The Bourn Creative Blog | Bourn Creative

Jennifer Bourn “Ask Me Anything”

September 12, 2015 Jennifer Bourn

Ask Me Anything. I’ve seen links and chatter about Ask Me Anything (AMA) sessions on various websites, but didn’t pay too much attention because often I didn’t know the person and therefore, I didn’t have any questions.

Then ManageWP reached out and asked me to participate in their Ask Me Anything blog series, right after Page.ly co-founder and Pressnomics creator Joshua Strebel.

OMG. Of course, I said yes. Then I started to get really nervous.

What if the day was a flop?
What if no one asked me a question?
What if they asked me questions I didn’t know the answer to?
What if they asked me something weird — it was an ask me anything after all.

On September 9, my AMA discussion opened and hooray questions began coming in! Questions about family, vacation, games, Legos, and the Grateful Dead, as well as questions about developing client resources, the Genesis Framework, systems and processes, branding, family, managing workload, getting paid, and more.

Choosing Clients, Pricing, Project Priorities, And More

September 8, 2015 Jennifer Bourn

School has started, and the influx of autumn projects from business owners itching to get projects done (or at least started) by year’s end has kicked off with a bang. It’s hard to believe there are just a few more months left in 2015!

Not only does autumn bring a steady stream of new projects, but it also brings a steady flow of new interviews and shop talk.

Today my a blog Q&A interview for WPeka is live! Along with some standards like “what plugins do you recommend,” the WPeka team asked new questions that you normally don’t get in a WordPress interview. It was awesome because who wants to hear about the same old stuff!?

Here are a few of the questions I answered:

A change in your college major proved to be instrumental in starting your journey as a designer. Tell us more about it.
How do you handle a Catch-22 when clients do not know what they know what they want? What are your pet projects — small local businesses or giant conglomerates?
What is your pricing strategy — based on plans or hours?
What are your top priorities during a project’s design and development phase?
Genesis is the basic theme for all your websites. Why does the Genesis Framework have an edge over its competitors?

First, Best, Wish You Knew Interview With iThemes

August 29, 2015 Jennifer Bourn

Recently I was interviewed for the first, best, and wish you knew series running on the iThemes blog. Now you may be thinking, “iThemes? Didn’t you do something with them before?”

Yes! Earlier this year iThemes invited me to lead a webinar training for graphic designers, web designers, and developers titled How to Consistently Create Content That Builds Your Business And Attracts Clients. And yes, it’s still available to watch and you don’t even have to opt-in to watch!

But back to today’s business, my first, best, and wish you knew interview. In this interview post, I answer the questions:

How did you find your first client?
How did you find your best client?
What do you know now that you wish you knew before you started

If you’re looking for clients, or wondering how others get their best clients, check out my interview and then click through the rest of the posts in the series.

Check It Out

Crafting High-Converting Client Contracts For Web Work

June 11, 2015 Jennifer Bourn

In my last article for the GoDaddy Garage, I shared the benefits of using a Crafting High-Converting Client Contracts For Web Work — should give you a solid foundation to see where your contract can be improved.

If you’re on the client-side of things, you may be looking at a contract from a potential service provider, wondering if it is any good, or if they really are the best choice. This post should help you evaluate a contract for a potential service provider, and ensure you are asking the right questions.

Remember, the ultimate goal is to make your contract easy to understand and to eliminate any roadblocks to decision-making, and to make your potential client feel comfortable and safe.

Why Designers AND Clients Need Client Agreements, Proposals, Estimates, Contracts

May 20, 2015 Jennifer Bourn

Recently I was at WordCamp San Diego, where I spoke about Pricing The Unknown And Dealing With Uncertainty In Web Design — naturally in several discussions client contracts came up. Multiple designers and developers mentioned they don’t have a formal agreement and rely on verbal agreements. Many of these same service providers also admit they are being run ragged by their clients and struggle to maintain profitability on projects.

This inspired my latest article for the GoDaddy Garage is ready for you! It’s titled: Why Designers Need Client Agreements, Proposals, Estimates, or Contracts.

Contracts protect you, your bottom line, your time, and your sanity — and they do the same for your clients. Yes, designers and developers often joke that bad clients make great contracts. But we often forget that many clients have bad experiences, too. For them, it only takes one bad designer or one bad developer to make them skeptical of every other designer and developer.

But why should you always use a client contract? You’ll just have to read the article to see what I say…

Using The Genesis Framework On Your WordPress Site

April 24, 2015 Brian Bourn

Recently, I joined the WP Watercooler crew along with my fellow Genesis recommended developers for a discussion about using the StudioPress Genesis Framework for your WordPress website — and of course we all shared why we use the framework and what we like about it.

