To me, Twitter is not just about business, but it is also personal.  I call it “Relational Marketing” – building relationships that help market your business because you get to know people on all different levels.  They begin to trust you because they can see who you really are through your daily communication.

I now have almost 10,000 followers and the number grows each day.  And out of those people, I closely follow about 100 to 200 who I have categorized as friends.  I have a column in my Tweetdeck where I can follow their tweets and keep in touch with them aside from my complete list of followers.  In that list I have all different people from fellow blogging mom friends to long time clients and fellow entrepreneurs.

One of my mom friends, named Alaina, otherwise known as @AlainaFrederick on Twitter who I have known for quite sometime requested my graphic design services.  We have worked together on projects in the past.  She came to me about creating a logo and header design for her blog which she recently moved to a new domain as well as new theme on Wordpress.  I asked her my usual list of design questions.

These were a few of her specifications for the logo design:

• Want design to mimic fresh start
• Love colors in Hummingbirds & Dragonflies (maybe use that image)
• Simple / Plain
• Elegent with a hint of fun

I came up with a few different logo drafts for her to choose from.

Alaina and her husband both liked the last one with the hummingbird.  I then created a Wordpress header graphic and a 125×125 button to match.

I got specific instructions that she wanted a transparent header design with no background color so that it would work seamlessly on her site.  This is what the logo and header design look like installed on her Wordpress blog.

I think it looks awesome, don’t you?  Another happy client!  Thanks Alaina and thanks Twitter for another great business connection!

Wordpress started out being known for its blogging capabilities, but many businesses are now using Wordpress to combine their main website and blog so they are both on one single domain.  But is it really necessary to do this?  Are there any benefits for a website that uses Wordpress?  Oh yeah baby, there definitely is!

There are several great reasons to choose Wordpress for your website.  Here is my list:

• Easy to Use – Wordpress is an application that is installed on your web server.  You can update your site’s pages, add articles / blog posts, and personalize your theme through the Wordpress dashboard which is easily accessed through a special login page.

• SEO / Optimization – the blogging capabilities can help your website big time with SEO and optimization.  And we all know how important that is!  A blog allows you to add fresh new CONSISTENT content to your website.  Google and other search engines love a site that is updated on a regular basis.   And as that old internet saying goes “CONTENT IS KING”. Your articles and posts should attract interest and draw readers in.  Also, many Wordpress themes are being created with optimization already built in.  So be sure to keep this in mind when choosing a theme.

• Plugins / Widgets - A Wordpress plugin is a special tool that extends the functionality of Wordpress.  You can do anything from add a contact form, a photo gallery, an ad section in your sidebar, or even add connection between your social networks like Twitter and Facebook.  The possibilities are endless.  There are hundreds or plugins to choose from and they are free too!  Here are 2 extensive lists that will help you see some of the ones that are available.  Keep in mind that they are all free to use as well.

Wordpress Widget List

Wordpress Plugin List

• Customizable Themes – As a designer, this is definitely my favorite thing about Wordpress.  I LOVE the fact that I can choose a Wordpress theme and customize it.  I am by no means a Wordpress developer, but I enjoy dabbling in the CSS of a theme – adding and changing things like the header, background, fonts, navigation and overall site colors.  In order to do this on your own, you will need some knowledge of CSS or you can hire me to help you! (hint hint)

• Inexpensive – To me, this is huge.  In this day and age many businesses cannot afford to pay thousands of dollars to have a site built from the ground up.  But with Wordpress, you can get a professional looking website and blog (all in one) for just a few hundred dollars.  Here is a simple price breakdown for those of you wondering about everything that is involved in started a Wordpress website.

• Wordpress Database Installation – $65
• Wordpress Theme Install – $20
• Add the 10 Basic Starter Plugins – $35
• Add Additional Plugins (depends on what you need) $40 / hour
• Custom Header Design – $60
• Custom Header Install & Configurations – $15 – $30 (install price depends on the theme)
• Theme Customizations – Colors, Header Install & Resizing, and anything else needed – $40 / hour
• Favicon Designed & Uploaded – $25
• Custom Optin Box – $35 – $65 (depending on what optin company you use)
• Button Ad to match site design – $20 – $30

In the end you will wind up spending around $300 or $400 for a Wordpress site and that is including some custom graphics as well!  If you are interested in starting a Wordpress site or even moving your current site over to Wordpress from html, then please fill out the design form below. We would be happy to help you!

