WordPress Web Design: Four New Genesis WordPress Sites Live

April 29, 2013 | By | 6 Comments

Sacramento WordPress Website Design

With business events, entrepreneurial conferences, software conferences, our local Sacramento WordPress Meetup group, and a few WordCamps, Brian and I have been traveling a lot the past few months. Then when you throw in all our normal client work, and running our own business, things get a little crazy and the hours behind our computers get a little long.

Luckily we LOVE what we do — and we LOVE the Internet.

In the past four weeks, we have taken four different Genesis WordPress sites live — Cool right?! Here they are:

WordPress Web Design Examples

Filed Under: WordPress Tips & Resources | Tagged With: , , , ,

Genesis SEO Settings Guide

March 13, 2013 | By | 29 Comments
WordPress Genesis SEO GuideAt Bourn Creative, we build our custom designed WordPress websites exclusively on the Genesis Framework by StudioPress.

The reasons behind our choice to develop our custom themes on the Genesis Framework are numerous, but a few we often highlight are that the Genesis Framework is very flexible/customizable, coded extremely well, and has been built with SEO as a priority (SEO — the art and science of being found online through organic search).

After all, a beautifully designed website means nothing if consumers and search engines can’t find you.

Genesis already has most SEO requirements built into the framework. As a result, a separate WordPress SEO plugin isn’t necessary, which means one less plugin to manage, and keep updated.

Get Our Genesis SEO Settings Guide & Instructions

Filed Under: Blogging & Blog Strategy, Search Engine Optimization, Website Design Tips & Strategy, WordPress Tips & Resources | Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Adding Google Authorship To Your WordPress Site

March 1, 2013 | By | 29 Comments

(AKA: Getting Your Photo To Show Up In The Google Search Results)

Google Search Results Page Showing Author Photo

Facial recognition is a powerful marketing tool and authors, business owners, and bloggers alike are taking advantage of it.

When searching Google, you have more than likely noticed that photos are now appearing next to some of the listed search results on the search engine results pages — and you may have even been influenced by those photos when deciding which link to click.

Getting YOUR Photo to Show Up

Adding your photo to Google’s search results can easily be accomplished in a few different ways with a WordPress site. In fact, the process is nearly identical using three of our favorite WordPress tools:

Learn How to get your photo to show up next to your pages and posts in the Google search results

Filed Under: Blogging & Blog Strategy, Client Attraction, Marketing Tips & Marketing Strategy, Search Engine Optimization, Website Design Tips & Strategy, WordPress Tips & Resources | Tagged With: , , , , , ,

A Behind the Scenes Look at a WordPress Website Makeover

February 7, 2013 | By | 42 Comments

Today's Innovative Woman Magazine WordPress Website MakeoverRecently we launched a brand new custom WordPress website for Today’s Innovative Woman, and wanted to share some of the behind the scenes strategy for the site and insight into why we built it the way we did.

At Bourn Creative we view the primary role of design as problem solving. While the visual look and feel is important, it must first and foremost support the overall site strategy.

Today’s Innovative Woman is a magazine for women entrepreneurs and business owners with print distribution of more than 10,000, visibility at events around the country, and a strong online community.

While the original WordPress theme worked great when the magazine was first launched, Today’s Innovative Woman was was quickly outgrowing the site. With a booming community, growing subscriber base, and influx of guest writers and featured experts, not only did publisher Cathy Alessandra need a new custom WordPress site, but she needed a whole new online strategy!

Read More About The Redesign For Today’s Innovative Woman

Filed Under: Blogging & Blog Strategy, Brand Design & Brand Strategy, Website Design Tips & Strategy, WordPress Tips & Resources | Tagged With: , , , , , ,

And We’re Live With A New Custom WordPress Child Theme On The Genesis Framework

September 6, 2012 | By | 18 Comments

Bourn Creative Is a Custom WordPress Website Built as a Child Theme for the Genesis Framework for WordPressWelcome to our new website!

I’m *laughing* because this is the first headline I see pretty much all business owners use as their very first blog post on a new website. Even though this isn’t a new website, we have given ourselves an upgrade!

We did a full website redesign, but we overhauled what’s underneath the pretty exterior too!

