WordPress Expert

CMS Themes for WordPress

Modified WordPress Theme Examples is a post from: WordPress Expert for Hire in New York NYC

I only have time for a quick post because I had to spend a bunch of time re-doing my entire blog. As a WordPress expert, I feel like I should have know better, but as I was doing some research this weekend, I cam across the domain statement from WordPress. It pretty succinctly stated that you cannot use WordPress in your domain name but you are more than welcome to use it in a sub-domain. So with a quick trip to godaddy.com and hitting up my control panel, wordpress.wp-expert-nyc.com is now up and running. A quick 301 redirect and we’re back in biz.

PS: the Thesis WordPress theme made it really easy to move the design. It has a great export feature and in conjunction with the WordPress export and import ability, the transfer was really easy.

A WordPress “No No” is a post from: WordPress Expert for Hire in New York NYC

My name is Seth and I’m a WordPress expert for hire. I specialize in custom CMS WordPress themes and eCommerce Themes for WordPress. I’m based in the New York City area but I work with clients all around the country. Take a look at the links on the right side to see live working sites I’ve built. I’m currently accepting new projects for the fall. If you are looking for a WordPress expert to work on your next web project, you can call me at 917-456-7754 or fill out the form on the contact page.

WordPress Expert uses Thesis

In case you were wondering why this site looks so basic for someone claiming to be a WordPress expert, I thought I’d take a moment to tell you. Basically I’m playing with a new developer theme called Thesis. This theme is actually a framework to build designs on. Right now, I’m made some tweaks to it to display as a very clean and simple site that focuses more on the content rather than the design. As a WordPress Expert, I feel like my clients’ sites reflect the caliber and quality of my work so well, that I prefer to show them off rather than myself. With all that said, you can see some of my other work at another WordPress  portfolio  site of mine.

Seth, a WordPress expert, on vacation.

WordPress and SEM

Just in case you were wondering if I do anything else besides work on custom WordPress themes, the answer is – yes. I also provide consulting services to those interested in developing search engine marketing strategies and how to grow an ecommerce business.  I’ve worked on over 40 different ecommerce sites spanning a huge range of products and niches. If you are just starting or have a solid base, there are always ways to improve your marketing and improve your sales.

WordPress Expert for Hire is a post from: WordPress Expert for Hire in New York NYC

Getting "plugedin" with WordPress

One of the things I truly love about WordPress, is the huge plugin community. I’d like to start this post with a thank you to everyone in that community for all of the hard work you put in to your plugins. I often donate to plugin authors especially if I use the plugin on a commercial site and I highly encourage you to donate to your favorite author or two too. Usually even $5 is enough to make a plugin developer happy.

Enough blathering, here are my top ten favorite WordPress plugins…

#10 Advanced excerpt – I like this plugin for content management WordPress themes that utilize the excerpt as part of the design. It adds some filtering plus it adds some HTML capability if you are looking for it.

#9 Post plugin library with recent posts, similar posts and recent comments – this family of plugins makes adding “recent” stuff really easy through widgets and through short codes. I find this family of tools to be very easy to use and manipulate. Two big thumbs up. You can find this on several of my ecommerce WordPress themes like 2Jane.com.

#8 Reveal ids – Shows the post ids in the admin so you can reference the numbers without having to look at the site or the database.

#7 Socialble -  The icons are cute, it is always up-to-date and has nice features like email and print, not just social media.

#6 Google sitemap generator – Its almost shocking this isn’t just built in at this point but you need one. Make sure you have a Google Webmaster account too. Must have!

#5 Google analytics – Every site should be tracking with Google Analytics. This is a free service, so if you don’t have an account, go get one now!

#4 Robots-meta – This tool gives you great control over the robots meta tag and makes adding your site verification codes (Google<Yahoo,Bing) very easy.

#3 Raw-html – WordPress adds its own HTML to posts and pages. This plugin strips out all of the WordPress garbage and renders your post in the proper HTML.

