Visual Storytelling for Today’s World

I met Liz through the Maine Photography Meetup Group on Flickr.com and when she mentioned she needed to get her photography and multimedia portfolio online I was thrilled to have the chance to present her incredible work. Basically we wanted a site that would make her art stand out and speak for itself.

Click the picture to visit the live site

Taking the Ekologic theme as a base, I stripped it back to the bare essentials and chose light, airy colours throughout that would not clash with any of the videos or pictures. There’s a blog for SEO, several descriptive pages containing galleries, services, a contact form, a place to purchase prints and Flickr/Vimeo integration widgets.

All in all it took about a week to go from nothing to the site you see today. Lots of email communication, on all aspects of the design and functionality. We think it was worth it. Here’s a selection from Liz’ first blog post:

My new web site is finished. Very exciting. Thanks to Gwyn Fisher at Agave Web for doing a great job – and being so easy to work with.
- Liz

Comments followed:

The site has a very soft and simple elegance to it. Agave Web did a great job letting your beautiful work stand out.
- Ron Risman

Great website and beautiful images. So exciting.
- Maggie B

Check it out for yourself at www.elizabethharveymultimedia.com and if you’d like to get your images or videos online, just get in touch.

If you’re interested in seeing more portfolio themes for WordPress, Smashing Apps has just put together a good collection here.

Bertie has an ebay store selling vintage jewelry. She also offered a selection of items on her own website. It was run via Google’s free Blogger service. Blogger can be a decent solution for a very small site however it has a fraction of the functionality of a self-hosted WordPress.org installation (Click here for a screenshot of the site before the makeover).

Click the picture to visit the site

Previously, for every product, Bertie had to create a PayPal button and cut and paste it into a page. Sales and stock levels were tracked by hand and the site’s search engine visibility left a lot to be desired. Despite being hosted by blogger, it didn’t have a blog either (blogs are magnets for search engines). All problems that WordPress and the WP E-commerce plugin could correct right away.

I adapted a theme to include all the elements of her previous site, but with a cleaner look, uploaded the first 60 products, and after an hour’s tutorial on the basics of running the site, there will soon be a lot more jewelry on offer. It only launched yesterday, so in a couple of months I’ll check back to see how business has improved.

Other features include:

• Free RSS Email subscription signup via Feedburner for new posts and products
• Blog
• Contact Form
• Social networking sharing buttons & facebook integration
• PayPal processing
• Customer record-keeping
• Google Adsense set up and display
• SEO- with the XML Google Sitemap and All-in-one SEO plugins

Bertie was a pleasure to work with. She knew exactly what she wanted and communicated it well. Here are some of her kind words about working with me on the site.

“I am crazy about my new website and I just can’t thank you enough already. I have recommended you to a few people and will continue to do so whenever I get a chance. Thanks again for such a great technical experience. It was purely a pleasure. I sincerely appreciate everything you have done”
-Bertie Smith

If you are looking for an e-commerce/blog/site solution and have a limited budget, WordPress will do you proud. Shoot me an email with a description of what you’re looking for and I’ll give you a no-obligation quote.

Julie Marchese and her friends needed a site to promote their sports club for female athletes in the Portland, Maine area.

Click the image to check out sheJAMs!

I came up with a site that, in addition to the usual WordPress wonderfulness:

• Is a fully-fledged membership solution.
  Users can register for different annual programs via a form that then processes payments and makes administrating and tracking members a breeze.
• Members get access to:
  • a members-only forum
  • event calendar
  • photo gallery and
  • blog
• There’s also a simple store area that uses PayPal add-to-cart buttons and lightroom to display the product photos.

The godaddy.com hosting came with limited email space so I also set up Google Apps for the account so everyone can use Gmail with its vast free storage for their @shejams.com emails.

The design brief for the logo and site was: "Cutesy and Paisley"

This is an example of a site that uses plugins to take WordPress from beyond its usual scope of being just blog software to being a full-on “Web 2.0” Content Management System and have it all manageable through WordPress’ famously simple-to-use, back-end admin panel.

If you’re interested in hearing more about which plugins I used, just use the comment form below. If you’re interested in having me do it all for you contact me with the details.

One of the worst things you can do is allow your site to stagnate. And it’s more likely to do so if you need to call your web developer or learn HTML in order to update something. Using a dynamic CMS like WordPress or Joomla! will allow you to make regular updates to your content by yourself via a simple admin panel that handles everything from making small edits to published pages to adding entire new sections.  If you’re not ready for a decent CMS, there are several tips below for easy-to-configure ‘widgets’ from third parties.

