She had compared 2 developers and both were quoting prices around $4,000. What should she do?

WordPress vs Drupal

One developer was going to use Drupal and the other was going to use WordPress. Which is best?

I will always recommend WordPress over Drupal. I’ve used both, as a developer, and WordPress is so much easier for clients to update and use.

Drupal works well for the developers is some cases, but I can make WordPress do anything that Drupal can do AND I can teach my clients how to update their own content easily.

A big factor to recommend WordPress is the huge community of developers supporting it with plug-ins. You can do almost anything using free plug-ins. Pick a functionality, and there’s a plug-in that does it.

It’s also very open and easy to customize. If you want a custom function, it’s easy for a developer to add it.

Ease Of Use And Total Control

I am a control freak. Because of that, I want everyone else to have control of their own stuff.

WordPress is the absolute easiest system for beginners to use. You need to only know a few things and you can create blog posts, new pages, change the menu, add features, change themes, add links to other sites, and just about anything else you would ever want to do.

I’ve taught people who were absolutely afraid of computers to use WordPress. If you can write an email, you can update your own site with WordPress. I can not stress enough how easy it is to learn and use.

The Cost Breakdown

Design is the time consuming part of any web build. Let me explain a little more about costs and how to keep them down by going through the parts of a web build projects.

Hosting

First, you have to get hosting. Most web hosting is pretty much of a commodity these days. The main difference is reliability and support. I recommend Powweb. I’ve tried other hosts and most do OK, but I’ve never been let down by Powweb. http://www.powweb.com/

You can do that by yourself, right now, with no help or technical knowledge.

WordPress Installation

WordPress needs to be installed. This requires some technical knowledge. There are databases and file transfers. Some hosts have a one button install, but those tend to be limited if you want to customize things. It’s best to install it yourself. I will do that for $150.

When you have WordPress “installed”, it is a completely functional web site. It has a standard theme, so the look and layout is what it is and not custom. It works, but it doesn’t look great.

Design

Design and layout for WordPress is handled by a “theme”. All of the content of the web site, the words and images, etc. are stored in the database. The theme takes that content and defines how it will look on the web page. You can have the same content and change themes to make the same content looks different.

You have options for the theme. Most of these links are affiliate links, so I get a referral fee if you click them to buy something.

Free Themes -

There are a ton of free themes out there.
http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/

Premium themes -

There are really nice themes that you have to pay for, usually less than $100. These have a lot of customizing options. You can change images and colors or whatever.

• http://themes.bavotasan.com/category/premium-themes/
• http://www.elegantthemes.com/gallery/
• http://www.woothemes.com/

It’s also possible to take one of the premium themes and have me customize some parts of it for you for much less than a fully, from the ground up, design.

Customizable Themes -

There are themes that are totally customizable. You have almost total control over them. You have to learn their system, but they are very, very custom.

• Headway Themes – I have a developer license for this one, so I can sell it to you for their price and support it.
• Studio Press – Owned by CopyBlogger Media, so you’ll see a lot of promotion for it around third tribe and copyblogger.

Totally custom themes -

I can customize WordPress to look and do anything you want. This would entail the typical creating some designs from scratch, reviewing those, revising those, adjusting, tweaking, and making it look exactly like you want it to look.

If you are very specific in your needs, it can cost more. If you are less specific in your needs, it will cost less.

It’s not a rip off if you are getting what you want. It can take a long time to review and revise the design until it looks the way you want it to.

You can get $4k quotes for a totally custom theme. I’ve quoted prices in that range before. It can be a reasonable price.

You may not need that.

Shopping Cart For Free

I recommend and use the WP-eCommerce plug in. The basic plug in is free and does almost everything you could want. $40 for the basic upgrade package to allow some fancier layouts and additional features.

The free version allows you to give people a digital download. That means that you can sell an MP3 file or a video file. Make your video a QuickTime movie (.mov or .m4v) or make it a Flash Movie (.flv).

Your customers go through the shopping cart process and when they check out, they get an email with a link to the file to download. No DVD to ship.