Step 2 – You will then see a list of options.   Click on “Upload a Picture”.

Step 3 -An Upload box will come up.  Hit the browse button to search for the image on your computer and then  upload it.

Step 4 -You may not realize, but when you upload a Facebook Profile Picture that is a larger size, the picture will give you a default thumbnail image.  If you see the red square below, that is where the default image is taken from.  But you can change this to anywhere in the image.  And you definitely want to do this, because your thumbnail is what people will see when you comment or post.

In order to change the thumbnail image, roll over the profile picture that you installed and click on “Change Picture”.  The list will come up.  Click on “Edit Thumbnail”.

A window will come up with a small box.  Click on the box and hold down.  You can then move your curser and the image will move.   You can scroll up or down and even side to side to pick which area of your graphic you want to be used as your thumbnail.  Then click save.

There ya have it!  Easy Peasy!

This client’s requests were fairly simple.  She needed a logo and header design for her new Virtual Assistant business called FPE Services Online.  She specializes in Wordpress and Social Media Maintenance.

These were a few of her specifications:

• Some sort of Socialable Icon representing social media maybe?
• Colors – blue and silver
• Graphics in the header to represent social media platforms

With not much to go with, it was really up to me to come up with a design that would best suit her business.  When I plan a design for any graphic, whether it be a logo, header, or even a button ad – I always first take a look at what the business or website is all about.  So, for this graphic, I took the idea of a social icon and came up with a couple different option for her to choose from.

I let her know that my personal favorite was #4.  And she also asked opinions from some of her friends and family and that was one of their top choices as well.  So she decided to go with it.

My next project was taking the logo design and creating a website header for her.  I thought a lot about how to incorporate the different social networking and media icons into the header and then decided to tie in the site’s title “Social Community Organizer”.  When I think about organizing in business, I think about file folders.  So, I decided to create file folder images with the social icons on them.  I also incorporated the circle design from the icons into the background of the header as a faded finish into the blue.  Great opportunity to play with the image fade in one of my favorite (free) design programs called Gimp.

My client was very pleased with the outcome on both the logo and header designs.  Can you believe I didn’t even have to do any revisions?  I LOVE that!

I often look at people’s websites and blogs and envision a new header design for them. I have a wonderful virtual friend who I came to know on Twitter named Melissa (@TheGoldenRuleVA).  She has been extremely supportive of me on both a personal and business level over the past few months that I have known her.  I always appreciate people who take the time out to answer when I tweet.

Well, I decided to check Melissa’s website (www.TheGoldenRuleVA.com) out one day and I saw that she did not have a very nice header.  It was the basic plain header that went with her Wordpress theme that included her title and tagline.  I sent her a quick DM and asked her if she would be interested in having me help her with a custom header design.  She agreed and was very excited.

I sent her my usual list of design questions:

These are just some of the ideas that she emailed me:

• Likes golden/orange color.  “Golden”  reminds her of honey and her name even means “Sweet”
• Wants to incorporate bees
• Incorporate pink (her favorite color) in flowers
• Wants to portray personal yet professional image – cute but not too cutesy

So, I took her ideas and came up with this design:

She loved it.  These were her exact words:

“Ooooh I like it!!  Love how you made the background honeycombs!  So cute!  And even the Golden Rule looks like it was written in honey!  So great!”

Her Wordpress theme was a little tough.  I had to do some work in the css code to get the header to look right with the search box, but it wound up working out in the end.  So, yet another happy client – which makes me even more happy.

Here is the matching button:

And here is the header in action on her site:

They gave me the title & tagline and pretty much gave me full reign to come up with the design.  I love that!  So here is what I came up with:

These first 2 images are drafts, so you will see that the images are not clear and the stock watermark is visible.  When I create graphics, I do not purchase any stock images until I get approval from the client.

The client liked the first logo image the best.  They said that the second one looked too close to the Coca-Cola logo.  They also said that they wanted the emphasis on “New Media” instead of “Media Market”.  So here is the final logo design with the tagline added:

One the logo was complete, I had to incorporate that into a header design for their Thesis Themed Wordpress Site.  I decided to take the logo graphic of those jack looking things and use them within the background of the header.  I used soft transparent colors so they would blend into the design.

My final part in the project was to get Thesis set up for them.  I installed the header, added a nice blue colored background and then finished it off with customizing the navigation by incorporating the colors from the header.