#2 Custom Post Template – Have you ever needed three kinds of post templates? This plugin is crucial for really tweaking every post on your site and using it offers a designer/developer a lot of freedom and creativity. It does this by allowing you to create any number of post templates and by tagging them with a little bit of php (just like a page template) you can call the new template easily in the editor.

#1  HeadSpace 2 – I used to be a big fan of All in One SEO but after comparing the two, HeadSpace 2 is just so much more feature rich. It allows you to specify meta date on posts, pages and categories without having to use additional plugins. I will say this, HeadSpace is a little more “overwhelming” and if you are a total newb it can seem daunting. If you are totally baffled by HeadSpace, definitely go get All in One as something is far better than nothing.

What do you think? Were any of these helpful for you? if so, please leave a comment.

My top 10 favorite WordPress plugins is a post from: WordPress Expert for Hire in New York NYC

As a WordPress expert, when it comes time to “skin” an application like WordPress, I find it easiest when you start with existing html. One of my first WordPress projects, a Tinnitus blog for Arches Tinnitus Formula, was just this. I started with a Blank WordPress Theme. While I’d like to give the creator credit for these files, these days, there are other kinds of “blank wordpress themes” that are more versatile. You could use wp framework or if you are looking for something more robust, you could check out the theme I’m using for this site: Thesis WordPress Theme.

Arches was pretty straight forward because I also built the html for the site many years ago.  This was great because it allowed me to spend less time worrying about the HTML and gave me more time to focus on how WordPress needed to integrate. I spent my time making sure the body content like pages and posts, looked good and matched the existing web site. It was important to me that the user have a seamless experience when moving from the blog to the rest of the web site. To keep things consistent, the top and left navigation stayed the same, but I used the right hand column to introduce blog navigation.

All in all, I’mhappy with the Arches blog. As a custom wordpress template it isn’t necessarily the most inventive or groundbreaking, but it is solid work and I achieved the goal: a WordPress theme to match the design of the existing site. If I were to do the blog today, the only difference I would make is to use a more up-to-date blank theme like Thesis.  The good news is the client is very happy, and that is the real measure of success.

Custom WP Theme for Arches Tinnitus Formula is a post from: WordPress Expert for Hire in New York NYC

I admit, calling myself a WordPress expert is a little bold. After all, I certainly don’t know everything there is to know about WordPress. I’m not so hard core that I’m a beta tester or working on revisions to the core code. I just wrote my first WordPress plug-in this month and all it does is add some javascript!

On the flip side, I feel like a WordPress expert because I’ve now deployed over a dozen custom WordPress themes. I’ve developed two full featured eCommerce themes for WordPress and several custom Content Management themes too. I’ve taken blank themes and integrated an existing design to make the blog experience seamless to the overall web site experience. While my plug-in may be simple, I’ve actually written one.

I’ve been working with WordPress for almost two years now and I only see a bright future for WordPress. With a little imagination and a little programming, WordPress can easily power your web site, large or small. If you are looking for a WordPress expert in the New York or New Jersey area, please feel free to contact me for a quote or call 917-456-7754.

What makes me a WordPress Expert? is a post from: WordPress Expert for Hire in New York NYC

My only celebrity client, Niecy Nash, is great to work with. She and her staff are always friendly and they love the work we do. In fact, NiecyNash.com was the first custom Content Management WordPress theme I developed. Looking back on it, admittedly, I did a lot of things wrong and would definitely do it differently this time. On the flip side, it was a great experience and solidified my love for WordPress as a content management system.

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Niecy really wanted to have animation as part of the navigation and because search engine optimization was not a concern, we chose to use Flash in the navigation plus other elements in the site like the home page main promotion and the image gallery which uses Flash and XML. Today I would do the Flash image gallery with some kind of WordPress Plug-in or even do a custom JQuery implementation with something like GalleryView.

Niecy’s site is pretty straight forward and since it was my first custom theme, doesn’t have a lot of wiz-bangs, but it is a solid, well performing site that has successfully stood up to heavy traffic. Since I do most of the updates, I find it to be a very user friendly theme and easy to update.  Recently we added two new sections for her new television shows and I’ve integrated her Twitter feed and her TwitPics into various sections of the web site.

