Web Design Archives - m.e.designlab

WordPress vs Shopify: Which is Best for Your Online Store

May 6, 2024/0 Comments/in Opinion, SEO, Web Design/by Matt Everley

NOTE: This blog article was originally written 3 years ago. Have my opinions changed? Not really! Read on…

I’ve been building custom websites with shopping cart functionality for years. Two of my favorite platforms are WordPress and Shopify. Here’s some info on the pros and cons of both for selling online!

In a nutshell, WordPress (WP) is an open-source platform, meaning it’s up to the user (you, or someone you hire, such as m.e.) to maintain updates and security, but offers a TON of scalability through plugins and third-party software. Shopify is closed-source, meaning Shopify handles updates and security, but you are limited to the only “apps” they provide or have cleared others to provide. Both require a roughly 3% take on sales, and both can be in relatively the same price range per month once you factor in web hosting, security/SSL, payment gateway and possible add-ons. Both are very popular and “easy” to use, so I’m merely trying to outline how they differ below…

PROS of WordPress for Your Online Store

Widely used, flexible and very scalable (geared toward versatility)
Easy [for designers like me] to customize
More design options than Shopify
WooCommerce is one of the most used e-commerce platforms on the internet (highly supported)
Easier to add custom product variations
There’s a plugin for everything you can imagine!
Free to use (but premium add-ons to be purchased for certain functionality)
Ability to take payment for items other than products (for example, payment form where user inputs invoice # and custom payment amount)
Much better blogging/content marketing component
More customizable SEO
Easier backups
E-mail hosting comes with some WordPress hosting packages*

CONS of WordPress for Your Online Store

Many moving parts and varying costs
Needs continual updates for security and maintenance (WordPress itself, plugins and theme)
Little support (although premium add-ons typically have fantastic support, and you can find virtually anything with a quick google search)
WooCommerce plugin needed to enable shopping cart and e-commerce
Hosting is separate from add-ons
A bit less friendly for updating global elements such as header, footer and sidebar widgets

Please also be aware there are two versions of WordPress (.com and .org). WordPress.com is like Shopify where you pay monthly and it controls the updates and security. I do NOT recommend wordpress.com. If choosing WordPress, it’s best to install and configure the free software at wordpress.org in order to take full control of WP’s capabilities.

*NOTE: Not all WordPress hosting packages include e-mail. Website hosting from Siteground includes e-mail, whereas other companies tend to focus on website and direct users to a third-party such as Google for e-mail accounts using the same domain name.

PROS of Shopify for Your Online Store

Widely used and supported (geared specifically for sales)
All costs rolled into one monthly bill
Security and maintenance handled; SSL included
Better customer support (24/7 although mostly through access to forums)
No additional shopping cart plugins necessary
Better at social sharing and marketing out of the box
Some email marketing included (although I would recommend using Mailchimp for both WP and Shopify)

CONS of Shopify for Your Online Store

Not as scalable as WordPress
More difficult [for designers like me] to customize
Less design options (limited to templates they offer, but they have some good ones!)
Not as many third-party plugins for adding customization (for example: events calendar or photo galleries)
Blogging available but not as customizable or robust
SEO not as customizable
E-mail hosting not included*

*NOTE: Shopify hosting packages do NOT include e-mail. So be sure to budget for a third-party such as Google for e-mail accounts using the same domain name.

Okay, so I know this a TON of info. But all good stuff for you to consider. There are a couple of articles I referenced for this if you want to dig deeper…

Shopify vs WordPress (2022) – Which is Best?

Shopify vs WordPress: Which is Best for Your Online Store

Likewise, there are a lot of other platforms worth considering such as Bigcommerce or Squarespace, but I would recommend WordPress and Shopify over both of these. If you’re asking my preference, it will always be WordPress since I have the most experience with it and I really love the flexibility from both a design and functionality perspective.

So what’s next? Contact m.e. for estimates for what I can handle regarding either platform. Ultimately it will depend on how much work is involved, so I would love for you to fill out a website workplan questionnaire I can send through email.

Happy researching!

Matt

P.S. – A word or two about web hosting… I offer “Managed Website Hosting” for $50/mo, which includes quarterly WP/plugin/theme updates + SSL and dedicated VPS (Virtual Private Server—which houses a website separately from other sites which could be infected with malware or decrease performance in a “shared” environment). A typical Shopify plan with hosting included is $29/mo. There is cheaper hosting out there for around $10/mo+ from companies like Siteground. But with web hosting you definitely get what you pay for!