2.    Blog/News Section

Blogs aren’t just for telling the world what you had for breakfast and publishing photos of your pets. They’re a vital element for building community and keeping people coming back to your site. A well-written, regularly updated blog will lend a personal touch to your organization, keep visitors informed of your latest projects, and provide an easy way to interact with you (via the comments). Also, it’s a magnet for search engines since the kind of posts you write about your organization are going to be full of useful keywords you’ll want to rank highly for. If you’re not using a blogging-friendly CMS, sign up for a free one with Blogger or WordPress and link prominently back and forth between it and your site.

Example: GoJoven’s ‘Fellows Blog’

3.    Event Calendar

Show how much is going on with an event calendar. While many sites have a basic calendar showing when you published something in the blog, you can go further by embedding a fully interactive Google Calendar on a page. It can be updated by as many people in the organization as you like, you can send invitations through it, and people can even subscribe to new events.

Example: El Centro Latino de Maine’s Events Calendar (note you can configure the calendar to appear in most languages)

4.    A prominent donation link

If your organization is financed by donations, make it as easy as possible to accept them. Make sure there’s a prominent donation link on all the pages and have a specific page that outlines the benefits of contributing and where donations would go. Make the link an immediate “Call to action”, like Donate now! rather than something more descriptive e.g. “Donation Options”.

If you’re looking for a way to accept credit cards, consider PayPal.com. Accept in-kind donations and advertise volunteer opportunities too in the same area.

5.    Quality Photos

Don’t skimp on decent images, find a photography student willing to do some “pro-bono” work or, failing that, there’s plenty of free stock photos out there, my personal favorite is http://www.sxc.hu/ (though you can’t beat real photos taken at one of your events). As to how to display them, Google’s photo management service, Picasaweb, is very user-friendly. Flickr.com is also a good option and if you can prove your non-profit status they’ll give you a ‘pro’ account which has almost unlimited storage and provides another point of entry to your site.

Example: El Centro Latino uses a WordPress plugin to automatically import their Picasa Gallery.

6.    Decent, and ideally free, hosting!

The less you have to worry about with your site the better. Eliminate concerns about the technical side of things by using a well-established hosting service. I’ve been impressed with Dreamhost.com. Not only do they offer a friendly, dependable, professional service but if you can prove your non-profit status documentation, hosting is FREE.
(disclaimer, if all goes according to plan I’ll get a referral fee…)

7.    Maps

If your organization has a physical location, mark it on a Google map. Got several offices? Create a map with all of them so people can find the nearest one. Once you’ve finished, grab the code and paste it in to one of your pages and voilà! People can now find you easily, get directions by car, foot or public transport. While you’re making maps on Google, submit your site to the Local business search, it’s often the quickest way to get featured on the 1st page of search results.

Example: Vancouver Therapist has a map page showing all their offices

8.    Make contacting you easy

Don’t just put an email address, have a contact form. “mailto:” links often don’t work properly and by the time their email client’s fired up they’ve forgotten what they were going to write to you about in the first place. Make as many of the fields as possible are ‘optional’ to encourage communication. If you’re worried about spam, there are plenty of WordPress plugins that will take care of it for you.

Save all your correspondence from the form. Are there any Frequently Asked Questions? Because that would make for a very useful page which would also boost your SEO and give you more time to answer the less frequently asked questions…

9.    Collect and analyze statistics

Stats are useful for all kinds of reasons. You may want to show your funders how successful your site is. You might want to know which are the most popular pages. What kind of search terms are being used to find your site- is there a demand for something you weren’t aware of? What browsers/screen sizes are most popular with your visitors- is your audience highly ‘techy’ or are they visiting you on a tiny screen in an internet café in Guatemala? Make appropriate changes.

WordPress has a plugin that will keep track of search terms internally (those typed into your Search box). Keeping track of those will show you what people are looking for but not seeing immediately. If you notice a trend there act on it. Make that information easier to find.
Google Analytics is probably the most popular choice for stats these days, but I like the live feedback offered by statcounter.com. It’s just a question of signing up and pasting the tracking code so try both, see which one you like.