So, there ya have it (as I always say).  A pro bono project that wound up being a winner.  My client and her team love the design and I felt good for helping them out.  They are planning on adding me as a sponsor, so that will be some nice recognition and possibly opportunity for new clients in the future – love that!

So, what do you think?  Do ya like or what?

Moving your site from HTML to Wordpress can be a mysterious and sometimes scary process, especially if you do not know everything that is involved. This guide serves to provide you with some clarity as to all that needs to be done to convert a website from html to Wordpress. It will also help you to know which questions to ask and help you gather all the necessary information so that the migration is a success.

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Step 1: Information Gathering

At the beginning of the process, we will need to gather as much information as possible about your website. Browsing your site will help us get acquainted with your style and flow, but there may be things like hidden sales pages, confirmation messages, forms, downloads, etc. that we may not be aware of.

It’s important to ensure that the scope of the project is very clearly detailed during this phase to avoid delays in project completion or unforeseen costs.

Questions to Ask Yourself:

1. Do I want my Wordpress Site to be an exact copy of my HTML website, or are there improvements or changes I would like to make?

a. What exactly are those improvements and changes?

2. How do I want the navigation to work? Consider hierarchy, layout, positioning, order, etc and provide as much detail as possible.

3. Do I need to make any changes to the content of the website? Do I want my Wordpress pages to have the exact same formatting as I currently have (colors, font sizes, tables, etc)? Do I need to change any wording or forms?

4. What forms do I have on my site? Are there thank you or confirmation (hidden from navigation) pages that I need transferred over? How are those page redirects set up? (Typically these are set within the form controls, so if your form is from AWeber or Constant Contact, any changes to the URL of the thank you page must be made within that application)

5. Do I have any hidden sales pages or squeeze pages that I need migrated?

6. Are there any redirects in place, such as additional domains that redirect to my domain? (You may have the .org or .net version of your .com address that redirects automatically. It’s important that we are aware of these so that we can place the proper redirects and ensure that they are working at launch time)

7. Are there any elements or functionalities that I need to add to the new website, such as a widgetized footer or widgetized sidebars, sub navigation, breadcrumbs, disclaimers in the footer, footer navigation, etc?

8. Do I have closed membership only areas of the website that need to be transitioned?

9. Do I have a shopping cart or services page with PayPal buttons that must be transitioned?

10. Do I use any services that rely on particular pages within my website, such as RSS tools like Feedburner or web stat tracking tools?

11. Do I use custom email addresses, and, if I do, how do I access my email?

12. Do I use a lot of images on my website? Are they linked from an external source or do I upload them directly to my website? If they are external, do I want them linked locally instead?

These questions are important, and will form the basis for the bulk of information that is necessary to migrate your website to Wordpress.

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Step 2: Development

Development is the longest stage, and will comprise the bulk of the design work.

During the development stage, we will review your requirements carefully and build the structure of your site in Wordpress. Development will often take place within a “Sandbox’ environment, an installation of Wordpress off of your regular hosting and away from your domain, specifically for the purpose of testing, designing, and migrating content. This typically involves:

· Setting up the header, loading logos and header images

· Setting up a very basic navigation structure, to be fleshed out as development continues and throughout content migration

· Setting up page templates, such as the Home Page and Blog Page. Often clients may request different set ups and templates (i.e. different sidebars, extra content areas) for services or about pages.

· Implementing basic plugins to populate sidebars and footers and for use during content migration, as well as use during future content updates including blog posts .

· Implementing design elements, styling content areas, adding images, etc.

We can create a Wordpress site that keeps the same design and style of your html site.  It will not be 100% the same unless you want to spend a lot of money to have the css built from the ground up.  You can either choose your Wordpress theme and we can customize the colors to match or we can use a theme of our choosing according to what we feel would best fit the design.

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Step 3: Content Migration

This is the most critical step in the process, and a step during which we will need you to be extra vigilant and responsive. Migrating content from an HTML site into Wordpress is not as simple as a copy & paste. HTML websites often have a lot of extra, unnecessary or inefficient code that does not fit well within the clean, styled structure of your new or converted design. We will ask you regularly to check on content that has been migrated to check for integrity of the content as well as to ensure that you are pleased with the style and look of the content.

Depending on the scope of the project, content migration includes:

· Migration of all main page & post content. The list of pages & posts to come over will be detailed during the information gathering period.

