We have a secret here at Blue Sun Studio. Like most services, this one sprung up to fill a particular need for our clients. After we did the first one, we looked at it and thought, hey, you know, this isn’t such a bad idea. Let’s offer it all the time.
But before I do that, let me ask you a few questions about your website. First, how old is your site? A year old? Two? Five or more? Website trends come and go in the blink of an eye and while some linger longer than others, the moment a trend disappears and makes way for something better, your site suddenly looks outdated. Last year’s sliders or that boxy, narrow layout look out of place. You wonder where your state of the art, high end website went.
Cosmetics aren’t the only concern. There’s the back end too. Unless you have a Genesis Framework child theme, or one developed by a company that constantly stays on the cutting edge of what’s acceptable coding, you run the risk of having nasty conflicts happen when you upgrade your WordPress site (and you are keeping up with your WordPress and plugin updates, aren’t you?)
There’s also a little matter of mobile responsiveness. Ten years ago the biggest problem websites had to deal with were whether or not the site showed up properly across multiple browsers. Firefox and Chrome were fairly new then, and a majority of the people out there still used Internet Explorer (IE). While most of the browser issues have been ironed out, we now have mobile devices. You never know what kind of device a visitor will use to view your site, and frankly, there are far too many devices out there for developers to account for each and every one. But…theme developers can code sites that work on the most popular ones.
Want to know how your site looks on a particular device? Check out this site here and pick your device.
The Scary Truth
All of these reasons for upgrading your site are good, but they pale in comparison to the number one reason. The truth is, if you have an outdated theme that hasn’t been updated in a year or more, you run the very real risk of either getting hacked or having your site crash completely. All those PhP and CSS files behind the scenes that most site owners never think about don’t automatically change when the browser rules do. WordPress goes through many smaller upgrades over the course of a year, or even a few months, and every couple of years WP comes out with a completely new upgrade for everything. When a theme isn’t current with those changes, conflicts happen and you will get errors, or in a worse case scenario, your site goes bye-bye altogether.
Now, imagine the trouble you’re in when you have a site where you haven’t kept up with any of the WP upgrades, you have a ton of plugins you’ve never updated AND your theme is obsolete.
You’ve got the makings of a total disaster on your hands. The way a site looks or how it responds on mobile devices is the least of your worries.
Never Fear, Blue Sun Studio Is Here!
This is where we swoop in and save you. Hear that? That’s the sound of angels singing. The good news is, you already have a WordPress installation, you have some kind of branding going on. You have your content and you have your audience. There’s nothing to migrate over to a new site and you don’t have to set up your shopping carts or memberships all over again. You’re not starting from scratch.
Want to see what’s involved? Take a look at what we did for Betsy Wuebker of Passing Thru. Betsy has been a client of ours for many years and we did her original site banner. Betsy knew it was time for a change. She wanted to keep up with the other travel sites out there, but mostly, she knew how much her brand had grown. The old site didn’t fit her image anymore. Her site also had a tangled back end, with so many DIY modifications she and her husband had done over the years that slowed the site down. They wanted better functionality and their outdated theme wouldn’t allow them to make the changes they envisioned.
We gave them a fresh new look with updated branding and we created the whole theme on the Genesis Framework.
Here’s what Betsy said about her experience with us:
It is so fun to be involved in a creative process with people who get what you’re all about, perhaps even more than you yourself do. Our overall design history speaks to how consistently your strong intuition blends with interpretive work. Your guidance has been strong and on point. The result is a design that strengthens over time. You know not only who we are, but where we’re going.
What if you don’t have a WordPress site already? Not to worry. We get a lot of clients who don’t have WP and still have sites that are totally built on HTML. How can you tell the difference? An HTML site URL usually ends in .html. Each page is built separately, using HTML code and tables (which don’t always play nice with mobile devices). Unless you know how to use HTML, you probably have a designer who makes new pages for you or changes out the content for you when you need an update. You probably don’t have blogging capabilities and have to link to a CMS for that (Content Management System). You can’t add plugins for shopping carts or memberships. In short, your options are limited and in order to get anything done, you have to wait on someone with more experience to do them.