Of course, this also works with .pdf files for your ebooks that you want to sell.

Embedded Audio and Video

There are plug ins that make these features easy.

Video example – http://www.flowerart.biz/ – We built this site. Click on the “Videos” page. These are hosted on their server and embedded in the page with a plugin that manages all of the controls. (I did some of the video editing too.)

User controls to start, pause, play, volume, fullscreen. Here’s what it looks like: [media id=2]

Audio example – Click and play. Scrub forward and backward, adjust the volume. Marty’s Exit Interview on Survivor.com.

Here’s what it looks like:

On a product page for another site I built – http://www.rockabye.com/products-page

Samples of WordPress sites

To demonstrate the range of styles that WordPress supports, (and to show off my incredible talent and skills!) here are some recent web builds that I’ve done, all using WordPress.

• http://www.defequip.com/ – Poke around the product pages. This uses the basic version of the WP-eCommerce plug in without any upgrades.
• http://showsthatteach.com/ – This client had a specific design he wanted and we made it happen. This one took a long time to get all of the design to work. Also, notice the calendar page, using another free plug in.
• http://www.debtsconsolidators.com/ – This one took a premium theme and we customized it a bit. Compare it with this demo of “Minimal”: http://www.elegantthemes.com/preview/Minimal/
• http://www.whaletailschips.com/ – Custom theme.
• http://www.barndoorhardware.com/ – Custom theme.
• http://www.markhemlebenfineart.com/ – Working on this one now. It’s not finished, but I like the home page.

What Option Is Best?

Look at this possibility. You buy web hosting. About $100 a year. You pay me to install WordPress. $150. You buy a premium theme that’s close to what you want. About $100. You pay me to customize it in a few places. $500. Total cost: $850, including hosting.

You’ll have to spend time to review and pick a theme, but you have to spend the time to decide it all on your own anyway.

It’s typical that my clients want some small changes after they actually see their site. That’s cool. It’s easier to decide what you want when you see things in front of your eyes.

If you just want a nice site that looks professional and has some specific features, then the route I describe above is the best option for you.

If you really care about exactly what the site looks like and how it works, then perhaps the fully custom option is what you need.

Design is the largest time suck, and therefor the largest cost. The quicker you can decide what you want and the fewer changes you make to the design, the cheaper it will be.

One Last Thing! OK, 3 Last Things.

I’ve heard too many stories of people having their site built, then losing communication with their developer.

To avoid having your site held hostage or falling into a pit that you can’t get it out of, you need to pay close attention to these three things.

1. DNS – You need to register your own domain name. You need to control the configuration for it. It’s cool to give your log in info to your developer, so you don’t have to know all the technical issues involved, but YOU need to have control of the domain name.

If you don’t, you can lose your domain name with no recourse.

2. Web Hosting – You should buy your own web hosting. Again, you should be able to give log in information to your developer, but YOU should buy the hosting and have control of it.

If you don’t, you can lose your web site with no recourse.

3. Back Ups – WordPress has a database backup plug-in. You should be backing it up, every day. There’s a setting that tells it to email you a backup of the database every day.

Do that.

If your host ever goes bankrupt or if you get hacked or if your host company is hit by a nuclear bomb, then you will have the data that will allow another developer to restore your site for you.

Theme files – You should also have a back up of the exact themes files that you are using. If you have a premium one that you bought, keep a copy. If you had a developer, like me, design a fully custom one, ask them for a copy of all of your theme files.

I actually don’t do all of that for all of my clients, because I know I’m a good guy and I’ll support all of my clients any way I can. If they want to move to another host, I’ll be happy to facilitate the move.

I’m telling you this because I’m a control freak and I want to protect you from all potential bad things happening. Control your own stuff, even if you don’t know what it is or how to use it. You can at least pay someone else who does know.

Untangling The Web

Well, that was a brain dump. I think that if you read through this and follow the advice, you’ll get the best web site you need for the least amount of money, from me or from anyone else.

This is the kind of information that I will be putting up at Untangling The Web. I’m working on material for it now.