· Migration of sidebar content, and/or updating this content with new Wordpress functionality, as defined in the scope of the project

· Migration of footer information

· Migration of images, and, where necessary, updating image links to avoid broken images

· Migration of navigation structure, unless a new structure has been decided upon, in which case, content will be migrated over and modified where necessary to fit within the new navigation hierarchy.

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Step 4: Project Launch

Completing & launching the project is not as simple as activating our new Wordpress theme. Oh, I wish it were! This can be the most stressful part of an HTML to Wordpress migration.

During the project launch, I will ensure that your host is ready to accept a Wordpress installation. If you haven’t selected a host, I can recommend a hosting plan based upon your business needs and budget.

On the selected launch date, typically in the evening to ensure that any down time takes place during a quiet period for your website, I will prepare the Sandbox installation (an exact duplicate of how your site will appear live on your domain) to move to your new host. This usually involves a large number of files being transferred via FTP as well as migration of the website’s database. We also set up any necessary redirects at this time.

Whenever possible, I will transfer all the necessary files & database tables to your host prior to “switching” the site – in this way, we minimize down time as much as possible.

Once all files are in place, I will make the necessary changes to the DNS nameservers, which will result in anywhere from 2 to 48 hours of down time for your site. This time varies greatly and depends entirely upon how quickly DNS changes propogate across the internet. Accessibility to the website will also be affected by location in the world (for US sites, US visitors will see DNS changes faster than visitors overseas) and also individual user internet access (ISPs refresh DNS caches at different times). I find that domains purchased through GoDaddy have a must faster DNS resolution – sometimes nearly instantaneous.

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Step 5: Check, Check and Double Check

There are a lot of moving parts to a website, and even more during a website transition. Changing the platform of a website is involved, and is hectic for all involved! I will have gone over the sandbox website with you in detail prior to the move, however it is critical that the live site is checked and toured thoroughly to ensure that no additional changes need to be made.

We often recommend the use of a “changing room” or “landing page” theme temporarily while we inspect all elements of the website to ensure that each page is up to our standards before officially re-opening the website to visitors.

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That’s it!

It seems like a lot. To be very honest, it actually is! Remember, DPK Graphic Design is ready to take it on. We are well versed in moving sites from HTML to Wordpress. You are in safe hands. This guide serves to be a comprehensive overview of the process so that there are no surprises – which should translate into a little less anxiety for you!

If you have any questions, you may contact us at any point during the project. While we always endeavor to clearly define the scope of the project, at the start, there are often times when clients need to stop and re-evaluate their business needs. For that reason, this is an interactive process, with multiple “checkpoints” for your approval and guidance.

Here is another example of our Wordpress design work in moving a regular html website over to wordpress.

If you are interested in moving YOUR html site over to Wordpress, please fill out the form below and we will get back with you within 24 hours to discuss a quote.

She loved the first one with the darker lettering, but decided she wanted to go with a different image.  So, this is the final outcome.  Can you see the little hearts on the guys holding the puzzle?  I added those – nice touch right?

Your logo should also look great in color and in black and white.

Color It Correctly – Color is another essential element for your custom designed logo. Make sure that you are using colors that help to identify your brand. The colors you choose will also be used on all elements for your visual identity. This includes things like your custom website banner or header, button ads, promotional materials, media kits,  and every facet of your branding efforts.  Your colors must be cohesive and they have to be pleasing to the eye as well. When you choose your colors, choose wisely and correctly.  A graphic designer can help you through the process of choosing colors that work well together and will help you promote your business and brand effectively.

Images & Text – Many logo designs include both images and text. It is almost imperative for your brand that you include some sort of image, especially at the beginning of getting your brand out there. However with the right font, you can create a powerful logo that will be memorable and recognizable. One question to ask yourself in choosing an image is if people will be able to identify and remember the logo as it relates to your specific brand.

Make Your Logo Flexible – Your logo design should be flexible in several respects. Your logo should be able to reproduce in both color and black and white. While color is vital due to branding, the shape and form of the logo is pertinent. The bottom line is that if it will not work in black and white, it will not work in color either.

You also want your custom logo to be scalable enough so that it looks equally good in many different sizes, whether it is on a small business card or on a giant IMAX cinema screen.

In conclusion, remember that your logo design will tell your customers who you are, so make sure that you send them the right message. This can only be ensured when you follow the essential elements and tips shared in this article.

Click here to see examples of our logo design work.