The Bourn Creative Blog | Bourn Creative

StudioPress.FM Podcast Talks Building A Sustainable Agency With Brian And Jennifer Bourn

September 29, 2016 Jennifer Bourn

The StudioPress.FM podcast is designed to help creative entrepreneurs build the foundation of a powerful digital business. Each week, StudioPress founder Brian Gardner and VP of StudioPress Lauren Mancke share their expertise on web design, strategy, and building an online platform, and this past week, Bourn Creative partners, Brian Bourn and Jennifer Bourn, were the featured guests.

In the most recent StudioPress FM episode, Brian and I talk shop with podcast host Brian Gardner. From how we started our own business and how we found the Genesis Framework, to the steps we take to create fulfillment in both our personal lives and professional lives and what we wish each other did better, this podcast offers up some classic infotainment.

Host Brian Gardner asked us about:

WordCamp Sacramento 2016, Two Days Of WordPress Focused Learning

July 20, 2016 Jennifer Bourn

It’s official! The Second Annual WordCamp Sacramento is back and it is bigger and better than ever.

Bourn Creative’s Jennifer Bourn and Brian Bourn give back to the WordPress community by donating their time as co-organizers of the monthly Sacramento WordPress Meetup, sharing their knowledge and expertise by speaking at WordCamps, and helping to bring WordCamp to Sacramento for its inaugural event in 2015. This year, Jennifer is the Lead Organizer for WordCamp Sacramento and Brian Bourn is on the event organizing committee.

After selling out last year’s event (150 tickets) in just over two hours and fielding a lot of emails and phones calls from unhappy folks who were unable to get a ticket, we knew that we needed a bigger venue for 2016.

WordCamp Sacramento 2016 is expanding to a two-day event, happening October 22-23, 2016 at the beautiful Harper Alumni Center at Sacramento State University. With a capacity of 350, we’re more than doubling the number of tickets available.

WordCamp Minneapolis 2016: A Focus On Intention

May 2, 2016 Brian Bourn

WordCamp Minneapolis, happening May 21-22, 2016 at the University of Minnesota Humphrey School of Public Affairs, is focused around the idea of intention and that our best work is always done when we have a sense of the greater purpose behind it.

With this theme in mind, many of the sessions will explore the reasons why we do things — whether that’s in development, design, content, teaching, learning, or strategy.

Bourn Creative’s own Jennifer Bourn will be speaking at WordCamp Minneapolis about The Path to Conversion, specifically on designing WordPress themes with intention so they support the clients’ goals, position them in the marketplace, help tell their brand story, and naturally guide visitors to take the desired action.

Most discussions and talks on WordPress theming are focused on development, but to write the code for and develop a WordPress theme, you first need design.

Web design plays a critical role in setting the tone of a website, focusing visitors’ attention, and guiding them through the site to a conversion with as little friction as possible. It also is responsible for shaping brand perception, audience emotion, and telling a story that not only produces results but resonates with clients and customers.

A WordPress Blog Is A Filing Cabinet For Your Website

March 28, 2016 Jennifer Bourn

I’m guilty of it. Almost every blogger I know is guilty of it —, well, at least the bloggers who have been blogging for years. It’s a problem we caused that has haunted us for the life of our blog and now is either a huge task we know we need to tackle, or a huge task we’re just going to ignore and push to the side.

Category and Tag Abuse

WordPress category and tag abuse is a real struggle. It’s how this blog at one point, ballooned to more than 30 categories and 800 tags that I then had to clean up.

Now you may be thinking, “So what? What’s the big deal”

The big deal is that not only does category and tag abuse split and fracture your content, it creates a poor experience for your website visitors, making it harder to find similar or related content about the topic they are interested in on your website.

Categories and Tags Used As Keywords

The problem of category and tag abuse stems from the belief that categories and tags are similar to keywords, and that when assigned a category or tag to a blog post, it is the same as assigning a keyword to the post. This action is further perpetuated by the belief that assigning a post to a specific category or tag like a keyword somehow will help their search engine optimization (SEO) efforts.

Unfortunately, that’s not how it works.

How Do You Manage The Work Life Balance Challenge?

March 23, 2016 Jennifer Bourn

We recently shared with you that Bourn Creative’s managing partner, Brian Bourn will be speaking at WordCamp San Diego 2016 on Custom Data Management Made Easier, An Intro To Custom Fields, and today we have more great news to share.

