LessFuss Design

To celebrate LessFuss Design being a year old, and because I can’t help tinkering with things, I’ve given my own site a complete revamp. This isn’t just a cosmetic touch up though. By starting a blog and learning how to use the excellent WordPress publishing platform, I’m ready to build websites that clients can look after themselves. And at a damn good price too.

Blogging with WordPress

To create this blog I used the excellent web publishing platform WordPress . There are many different publishing platforms out there, but I chose WordPress for a number of good reasons:

• it is one of the most well established web publishing platforms (it started in 2003, which is a long time ago in web terms);
• it is used by literally millions of people across the world;
• being open source, the product itself is completely free, and;
• there is a large community of developers working on new features and enhancements for it.

Within hours of downloading and installing WordPress I was under the bonnet trying to find out how to customize it to look the way I wanted it to. With WordPress you can choose from an (albeit comprehensive) list of designs and layouts – called WordPress themes – for your blog, but I wanted something unique, not a design thousands of others had for their websites. (Well you wouldn’t expect a web designer to use somebody else’s design, would you?)

Fortunately WordPress has been built with flexibility in mind, and it is possible to create your own unique site design and layout, assuming you know the basics of the PHP programming language and some CSS.

After a week or so working on my own site, I’ve now learned how to create a WordPress theme (you’re looking at it right now). And it’s a lot less painful than I had expected it to be, which is good news for anyone interested in starting up a blog that looks great, and more importantly looks like nobody else’s.

WordPress flavours

There are two ways to use WordPress: a free blog hosted at wordpress.com, and the full product you download, install and host yourself.

WordPress for free

If you are happy to choose from a list of blog themes that other people can use too, and you don’t mind your blog not being part of your main website, then go along to www.wordpress.com . You can get an account and be publishing your writing in about 15 minutes. It’s dead easy and free too, and you don’t need to be paying any web developers or consultants to help you with it. There’s only limited scope to change how your site looks and works, but it’s perfect for it’s intended audience – people who just want to get writing.

Hosting WordPress yourself

If however you want a blog that’s incorporated into your existing website then I highly recommend you go for the full WordPress product. Again it’s free, but instead of it being hosted somewhere else, you have to set up the databases, install and configure the product, and get it all working. That’s the bit I’ve learned how to do, and I’m keen to start doing it for interested clients.

There are costs involved, for the databases, hosting and domain names, but we’re talking less than £100 a year. If you run a business, and you have a brand to maintain, then having your blog matching your website is absolutely essential, and it will quickly become a vital mechanism for you to communicate with existing and potential customers.

Not just for blogging

WordPress doesn’t stop with the blog. It is primarily known as a blogging tool because that’s how most people use it, but it is powerful enough to run an entire website, with the tools to allow anyone to manage the content on it without even the slightest bit of technical knowledge.

So if you like the idea of having a website that you can change whenever you want to (without having to wait for the Web Guy to get around to doing it) – and you don’t want to pay through the nose for it – then give me a call, because I’ve learned how to do it and I’m keen to start doing it for others.

Prices

I charge £300 to design and develop a WordPress theme for your blog, and to get the system installed and configured. On top of this there are annual payments for the hosting and the required database, so the first year total for an accessible – and unique – blog would be £400.

Sounds expensive? Remember that once it’s set up, you can manage all the content on your site yourself, after a bit of training. Think about what you’d save by not having to pay a web designer to make small changes to your site every time you want something done (and wait days or weeks for it to happen).

Web design firms call this content management – giving clients a website they can maintain themselves afterwards. Take a look around and see what other firms are charging. I’ve seen it run into thousands.

I’m planning on writing an article soon on why all small businesses should be keeping a blog, but in the meantime if you have any questions, either about blogging in general or my design service, feel free to get in touch with me and I’ll be happy to answer them.