At Bourn Creative, all of our client WordPress websites are custom child themes on the Genesis Framework and we figured that it’s about time we switched our own site over to Genesis as well.

Along with the full website redesign and recoding to move the custom child theme to Genesis, we’ve been hard at work on several other major upgrades and additions.

Want to know EXACTLY what went into this go-live …

Here’s a list of what went into the creation of our new site

Filed Under: Bourn Creative Newsroom, Website Design Tips & Strategy, WordPress Tips & Resources | Tagged With: , ,

Do You Suffer From Scope Creep?

July 6, 2012 | By | 6 Comments

First, I hope you enjoyed a fabulous 4th of July!

Here’s a view from one of my favorite spots to relax and occasionally work outside (below), which I’ve been doing A LOT this summer! I also love working in the cabana because we’ve got a huge table in there to spread my stuff out on.

View From My Outside Preferred Workplace

The holiday was a great break from the daily grind — just this past week, I’ve designed four new client sites, moved another into programming, and worked on revisions to three others. Plus, we’re still working on our new site. Yes, still.

It seems like we’ve been working on it forever … and we’re dealing with some serious scope creep. Scope Creep is the term we use when projects expand past the original scope of work little by little and get bigger and bigger.

Scope creep can be a time-hog and a profit killer. When this starts to happen, service providers need to communicate clearly and provide the client with a change order or amendment to the original agreement.

Read More About Scope Creep

Filed Under: Website Design Tips & Strategy, What's Up With Brian, What's Up With Jen | Tagged With: , , ,

WordPress Resources No Website Owner Should Be Without

May 17, 2012 | By | 6 Comments

Free WordPress Training Resources

Brian and I LOVE WordPress, so much so that we only build WordPress websites … more specifically custom child themes for the Genesis framework.

Needless to say and we spend a lot of time researching, training, reading, testing, watching, asking, tweaking, and learning all about it so we can answer your questions and provide you with all the information we find!

While we’re here to answer your questions, we also know the crazy-smart guys and gals at Automattic who created (and continue to create) WordPress know way more than we do — well, because they created it!

So here’s a list of some awesome WordPress resources you may want to check out by the creators WordPress:

Get a List of Free WordPress Training Resources

Filed Under: WordPress Tips & Resources | Tagged With: , , , , ,

Success Story: Horizons Developmental Resource Center Custom WordPress Website

January 23, 2012 | By | Leave a Comment

Horizons Developmental Resource Center

Nicole Beurkens, founder of Horizons Developmental Resource Center, hired Bourn Creative to create a more dynamic and user-friendly website for the practice. Her site www.horizonsdrc.com was already a WordPress site, so we were hired to design a new custom WordPress theme and reorganize the content and flow of the website.

Read More About This Custom WordPress Theme Design Project

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WordPress Plugins for the Genesis Framework by StudioPress

December 29, 2011 | By | 15 Comments

***Updated September 30, 2012***

WordPress plugins for the Genesis Framework by StudioPressWe develop all of our custom WordPress projects exclusively on top of the Genesis Framework by StudioPress, and there a few Genesis-exclusive WordPress plugins we use when creating our custom themes.

For non-Genesis specific plugins, check out our list of our favorite top free WordPress plugins we use that are compatible with most WordPress themes.

Combine the plugins from both lists that you need, along with a Genesis based theme, and you can create a very powerful WordPress site for your business.

See A List of Our Favorite WordPress Plugins for the Genesis Framework

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Success Story: Today’s Innovative Woman Magazine

June 27, 2011 | By | 10 Comments

Today's Entrepreneur Woman WordPress DesignToday is the official launch of the brand new, hot off the press, print magazine and website, Today’s Innovative Woman.

Today’s Innovative Woman magazine is a new venture from my friend Cathy Alessandra, publisher of the highly successful family magazine What’s Up For Kids.

From sales and marketing, to branding and social media — from fashion and beauty to home and family, Today’s Innovative Woman has it ALL for the successful woman on the go!

Today’s Innovative Woman magazine’s premiere issue will makes it’s debut at the 2011 eWomenNetwork International Conference & Business Expo and continue to publish every other month, and mailed directly to subscribers’ homes or offices.

Read More About The Today’s Entrepreneur Woman Website

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