While the episode is heavy in back and forth banter, we do cover some key things that you should know if you’re considering using the Genesis Framework as the foundation for your WordPress website.

What is the Genesis Framework?

I jumped in and shared that calling it a framework is really a misnomer. Genesis is just a parent theme. It’s no different than using the 2015 WordPress theme and building a child theme on it. The Genesis Framework is a toolbox for building child themes that gives you a consistent output of HTML markup and a standardized style sheet to work from.

I also pointed out that while calling it framework is great for StudioPress’s marketing efforts, it does cause confusion and misunderstandings in the larger WordPress community about how it works.

Mobilegeddon Is Here! But Should You Even Care?

April 22, 2015 Jennifer Bourn

In November Google started warning website owners about the importance of sites being mobile-friendly. We saw this example in mobile search results with the label “mobile-friendly” added to search engines results page listings.

Then in February they made it official, stating that as of April 21, 2015 (TODAY), a new algorithm change will go into effect, meaning that whether a site is mobile-friendly or not will affect on your mobile search rankings.

Back in March I wrote a post on our blog — Google Drew A Line In The Sand: Your Site Better Be Responsive (Mobile-Friendly) — that details the announcements, shows you examples and screenshots, and provides more details about responsive design and mobile-friendly site design.

Mobilegeddon is fear-mongering at its worst.

Marketers and less experienced web designers and developers have been putting the fear of Google into website owners over the last 4-6 weeks, with scary warnings and threats… and some serious misinformation. What makes my stomach turn though, is those who are cheering for the change solely because it’s a way to scare/persuade past clients to hire them again to redesign their site and rework the code.

Let’s look at the reality of this algorithm change and what it means for you.

Security Vulnerability Uncovered And A WordPress Security Update

April 22, 2015 Jennifer Bourn

A coordinated plugin update occurred Monday morning between many popular WordPress plugins to address a common security vulnerability that allows for XSS cross-site scripting attacks.

Post Status published a great article explaining the security vulnerability, and Yoast published a post explaining the backstory.

The exact number of plugins affected is unknown, but a number of the most popular WordPress plugins are affected, and millions of websites are vulnerable due to this issue. Jetpack and Yoast’s WordPress SEO alone are active on well over a million websites.

Sucuri has identified a minimum of fifteen plugins affected, but they have only looked into the top 300-400 and others that were notable.

How To Plan A Blog Post In 10 Minutes

April 20, 2015 Jennifer Bourn

Every website owner loves the idea of a blog. They love hearing about how adding a blog to your website is one of the fastest and easiest ways to increase traffic, improve search engine rankings, build a big email list, gain expert positioning, and attract new clients.

They love the impact it can have on their social media content strategy and they love that blogging for business is free — it doesn’t add another monthly bill. But blogging isn’t really free — it takes time, energy, focus, and commitment.

As a result, end though website owners love the idea of blogging for business, they are not using their blogs! Often nothing new has been published since the site originally went live, or it’s been three, six, or even twelve months since any new content has been added. Yikes!

In my latest article for CoSchedule, How To Plan A Blog Post In 10 Minutes So You Can Write It Better And Faster, I address the biggest hurdle business blogs face — creating content and planning posts.

In this article, I walk you through how to plan a blog post in 10 minutes or less so you can write it better and faster — without stress, frustration, or overwhelm. Plus, I know you don’t need another cookie cutter formula that doesn’t work, so I’m going to walk you through FIVE different approaches to planning and writing blog posts so you can choose the one that works best for you.

Here’s the entire article:

Free Tool to Discover Plagarism And Content Theft

March 23, 2015 Jennifer Bourn

Recently a friend reached out with some disconcerting information — Another web design company was using our content and images. At first she didn’t notice, but when she saw my photo on their website, she looked a little closer and sent me a link to check it out.

Unfortunately today owning a website and doing business online also means that if you’re any good or if your site ranks well with search engines, others will steal, rip off, and copy what you do, that you write, what you say, and even how you look. If you’ve never done the research, the blatant thievery and lack of integrity among content thieves online can be shocking and disheartening.

But how do you know if someone is stealing you hard work?

Google Drew A Line In The Sand: Your Site Better Be Responsive (Mobile-Friendly)

March 18, 2015 Jennifer Bourn

The gauntlet has been thrown. On February 26, 2015, Google affirmed their position on the importance of mobile-friendliness and it’s affect on your mobile search rankings.

Google originally warned us of this change back in November in the post Helping users find mobile-friendly pages, on their Webmaster Central Blog.

In the post, they point out how terrible the experience is when visiting a non-mobile site on a mobile device and you have to pinch and zoom and scroll sideways to see the all of the content, or you can’t click any of the tiny links or menu items with your gigantic fingers.

