Category Archives: Web Design

A client recently asked what they could do to make the content in their sidebar column match their main content column.

The short answer is: it’s not easily user-editable, but it can be done.

WordPress works by using “theme files” to construct a web page ‘on the fly’. The content of the page is stored in a database, but the design of the page is stored in theme files. While WordPress only requires two theme files (index.php and style.css), most WordPress web sites use at least six files. The main theme files are as follows:

• header.php – contains information for the header
• index.php, front-page.php, page.php, or single.php – calls the header and footer; contains instructions for the middle part of the page
• footer.php – contains information for the footer
• sidebar.php – contains instructions for the sidebar

In this client’s particular design, the header and footers go all the way across the page and the middle content area is split into two columns. The sidebar is a column that goes all the way from the top, just under the header, to the bottom, just above the footer. The other column is where the post or page content goes. Whichever column’s side has more content will determine how long the page is. The sidebar only appears when it’s ‘called’ to appear. Each page you see could be a different type of page. Page types are as follows:

• Front page – what the home page looks like (front-page.php)
• Page page – what a Page looks like (page.php)
• Post page – what a Post looks like (single.php)
• Category page – what a Category view of Posts looks like (index.php, category.php, or archive.php)

For example, the front-page.php theme file controls the home page and it doesn’t call the sidebar. There are other types of theme files like search.php for searches, but this is a short list.  There are also more specific theme files that can be created based on a page name. For example, I could create a theme file called “page-health-benefits.php” for the Health Benefits page and I could code it to look completely different if I wanted to. I could also call a different header, footer, or sidebar, for example.

Here are some options for when columns don’t match up in your WordPress design layout:

• Stop using the sidebar - You can eliminate the problem by only having a one-column layout.
• Page-specific theme file(s) - I can code a theme file specific for the Health Benefits page which would show a different sidebar altogether or none at all.
• Page Continuation / Pagination Code - to make the sidebar area never have white space at the end, I could code in a ‘page continuation code’ so that when the content gets to a certain length, it paginates to a ‘page 2′.
• Manually Code in Scenarios to the Sidebar: I can code in scenarios that say, “If the page is Health Benefits, then display more content in the sidebar”. This would not be something you could easily edit.

Summary

It’s not uncommon for sidebars to have more or less content than it’s corresponding column. Dynamic changes to column length are possible through custom coding. Custom coding makes the site harder to keep updated in the future, but that’s not really your problem unless you’re doing it yourself. If it really bothers you, go to a single-column layout. If you can’t get over that extra white space, contact us. We are an Indianapolis web design firm that makes custom WordPress websites.

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What’s the value of a website? What does it do for your business? What’s the point?

We make websites. We know what they can do and what makes them tick. But what we were unsure of was what problem they were solving. We wanted to know what value websites bring to a business.

Are they strictly utilitarian? Are they a commodity? Are they something you just have to have?

We remember a time before the world wide web. We recall relying on the phone book, the library, and recommendations from people you know in order to make decisions on where to shop or go.

We remember a time when websites were new and [literally] flashy. It was a new medium for your message and the rules hadn’t been written yet. It was the wild west and everything was new.

It’s been nearly 20 years since the first web page went up. Websites have become more professional, technology has improved, and there are much more rules, but only one that really matters.

The value of a website is in the information it provides. Remember the “Information Superhighway” and it’s king, Content? The purpose of a website has always been the same: Information.

So what does this mean for business owners looking to market their business online?

• Eliminate the Unknown – Make sure your potential customers get the answers to the questions they have about your business to remove any fears (rational or irrational) they have about doing business with you.
• Tell Who You Are – Customers want to know who they will be dealing with. This includes, but is not limited by the bio in your About page. Use real (not stock) photography whenever possible and let your personality show.
• Share Your Process – What’s it like interacting with you? What sort of interactions will I have with you? What will it cost? What are you hiding? What’s your motivation? Your website can and should explain all of these things.

You may have heard the expression, “Know, trust, buy,” which means that a customer has to know you before they trust you and trust you before they buy from you. Your website can ease and accelerate that process because they’ve already spent a lot of time on your site getting to know your business to the point they trust you enough to call you. This doesn’t mean your website is selling for you, but it is enabling you to sell. Think of it as an advertising brochure that someone is reading at the exact moment when they need your service. That’s the power of the Internet and if your website isn’t responding to a customer looking for services you offer, you’re business is missing out on a huge opportunity.

Watershawl is an Indianapolis web design firm that uses the power of web technology to grow your business.

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Q. I am getting an error with most of my plugins in WordPress. How do I fix it?

A. Disable the plugins one by one until the error goes away. Once it does, note the last plugin you disabled and you’ll have you’re culprit. If that doesn’t do it, change the theme back to default and test again. In this way you’ll rule out whether it’s a plugin or the theme doing it.