How to Take Headshot and Bio Photos for Websites and Marketing Communications

September 19, 2020/0 Comments/in Opinion, Tutorials, Web Design/by Matt Everley

Matt Everley - Graphic Designer in Hickory, NC As a web designer, I frequently receive headshot photos and other bio images to place on “about us” or “our team” web pages. More often than not, these are taken with someone’s mobile device, and the quality is, well… crappy. This is not due to the quality of the camera—because let’s face it, cell phone cameras these days are better than most older, traditional cameras. It’s the way the images are shot that makes the difference.

Professional photography is ALWAYS recommended, but it’s well understood that time, budget and other factors come into play which may prevent you from employing a professional photographer to take headshots. Here are just a few helpful tips for shooting these types of photos at home or your place of business.

5 Do-It-Yourself Headshot Photo Tips for Your Website

Headshot Photo Tip #1: Take Photos on Backgrounds Other than a Blank Wall

Blank wall backgrounds are good for passports and driver’s licenses, but do you want your headshot to look like a passport or driver’s license? Get creative with your background. Choose a background with some context for your industry. A factory setting is great for manufacturing. Outside is great for Landscaping. An office setting is great for, well you know, an office! If nothing else, choose a brick or stucco wall—something with a good bit of texture or color, and not just plain blah.

Headshot Photo Tip #2: Have the Subject Stand Away from the Background

I’ve seen it a thousand times. The person is glued to the wall behind them! Step away from the wall or whatever objects are behind you. This will create depth, some nice shadows, and show that you are welcoming.

Headshot Photo Tip #3: Step Close to the Subject

Even if you are wearing your favorite outfit of all time, don’t take a photo of your full body. You want the focus to be on your face and likeness. Showing up close and personal helps to communicate how approachable you would be in a face-to-face meeting.

Headshot Photo Tip #4: Use Natural Light—Don’t Use a Flash!

Want your photo to look like a crime scene? Then don’t use a flash! Take the picture outside or close to a window with natural light. Taking photos with the flash on will only look amateur.

Headshot Photo Tip #5: Don’t Crop from an Image with Other People

It may be your all-time favorite picture of yourself, but if you’re cropping yourself out of a picture with someone else you are not thinking professional. What happened to that other person? What did they do to deserve this? Why do you hate them so much that you had to crop them out? That’s where my mind goes when I see this on LinkedIn, Facebook or any other profiles or websites.

Exception: If you’re in your natural/work environment, and you crop your headshot from an “action” shot in your office or industry, this is totally acceptable. Even if you are not looking straight into the camera, this is a great way to display how or what you do!

Why Do I Need a Better Headshot Photo on My Website?

Your photo represents your company AND your brand. Low quality, unprofessional photos on your website and in other marketing pieces will communicate the same about your organization and the products and services you offer. Always choose professional photography services if your budget allows! But if not, follow these tips, because customers want to get to know YOU–and what better way to do this than with a great looking headshot!

Bonus Tip: What to Provide to Newspapers for Press Releases

bad newspaper registration Always provide a black and white (grayscale color mode) to newspapers. Have you ever seen how bad a picture in the newspaper looks when the registration is off? When the paper prints, it lays down 4 different separations for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black (CMYK). If these layers don’t line up, the picture looks TERRIBLE. To avoid this, submit a grayscale photo. (You may need Photoshop or another imaging program to do this properly—a gray image from Instagram or another platform is not in true “grayscale”.)

Mobile-Friendly Test – How will Google’s update affect my website?

April 21, 2015/0 Comments/in Opinion, SEO, Web Design/by Matt Everley

Google has modified their search algorithm again and in view of their big update on April 21 (see links below), this will impact all websites that aren’t mobile-friendly. You can check your website by putting your URL through a Google Mobile-Friendly Test and check whether your website is ready to face Google’s update:

» Check your website’s mobile friendliness

[Update] In addition—or alternatively—you can test your mobile speed via Think with Google.

Despite delivering a 100% user experience, your website may also lagging behind in page speed, both in mobile and desktop, and needs to be fixed.

You may also want to read more…

Should you and your website be concerned? Sources say the new mobile-friendly ranking algorithm will have several times more of an impact on Google’s search results than the Google Panda or Penguin update did, and you might end up losing up to 60% of your traffic. I can’t vouch for that percentage, but it definitely raises some eyebrows!

What can I do to avoid being penalized?

To be on the safe side, consider converting your website to a fully responsive website that is functional on all mobile platforms. You should also optimize your website for mobile search in conformity with Google updates. And of course if you need assistance, contact a web professional such as myself!

Using WordPress for Your Small Business

December 1, 2014/3 Comments/in Tutorials, Web Design/by Matt Everley

This article is from a “how-to” seminar for small business owners and prospective business owners who have not used WordPress before. The goal of the seminar was to teach participants how to use and navigate WordPress—from understanding web hosting options, to choosing a theme, to inserting text and images, and even using WordPress as a blogging tool to communicate to an audience. So from this seminar comes the following comprehensive guide to getting started with WordPress for your small business.