We began to see hints of this coming back in November 2014, when mobile search results began displaying a “mobile-friendly” label in their search results — and we saw it displayed on our own listed in mobile search results.

Join.me: Share Your Screen For Free

March 9, 2015 Jennifer Bourn

Recently I was searching for a simple screen sharing option for a non-tech-savvy client — one that didn’t require them to have a gmail account, to download any software, or learn how to use a new piece of software.

So I jumped on Twitter, asked for recommendations, and my friend Diane Kinney responded with a recommendation for Join.me.

Join.me provides instant screen sharing, meeting tools, and unlimited audio

It is easy to get started and easy to manage. I was up and running testing my first screenshare session in less than five minutes.

According to their website: millions of people, from universities, startups and Fortune 500 companies, use Join.me every month to simply and more effectively share their ideas and work, making join.me the fastest growing collaboration product in the world — and I can see why. I love this tool and I can host or join a meeting from a desktop, an iPad, or any mobile device.

Prestige Conference Las Vegas: Exceeding Expectations

March 5, 2015 Jennifer Bourn

This past weekend, Brian and I attended Prestige Conference Las Vegas, the second event of it’s kind, with the first being Prestige Conference Minneapolis in October 2014.

I feel like I said this about the first Prestige Conference, but seriously, this event was by far one of my favorites — and not just because so many of our friends were also there…

Among the meetups, WordCamps, business conferences, and networking events, Prestige Conference has quite effectively carved out a solid position in the market. It serves business owners, agency owners, and freelancers alike, do business better — or at least think about their business with a fresh perspective.

With a mix of personal stories, lessons learned, business nitty-gritty, and actionable get it done steps, Prestige is quickly becoming the go to conference for those who are interested in upleveling themselves AND their businesses or careers.

Iconic Responsive Icon Font Set

February 23, 2015 Jennifer Bourn

As part of the Bourn Creative site redesign, I created our own custom icon font set to use in the site. It was the first time I had gone through this process and it was much easier that I thought it would be. The most difficult part was selecting the final icons to include in the set.

During the research for our own custom icon font, Brian stumbled across Iconic. He sent me the link and I was enthralled. I even shared the resource as my Bar Trick on DradCast.

Iconic is billed as an icon set designed for the modern web. It’s a multi-weight, responsive, SVG icon font designed within a grid, so it produces sharp, optimized, consistent icons.

Three Examples of Customer Service Done Right

February 20, 2015 Jennifer Bourn

I’m a salesperson’s nightmare. I hate overly-forward, overly-friendly salespeople. I despise being interrupted when shopping, I can’t stand a sales woman in a clothing store shadowing me or suggesting outfits for me based on an assumption she made when I walked in the door.

Needless to say, that when it comes to customer service, I’m a little (okay a lot) jaded as more often than not I am disappointed by companies with a lack of service, poor service, or poorly trained staff delivering a service.

But every once in a while there are companies who stand out from the sea of checkbox-ticking and clock-punching — companies who go the extra mile to show you they care and invest in their relationships with clients and customers.

These companies get it. They understand what it means to deliver great customer service. They understand that they can cultivate loyalty and create raving fans with small gestures that make big differences.

A Rebrand, A Redesign, And A Vision For The Future

November 3, 2014 Jennifer Bourn

Let’s just get it out there — I never loved our logo.

The copyediting concept was just a quick idea and great play on our name that Brian came up with when filing our business paperwork. I mocked it up and went with it to get the business off the ground, never intending to keep it. But everyone we met loved it. People raved about it at conferences and networking events when they asked for my card, they raved about it when calling about new projects, and over time, it just stuck.

For the first several years Bourn Creative existed, I was by myself. The colorful rainbow branding we’ve had for years evolved out of my love of color and my desire for something other than the logo to represent me, because at the time, I was the business. I loved the color, the positive feedback, and the praise we received from others about how much they loved it.

Then Brian joined Bourn Creative and took over the company as CEO and all WordPress development, and the brand had to evolve. It didn’t represent a company, but me and my freelance history. So we redesigned the Bourn Creative site, simplifying the rainbows. And about 18 months later, we did it again to “man up” the brand even more. But…

WordCamp San Francisco 2014: Champion Purpose Driven Design in Client Work

October 27, 2014 Jennifer Bourn

WordCamp San Francisco — the event, the talks, the people, the fun — was amazing.

I was honored to be selected as a speaker for the flagship WordCamp event and to give a talk alongside some of the most talented people I know and new people I was lucky to meet.

This year, WordCamp San Francisco did something a little different. Instead of each session featuring one speaker, giving a longer talk, they peppered in lightning talk sessions throughout the event, each featuring short 5 minute talks by three different speakers. I spoke in the design and business lightning talk session with Taylor Aldridge and Tracy Levesque.