Content Management Theme for WordPress – Niecy Nash is a post from: WordPress Expert for Hire in New York NYC

As a WordPress Expert in New York City, I’m often asked if there are any challenges of working with a client who isn’t local to which I aswer “Almost none.” With the exception of a few hours time difference, all meetings and presentations are easily handled over the phone, by email, or by web site. In fact, most of my WordPress clients are not even in NYC. A recent content management WordPress theme was for a client in Los Angeles called PAWS/LA – http://www.pawsla.org. PAWS/LA, is a non-profit organization that provides services to assist low-income seniors and people disabled by a life-threatening illness keep and care for their pets.

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WordPress in Action

PAWS/LA came to the table with an older web site publishing system that required they put everything on Word and then upload it – where it would be magically converted in to a web page. As you can imagine, this was pretty tiresome and the site wasn’t being updated as frequently as it needed to be. Additionally, they wanted to get the site unified in look and feel as well as add some new features like pet of the week and photo galleries. As a huge proponent of WordPress, I pitched it as the primary engine we would use to power the bulk of content on the web site. Besides the usual news type items, WordPress could handle all of the static content pages and by using one of my favorite plug-ins, the custom post template, you can easily control and customize the template for the post type you are working on. This plug-in allows me to use posts as “data containers” and gives me the flexibility to output the data in any form or fashion I choose. In the right mind, a very powerful tool.

WordPress Wrap-Up

So far the only downer with the project has been the use of CForms to power a few of the more complicated forms we have on the web site. While CForms does the job, and as far as I can tell, does it better than any other WordPress form processor, it still isn’t perfect. For some reason our complicated forms won’t send in HTML and there is no easy way to print the form in an attractive/readable format.  WordPress as a content management system is still rocking the party and I would easily choose it again for the project. With the exception of the form managament, the client is very pleased with the WordPress system and is already more actively adding new content to the web site.

Free Quote for WordPress Themes

If you are ready to get started or just want to discuss an idea, give me a call at 917.456.7754 and I will put together a free estimate for your project.

Content Management WordPress Theme for PAWS/LA is a post from: WordPress Expert for Hire in New York NYC

I recently had the pleasure of redesigning the 2Jane.com web site. We chose to create a custom ecommerce WordPress theme that would power most of the web site and use an existing .NET shopping cart to power a few select sections. WordPress was chosen because of its extreme flexibility and search engine optimization capabilities.

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My role on the project
2Jane was a fairly unique opportunity as I was given carte blanche to design and build the site to achieve maximum sales and search engine visibility. With the exception of the actual design, I had the opportunity to put the majority of the site together myself. This experience gave me even deeper understanding about how WordPress themes can be pushed to new and exciting limits. Here are the first ten tasks I can remember to put 2Jane.com online as an ecommerce WordPress template.

• Hired and Art Directed a design company
• Converted the Photoshop documents to HTML and CSS
• Coded the ecommerce WordPress theme and .NET Shopping Cart framework
• Customized the posts to achieve the e-Commerce features
• Customized the shopping cart with a variety of enhancements and modifications
• Exported the existing store database and converted it to WordPress ready data
• Map existing web site links to new site to ensure minimum interruption
• Prepared images to work with new framework
• Revise, Test, Debug and Launch new website
• Train client on how to use all of the new custom features

Search Engine Optimization Success

I recently ran HubSpot’s website grader for 2Jane and was pleased to see the site scored a 99%. That means that of the millions of websites that have previously been evaluated, their algorithm calculated that this site scores higher than 99% of them in terms of its marketing effectiveness. The algorithm uses a proprietary blend of over 50 different variables, including search engine data , website structure, approximate traffic, site performance, and others.

Check out the full 2jane mibo tile tattoo web site

Ecommerce WordPress Theme for 2Jane.com is a post from: WordPress Expert for Hire in New York NYC