WD Certified Program

I am pumped to announce that we will be launching a WD Certified Program that will focus on two specific core tracts: WD Developer and WD Consultant.  The certification is going to be a great benefit to entrepreneurs, web designers, web developers, and others who are pursuing work or a career in the web media marketplace.  The official details will be announced from our live show at SXSW in Austin, Texas next week (Monday, March 15th) and then posted here on the WebDesign.com website.

BTW – If you are an WDU Annual Member,  you will get a special advanced announcement on Friday, March 12th, in our Membership area.  One of the perks being a member!

Consulting

Our team has been asked many times if we could provide advice or insight into how we’ve set up our live shows to website and social media strategies to how to become great bloggers.  The answer is absolutely!  We will now offer a limited amount of consulting opportunities for those needing help in a variety of areas.  You can see the details by visiting the WebDesign.com Consulting page.

Web Design Services

We will no longer be offering web design or development services to clients. This new strategy and focus will help us do what we do best which is training, education, and consulting.  Additionally, with our new WD Certified Program and marketplace, we want to be able to reward our Certified Partners with the opportunity to partner with people who have these needs.

>> WebDesign.com will also be revealing upcoming courses next week along with some other special news!  So make sure to follow us with your RSS reader or sign up for our newsletter.  Exciting times ahead!

Before I get into this post, I want everyone to know there is no magic bean or secret potion to making money.  I’m not trying to get you to go to a “meeting” or sign up for the latest “break through” – there is no pie in the sky dream I am selling, but I am going to share a quick idea on how you can really make a good living if you are willing to work at it.

Web design is a growing field.  There are people who are experts to those who are novices making money part-time on the web.  This is a fact.

If someone asked me today a sure fire way to create a business that would sustain them and allow for the flexibility that so many entrepreneurs dream of, I would say learn how to install and set-up websites and blogs on WordPress and then learn how to customize premium WordPress themes.  There is a huge mass of clients who need this kind of help and with millions of people moving onto WordPress, you have a great opportunity.

Aren’t there already a lot of people doing it?

Yes there are, but quite honestly many are not doing a good job at it.  There is room for leaders who can do things better or differently.  And again, there are millions of people using WP.  If you have an eye for design or can learn the Design Hacks we’ve been teaching, then you will really have an edge on the competition.

How do you get started?

My recommendation is visit the commercial WordPress site to learn a little about it.  Then I would set up a free blog to see how WP works and watch some our free tutorials from iThemes.  Get comfortable with WordPress first!

The idea is to take small steps.  Once you’ve done some homework I would suggest taking a few online courses (free or paid) to learn the basics including learning how to set up a hosting account and installing premium themes.  It will take an investment of time and money, but for what you do invest, you will get so much more out of it!

Final Thoughts…

I have spent 20 years in the branding and design industry and I have never seen a time where there is as much opportunity as there is today –even with the economy jacked up as it is.  I’ve said this to all of the friends in our WebDesign.com community that if I wasn’t a part of this business today, I would be jumping all over the chance to get an All Access Membership and learn to customize our themes.

PLEASE KNOW that I am not a programmer and failed a class on HTML.  You don’t have to be a programmer to do this, I can assure you of that, but you will have to learn some things and realize that you just can’t push a button to make this all work.  Any worthy goal requires commitment and hard work, but if you are willing to do that, you could have an awesome side or full-time business in web design.

If you have questions, feel free to contact us for conversation.

I interviewed Terrell Sanders, who will be teaching the workshop, and asked him to give a couple of tips from his 20-plus years of experience.

This is a can’t miss workshop for those wanting to get into freelance web design, or already doing it and needing some good tips on how to manage projects better. Trust me, you creative types need it!

RESPOND.

One word that gets missed on too many opportunities.  One action that people love and expect.  One thought on how you can differentiate yourself from the thousands of other design firms or entrepreneurs all fighting for customers.

It seems simple but one of the biggest complaints I have heard over the course of twenty years is that a potential or existing client would like a timely response to their inquiry, their question, or their needs.  Even if you are not interested, don’t know the answer, or cannot fulfill their request you should have the decency and courtesy to respond – with something…just acknowledge them.

You can make a fan and great impression with this strategy — or not.   It’s really up to you!