My five minutes were dedicated to designers and encouraging designers to champion their design and be the expert they are hired to be.

In a world where web design can quickly turn to web decoration, designers are problem solvers who must not only lead clients through the creative process, but protect the integrity of the solutions they deliver. With an abundance of options readily available, it is imperative that designers step up and become the voices of, and champions for purpose driven design, where each element has a specific purpose and only the elements needed to compel action are included. No more, no less.

Prestige Conference Recap: When Like-Minded People Get Honest

October 13, 2014 Jennifer Bourn

Imagine a small, intimate setting where you’re surrounded only by like-minded people willing to invest in their careers, businesses, and success. Imagine all of those people working in the same space you are, but in different capacities and different ways, with different types of clients. Imagine being able to talk with them openly and honestly, to get real feedback and fresh perspectives, and to really have the opportunity to talk shop and learn.

Sounds amazing right?

This is exactly what I experienced at Prestige Conference. Prestige is a business & career development conference geared towards freelancers, entrepreneurs, and small shops operating in the digital marketplace.

I was thrilled to have been invited to speak alongside some ridiculously talented and accomplished business owners, and I knew the event would bring the value with Kiko Doran and Josh Broton at the helm. But what I didn’t expect was how different the event felt in comparison to a large WordCamp.

Matt Report: Client Onboarding, Automation, Growing a Business

September 18, 2014 Jennifer Bourn

Recently I joined Matt Medeiros for an episode of the Matt Report Podcast, where we spoke about what it takes to go from freelancer to agency and the shifts you need to make, how to leverage more of your time using automation, and we also spend some time chatting about getting new clients, payment terms, and those pesky red flags that pop up!

WordCamp Los Angeles 2014: WordPress, Fun, And Learning

September 9, 2014 Jennifer Bourn

This past weekend, Brian and I drove down to LA for WordCamp Los Angeles, which included three full days of WordPress, fun, and learning — and we both presented at the event.

This sold out event with about 750 (I think) attendees ran smoothly, stayed on schedule, and provided great content, speakers, and time to network. Plus, the speaker/sponsor dinner and the after party were both wonderful, as was the food each day, and the t-shirts!

So, before I dive into a recap of the event, I want to extend a BIG THANK YOU to the lead organizers Nathan Tyler, Natalie Maclees, Alex Vasquez, and Ryan Cowles, as well as a team of volunteers that worked hard to make this event happen.

You can check out the WP Watercolor WordCamp LA recap show here.

DradCast: The Bourn Creative Identity

September 4, 2014 Jennifer Bourn

Episode 057: The Bourn Creative Identity

Every episode of the DradCast begins with a monologue by the guest host, which means I needed to write a monologue! I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous. I wanted it to be something meaningful, something that means something, not just to me, but to those important to me.

As I was contemplating my opening monologue, I read a tweet that inspired my message:

All great people started their journey when they weren't great but they still started.

— Mike Magolnick (@magolnick) August 25, 2014

This tweet really hit home. When I started designing websites, I had no clue what I was doing, but I learned. I learned because my friends were willing to take time from their weekends and evenings to sit at my kitchen table and work on projects with me and teach me. I learned because the WordPress community responded when I asked for help and advice.

How to Optimize Blog Posts For Maximum Results And Visibility

August 28, 2014 Jennifer Bourn

Every time I speak to a group or organization at about blogging for business, I share the same simple, but often eye-opening statements:

Every time a new blog post is published, a new searchable URL is added to your website
Publishing a new blog post just once each week for a year, will add 52 new searchable URLs to your website
That action creates 52 new ways people can find you online — that’s 52 new chances you have to appear in the search engines results when someone is looking for what you do

If audience members were skeptical about blogging before, they usually then agree that it’s worth their time to take a second look about how blogging for business could help grow their business.

The Problem With Blogging For Business

I speak to a lot of people who think blogging for business is a waste of time, ether because they tried it and it didn’t work, or someone else told them that they tried it and it didn’t work.

Bourn Creative Pulls Triple Duty at WordCamp LA 2014

August 13, 2014 Jennifer Bourn

WordCamp Los Angeles — locally organized three-day conference covering everything related to WordPress — is happening September 5-7, 2014, less than a month from today.

I’m so excited for this event — The schedule and sessions look awesome, the attendee list is full of amazing people, and Brian and I will BOTH be speaking! While Brian and I have both presented at WordCamps before, this is the first time we’ll both be presenting at the same one!

So, if you are in or near the Los Angeles area, I highly encourage you to snag a coveted ticket before they sell out — and at only $45 for all three days, a party, a t-shirt, and food, this is an amazing opportunity to network, improve your skill set, learn more about WordPress, and have fun.