<authors note: I have about 100 things to add to this portfolio. If you would like to see my complete portfolio, please visit my website, CimmeronStudios.com>

So, I hit the Wordpress CODEX to dig into the best way to create a page that would display posts based on whatever variable I wanted to add, in this case, the category ID.

To begin, be sure to create a new TEMPLATE for your page. To achieve what we want here, we want to MODIFY the existing LOOP. Now, the LOOP is basically what powers your Wordpress site. Here’s the very basics (taken from Wordpress.org)

The Loop is used by WordPress to display each of your posts. Using The Loop, WordPress processes each of the posts to be displayed on the current page and formats them according to how they match specified criteria within The Loop tags.

For a very detailed explanation of the LOOP, check out the Wordpress Codex.

So, back to our page. I’m going to run through this in a step by step fashion.

1. Create a new page template. You can do this by taking the existing page.php and saving it as a template, such as template-portfolio.php.  To do that, you will need to remember to place a bit of code at the top of the page so that WP recognizes that it is a template:

2. Locate the following line of code on this new template page:

3. Next, we will alter this part of the code to display only what we WANT to have displayed. We will do that by using a query:

query_posts

There are a TON of variables that we can use at this point, however, I’m going to use just 2 for this example. Category ID and Number of Posts to display.

The Query has to be added before the loop to make this work, so you will insert your Query like so:

The highlighted area (above) shows you where you’ll be adding your information. Basically, the area between the ( and the ‘ ….

('YourInformation=5&YourInformation=1')

That is where you tell the page WHAT to display. In my example, we have:

posts_per_page=5

5 posts will be displayed on this page

Next we have the important one:

cat=19

This means that ALL POSTS from Category ID number 19 will be displayed.

You can change this by using the Category name, as well: category_name

After you change out your Query values, you can upload the template to your server, go to the PAGE and assign it to that TEMPLATE – That’s all there is to it!

Here are a few other items that you may want to use when customizing. REMEMBER: You can string multiple variables together by using the & as long as you keep everything within the (‘ ‘):

tag=

tag_id=

author=

author_name=

That should be enough to get you what you’re after. Any questions? Feel free to send me an email or comment below!

That said, their customer support is always very helpful!

So, I had a website that needed to be built with Godaddy hosting while leaving the existing site (pointed at a different DNS) live. I wanted to be able to preview the domain as I built it on the server without switching the DNS.

Usually, this is easily done if you’re using hosting such as Bluehost. Godaddy – not so easy. After looking around online for a bit, I decided to call Godaddy and see if they could help. This is what I found:

Login to your Godaddy account and click on HOSTING on the left sidebar menu:

Next, you’ll see the hosting manager. Click on ‘manage account’:

This will open a new window with your hosting account summary. Towards the bottom, you’ll see Primary Domain DNS:

When you click ‘view’, a small box will appear. It will show your CURRENT nameservers, as well as the Preview DNS feature. If it is already activated, as it is in the case below, you can click on the link to see a preview of your site as you are building it. If it is NOT enabled, you can simply click ENABLE, which will allow this to happen. It does take a bit of time to be processed – not more than 24 hours.

When you click Preview My Site, you will see this:

Click on the link and a new window will open with the preview site. NOTE: if you’re building with Wordpress, as I was, you can still login to the backend by using the preview DNS URL and adding /wp-login.php at the end. Works great!

Remember: your website is often a potential customer’s first look at your company. With nearly all, if not all, of your competition sporting websites of their own, you have to be able to stand out from the crowd and present an online ’storefront’ that makes you visually appealing and worthy of a second look.

That said, having just a small amount of the needed skills isn’t enough for a couple of reasons:

• Time – the time it will take you to create a professional looking website is going to be exponentially higher than simply hiring a company to do it for you
• Presentation – it is very likely that you will not possess all of the skills to produce the type of website you are after
• Website builders DO NOT work – they are time consuming & cumbersome to use and typically turn out sites that look, well, like they were built with a website builder.

The skills you will need to design and build a professional website include:

• Design ability – this includes access to and proficiency in one of the many graphic design software programs available, such as Photoshop (the #1 choice).
• Artistic ability – this means you have to be able to take your skills in the design software and turn it into something creative and attractive, as well as functional.
• HTML/coding ability – you will need to take the artistic design you’ve created and know how to get it onto a web page.
• Programming ability – this means that you can make your website do the things you want it to do, such as submitting forms, allowing customers to access a login area, add interactive functions or integrate it with a database.
• SEO/Marketing ability – there’s more to it an just posting a website; people have to find the website for it to be effective.

In short, building a website is a complicated process. Simply OWNING programs like Photoshop or Dreamweaver does not make you a web designer!

There is often the illusion that anyone can make a website; that may be true, however, not everyone can make a professional, attractive website that converts visitors into customers. It may be that you have some of these skills but not all of them. It’s possible to hire a company to do as little or as much of your project as you want them to do but remember, it shouldn’t be about the money.

The money saved by you often comes out as a huge amount of your time spent out of your depth. Meaning that your main concern should be getting more sales/customers to your business and that is where you time is probably best spent. You may save money in the short run, but in the long run, it’s unlikely. If you already have a company brand, hiring a professional website designer is a must to maintain and further your branding and your business’ image.

Ready to hire the best designer for your website design project? Contact me today!

People have emotional reactions to colors; that in turn, can make or break the visitor’s feelings about your website, your brand, your company and ultimately your entire business. Keep in mind that a lot of these reactions happen on the ‘gut’ level, meaning that people don’t even know they are having these reactions!

Also, just like scents, color reactions aren’t the same in every single person, but when you’re dealing with the internet, first impressions (and other people’s first impressions) count a lot!

Let’s take a look at colors and what they ‘mean’:

White – purity, virginity, cleanliness, hope.

Gray - conservative, reliable, maybe a tad boring. Gray is a standard in business clothing.

Blue – calm, trustworthy. Blue is used very often in the financial and health care markets.

Red – anger, violence, lust. Red is a great color to attract attention but should be used sparingly.

Yellow - warm, happy. Has a relationship to eating (McDonald’s arches aren’t yellow for nothing).

Brown – earth, nature. Can also be seen as dirty or unclean.

Black – power. On the internet, black is too often used on pornographic sites, or other sites that are ‘dark’ in nature.

Orange - halloween. Works well and is often used with the soothing power of blue.

Pink – a pale cousin of red, most often associated with feminine pursuits.

Green - money and wealth.

Purple – creativity to a point. Too much becomes garish and dated.

Colors Online

All monitors will display colors differently. There are 216 web-safe colors. If exact colors are important, look into web-safe colors.

Things to consider with colors and website design

• Text – do not use colors or white text on black backgrounds; it’s extremely hard on the eye. Likewise, other light colors on dark backgrounds are very distracting. Unless there is a good reason not to, always stick to dark text on a light background.
• Consistency – colors should be used sparingly and in a consistent manner across a website. For example, if your navigation is black text on a creme background on the home page, it should be the same or a complimentary variation throughout the site. Discordant colors are jarring and leave the visitor feeling ‘unsettled’.
• Bright colors, such as red, yellow, orange, etc., should be used to make points and should not be the main ‘theme’ of a site.
• White is good – white space should ALWAYS be used as a design element. It helps line everything up to the eye, as well as giving the eye ‘resting’ points so that it can fully enjoy the colors in other locations

Bottom line: color is EXTREMELY important, both in attracting a visitor to your site, keeping them there, and making the sale.

What do you think? Do you have the same reactions to colors as I listed above or are your experiences different?  Do you ever use color to make a statement? I’d love to hear your comments.