Go there and sign up now, so I can tell you when it’s ready.

If you sign up before it’s launched, you’ll get a sneak peak that the general public won’t get.

Now, go get the web site that you always wanted.

One of the most effective ways to get a wake-up call on the problems in your website is to watch someone actually use it. I can promise you’ll be surprised at where they go and the conclusions that they jump to. Make sure to take off your defensive armor because I have to tell you, this can be an uncomfortable exercise!

Read the entire article at:
http://www.lauraroeder.com/2010/07/trade-your-website/comment-page-1/#comment-3698

I used to work for a large video game company, building their marketing web sites. Some of their games were for kids. They had a test lab where they brought in subjects to test the video games, to make sure they worked and that people understood them.

It had a one way mirror along one wall, just like in the movies. They had trained professionals that did the testing. They knew not to lead or to help or make faces or call the test subjects idiots. They would ask them to accomplish simple tasks.

We built a site for teachers, so they brought in some teachers to use it. The teachers came one at a time and sat at a table next to the one way mirror. We could see them, the screen, and hear what they were saying. They were asked to speak as they tried to do the tasks.

Our entire web development team sat in awe as these people had trouble doing the simplest things! We were all seriously shocked. We wanted to scream, from behind the mirror “Just click that button! It’s right there!!!”.

I thought I understood user interfaces and web design until that experience. I was humbled. The whole web dev team approached design a different way after that.

You may think that your site makes sense and everything is easy to find. You won’t know anything until you watch someone else use it.

Just try not to yell at them when you do it.

Click to enlarge it and make it a bit easier to read.

Read the entire article at:
http://www.gomediazine.com/design-articles/humor-design-articles/the-brads-interface-design/

Read that again slowly. “Blog more often” correlates with “more customers”.

An underutilized blog means customers are being left on the table. The survey this year shows a direct correlation between blog post frequency and the chance that a company has acquired a customer through that channel.

Read the entire article at:
http://bit.ly/aewfHr

BOYLAN BOTTLEWORKS DIET BLACK CHERRY

This is described as “A sweet, tart black cherry soda. Sweetened with Sucralose.”

I like black cherries. I want to like diet soda pops. I want to like this soda pop, but I have my doubts.

I pop it open and the smell if like black cherry soda. It’s that familiar smell of, I don’t know, jelly? candy? something. Something smells very familiar. It’s sweet and fruity. It smells of childhood.

I have hope.

I take a sip. I wait. My taste buds explode with the flavor of black cherry ice cream that I had as a kid. This is sweet, but not too sweet, and very fruity. Very, very black cherry. Very, very good.

I smile wide.

I take another sip and I’m 9 years old, eating a black cherry ice cream cone from the drug store. This takes me back.

I smile some more. This is great soda. I love this stuff. I could buy more of this stuff.

Great aftertaste. Just the right amount of everything. There is nothing wrong with soda.

Wait! Did I say this is a diet soda? This tastes like real cane sugar in there. I need to check the label. Yes, it’s diet. Unbelievable, but true.

This is an amazing diet soda. This is an amazing black cherry soda. The fact that it’s both, means that there will be more of this in our house soon. I can not recommend this enough.

INGREDIENTS: Carbonated Water, Natural Black Cherry Flavors, Citric Acid, Caramel Color, Red 40, Sodium Benzoate (Preserves Freshness), Sucralose, Acesulfame Potassium.

Hotlips Soda Boysenberry Soda

How good is boysenberry soda going to be? Wow. I love boysenberry pie and ice cream. This is going to be great. I’ve been waiting for this one.

The first smell after you pop off the lid is faint. It’s sort of like boysenberrys, I guess, but it’s not very strong. Is this going to live up to my expectations?

I take a sip. As I’m sipping, I think that it’s not bad, but there’s not a lot of flavor here at all. It seems watered down. I was expecting the strong sweet of pie filling, but it’s just a nice, fruity flavor, but even the fruit isn’t strong.

Oh well. Maybe next time.

At the end of the sip, it hits me. The full flavor of boysenberry, like you picked them right off the vine and shoved a fist full in your mouth. Wow! Big flavor.