Jennifer Bourn will also be joining the lineup of speakers as part of the Sunday Business Track. Jennifer will be speaking on the topic of Balance: How do you manage the work/life balance challenge?

For years Jennifer has juggled several competing requests on her time. She’s a full time business owner, entrepreneur, wife, mom, writer and more. Yet, she’s also had time for family vacation, business travel and more — which raises a question. Is she cloned, or does she know something about how to manage the challenges of this thing we call a “work/life balance”?

I Hated Facebook And It Was All My Fault

November 15, 2015 Jennifer Bourn

I remember sitting in the audience at the very first “big” conference I had ever attended. I was surrounded by people who were taking action, investing in themselves and their business, and talking about things no one at the local networking groups I had been attending for more than a year were talking about.

There were about 500 people crammed in a too-small ballroom in Los Angeles and there was excitement in the air. We were learning about new tools, tactics, and strategies for building our businesses online — email marketing, search engine optimization, blogging for business, WordPress, and this new thing called social media.

We learned about this website that had started just for college kids, but was now a place that entrepreneurs and business owners could connect and be friends and talk business using the internet.

WordCamp Sacramento 2015, A Day of WordPress-Focused Training Is A Wrap!

November 10, 2015 Jennifer Bourn

From the initial logo design and site development, to the content planning and blogging, the social media, email communication, the signage, name badge, and program design, and taking care of other event details and errands, for months, Brian and I have been neck-deep in WordCamp planning.

Now that WordCamp Sacramento is a wrap, we’re elated to call the event a tremendous success.

Driving out to the event Saturday morning, I was nervous and excited, and just hoped we’d have a smooth event — and that people would actually show up. We got registration setup, the signage up, and volunteers began to arrive. It was all coming together and it was do or die time. My stomach was doing some serious flip flops.

As people began to arrive and mill around the Happiness Room with coffee, snacks, and waters, they began chatting up the sponsors and grabbing a seat in the track rooms, and it got real really fast. WordCamp Sacramento was actually happening. It’s something we have been talking about for years, and finally it was here, people were here — and it felt really good.

WordCamp Sacramento 2015 Brings Two Tracks of WordPress Focused Learning

October 27, 2015 Jennifer Bourn

Eleven Days. That’s It. There are only eleven more days until WordCamp Sacramento 2015.

I can hardly believe it.

We’ve been working with WordPress for seven years, and we’ve been attending WordCamps since 2011. We’re frequent WordCampers, traveling to WordCamps across the west coast as they fit into our schedule. We love them, love the WordPress community, and are always happy to see our friends and meet new WordPressers at the events.

For years, we have been talking about bringing WordCamp to Sacramento among ourselves and with others involved with the WordPress Meetup in Sacramento. Almost a year ago, I started calling locations, trying to secure a venue, and it’s thrilling to finally see it coming to fruition, to be part of the organizing team, and to have Bourn Creative as a sponsor.

Organizing Team

WordCamp Sacramento wouldn’t be happening without the volunteer organizing team.

As WordPress enthusiasts, co-organizers of the Sacramento WordPress meetup, and agency owners, Brian and I are proud to be organizers of the inaugural Sacramento WordCamp, alongside Bill Mead, Heather Hogan, Jake Goldman, Joe Boydston, and students Jen Meyer, and Emily Buonauro.

WordCamp Sacramento Sells Out, Bourn Creative Sponsors

October 8, 2015 Jennifer Bourn

The website content had been updated, the ticket registration form had been created and tested successfully, reminders were posted to Twitter and Facebook, a blog post was published, an email was sent to the email list, and the clock was counting down. Brian’s stomach was in knots. I almost felt sick. In just a couple minutes, we were going to flip the switch on the WordCamp Sacramento 2015 website and put tickets for sale.

The clock hit 10:00 am, we updated the page with 150 tickets available for purchase, and quickly published tickets now on sale announcements that went out via social media, email, and the meetup list. Then we held our breaths.

I knew tickets would sell, but still we were sitting there, looking anxiously at our computer screens, freaking out, and hoping please, oh please. I hope people buy tickets and it isn’t just crickets. I was sweating. — I’m not kidding.