We do these kind of site conversions too*, plus we give you the training you need so you don’t have to rely on a third party to manage your site. Take a look at the conversion we did for LegendTales and Stone to Furniture.
Let It Grow!
Introducing our Let it Grow website package. Not only do you get a clean, pretty, mobile responsive site and peace of mind, you also get a site that will grow with you and your business. You get WordPress training and plenty of ongoing support from us. We won’t let go of your hand until you feel confident you understand what you’re doing and your site is exactly the way you want it.
We also won’t try selling you on more than you need. You don’t have to worry about installing a shopping cart or membership plugin right away. You may have that goal on your wishlist, but you can do that later without much fuss at all. This is all about doing your site on your terms.
And what does this glorious package cost? Go ahead, take a guess. I’ll give you a hint, it’s under $1,000. If you’ve done any shopping around you’ve seen designer fees ranging from as low as $250 up into the thousands of dollars. At the low end, you’re not going to get the kind of support and customer service we provide. At the high end, you may get that, but you may also get a lot of bells and whistles you don’t want or need right now.
Our Let it Grow package is only $850. We’ll get your site updated quickly and give you the clarity you need to move forward. Are you ready for a makeover? Get in touch with us today for a free consultation. We’ll show you exactly why we don’t want to keep this a secret anymore.
And if you’ve worked with us already and we’ve done a conversion for you, or you haven’t worked with us and know of someone who needs a site makeover, share this post!
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*Important Note: Depending on your site files, there may be an additional cost to an HTML to WordPress conversion.
The Passing Through revamp looks great. Sounds like this service is just what many entrepreneurs will need. Deb I recently heard the term php page. What is that exactly?
Thanks, Elaine! Clients definitely love this service, and I have no doubt others will too.
To answer your question, when it comes to building websites there are two ways to do it. One is through HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language). You know how when you go into your WordPress site and you start a new page or post, you have the options of Visual or Text in your editor? If you switch to the Text tab and view the content you have formatted on that page/post you’ll see your content surrounded by tags in brackets wherever you have stuff bolded, italicized or for your various headers. That’s HTML. It’s also what websites used to be built on.
The problem with this is having a website built on that, each page is made individually. It only covers the layout. Combined with CSS (Cascading Style Sheet), it tells the browser where to place everything and it’s usually laid out in a format called tables. So, if you were to strip all the graphics and words from a site, it would look like a bunch of blocks all neatly stacked and arranged in one big box.
PhP (Hypertext Preprocessor) when combined with HTML serves as the engine behind the site. Think of HTML as the chassis and PhP as the motor. It’s a programming language that allows a site to have things like a built in blog to manage your content, or allow for widgets and plugins, generating a brand new page without having to create a new one from scratch all the time, and all the fun stuff we’ve come to take for granted when we put up a theme or install WordPress and have it all appear like magic.
So, chances are if you have a site that was built in HTML, you’d need someone else to make new pages for you or change your content, and you’d have to have a third party CMS (Content Management System, like WordPress) to house your blog.
Does that help?
I’m in the middle of rolling out a brand new website — on a brand new URL. Any SEO tips for transferring over the new content?
What about redirects?
I’m not even sure the questions to ASK let alone how to research the answers!
SEO is such a broad topic I wouldn’t know where to start. One thing I will say is, leave a final post on your old site telling people where to find you and then after a couple of weeks, put a 301 redirect on the old URL. After a couple of years you can get rid of the old domain if you want to, but until then, hang on to it so links you may have spread out all over the place will go to the new site.
I seem to be one of the few not on WordPress, and I’m ok with that. My site has so much I can do myself and works just great for now. A new web site is in my sites, along with having mobile functionality.
For many entrepreneurs it’s not only about finding the right provider to create the site, it’s securing the work to pay for it, and make sure the ROI of the new site begins shortly after.
Thanks for the tips of what to look for and why!
If you can handle the site yourself and you’re happy with it, then stay where you are. What are you using now?
Great summary and what a colorful page! Totally made me smile!
Thanks, Donna!