This was at the end of the sip, not during. The flavor was unmistakably boysenberry. It was full and strong, not too sweet, not like pie filling, but like fresh berries, right off the vine.

I take another sip and again, there’s not a lot of flavor at the beginning. I stop and it hits me again. Very different.

It seems like it’s watered down, then it slams you with the full force of flavor. Very nice.

I’m liking this as I drink the whole bottle. I’m almost done when I get another surprise. Boysenberry pulp! It’s got real boysenberry pulp in it. This is nice, very nice.

I read the contents again:

INGREDIENTS: Carbonated Water, Boysenberries Grown in the Pacific Northwest, Cane Sugar, Organic Lemon Juice, Contains Boysenberry Pulp!

Yup. That sounds right. Nothing artificial about this. Strange experience drinking it, but the aftertaste flavor is amazing. I do like it. Maybe not a favorite, but it’s definitely good. I like it.

Green River - Diet

This one looked green, very very green. The name is Green River, so that makes sense, but it’s still a little off putting. It’s not what I’d call a natural color.

It’s also a diet cola, so this could go either way. I pop open the bottle and take a whiff.

Not great. I get the lime smell, but there’s some other chemical smell. It’s not as sweet as I expected. Maybe it will be OK.

The first taste is fizzy. The bubbles are really strong. That’s nice.

The flavor is definitely lime. While you’re drinking it, there’s the lime. It’s not very sweet. It’s not bad.

But then you stop drinking and the aftertaste hits. It’s…um…nasty. It’s chemical and bitter. Sodium benzoate potassium acesulfame or something. I have no idea, but it’s not good.

I take another drink and now I can taste that nasty aftertaste while I’m drinking. If you drink it fast, you don’t notice it as much, but the aftertaste always hits hard.

I finish the bottle. I get used to the taste. It’s still not great. I can still taste it after the bottle is empty.

This isn’t the most horrible drink I’ve had, but it’s close. I give it a 2 out of 10. I will not be buying any more of this stuff.

Yuck.

INGREDIENTS: Carbonated Water, Citric Acid, Natural Lime Oils, FD&C Yellow #5, FD&C Blue #1, Aspartame, Acesulfame Potassium, Ascorbic Acid, Potassium Sorbate, Sodium Benzonate.

He proudly told me that they finally “got on the Internet”. Their son, in his early teens, has always told them that it’s too hard and they wouldn’t understand it, so the dad had stayed away from it for years. Someone had given them an old computer a long time ago and that’s all they’ve had for years. They just recently got a new computer.

Do You Know Who Sees Your Site?

He was so proud when he told me that he knew how to click on “Internet”, type in where he wanted to go into Google, then click the mouse twice.

I had to work really hard to not laugh out loud. I’ve been BUILDING web sites since 1994 and he just now learned how to “click twice” to get there.

I told him that I build web sites and he looked at me with the look in his eye that said “I hear the words coming out of your mouth but I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“Websites! You know, the places you go on the Internet.” I told him. More blank stares. He didn’t know what a web site was. I tried to explain, but after a few more sentences, he said “Well, it was good to see you again!” and walked off.

I forget sometimes that not every one knows what I know. If you are reading this right now, most people probably don’t know what you know.

On one hand, that makes me feel smart, but on the other, it reminds me that we need to make our web sites, these places that you go on the Internet, as simple as possible, as obvious as possible.

I don’t want to insult anyone, but simple and direct will always work better. Think of how to use a TV or how you order at MacDonalds.

State what your site is about in big, bold letters. Tell user what you want them to do. I almost want to put a big red button at the top of the screen that says “Order Here Now!”.

What would your site say to the least knowledgeable among us?

It took a little bit to get used to the new tablet. It’s a size bigger, which gives more freedom, but the proportions are off from what I’m used to. I played for an hour before I got comfortable.

My wife played with it after I did. She apparently got comfortable with it right away, because I came out to my computer this morning to see this image on the screen.

I melted.

My wife made this in Illustrator. She loves me.