At WebDesign.com we love using WordPress as our Content Management System (CMS).  WP does just about everything you can dream about and need for a highly effective website or blog – especially with the additional use of premium plug-ins!  And while we promote using WordPress over any other platform on the planet, there has been one nagging problem with easily moving or backing up your entire site … until now!

Originally moving your website to a new host or taking a test site and launching it required a lot of moving parts.  You would have to export your content and save it, then do a back of your images, reload all of it to your new home, and then reinstall all those widgets you set up and love.  It really was time consuming and a pain (not to mention you might lose some content).  Now there is a simple solution to do all this with ease.

Plug-In Buddy, the newest edition to our company, is releasing a BETA premium plug-in called Back-Up Buddy this week that will allow a WordPress user to create a back up, migrate content and complete a restore of their existing site including the content, graphics, AND widgets all in one installation!  This plug-in is going to make life easier for a lot of people and ensure that your site is always ready to be restored to the original specs you have it set up to.

Visit www.pluginbuddy.com for more information on Back-Up Buddy and to keep in the loop with our other upcoming WP Premium Plug-Ins. WP enthusiasts won’t want to miss it!

There are pros and cons to this ability and power that we have been given.

On the positive side we can share what we want, when we want and offer breaking news as we see it.  The negative can be that our eye-witness accounts may not always be 100% accurate or that we may share our views without restraint.  It really is a double edged sword!

The thing that bothers me are the conversations going on about where our freedom of expression stops with tools such as FaceBook and Twitter.  Some of us might remember the fallout with ESPN and their newly integrated social media policy or maybe we’ve read the outstanding article by Michael Hyatt and their guidelines at Thomas Nelson Publishers.  The truth is, athletes to business people are now under the gun to either not use these tools or if if they can, it must be controlled.

How far will we go in our digital world to keep people from sharing what’s on their minds?

I believe that every person should use their best judgment and act responsibly – in person, in the media or on the web – but wonder if we truly have a right to enforce a set of rules when it could cross the line for our Freedom of Speech, especially if a person is using their own personal account for social media.

There is, without a doubt, a time where strict rules should be in place such as when it relates to trade secrets or privacy policy matters.  What if the conversation is not based on sensitive information, and instead, a personal view of an athlete questioning a bad call or worker sharing their religion?  Could shutting down these comments be subject to a violation of our Freedom of Speech rights?

I am curious as to where the line will be drawn in the sand.  How about you?

Training:

I feel that web designers and developers, as well as web design firms, should always continually invest in their skills.  The technology we use changes so quickly and what we know today can be outdated tomorrow.  I envision our company helping people who love all things about web development to continue to build their knowledge and skills.

Resources:

So many conversations I’ve had center around the need for resources and relevant information.  I would like to see WebDesign.com become a strong, passionate community where we share ideas and insight with each other.  This means I will be looking for people like you to be involved in some way, possibly producing content or training web designers in the future.

Market Place:

I was a freelance designer for 20 years and it took me a lot of time to build a strong, profitable client list.  There were days where I would have preferred doing my craft over making sales calls or doing the accounting.  By providing and offering a market place, we can help people do what they do best and prefer to do.

Community:

The success of our businesses in the future will be based on community and relationships.  I’ve always been a fanatic about these two things and this strategy is really what took me from being a struggling artist to a designer making a great career out of my talents.  So again, we need to create an awesome, passionate community here.

Coaching and Mentoring:

So many designers and programmers fail as entrepreneurs because they don’t understand the business side of what they are doing.  Working with clients, getting paid what you deserve, and knowing how to negotiate can be difficult and timely to learn.  I believe we are providing excellent content in our courses that help with these needs now – but I want to really kick it up a notch through mentoring, coaching, and Master Mind groups.

I want our WebDesign.com Members and our community to know that every day, our team seeks to create more value for you and I envision some great things happening soon just through moving forward on the ideas above.

2010 is going to be the start of something awesome at WebDesign.com and I hope that you will be a part of the journey!

As one of the top downloaded plugins in WordPress (it battles for the first and second spot with Google Sitemap Generator on the WP Repository), it was intriguing to hear his insight into WP development and also his love for the WordPress community.

Grant and I had a lot of fun at each other’s expense during WC Boston, and during the first part of the interview I had some more technical difficulties … but these are done in fun!

Part 1 of the interview is here:

Part 2 of the interview is here: