soulati.com

Digital Marketing Strategy, PR and Messaging

  • Home
  • So What is Message Mapping ?
  • Services
  • Hire Me
  • Blog
  • Presentations
  • Get a FREE E-Book
  • Contact
  • Home
  • So What is Message Mapping ?
  • Services
  • Hire Me
  • Blog
  • Presentations
  • Get a FREE E-Book
  • Contact

Soulati-'TUDE!

Content Marketers Need Web Designers And Developers

10/31/2012 By Jayme Soulati

My head is swirling from reviewing free- to-premium WordPress website templates and reading blog posts from designers and developers sharing tutorial about how they love Genesis, Thesis and think Headway is good but has some catching up to do.

Then there’s Elegant themes that look amazing, but Scott Quillin over at New England Multimedia won’t work in any of the above. Instead, he has one of his own secret premium themes he insists is #RockHot (which I won’t share with you).

I’ve been blogging on two blogs for almost three years (that’s nothing in the scheme of things). But, in that time, I’ve played with free themes, Headway, and Thesis enough to know that I suck at designing a website or blog. Heck, I’ve even launched a few websites in Go Daddy’s Website Tonight software (and they looked half-way shabby).

What I’m trying to say is this, Peeps:

Content marketers, like me, cannot design a website; nor can they develop its back end.

Get my drift? We can’t do it.  All we can do is change the font and the color of a leaf, but we can’t design a website all by ourselves.

It frustrates me extraordinarily that I can’t do this…even though I told Craig McBreen in comments at his house that I ban “I can’t” from my household. If there’s an obstacle in front of me, I climb it.

This time, though, to climb over the designing and developing of a website, I would need to go back to school somehow. I would also need to become a detail person and enjoy the tedious nature of graphic design.

I hate designing PowerPoint decks for that reason; I don’t make things look pretty very well. I’m a slap-the-paint-on-canvas kinda gal and call it abstract art; in fact, I have one of those on my mantel that I’m pretty in love with (‘cuz I slapped some acrylics on canvas and stroked the brush back and forth in a rainbow-esque fashion, and I really liked it).

I digress.

There’s so much more that goes on behind the scenes of a website or a blog that we can’t see and don’t know about. That’s why you have to hire someone to join your team and make it happen. But, you have to direct them to design and develop what you want; you need a vision for what you want to appear on that blank canvas.

About every six months, you have to go through this exercise with your website and stir the pot.

That time for all of us is about now, and here’s why:

Responsive design is the current trend, today; right now.

Making your website responsive means it will work on a smartphone or tablet or e-reader. When you visit a website and all you do is scroll from side to side to find the nav menu, then you know that site is not responsive.

Did you know that big data is telling us more people will visit your website from a smart device than from a PC? The data are showing that uptick; are you ready?

 

Filed Under: Business, Marketing Tagged With: Blog Design, Content Marketing, designers, developers, website design, WordPress

Blogging With Design

02/15/2011 By Jayme Soulati

One thing’s certain when blogging — the design must be tweaked about every four months. If you want to keep it fresh and look stylin’ the only way to make that happen is to throw in the DIY towel (that’s do-it-yourself) and hire the big guns.

For this design, I provided the core, the color and this and that, but I owe the rest to Dwight Maskew of Carbon Based Media.

He made the template, changed the colors, moved things around, added the bells and whistles and generally made a great part of my team. I’m happy to share (although I hate to) because Dwight has been my IT back end for about five months.

If you need website or blogging IT help please consider Dwight. Just know that I come first and you’re second!

Now, let me clarify the first statement up top — blogging with design has to be top of mind. No one wants to come to a stale site, but everyone gives new bloggers the benefit of the learning curve. Since I’ve been blogging a few weeks shy of a year, my learning curve is over. It was time to lose the frustration and fear and just hire the help already!

There are thousands of templates and skins for blogs; invariably, something goes wrong. What you want is a reliable design you don’t need to worry about. Unless you have oodles of time to learn blog design, you definitely don’t want to be messing with widgets and plug-ins.

There’s rarely a plug in that is plug and play; and they often mess with your design. It’s cool to have badges, icons, share this and that and more; ultimately, I wanted a simple design with a focus on content.

I’m always up for comments and tweak tips, but do me a favor? Will you kindly wait six months before you tell me?

photo credit: SEOYourBlog.com

Filed Under: Blogging 101 Tagged With: Blog Design

ALT="Jayme Soulati"

Message Mapping is My Secret Sauce to Position Your Business with Customers!

Book a Call Now!
Free ebook

We listen, exchange ideas, execute, measure, and tweak as we go and grow.

Categories

Archives

Search this site

I'm a featured publisher in Shareaholic's Content Channels
Social Media Today Contributor
Proud 12 Most Writer

© 2010-2019. Soulati Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Dayton, Ohio, 45459 | 937.312.1363