Bourn Creative

Transforming Businesses into Extraordinary Brands

UX KitsRead Three Examples of Customer Service Done Right
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Three Examples of Customer Service Done Right

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.

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Bourn Creative RedesignRead A Rebrand, A Redesign, And A Vision For The Future
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A Rebrand, A Redesign, And A Vision For The Future

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…

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Jennifer Bourn Speaking at WordCamp San FranciscoRead WordCamp San Francisco 2014: Champion Purpose Driven Design in Client Work
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WordCamp San Francisco 2014: Champion Purpose Driven Design in Client Work

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.

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Jennifer Bourn Hosts Drad CastRead DradCast: The Bourn Creative Identity
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DradCast: The Bourn Creative Identity

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:

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.

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SEO TipsRead How to Optimize Blog Posts For Maximum Results And Visibility
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How to Optimize Blog Posts For Maximum Results And Visibility

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.

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Why Keywords Still Matter in SEORead Why Keywords Still Matter In SEO
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Why Keywords Still Matter In SEO

Jennifer Bourn

You may have heard that while the keyword meta tag used to be super effective and highly regarded, nowadays pretty much all search engines don’t even give the keyword meta tag another thought! A lot of websites, even some top authority sites don’t even bother to use the meta keywords tag anymore for this exact reason.

But why did it come to this? Why has the keyword meta tag lost its luster?

Because of keyword abuse (also known as keyword spam). Website owners were stuffing keywords into this meta tag like crazy, sometimes even repeating the same ones over and over, thinking that it would make the page more relevant for that specific keyword.

Many sites even stuffed keywords into the web page keyword meta tag that didn’t have anything to do with the actual page content. It got out of control and soon the keyword meta tag was no longer a viable way to assess what a web page or blog post was really about.

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Writing A Good Meta DescriptionRead Writing an Effective Meta Description
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Writing an Effective Meta Description

Jennifer Bourn

Believe it or not, now you almost have all the basics of natural, organic search engine optimization at your fingertips! I’ve covered how to optimize content, optimize images, and optimize links. We’ve explained what HTML page titles and meta descriptions are, and how to use page titles for SEO — and today, I’m covering how to use meta descriptions for SEO.

Writing a simple, effective, compelling meta description is no harder than writing a simple, compelling, effective sentence or call to action. In fact, your meta description, at the most basic level, is a just short summary of what your web page or blog post is about.

Like your HTML page title, your meta description is very important in attracting new visitors to your website from organic search. Often, but not always, the description shown by the search engines for your web page or blog post is the HTML meta description you write.

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Writing An Effective HTML Page TitleRead Writing an Effective HTML Page Title
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Writing an Effective HTML Page Title

Jennifer Bourn

Yesterday I shared with you the importance of your page titles and meta descriptions and showed you some of the ways they are used. Today we’re going to focus on page titles and get into the nitty-gritty that makes them so powerful.

Creating powerful, client-attracting titles for each of your pages and posts is a low effort, high-impact search engine optimization strategy — as long as you use them the right way — and not a spammy way.

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Get Found More Often OnlineRead How to Optimize Links For Improved SEO
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How to Optimize Links For Improved SEO

Jennifer Bourn

I know there are a lot of different strategies that go into optimizing websites and I love all the little details and opportunities to optimize the content we work so hard to produce.

So far, I’ve shared how to optimize content and how to optimize your images, and today I am going to share with you how to optimize your links.

Optimizing website links is probably one of the simplest strategies you can implement because, there aren’t a lot of options!

I’ll bet you didn’t realize that when it comes to optimizing links on your website for search engines, you’re actually doing your website visitors a favor too.

You see, people and search engine bots move through the internet in the same way, through links. So, by optimizing links, you are creating links that are more descriptive and helpful to your visitors, and more descriptive and helpful for the search engines.

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Search Engine Optimization TipsRead How to Optimize Images For SEO
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How to Optimize Images For SEO

Jennifer Bourn

In my last post, I shared what you should and should not do when it comes to optimizing website content. Today let’s focus on how to optimize website images and photos — it’s actually pretty simple.

At Bourn Creative, we highly recommend that you leverage every free and simple way to boost your website’s SEO and the chances your website has to show up in the search engine page listings when someone is searching for your target keywords and key phrases. One part of that is learning to optimize images for web.

Look at these two images — while they look exactly the same, only one of the images is optimized for search engine optimization.

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Small Business SEO TipsRead How to Optimize Website Content For Search Engines And People
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How to Optimize Website Content For Search Engines And People

Jennifer Bourn

I know SEO can be overwhelming and I know it feels like A LOT of work — because it is. But, when you take time to understand individual elements and strategies, one at a time, it does get easier!