10.    Provide as many ways as possible to keep up with your news

If you followed point 1 and have your site running on a modern CMS, the chances are your site will produce an RSS feed of your latest entries automatically. Congrats! An RSS feed is a way of syndicating your content so it can be fed into other places. Sign up with feedburner.com (Google, yet again) and grab the link so you can offer E-mail updates. Configure your Facebook page (you have one of those don’t you?) to automatically publish your new content over there. Tweet it. Consider collecting snailmail addresses to send out monthly bulletins.

Worker at Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm in Oregon

Several of my photos are going to be used in an upcoming academic book: “Mexicanos in Oregon: Their Stories, Their Lives” by Erlinda V. Gonzales-Berry and Marcela Mendoza. It will be published in Spring 2010 by the Oregon State University Press and once I get a copy I’ll put a photo of it here.

Dr.Mendoza found my photos by searching Flickr for appropriately licensed images. Most of my pictures are free for non-profit use; however, if you’d like to license one for commercial use please get in touch using the contact form and let’s talk!

You can search my 12,000+ photos at Flickr, or browse them at my personal photoblog by tag or by category.

Perfect Storm had this image and the text they wanted for their site:

In a matter of days I created the site www.perfectstormdirect.com to look exactly like their designs. It features among other things:

• Accessible, valid, cross-browser compatible, XHTML and CSS
• A PHP contact form
• jQuery plugins for lightbox effects and accordion menus

If you have a Photoshop file you’d like to convert into a fully-fledged site, get in touch and I’ll give you no-obligation quote for the project.

Hi Gwyn-

We’re very excited about launching the site! It’s truly been a pleasure, you’ve no idea the bad developer experiences we’ve had before making your acquaintance.

You’ve been astounding to work with. Thanks for all your attention to detail and proactiveness.

cheers,
Tim

First off, you should have a custom template which will represent your brand. For “Friday Again” I created the logo and themed the template around it. If you already have a logo/ brand, I can use it to create a theme and display your products to their maximum potential.

If you’re just starting out in e-commerce, another key element is a blog…

• It provides more text for the search engines which will lead to better rankings
• It humanizes your site and increases trust in your brand and site
• “Stickiness”- Provides an easy to update area for the latest news which will keep your customers coming back
• Invites interaction. Through the comment system you can answer customer’s questions and read their thoughts in a natural way.
• There are many ways to subscribe to a blog, through RSS feeds, or a newsletter. All these increase the number of visits to your sales site.
• For more reasons, check out this article.

Professionally photographed products are also a key element in getting sales. I can take care of this too with my studio, lightbox and range of backgrounds.

Get in touch if you’d like to know more about Volusion as an e-commerce solution, product photography, blogging, or logo design.

Check out fleurings.com and PilatesPowerGym.com to see more Volusion templates I’ve customized.

“Dear gwyn… wow! you are blowing my mind… now that you have raised the bar, i have one last class that i wasn’t even going to do a poster for, but now i feel like i want to!” – Reiko

Dear Gwyn, Once again–way better than anything I could have imagined! I love the food on there! Love it! Thanks! – Jennifer

This site explains the steps for creating a WordPress site, details its advantages, provides articles, video tutorials, ideas, themes, you name it… A fantastic all-round resource that I wish I’d written myself. http://wordpresscms.ithemes.com/

Of course, if it still looks a tad intimidating and you’d prefer things explained in person or want someone who’s done this all many times before get in touch!

Meanwhile another WordPress site just went live, my parents are trying to sell a house in Somerset, England sold their house! www.maycottageksm.co.uk.

GOJoven’s a non-profit dedicated to training young leaders in sexual and reproductive health in Latin America. I’ve been working with them on translations, graphic design and web work for the last four years. We recently decided to rehaul the entire site as a WordPress install so it’s easier to search, is more interactive and editable than before.

Although the program’s audience is mainly Spanish-speaking, there’s also a lot of interest from monolingual English speakers (funders, organizers, press, etc) so I translated tens of thousands of wordsworth of content from English to Spanish and vice versa and installed a parallel WordPress site along with a choose-your-language landing page.

The site has the following features provided by plugins and WordPress’ own innate functionality:

• Pop-up photo gallery
• Printable pages
• Image-maps with links
• News section (maintained as a separate category)
• 3 separate contact forms that also store all input in a database.
• Comment system for the Fellows bios and news items
• Drop-down menu navigation
• Automatic newsletter subscription
• And much more…

It’s also a demonstration of how a template can be made to look completely different by changing out the images, CSS and PHP in a few files.

GOJoven is based on Brian Gardner’s Revolution theme. I used the same template for signotequila.org but as you can see both are highly distinguishable.