Introduction to WordPress

First of all, what is WordPress?

WordPress is a free and open-source blogging tool and a content management system (CMS) which many small businesses use to create their own web sites. WordPress offers templates and plugins allowing users to create a professional looking web site for a minimal cost. (taken from the Small Business Center’s Workshop Sheet)

Why use WordPress?

If you’re looking to be able to place and edit your own content, you need a CMS (content management system) and WordPress is just about one of the best CMS’s out there. WordPress is wildly poplular, which means it has a great following, loyal users and tons of developers creating plugins and other supporting elements. Blogging is inherent with WordPress. Afterall, WordPress started as a blogging platform and blogs are one of the things WordPress does best. WordPress is easy to manage for new users. And did I mention it’s free?

What is the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org?

In a nutshell, WordPress.com is the commercial version of WordPress and a way to have your website hosted on their servers. Worpress.org is an open-source blogging/CMS platform you can install on your own server. If you are looking to simply tryout WordPress or you don’t need your own custom domain, then WordPress.com might be for you. But for the interest of most users (and the purposes of this seminar) I would recommend WordPress.org because it has more options and is much more scalable.

Here’s a great article I found comparing the two: WordPress.org vs WordPress.com: A Definitive Guide

WordPress Hosting

What is web hosting and why do you need it?

When you purchase web hosting you are basically renting space on a high-powered server somewhere in the world. A domain name is the actual name of your website (i.e. www.yourdomain.com). The domain name will point to your web hosting account. I like to think of the hosting as your house, and your domain as your house’s address. Sometimes the domain name is a separate charge, and sometimes it is rolled into your web hosting package.

Recommended hosting options

SiteGround.com – This is my new favorite hosting platform. Easy to use, great support and highly recommended!
BlueHost.com – comes with free domain name, plus “1-click” WordPress installation
Hostgator.com – good, cheap hosting and also offers easy WordPress installation

Word to the wise—you get what you pay for. I myself use MediaTemple.com. It costs a bit more but has a very good reputation in my particular industry and it allows me to host multiple websites.

Another Warning: GoDaddy. While GoDaddy.com is an inexpensive option, and has a WordPress hosting option where it is pre-installed, they do not include e-mail with their WordPress hosting package. You have to purchase this as an add-on or separate service, and in my experience this is a royal pain in the butt!

How do you install WordPress?

This all depends on your hosting service, but for the most part it is a series of questions like any other software installation. You will need to come up with a username and password. Write this down or make it easy to remember!

Here’s a great video showing how to install WordPress on Blue Host.

Navigating WordPress

The WordPress Dashboard

Once installed, the dashboard shows you a few things at a glance. The main thing you’ll need to notice are the links down the left-hand side for Posts, Pages and Settings.

Where do you start?

I like to start with the Settings > General. First you want to modify the Site Title and Tagline. Next, you’ll want to make sure your admin email is correct and you have the time zone and date/week settings the way you want them. Then you’ll want to go through the Writing, Reading and Permalink settings menus. For permalinks, I like to use the “Post Name” option. This allows your site to generate pages based on their titles and it makes them easy to read. This is also helpful for search engine optimization.

Here’s a great article I found on Top 10 Most Important Things to Do After Installing WordPress

How to create pages and posts (and what’s the difference?)

Creating pages and posts is as simple as clicking those links in the left-hand menu of the admin and then clicking “Add New”. But what’s the difference you might ask? Posts are content entries listed on your blog or in another area of your site. If you are going to be blogging, you will be creating a “post” for each blog article. Posts are typically organized by date, category or other criteria. Pages on the other hand, are more one-off content that aren’t necessarily meant to be categorized. Examples of Pages might be About Us, Service and Contact Us.

WordPress Themes

What is a WordPress theme?

Google’s Definition: “A WordPress theme is a set of files that determine the look and feel of your WordPress-powered website. Themes include information about the general layout of the site, and other content such as graphics, headers, logos and footers.”

The beauty of a theme is that if you modify it or even swap it for another theme, the core functionality of WordPress is still intact as well as your pages, posts and other items stored in your database. However, be careful when switching themes! If you have customized a theme with plugins and widgets, these add-ons may not play nice with the new theme or your site may appear out of whack.

Now, you may be thinking a theme is like a template. However, WordPress does not use these as interchangeable terms. A “theme” is the overall look and feel. A “template” is the look and feel for a specific page. For example, a theme may contain different templates for a home page, interior pages, and specialty pages like a photo gallery or portfolio.

How do you install a new theme?

For the most part, you can install a theme by clicking the Appearance link on the left and then clicking Themes. Once on the Themes page in the admin, you would click Add New. From there you can upload a theme you or someone else has created, or you can install one directly from WordPress.org. You can also install themes via the cPanel of your hosting account or manually via FTP, but those options are for the advanced user.

Theme Resources (free vs. premium)

There are TONS of themes out there for WordPress. A lot of them are free. A lot of them are premium (not free). So which to choose? It really depends on what you are trying to do. Of course the premium themes cost money (usually around $50 for a good one) but in my experience the premiums are better because more development time is put into them and they typically come with support. They are also continually updated for the latest versions of WordPress, so they tend to be more stable. Free themes on the other hand are usually one-off experiments from a developer who is happy to share his development, but not so quick to jump on the support ticket.

Here are a few places to find themes (other than clicking the “Add New” button in the Appearance > Themes area of the admin.)

WordPress.org Themes Directory
ThemeForest.net
ElegantThemes.com
WooThemes.com

WARNING: It is more difficult than you might initially think to find a theme that works for you. In my opinion, it’s always best to go custom, and have a professional develop a theme specifically for your needs. (That’s because I’m a professional!) I always tell my clients and prospects to look for themes with plug-and-play capabilities—everything you want, nothing you don’t. Because if you end up not needing a feature, what are you going to use to fill that slot? And vice versa, what if you want to add a feature your chosen theme doesn’t offer?

**Helpful Tip: When choosing a theme, try to stay away from choosing one based on your industry. For example, if your company is technology-based, browse the financial or creative themes. You don’t want to look like anyone else in your industry!**

Placing Content

Inserting text, photos and graphics

Placing text and images in WordPress is as easy as doing so in Microsoft Word. (Probably easier actually!) The WordPress admin has a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) atmosphere. Just move your cursor to the point in the content you wish to edit, and either start typing or click the “Add Media” button to select an image from your Media library. (If you don’t have any images in your Media library, there is an option to upload.)

I went over this in my seminar, but if you want to check out a tutorial, here’s a good article on inserting images from WordPress.org.

WordPress as your blogging tool

There are plenty of blogging platforms out there, but in my opinion none are as good as WordPress if you are looking to produce a total website. As stated before, WordPress started as a blogging platform and evolved into a great CMS. Blogging generates conversations, and WordPress’s commenting ability and organization is crazy good!

Menus, Widgets and other options

Menus and Widgets provide further functionality to WordPress. To create, edit and organize navigation menus, utilize the Menus link under Appearance in the admin. To place additional content and functionality in a sidebar, footer or other available content section, use a Widget.

Again, I went over this in my seminar, but the following are good how-to links:

Menus: http://codex.WordPress.org/Appearance_Menus_Screen

Widgets: http://codex.WordPress.org/WordPress_Widgets

There’s a Plugin for that!

What is a plugin and how do you view/search for new ones?

Google’s Definition: “WordPress plugins are bits of software that can be uploaded to extend and expand the functionality of your WordPress site. Note: One of the primary advantages of using the self-hosted version of WordPress from WordPress.org is the ability to upload and use plugins on your WordPress site.”

There are both free and premium plugins. Yes, the premiums cost money (sometimes flat fee, other times by subscription) but in my experience the premiums are better because more development time is put into them and they typically come with support.

How do you install a plugin?

I demonstrated this in my seminar, but here’s a good tutorial for installing WordPress plugins.

Remember, the more plugins you have installed, the more bogged-down your site can get. While there is no set number or limit, it’s better to have fewer than more. And if you are not using a plugin, be sure to deactivate it or delete it!

Recommended plugin options

Akismet – a comment spam filtering service

Contact Form 7 – an easy to use contact form that generates an email to your inbox

WordPress Backup to Dropbox – a great little backup plugin, free to use with Dropbox (also free, up to a certain amount of GB storage)

WordPress SEO by Yoast – helps you optimize your WordPress website for search engines

More WordPress Resources for Small Businesses

There are lots of great websites out there offering tips, how-to’s and further support. Here are a few I would recommend for starters…

FirstSiteGuide.com – Easy to follow step-by-step guides and tips to help you get online and be successful. Including video tutorials, niche guides and useful blog.

WordPress.tv – Lots of video tutorials and how-to’s

wpbeginner.com – Great resource for all things WordPress

WordPress Supports – A seemingly infinite site for support and question

I hope this helps everyone looking to use WordPress for their small business website. If you have any questions or thoughts, please feel free to list them in the comments below!

User Storyboards for Website Design

December 16, 2013/1 Comment/in Opinion, Web Design/by Matt Everley

In the web/app/software development world, a traditional “user story” is composed of several statements in which deliverables portray “As a <type of user>, I want <some goal> so that <some reason>.” In other words, what a user wishes to accomplish and why. Likewise, for design and layout purposes, I like to develop what I call a “user storyboard”, which shows several different user personas and their “journey” through a web site.