ComBridges created an uncluttered design (no surprise there) and implemented the website in WordPress including her new blog and our usual array of WordPress plugins (a.k.a. the “ComBridges Custom Cocktail”) that will enable our Internet marketing services that are to follow as well as other functionalities.

Part of ComBridges’ creative services also included production of an audio Guided Visualization that is offered free when web

site visitors subscribe to Conscious Order’s new email newsletter.

We were pleased to have collaborated on this project with Leslie Keenan’s Printed Voice publishing company.

Please visit http://www.consciousorder.com to check out our latest website design project and to learn more about Annie’s new book.

I’m sure we all could use some help with decluttering. I know that I could!

However, we do have a streamlined “Entry Level” WordPress website design package. And, it was this offering that has led to our latest web design client success story, Six Palms Media, Inc. Within the scope of this package, we did a quickie logo design that took their first draft logo to a whole new level; and we used a customized version of a WordPress theme to give Six Palms a solid, professional look that they are proud of.

Better than anything else we can say, I think Six Palms Media’s president, Peter Goodman tells his website saga best:

“Jon Leland at ComBridges is my Internet hero. After two web designers who either couldn’t deliver what they promised or went bankrupt halfway through building my site, I found ComBridges. Right away I knew I was dealing with a seasoned professional who not only understood my needs from a design standpoint, but is a web marketing guru as well. Jon built me a great site in no time and is using cutting edge marketing tools to make sure it’s seen. It’s so nice to deal with a grown up in an industry plagued by hacks, incompetence and do-it-yourself debacles. Bravo for a job well done. I look forward to benefiting from your expertise in the future.”

If you’d like to learn more about our Entry Level websites or any of our other offerings, we’d love to talk!  Please contact us here.

We just love happy clients

Watch, Listen & Learn: Free Webinar on Internet Marketing

Read It’s a Wonderful Web; ComBridges July e-newsletter

Marketing Lesson From the Grateful Dead: Loosen Up Your Brand
As they say, this is “what I’m talkin’ ’bout!” If you don’t know David Meerman Scott, you should. He’s a true thought leader & best selling author re viral marketing and creating “world wide raves.” This is an excerpt from his new book which comes out August 1st. Cool, eh? And valuable, right?

More On The Power of “Empowering” Your Viewers via Social Marketing
My VIDEO commentary from last week on TheTVNews.tv. Subject: those who are authentic with their internet marketing vs the fakers.

Social Media’s Critical Path: Relevance to Resonance to Significance – The Conversation – Harvard Business Review
Neat Harvard BizReview piece on social media’s ‘critical path’ by @briansolis http://ht.ly/2e5N1 I like. Thx 2 @johnbattelle 4 link

Viral Video Marketing with Dilbert
“only the truth is funny”

Video is Becoming a Must Have for Online Retailers
I’m getting ready to make a video about the critical importance of online video. Meanwhile… Yes, it’s pretty much a MUST HAVE now for any website looking to do real business online. Really. No kidding. Check out the stats in this article if you don’t believe me. And, did I mention that ComBridges has amazingly affordable video packages.

Have a Big Idea, Break it in Half | Jason Fried
Best business advise I’ve heard in a while from Jason Fried of 37signals

Beet.TV: Giant Convenience Store Chain Gone Viral: 7-Eleven Web Series Has 2 Million Views
Illuminating VIDEO story by @DaisyWhitney Big Brand Viral Video Marketing: 7-Eleven Web Series Has 2 Million Views

Here’s what Christy Strauch, author of Passion, Plan, Profit: Twelve Simple Steps to Convert Your Passion into a Solid Business, said about me and my work:

I think Jon knows better than anyone how to help businesses use the Internet as a powerful marketing tool. Wherever you are in the process of developing your Internet presence, Jon can tell you exactly what you should do next. He will enable you to take advantage of the latest (sometimes bewildering) array of tools, from blogs to Twitter, from Facebook and LinkedIn to YouTube videos. From my experience, Jon is the guy to call if you want to market your business more effectively; and, as a bonus, because of his openness, you will learn from a real visionary every step of the way.

What stopped me in my tracks about this statement was the “Jon knows better than anyone.” It’s a strong statement, and when it came on the heels of another flattering statement by another client, Rick Weinstein of Life Insurance Services for Charitable Giving, I had to self-reflect further:

The go-to point player for the Cleveland Cavs is LeBron James. Simply stated, Jon Leland is the go-to player if you are a profit-seeking entrepreneur who wants to leverage the power of e-commerce. Better yet, Jon is a people’s person. He’s no nonsense and a master communicator. I view Jon as a life-long partner, not a vendor; and I am pleased to wholeheartedly recommend him.

LeBron James! Yikes. I was humbled and inspired at the same time. And, I’m not just tooting my own horn because together these quotes added up to a personal wake up call. Thanks to my willingness to listen to my clients, I realized that I have not been positioning myself well given the levels of my expertise and experience.

I honestly know that I am able to be that “go-to guy.” I am so much more than just a website designer/developer. I am someone who can tell virtually any client of any size company what they should be doing next with regard to their web presence and their internet marketing. But, unfortunately, up to now (at least recently), that is not how I’ve been telling my story. Hello? Mr. Leland calling Mr. Leland. Wake up!

So, yes, we do websites, but I also want you to know that these days we’ve evolved ourselves into WordPress experts. As a result, we offer a carefully evolved approach to using WordPress as a CMS (content management system). We’re calling this custom “cocktail” of plug-ins and configurations, “We Do WordPress Right!” But most people, even some of our clients, don’t know that yet.

Furthermore, we have initiated a brand new set of internet marketing packages which include support for blogging and social media marketing. (Please contact us to receive a confidential copy of these offerings and get the “go-to guy” on your virtual team. )

I’m done with just being a website designer who also does internet marketing. It’s time for me to re-own my expertise as someone who has honestly been on the cutting edge of new media all the way back to the early ’70′s—before the term “new media” was invented—when founding a narrowcast radio network was “new media.” (Read more about the other new media/new marketing innovations I’ve been involved with for literally decades in my online bio.)

I hope my “self-awakening” is inspiring to you as well. Have you been under-selling yourself? What story should you be telling about yourself that you have not been telling?

And, of course, if I can be your “go-to guy” that helps you build a truly successful web presence, I’d be delighted.

My apologies for the shameless self-promotion, but I needed to say this “out loud.” Thanks for listening.

Recently, in a WordPress group on LinkedIn, the question was asked “Is WordPress the answer to all our prayers?” The writer was extending the conversation about his own blog post which objected vehemently to crazy claims that complete novices could build “killer websites” in minutes if they just used WordPress. It seems that the world of technology is filled with these kinds of false promises and unrealistic expectations.

For those of us who have hand-coded HTML back before tools like Dreamweaver were invented, and who have experimented and had learning experiences with creating web pages in a wide variety of ways, WordPress is an important new platform for website development. Compared to anything we’ve seen before, WordPress is amazingly simple and intuitive, especially given its array of powerful features. It lets you change your design without affecting your content, it has great built-in SEO (search engine optimization) features, and it’s free.

WordPress also has advantages over competing website publishing systems like Drupal and Joomla. For one thing, you can use easy offline editors (like Windows Live Writer and Ecto) to update content on WordPress sites. WordPress also began as a blogging platform, and as a result, it’s “natural” for WordPress websites to include blogs. For many website designers, even those who have never learned Java, never learned Flash, never learned PHP, and don’t know a single programming language, WordPress does answer many prayers.

But, that’s very different from saying that anyone can use WordPress to design and implement a sophisticated website. If you try to take advantage of WordPress’ full capabilities as a content management system without knowing anything about HTML, CSS, or PHP — or about WordPress itself — you are simply asking for trouble. Yes, you can set up a basic blog using WordPress.com without knowing much, but to really make WordPress (or any other new software) sit up and do tricks, you have to put some time into learning how to use it. (More advanced users download WordPress from WordPress.org. The supply of tricks available at WordPress.com is limited.)

When you think about it, most people only know how to use the most basic features of the software that they use every day. They treat Microsoft Word like a glorified typewriter and don’t even know most of its tools and options exist, much less how to use them. They pay hundreds of dollars for Photoshop and only use the functions they could have gotten for free with Picasa. (Photoshop is so sophisticated that even advanced users can spend hours studying DVD tutorials to learn new things.)

So why should WordPress be any different? It’s not, but people get excited and apparently WordPress’ many benefits give birth to irrationally exuberant expectations. Either that, or there are some people out there who think that because WordPress is easy for them, it must seem that easy to everyone else.

For example, if you hear that there are 5,000 free plugins that extend WordPress’ platform, and hundreds of free themes in the theme repository, shouldn’t you expect that just looking through them and testing them to see which ones would be best for you might take quite some time? And then there’s the fact that new versions of WordPress come out a lot more often than new versions of Photoshop. So you have to stay up to date, by doing things like attending meetups and Wordcamps, reading blogs, watching videos, listening to podcasts, or even reading books. (There are several good books on WordPress, but it is hard for print books to keep up with the rapid developments in the platform and its plugins.)

Because WordPress is a web-based platform, it’s much easier for geographically dispersed teams to collaborate on websites. But due to its popularity, WordPress sites are also open to server hacks and blog spam attacks–as ComBridges discovered first hand recently.

While it doesn’t necessarily take a programmer to learn WordPress, if you want to create a sophisticated WordPress site, skills like PHP will come in handy. And, if you want to learn your way around, study the WordPress Codex and be sure to allow some time to learn important fundamentals such as, for example, which plugins make it easier to use WordPress as a CMS (content management system). For professional website developers like us, that’s part of our job.

Even though WordPress is easy enough for Sallie’s hairdresser to update, Sallie was the one to create the site, and had to provide more than one tutorial on posting to the blog and editing pages.

WordPress deserves to be praised for many reasons, but exaggerated claims about its ease of use for the complete novice does everyone a disservice. Let’s practice a little expectation management, people.

But why take my word for it, when Ning’s attractive and articulate CEO, Gina Bianchini is virtually right here to demo it for you:

Thanks to TechCrunch for their review and you may also gain further illumination from GigaOM’s post.

But, arguably the “grandfather” of books on this subject is Jacob Nielsen. Another interesting info-tidbit is that people are now studying how people read web pages with eye-tracking visualizations like the one shown here. Nielsen’s comments on a new eye-tracking study include the discovery of an interesting “F” pattern.

His insights also include the not so eye-opening (common sense) insights that web designers and writers should realize that: “Users won’t read your text thoroughly in a word-by-word manner.” And, “The first two paragraphs must state the most important information.” As well as the suggestion to “Start subheads, paragraphs, and bullet points with information-carrying words that users will notice when scanning down the left side of your content in the final stem of their F-behavior.”

If this is news to you, you might want to read more…