When talking about organic search engine optimization, I always start with optimizing your on page content because it’s the easiest and most natural thing to do. It’s as simple as formatting your content like you would in a word processing program — as long as you follow the best practices.

What You SHOULD Do When Optimizing Your Content for SEO:

First, you need to make sure your headlines and sub headlines are written clearly, and use your focus keywords naturally and in a normal context that makes sense. Be sure not to force it.

Second, use H tags or Heading tags in your content to mark which parts of your content are headlines and sub headlines. The H tags tell search robots that the content is more important than the body copy or paragraph copy — and provide visual cues to readers and scanners.

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Organic Search Engine OptimizationRead What Is Organic Search Engine Optimization / SEO
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What Is Organic Search Engine Optimization / SEO

Jennifer Bourn

The goal of pretty much every website owner I know is to be ranked number one on Google for their preferred keywords and key phrases — but to someday, possibly claim that number one spot, you’ve got a lot of work to do. You’ve got to maintain the site, update it with new, valuable, and relevant content, market the site, and optimize it.

There are three basic components to a well-optimized website:

  • Search engine friendly, user friendly, smart design
  • Compelling content that gets visitors to take action
  • Optimization to maximize your website’s effectiveness

At Bourn Creative, we’ve got you covered with drool-worthy search engine friendly design, and hopefully our blog has helped and provided resources to create compelling content. Now it’s time to optimize your website and all the content in it.

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Responsive DesignRead What Is Responsive Website Design?
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What Is Responsive Website Design?

Jennifer Bourn

When mobile devices first grew in popularity, web designers needed to provide better viewing experiences on the tiny screens. The best solution was creating a separate mobile site.

But then additional devices with varying screen sizes and resolutions began hitting the market. Designers saw how impractical and costly it would be to create different versions of a website for every device/size — and due to the rapidly changing landscape of technology, realized it would be practically impossible to keep up.

As the world of web browsers and electronic devices grew, changed, and improved, consumer expectations also changed.

Consumers today expect to be able to browse the internet as easily on a tablet and mobile device as they can on a desktop computer — and they expect to be able to do it at portrait or landscape view, on any device, and sometimes they don’t even have their browser window open to full size!

Responsive Web Design Delivers The Solution.

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WordPress Website Opt-In BoxRead Add An Opt-In Box to Your WordPress Site To Build Your Email List
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Add An Opt-In Box to Your WordPress Site To Build Your Email List

Jennifer Bourn

An opt-in box, lead capture box, or sign up box is an element on your website with the purpose of capturing leads and growing an email marketing list.

The premise behind a website opt-in box is to capture the names and emails of visitors who want to learn more from you, stay in touch with you, and hear from you in the future — those who aren’t quite ready to hire you or buy from you — so you can market to them by email in the future.

When opt-ins first became popular, simply offering an email newsletter subscription worked great for conversions. At that time having an email newsletter made you cool because not many people had one! But as consumers became more internet savvy, and spam became more prevalent, consumers became more protective of their email addresses and website owners were forced to up the ante.

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WordPress Archive TemplatesRead Understanding WordPress Archive Templates
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Understanding WordPress Archive Templates

Jennifer Bourn

An archive template lists all posts matching specific criteria in chronological order from newest (at top) to oldest (at bottom).

When you publish a new blog post, it is displayed at the top of your main blog page, pushing your older posts down the page. As more posts are published, old posts keep moving down the page until they no longer appear on the main blog page.

These older posts are still available if you click through pages of older posts, or if you click on an archive page link. For example, all posts in Category A are also available in the Category A archive.

In your WordPress site, you’ll have a few different types of archive pages available, including:

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WordPress Page TemplatesRead Understanding WordPress Page Templates
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Understanding WordPress Page Templates

Jennifer Bourn

A WordPress website is made up of a combination of files, software, theme templates, add-on code (plugins), settings, and content and images stored in a database — that all fit together like the pieces of a puzzle to generate the final web pages on your site.

A WordPress theme can use just a couple templates or many templates, including custom templates, depending on the needs of the site it is being created for.

Outlined below are the most common templates found in WordPress themes, along with a sample of one of the basic custom page templates we add to every theme.

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Small Business BlogRead Why Every Business Should Have a WordPress Blog
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Why Every Business Should Have a WordPress Blog

Jennifer Bourn

A blog is a section of your website where new, fresh content is added and published on a regular basis.

Blog posts most often are arranged in order from newest post to oldest post, and can be display in a list, in a grid, or in a Pinterest-style tiled format called masonry.

Starting a blog and blogging for business is one of the most effective and efficient marketing tools available to business owners — especially when combined with a well-planned marketing calendar and content strategy.