Then it started happening. In the first two minutes six tickets were purchased! I was happy, thrilled, elated. Five minutes later, I was giddy. My stomach was doing flip-flops and Brian and I were high-fiving in my office, as 63 tickets were already gone. Watching the tickets fly off the virtual shelf was exciting — I couldn’t look away and neither could Brian. Adrenaline was pumping through our systems and with each ticket sale it pumped faster.

We knew at that point, nothing else would get done until the tickets were gone.

In only 30 minutes, 80 tickets were gone. They were getting snatched up like free WordPress t-shirts at WordCamp! By 11:30 am only 11 tickets of 150 were left. Then finally at 12:20 the last ticket was purchased and I could finally relax!

OfficeHours.fm Podcast with Carrie Dils Welcomes Brian Bourn and Jennifer Bourn

October 6, 2015 Jennifer Bourn

Interviews, whether they are in written Q&A form, via teleseminar, radio show, or podcast, or in video, are always fun — especially when it’s done with a good friend.

Carrie Dils is not only a great friend, and genuinely nice person, she’s a talented developer and the host of the OfficeHours.fm podcast. Brian and I have both been guests on separate episodes of the podcast in the past, but now you get us both on one episode.

While in past episode’s we’ve talked about business growth, marketing, sales, and development, this one was a bit of everything with a side of personal family life. We do talk about business and development workflows — and we also talk about juggling business and family and spending pretty much ALL of our time together, and bicker a bit ;)

WordCamp Is Coming To Sacramento

September 28, 2015 Jennifer Bourn

I am so excited to share that WordCamp is finally coming to Sacramento, California’s beautiful capitol city! WordCamp Sacramento 2015 will be happening on Saturday, November 7, 2015 at The Art Institute of California — Sacramento.

WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress, the free and open source personal publishing software that powers over 75 million sites on the web. They are attended by a wide range of people, including designers, developers, business owners, bloggers, consultants, and anyone who uses WordPress in any way — from newbies to the advanced.

Brian and I have attended many WordCamps, multiple years in a row, including WordCamp Chicago, WordCamp Phoenix, WordCamp San Francisco, WordCamp Seattle, WordCamp Orange County, WordCamp San Diego, WordCamp Las Vegas, WordCamp Reno, and WordCamp Los Angeles.

Finally, We’re Having WordCamp Sacramento 2015

The Sacramento WordPress Community has been working to host a WordCamp in the state Capitol for quite a while, and as co-organizers of the Sacramento WordPress Meetup Group, Brian and I have been champions for the event and are thrilled to be part of an awesome team of organizers who are volunteering time, resources, and energy to make WordCamp Sacramento happen.

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.

What’s the Deal With Sacramento Web Design?

June 2, 2015 Jennifer Bourn

It’s hard to believe… the time has simply flown by.

This July, Bourn Creative will have been offering online business consulting, brand design, brand strategy, graphic design, website strategy, and web design in Sacramento for ten years; delivering custom WordPress web design and platform development to businesses around the world for six years; and co-organizing the Sacramento WordPress Meetup group for two-and-a-half years.

We weathered those tough years, during the economic downturn — when businesses everywhere (not just in Sacramento) were tightening their belts, cutting expenses, and pulling back on their design, marketing, and print budgets.
We weathered the bright and shiny boom of social media and free marketing — and the years of businesses believing that they shouldn’t have to invest in paid marketing or print marketing because social media and online promotions is free.
We weathered all the articles and claims that print design was dead and all marketing would be online. We saw businesses switch gears to focus online, and now we’re seeing them all come back to print marketing, using a balance of the two mediums together.
We even weathered the two years where venture capitalists and business strategists were proclaiming design was dead and that finished and launched was better than good — and we’re thrilled to have seen that awful phase come full circle back to valuing design and designers. Now many VCs preach the merits of great design and its impact on the success of a brand.

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:

Shift The Client Conversation From Can’t To Can

April 17, 2015 Jennifer Bourn

As a freelancer or an agency, client relationships are the most valuable asset we have. Clients are the backbone of every successful services company and happy clients result in more referrals, more sales, and more business.

Clients come to us because they need help. They need direction, guidance, advice, consulting, strategy, and design and development work. They need an expert in an area they know very little about, and they need to trust the designer or developer they hire to deliver a quality product and quality experience.

But that isn’t always the case. In my latest article for The GoDaddy Garage, Shifting the client conversation from can’t to can, I write about the negative implications of using the word can’t in conversations with clients, and how it can sabotage the experience your clients have working with you.

Here’s the article: