The focus was on showcasing the services and my portfolio page, while giving the viewer an easy way to call or contact; that’s why you’ll find the phone number on the bottom of every page. The best part is that since this is a mobile website, not an app, you can access it from any smartphone, whether it be an Android, iPhone, Blackberry, or Windows Device!

However, sometimes the whole process isn’t necessary. If you need a website but have time or budget constraints, I’ve got the solution you need: The WordPress QuickSite. A WordPress QuickSite will give you a fully functional WordPress driven website and blog for an affordable $549.00.

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Hutchings Insurance is in Middletown, NY. If you’re in the area, check them out!

With the ubiquity of WordPress driven websites on the Internet, sidebars and their individual components (called widgets) have become a staple of designing a website. The goal of the sidebar (sometimes referred to as an aside) is to provide supplementary information to the user; this is content that does not belong with the main content, but helps it in some way. On the Manifest Blog, the sidebar consists of archives by date and category. Since I treat the blog as more of a stand alone site, I wanted to do something different for the other pages. I set out to create a set of three custom widgets that I could update from within WordPress. I could have more easily hardcoded them into my theme, but I wanted to have the option of switching them out in the future.

The first one is a “Learn More” widget. It simply displays a block of text with a link to my Introductory PDF. The second one is the “Availability” widget. I saw something similar on other websites and liked the concept- it tells my users how busy I am with projects. I simply check or uncheck a box from within WordPress, and the widget displays the appropriate text.

The “Learn More” and “Availability” widgets appear on every page that is not part of my blog.

The third widget, a Contact widget, appears only on the contact page. It shows my phone, fax, email, and links to Manifest Development’s Facebook, and Twitter profiles. So it wouldn’t be a clone of the footer widget, I made two changes. The first was removing the social media icons, as well as the link to LinkedIn. I felt that the icons took away from the content too much, and since the LinkedIn profile is my personal one, it doesn’t really belong in the sidebar. The second change was adding my virtual card (vcard) for anyone to download and add to their address book.

In the future I may generalize these widgets for release. I know there are people out there who would find them as useful as I do. I’ll also be publishing a quick tip on how to create your own vcard using a text editor.

First, as I said in part 1, my featured projects are now on the homepage in a picture slider; the slider includes a description and link to the project. I placed it here because most visitors to the site will be looking for work samples, and I didn’t want them to go too far to find them.

On the portfolio page itself, I broke from my normal portfolio design, which consisted of a series of small thumbnails the user could click on to bring view a larger screen shot with description and link. I wanted a full page with good content and a nice overview of all of my projects without the user clicking anything. Now, each project gets its own “card” with a nice sized thumbnail so the user can actually see the project, an excerpt of the description, and a link. To view a bigger screen shot and full description, the user can click on the thumbnail or on “View more,” which will bring up a lightbox of the project. Moving through each project can then be done through lightbox, so closing it is not required to view a different one.

Almost identical to adding a regular post in WordPress

The portfolio also saw a big overhaul on the backend. In previous designs, I used a plugin called NextGen Gallery for WordPress to manage a photo gallery of my recent work. This lent itself nicely to the way I was doing my portfolio; however, with the page redesigned, it was time for a change. I made use of WordPress’ (3.0+) Custom Post Types and made a custom type called “Projects.”

Because of this, I had the benefit of adding projects the same way I would add a blog post, which allows each project to have a time stamp, custom URL, category, and the benefit of a rich text editor to format text. While I don’t currently use all of these features, this is a much better way to do things for SEO purposes, and they may come in handy in the future. I also added a custom section called “Link,” so I can easily add a link to the project. I was very happy with the way this turned out, and plan on released it as a plugin later this year!

The portfolio is the most important assest to a web developer (or any freelancer!) so I had to make sure mine got proper treatment in the redesign. I think the new version gives the user a much better picture of my work than the older one did, and because of the changes on the backend, it’s much easier to work with now, and in future iterations of my site.

The Official Google Blog: Insights into our products, technology, and the Google culture

Very helpful if you’re trying to stay on top of what the Internet’s biggest company is doing!

Visit Google’s Blog

The homepage is the first thing a user lays eyes on when visiting a website, so it needs to be good to keep the user interested. You also need to guide the user to where you want him or to go from there. Under the assumption that most of my visitors will already know I’m a web developer when visiting my website, the first thing I wanted to present was what people looking to hire a web developer want to see first: a sample of my work. The image slider (called Nivo Slider, and the best one I’ve used to date) presents a faded screenshot, with a logo and description of four featured projects. Users can read about and visit the sites I’ve done. Underneath that is a little bit about Manifest Development and the first called to action: Request a Proposal.

Ultimately I’d like to start a conversation with anyone visiting my site about their needs and how I can help them. Requesting a proposal is the first step in that process. That paragraph is followed by large icons linking to the 3 most visited pages on my site:  my portfolio, my services, and my contact form. These make it very easy for the user to get to where he or she wants to go. These are the last pieces of content on the homepage- there are three sections, it’s very clean, and I don’t think visitors will get overwhelmed. They will have a good idea about what I do, and then easily go to a page where they can learn more.

The final element I want to talk about is not unique to the homepage, but the user is introduced to it here: my footer. I have a lot of fun designing footers, and really enjoyed designing this one in particular. It’s also received the most positive feedback of any element of my site. The footer serves as a place to offer supplemental content to the user, and I had a clear idea of what that content would be- my contact and social media information, a way to subscribe to both my newsletter and my blog, and the most recent posts from the blog. I ordered them that way, organized each section into an evenly sized and spaced block, and included icons I felt would catch the eye of the user without intruding on the main content. I also used recognizable icons so that the user knows what they link to without having to read anything. The footer stretches across the bottom and is a contrasting color in relation to the main body color, giving the website a definitive end. All and all, I am very happy with it, and think it might be my favorite part too!

Webdesigntuts+ is a blog made to house and showcase some of the best web design tutorials and articles around. We publish tutorials that not only produce great results and interfaces, but explain the techniques behind them in a friendly, approachable manner.

If you’re looking to hone your web design chops, I strongly recommend it!

Visit Webdesigntuts+

Facebook is not only a fun site, it’s a service. Furthermore, it’s a service that connects people and businesses to other people and businesses. By ‘liking’ something on Facebook, users can see updates, news, and deals right on their Facebook homepage, or news feed. Twitter is another service that people use to get information delivered to them, wherever they are. Send a ‘tweet’ about your latest sale, and people will get it on their computers, iPads, and cell phones. Services like these extend your reach.  A blog can do all of that and more.

A blog isn’t just a great way to keep your customers informed on what your business is doing; it’s a great way to educate your readers. Aside from publishing news and sales to your blog, you can do an article on industry news or helpful tips. If you sell or repair cars, you can write an article entitled, “Ten Ways to Stay Safe in the Snow,” advising people on how to best drive in wintery weather. You could publish a news story about GM’s recent IPO and what it means for car buyers. This will give your readers something to take away (information is the best thing you can give away), and it will help establish you as an authority in your field.

The nicest thing about having a blog, Facebook, and Twitter is that they can all be integrated. That means you post to one, you post to all. This helps establish your name while extending your reach and building an audience. That’s ultimately good business.

Are you interested in learning more about Social Media? Feel free to drop me a line!

I’ve added a new website to the portfolio! Jenlis needed a full e-commerce site for their new product, HOPR. I took their design (a supplied Photoshop file), made it a WordPress friendly theme, and used WP-Ecommerce to take care of the catalog, shopping cart, and payments using both Authorize.Net and Paypal. Visit the site.