  • Blogging can help you get you found faster and more often online by people who are searching for exactly what you offer
  • Blogging can help increase your search engines rankings for the keywords and key phrases you are targeting
  • Blogging can help get your brand and your message in front of new audiences
  • Blogging can help position you as a leader and help you establish expertise and credibility in your niche market
  • Blogging helps people get to know you and keeps you top of mind, and as a result can lead to a shorter sales cycle and an increase in referrals

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WordPress WidgetsRead What Is A WordPress Widget?
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What Is A WordPress Widget?

Jennifer Bourn

A widget is a general term used when referencing a small gadget or mechanical device that has an unknown or unspecified name. So, a WordPress widget is the term used to describe a small area on a website that is used for a specific function.

What that means in plain English, is that:

  • A widget area is like a container for different types of content, and
  • A widget is a smaller container for a specific type of content inside the big container

Widgets were originally designed to provide a simple and easy way to give more control to the website owner over the design and content, and today they are used to add specific types of content and features to a site.

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WordPress Page And Post Content TipsRead Content Tips For The WordPress Page And Post Content Area
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Content Tips For The WordPress Page And Post Content Area

Jennifer Bourn

WordPress began as a blogging platform and quickly expanded into a content management system that powers 22% of the entire internet.

In fact, according to Matt Mullenweg in his State of The Word 2013 address, 69% of those whom use WordPress use is only as a content management system for their website, not as a blog.

The primary content region on a WordPress site is referred to as the content area. It can contain all different types of content, from text and images, to video and audio. The content area is where the primary web page content or blog post content that you write is added and formatted.

NOTE: Even though content can also be put in a sidebar or in a footer, content in those areas are put into widgets, so they have different names such as, sidebar widget area, footer Widget area, Home page widget area, after-post widget area, etc.

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Sidebar StrategyRead Smart Strategies For Your WordPress Website Sidebar Design
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Smart Strategies For Your WordPress Website Sidebar Design

Jennifer Bourn

A website sidebar is a vertical column or vertical bar of supplemental content that is displayed alongside the main content region of a page.

In the old days of the web, most websites used a sidebar/content layout, with the sidebar running down the left side of the web page and the content on the right side of the web page. But today the most common website page layout is a content/sidebar layout, where the content is on the left side of the web page and the sidebar runs down the right side of the web page.

Depending on the theme design, your WordPress website could include different page templates, different layout options, and multiple sidebars, including:

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Jennifer Bourn on WP WatercoolerRead Red Flags: Things That Tip You Off On a Horrible Project
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Red Flags: Things That Tip You Off On a Horrible Project

Jennifer Bourn

Round Two! And it’s a KNOCK OUT.

I joined the awesome folks over at WPwatercooler again for a topic that really got everyone fired up — Red Flags. We’ve all had that client but we didn’t see the tell-tell signs that they are going to be “one of those clients” until it was too late.

In this episode, we discuss the red flag indicators of horrible projects, prospective client red flags, and red flags that indicate it may be time to fire a client and part ways.

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Remover Genesis Framework Blog and Archive TemplateRead How To Remove The Genesis Blog and Archive Page Templates
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How To Remove The Genesis Blog and Archive Page Templates

Brian Bourn

With the recent release of WordPress 3.9, several new features for theme developers were introduced to further enhance what can be baked into new WordPress themes. Devin Price has a great post over at wptheming highlighting many of the new features. The inspiration for the Genesis specific filter below came from his post.

One reason we design and build WordPress themes on the Genesis Framework is the nature in which it is built. With Genesis, I have the ability to add, filter, or remove almost everything.

Up until WordPress 3.9, the Genesis blog and archive page templates were inherited by child themes and there wasn’t a simple way to remove them. Why does this matter? When we build custom child themes for clients, we use a variety functions to remove every unnecessary item and option from Genesis to create a simplified and focused back-end for our clients.

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WordPress Footer and Footer WidgetsRead The Difference Between a WordPress Footer and a WordPress Footer Widget Area
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The Difference Between a WordPress Footer and a WordPress Footer Widget Area

Jennifer Bourn

A footer is the bottom section of a website, usually appearing on all pages throughout the site.

The most common use of a footer is a bar across the bottom of the page that includes the copyright information, and links to the privacy policy and disclaimer pages. Depending on the focus and design of your website, this area may also include your contact information and links to pages such as an affiliate page, a sponsors page, an advertising page, or even the contact page.

A footer widget area is the section above the footer that includes widgets (also referred by users as “boxes”) for content.

Typically the footer widget area is set apart from the rest of the content, either with a colored background, or a line or divider of some type. And, in many cases, they appear on almost every page of the website.

The number of widgets or content “boxes” in a footer widget area is determined by the design of the theme. Theme footer widget areas can contain one, two, three, or even four widget areas (or more) — and while many themes use three or four widgets that are all the same size, they don’t have to be the same size in width or height.

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