Q. How do I make my website more popular?

A. First, write content that people care about and then let people know about it. You can find out what people care about using Google Trends, Google Insights for Search, and Google External Keyword Tool. Sign up for Twitter and Google+ to post things that you have written on your site. This is part of a good content marketing and SEO strategy.

Q. How do I change the order of displayed items on a page?

WordPress defaults to displaying posts in the order of which they were posted (latest first). The easiest way is to change the date/time in which they were posted. To do this, go to the post and click Edit, then change the time so that posts are in the time order you want them.

Q. Can I install WordPress in a sub-directory or a sub-domain?

A. You can set it up inside a folder or sub-domain, but you have to create a SQL database first or (if your web host provides it) use a one-click install. Bluehost and Dreamhost both have one-click installs. Otherwise you’ll have to set up your own SQL database and upload the WordPress files manually.

Q. How to post a new page in WordPress?

A. In your dashboard, go to Pages and click, “New Page”. It may or may not display in your navigation automatically, depending on your theme.

Q. Where is the image folder in WordPress?

A. The image folder is usually a sub-directory of your theme folder, which is located under your wp-content folder. To get to your wp-content/[theme name]/images folder, you’ll either need to use a FTP client or login to your host’s web FTP panel to change the image. You can also use WordPress itself to make the change by uploading the picture to the Media directory, copying the location, and then editing the Stylesheet.css in the Theme editor.

Q. What are some good WordPress themes for businesses?

Businesses can benefit from having a custom WordPress theme created for their website. This will help them match their website to their brand and better differentiate them in the market. Watershawl specializes in creating WordPress website designs for small businesses in the Indianapolis area.

If you need Indianapolis WordPress hosting, web design, configuration, and support, Watershawl is your cloud computing expert web design and Google App implementation shop.

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WordPress Scheduling and Online Estimators

Our Noblesville carpet cleaning client wanted a way to keep track of appointments and allow clients to schedule and possibly even pay on his website. His site runs on WordPress so we looked into a WordPress plugin for a calendar that we’ve used before successfully, however it has to be updated manually and doesn’t interact with other estimator scripts or even with Google Calendar. The All-in-One Event Calendar allows you to import a Google Calendar, but it didn’t meet all of his needs. The Appointy Scheduler said that it can 2-way sync with Google Calendar (meaning that if someone makes an appointment online, it can sync to your phone); allows someone to book an appointment; will send them an SMS alert prior to the appointment; and allows you to accept pre-payments. That sounded like what he was looking for, but it didn’t have an estimator. The WebReserv plugin and Booking Bug are other options similar to the Appointy Scheduler.

When we looked into a WordPress price estimator we only found the Thickthumb Price Calc, but it’s not very built out. To get a custom estimator script built, it meant hiring a programmer to make it for him as that’s not something we do, but we expected to pay around $200 for this based on what we saw at Freelancer. However, there is a estimator script that can be bought for $30 and customized here. Knowing all of this, it makes the WordPress Calculator plugin look quite reasonable and maybe the best bet.

Other Online Service Scheduling Software

The simple ability to schedule online is a something you can get for free from  Schedulicity. CEO, Jerry Nettuno, said ”We learned it’s not really the calendar. Anybody can have an online calendar. For a service-based business, the relationship with customers is much different than in other types of businesses. Giving them the tools to manage that relationship is where things get interesting.”

Marc Woodward, vice president of marketing for GenBook, concurs. “The sophistication of the average small business user demands a rich feature base,” he says. For example, “It has to be real-time. Can a customer schedule an appointment and get instant confirmation? They don’t want to wait to hear back or be presented with three choices. We’ve heard anecdotes of customers standing in front of the salon, wondering, ‘Can I get my hair cut now? Can I get a massage now?’”

In fact, Melody McCloskey, CEO of StyleSeat, says her service for beauty and wellness professionals is “a platform for people to run their entire business on, from maintaining a website to building word of mouth and retaining clients.”

For web design service and WordPress setup and configuration in the Indianapolis area, consider Watershawl Web Design and Technology Consulting where we make the web work better for you.

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Watershawl originally began doing web design in Indianapolis under the name Telablue back in 2007, but in 2011 we merged the brands. Recently, while working on our new Industries pages, we ran across some snap shots of earlier Telablue designs that are near and dear to our heart that we wanted to share.

[Show as slideshow]

As you can see a lot has changed over the years, but one thing remains the same: we still want our clients to be happy.

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This WordPress guide is intended to be a primer for WordPress beginners learning how to login and post a page or a post for the first time. It’s not meant to be an guide on how to use WordPress in general.

How to Login to Your WordPress Website

In order to edit your website using WordPress, you will first need to login. You can do that by going to http://[yourdomain.com]/wp-admin. You’ll need to enter your username and password provided to you by your web designer or host.

If you get it wrong, don’t worry about locking yourself out like you can on some other websites. Unless there is a specific plugin (an add-on piece of software for WordPress installed by your web designer), you won’t get locked out.

How to Navigate the WordPress Dashboard

Once you login, you will see your dashboard. From there you can click on “Posts” to view current posts or “Add New” to add a new post. A post is just a term for a specific type of web page within the content management system. It is different from a “Page” for example. Media is where pictures you have uploaded can be managed. Comments (if enabled) can be approved, deleted, or replied to from the “Comments” link. “Profile” is where you can change your password.

How to Write a Post

Under the “Posts” heading on the left navigation, click on “Add New”. You can type your post just as you would in any other advanced text editor like Microsoft Word. There is even a button with many smaller boxes in it which opens up more editing options like the ability to change text color and underline. Its the second icon from the right in the editing toolbar.

To add a picture or music, use the “Upload / Insert” menu just above the editing toolbar. The box-in-a-box icon opens a window which allows you to select files. To add or edit a link, highlight the word or phrase, then click the chain-link icon in the menu. You’ll have the option to type or paste a link in or link to existing content on your site by clicking “Or link to existing content”.

How to Add an Image to a Post

click the camera icon above the editing box. When the box comes up, upload the image, fill in the options, and click “Add to Post”. Options like left, right, and center will do that to the image relative to the text.

Click “Select Files” then choose options for the picture. You can add a title, a link, or a caption as well as left, right, or center the picture. These settings can be changed at any time so if you’re not sure, just go with the default. Once the picture is in your post, if you don’t like it, hover over it and click the properties button to change options.

How to Publish or Update a Post

Once you are satisfied with the way your post looks, click “Publish”. Once you do this, it becomes live on your website. To preview it first, click “Preview”. When you are done, simply log out or close your browser. If you’ve already published and are just editing, the button will say “Update” instead. This button saves your changes.

Watershawl is an Indianapolis-based SEO web design company specializing in converting static HTML web sites into dynamic, easily editable web sites with blogging functionality using WordPress. Contact us with your fears and your problems and we’ll see if we’re a right fit for you.

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This is a cool WordPress charting tool to visualize your WordPress posts by category into an auto-updating chart. It works by querying WordPress for its posts counts and then using the Google API for creating charts to create and display an image. The JPG that is returned is actually stored on Google’s servers, but displayed on whatever post or page you add it to. The plugin currently uses a shortcode (category-chart) to display and doesn’t work in the sidebar, nor does it have a widget. And if you want to change the charts title, width, and height, you’re going to have to manually edit the one PHP file it uses to run. It’s simple enough to figure out where to make changes, but here is what the pie chart looks like by default:

Thanks to Elvin Haci for making this neat WordPress post charting plugin.

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This is a list of sites I use to backlink from for myself and my web design, SEO, and social media marketing clients:

Social Bookmarking Sites

• BibSonomy
• BlinkList
• Connotea
• Delicious
• Digg
• Diigo
• Fark - moderated
• Folkd
• Mister Wong
• Mixx – currently undergoing some changes
• Netvouz
• Reddit - moderated, but very effective
• StumbleUpon - can be very effective
• Tagza

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Telablue has merged with Watershawl, Inc., an Indianapolis Technology Consulting company and will continue to provide web design, development, and hosting services in addition to SEO. Watershawl also offers search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, and online advertising. We also do computer services like network management and mobile phone support. Browse all of these services at our services page or contact us for more information by calling 317-572-7521 where we will be happy to discuss these changes with you.

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Watershawl WordPress Web Design and Development for Small Businesses in the Greater Indianapolis Area

When our sales managers started to realize that what customers really cared about was the ability to control their own website, they realized that they were not just selling great looking web design and SEO services, but control and access to their websites, and the ability to change text or add pages as needed. From this point it was decided to be more transparent about the content management system (CMS) they were using to support their clients: WordPress.

WordPress is an open source CMS, originally used as a blog publishing application powered by PHP and MySQL, but has since been expanded to be able to support almost any web site. It has many features including a plugin architecture and a templating system and is used by over 12% of the top 1 million websites.

The most popular CMS in use today, WordPress was first released on May 27, 2003 and has since added features like integrated link management, a search engine-friendly permalink structure, the ability to assign nested, multiple categories to posts, and support for tagging. Finally, WordPress has a rich plugin architecture which allows users and developers like us to extend its functionality beyond the features that come as part of the base install.

By embracing WordPress and having more upfront pricing, we think this greater transparency will lead to a better customer relationship over time. If you are interested in working with friendly, professional, and experienced WordPress developers, contact us today.

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