colors scheme and what ad layout have worked the best for you? I’d love to hear everyone’s experience with Adsense.

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Following the lead of Darren Rowse over at CopyBlogger, here is the list of the top five blogs that I read.

I guess it’s safe to say that each of these blogs is in the niche that I place my own blog in: Accessible Website Design. In reality, several of them probably have more to do with website content or blogging advice, but for the sake of this article let’s lump them all together, OK?

• Green-Beast – Mike Cherim rules the roost when it comes to accessible web design
• Blog Herald – a premium source of blog and blogging related news for bloggers
• Copyblogger – terrific advice about successfull online marketing
• Lorelle on WordPress – great advice on using WordPress for your blogging needs
• 1938 Media – web videos and web commentary from Loren Feldman

Which blogs do you read regularly?

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People love to listen to others talk about how to make a fortune and save money. But guess what? They also like to listen to people talk about their serious financial distress and what steps they are taking to get out of debt.

Within the past two months, I have had the good fortune to work on several blog themes that fit one or the other of these classifications. The projects have all been fun to work on and the blog adminstrators have all been interesting people with backgrounds that make each of them quite expert in the field they have chosen to write about.

• www.DollarBuyDollar.com
• www.LazyManandMoney.com
• www.BloggingAwayDebt.com

These financial sites all get terrific visibility and great page views. I never would have guessed that this niche market would be so popular, but I certainly have learned that writing about finances is interesting to a wide assortment of readers. If you get a chance, stop on over at some of these sites. You might just learn a thing or two about saving, investing or avoiding financial difficulty.

Writing effective blog page headlines is an art form. No doubt about it. A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post titled Optimize WordPress Page Headings. By using the technique described in this post, you can choose to write individual page headings for each of your WordPress “Pages” that are descriptive and search engine friendly.

Having this resource at my fingertips has now got me thinking about just how to write headlines that both grab the attention of the reader and are friendly to search engines. I have read various blogs and other resources that offer advice for writing headlines, and think I have learned a bit about the process of writing effective headlines. One of the best articles I have read about writing headlines was written by Brian Clark titled How to Write Headlines That Work.

With so much more to learn about writing copy, however, I would be interested in knowing how you approach headline writing and what your best tip is for making them effective and eye catching. So tell me – what’s your best tip?

Why do you blog? The vast number of blogs in the world can make you feel as if your blog is completely lost in anonymity. Sometimes it feels like spinning your wheels as a result. If you have a blog, I’d be interested to hear about what you find discouraging about blog writing? What keeps you motivated?

It would be easier to just stop blogging, but most of us just keep on writing regardless of our lack of readers. The reward is the writing itself. Sure, it’s gratifying to know that someone has actually read your post and even more gratifying when they leave a comment. But deep down inside I think we all just like to write. What do you think? Why do you blog? Remember, it will feel gratifying to me if you leave a comment!