Foundation Web Design & Development
Web Design & Development
Email marketing is a tricky thing. Mainly, you don’t want to pay for email marketing if it doesn’t pay off for you. When you’re starting out, you’re going to have a small list doing small numbers. It doesn’t make sense to invest in an email marketing tool if you’re firing off emails to say, 20 people.
Continue reading “The Search for the Perfect (Free) Email Marketing Tool”
You may be familiar with the concept of “mystery meat”: A “meat” product, usually some sort of salisbury steak or meatloaf type deal, usually served in American cafeterias. People usually don’t really know what’s inside this meal: they know it’s some sort of meat, but they can’t pinpoint what exactly just by looking at it. I’ve been referring to vague navigational beacons as “mystery meat navigation” for many years, thanks to a coining from an ancient website I believe was YourWebsiteSucks.com (I can’t seem to unearth it now; it could have been WebpagesThatSuck.com but I was pretty sure at the time it was more pointed than that). The same concept can be used to describe nebulous marketing concepts.
So, what is a piece of mystery meat in the marketing sphere, and how do we avoid it?
Continue reading “Accessible Marketing: Avoiding Mystery Meat in your Marketing Efforts”
This is a question I get asked a lot. “Aimee, I want to pay you to do SEO on my website. How much will it cost?” While this sounds like a straightforward question with a straightforward answer, it’s actually much more complicated than that. Let me explain:
Continue reading “How much does it cost to do SEO on a website?”
Dear fellow WordPress developers, it’s time to give up Classic WordPress.
I know, I know. But Gutenberg has been the core editor since December 2018. And I agree with you! When Gutenberg first came out I wanted nothing to do with it either. It was not ready for prime time, there were a lot of things wrong or downright broken with it, and it hardly fit into any sort of regular WordPress build. But the fact of the matter is that Gutenberg has been out for nearly six years now, and it’s really shined up to something great.
Continue reading “Dear WordPress devs, it’s time to give up classic”
By now, you likely have an idea about contrast ratios in web design and when a contrast ratio is too low, it might be difficult for people to read. A contrast ratio is a mathematical way of figuring out whether or not something is readable based on a few different factors, like text size and text color, as well as background color. Generally speaking, WCAG AAA contrast ratio for text is minimum of 7:1. You can use an online contrast checker if you’re unsure; WebAim has a good one! But what happens when the contrast is too high? Does such a thing exist? The short answer is: yes.
Continue reading “In website design, is there such a thing as too much contrast?”
When parent company Automattic announced just a few days ago that they were going to be selling user data from WordPress.com and Tumblr to Midjourney (Company responsible for LLMs), at first I just shook my head. I read the details, including the grisly fact that all user data has likely already been scraped and sold, including private data like unanswered asks on Tumblr and private blogs, and put it aside for a moment. Later, a paltry toggle switch to opt-out WordPress.com and Tumblr accounts (despite the data likely already being taken) appeared, and I thought: no.
Continue reading “The Great Migration – Moving from WordPress dot com to Self-Hosted”
When it comes to marketing yourself on the internet, it’s a lot to do for one person, especially if you’re responsible for updating your website, updating your social media, and doing everything else to run your business smoothly and effectively. When it starts becoming too much for you to handle social media on your own, you may be looking to hire someone to help you with your social media marketing and presence. How do you determine if the person you pick is right for you? Let’s look at some different social media marketing programs and ways you can tell if a social media marketer is for you! I’ll compare marketing agencies and virtual assistants, and give you some eagle-eye tips for things to look out for when making your decision.
Continue reading “What should you look for in a social media marketing company?”
In the new year, you may be looking to set some goals for yourself, and one of those goals might be taking care of your languishing website. Updating your website is a great goal, and identifying barriers for customers in regards to your digital presence is another goal you should make, and page speed might be it.
One barrier I come across often is a site’s page speed. Is your site a slow loading beast? How can that affect your customers and your potential to do business? What can you do to fix it?
Continue reading “Improve your page speed optimization now with these 5 tips”