Whether you’re a DIY’er needing Wordpress or Squarespace assistance, or are looking for a turn-key website, these resources can help to get you to your end point.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Platforms

Squarespace was the first “build your own website” platform that, well, didn’t suck. They continue to evolve the platform and IMHO remain the best of the DIY solutions.

Pros: Nicely designed templates, nice feature sets including e‑commerce and built on a stable platform. All security and platform updates are tested to insure compatibility with their templates.
Cons: Adding anything outside of their standard feature set requires custom development which can be costly.

WordPress is the reigning king of the hill of web publishing platforms. It is open-source, so design options (themes) and the ability to add functionality (plug-ins) abound. The one downside is that hackers are constantly trying to break into your website, requiring regular maintenance and security updates.

Pros: A plethora of design and functionality options that can (mostly) be fairly easily implemented.
Cons: Choices of themes and plug-ins can be overwhelming so they must be vetted well. Requires diligence to thwart off hackers.

In the weeds

Siteground – WordPress web hosting.
I’ve dealt with a lot of web hosts, either my own or my clients’, and have settled on Siteground. Customer support responds within 5 minutes and they offer an extensive feature set that in the long run saves time and money for my clients. Disclaimer: They are based in Russia, but have service centers worldwide. Three previous providers that I was using based in the U.S. were all acquired, after which things went rapidly downhill.

Hover.com is a domain registration service. No doubt you are familiar with GoDaddy (aka NoDaddy) the McDonalds of domain registration. At least McDonald’s doesn’t accost you at the door to order more fries. Hover offers the same service at a similar or lower price point, but without the constant upsell and hard to navigate website.

Themeforest is part of the Envato network where you can get WordPress themes, plugins, stock photography, illustrations, and video clips.

99designs uses a crowd-sourcing solution to provide design services including logo design. It’s a somewhat weird process, but was a good solution for my client Pharmalogic.

More coming soon!