Marian stopped by our booth at the Pensacola Business Expo last weekend and entered our drawing to win this free website and 250 matching business cards.  A huge thank you to everybody that took the time to stop and chat with us.  We got many awesome entries and would have loved to work with everybody.

For those of you that entered but didn’t win the contest, keep in mind you have a 10% off coupon that doesn’t expire and can be used for your first purchase with OOgly Eyes Designs!

INCLUDED!

Business Cards (250 ct):

• Includes one design with up to 3 revisions. (Logo if desired must be provided by the contest winner)
• Printing services provided by GotPrint & will be delivered to the contest winner.

WordPress Website:

• Includes 2 sketches, one design and up to 3 revisions.
• Logo, photos and content must be provided by the contest winner
• Includes the creation of a custom theme using the finalized design.
• Installation of WordPress as a CMS.
• Programming & Design Enhancements Included
  • Google Map Integration
  • Animated Flash Slideshows with user management
  • Image management, upload/edit/remove as well as thumbnail creation as needed
  • Blog/News area with user updates
  • Comprehensive Web Form Builder – create/edit forms for the web with ease

• Content Entry
• Cross-Browser Compatible

Search Engine Optimization:

• Research & implementation of keywords & phrases
• Keyword ranking reports (Before & After)
• Submission to all major search engines & directories
• 60 Day Follow-up

Social Media Setup & Design

• Set up Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn
• Provide and add graphics (profile images, icons, background image)
• Link to and promote new website!

Domain Name & Web Hosting

• Includes 30 days FREE web hosting.  Web hosting services will be provided by Hosting Matters. After 30 days, the  contest winner will be responsible for maintaining the cost of chosen plan. ($96.00/yr or $8/mo)
• Includes 1 year FREE domain registration for your chosen domain name through Dotster.  (ie: http://www.yourdomain.com)

“Failed to send your message. Please try again later or contact
administrator by other way.”

After searching, and following broken and long drawn out explanations on how to remedy the situation I’ve found a simple solution. Amen for simple solutions!

1. Install this little plugin: WP Mail SMTP

2. Enter the “From Email:” that matches the email address under your “General Settings”.

3. Enter a “From Name”.

4. SMTP Host: relay-hosting.secureserver.net  SMTP Port: 25

5. Choose “No Encryption.” and “No: Do not use SMTP authentication.”

6. Ignore other settings and SAVE CHANGES!

Pretty, eh?  No complicated tutorials. No following broken suggestions.

UPDATE (June 21, 2011):

If you find you are still having trouble, send me a quick email. I recently discovered though another client having issues that the settings were not being saved properly and required changes to the plugin file directly.  Once I hard coded the changes to the file, all was fine.

Stop by the OOgly Eyes Designs booth #76 to receive your 10% OFF EXPO COUPON, and enter to win a FREE CUSTOM WEBSITE for your business built using WordPress as a CMS.  VALUED at $3950! Just sign up for our email newsletter! The winner will be announced in our newsletter on June 18th, 2011!

Vendor Layout (click here)

INCLUDES:

Business Cards (250 ct):

• Includes one design with up to 3 revisions. (Logo if desired must be provided by the contest winner)
• Printing services provided by GotPrint & will be delivered to the contest winner.

WordPress Website:

• Includes 2 sketches, one design and up to 3 revisions.
• Logo, photos and content must be provided by the contest winner
• Includes the creation of a custom theme using the finalized design.
• Installation of WordPress as a CMS.
• Programming & Design Enhancements Included
  • Google Map Integration
  • Animated Flash Slideshows with user management
  • Image management, upload/edit/remove as well as thumbnail creation as needed
  • Blog/News area with user updates
  • Comprehensive Web Form Builder – create/edit forms for the web with ease

• Content Entry
• Cross-Browser Compatible

Search Engine Optimization:

• Research & implementation of keywords & phrases
• Keyword ranking reports (Before & After)
• Submission to all major search engines & directories
• 60 Day Follow-up

Social Media Setup & Design

• Set up Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn
• Provide and add graphics (profile images, icons, background image)
• Link to and promote new website!

Domain Name & Web Hosting

• Includes 30 days FREE web hosting.  Web hosting services will be provided by Hosting Matters. After 30 days, the  contest winner will be responsible for maintaining the cost of chosen plan. ($96.00/yr or $8/mo)
• Includes 1 year FREE domain registration for your chosen domain name through Dotster.  (ie: http://www.yourdomain.com)

Yes, that would be me.  Give me a script to download and play with and I’m all over it.  Sometimes, however, my enthusiasm for the power and function of a script doesn’t always translate well to the user that will have to maintain the site once I’ve packed it up and sent it home to it’s new owner.  I always hope that once they’ve seen it in action, and played with the administration area, that my OOglyness for the site will be catching, and they will fall head over heels in love with it – as I have.Sadly, this is not always the case.  With that said – I am always looking for the simplest solution for the clients that I built websites for.  Keeping in mind that not everybody has the same love for websites as I do.  Keep it simple. Make it functional. And keep -their- future website needs in mind.

I had a conversation not too long ago with somebody about CMS (Content Management Systems), and viability of WordPress for large companies.  I love WordPress - no secret there. But I also understand it does have it’s limitations.  This conversation sent me off looking for other CMS options for companies that require something a bit more robust for their websites.  This comparison done at Top Ten Reviews shows an interesting breakdown of what each CMS does offer, as well as user reviews for 2010.

Joomla!, eZ Publish, WordPress.org (as opposed to WordPress.com) and Drupal are our top-ranked systems. Not only did these systems consistently finish at the top of the side-by-side comparisons, in many cases the gap between these and the rest is significant. Begin here by narrowing the field based on your most-needed features. From there, move to a test phase – spend time on the demos – in the end it will be up to you to determine what the best CMS is for your specific project and skill set. For example, WordPress.org is shown to be one of the best when it comes to scope and purview while Joomla! seems to be the first choice for business and e-commerce sites (for non-developers). But every potential user is searching for a unique set of features.

As exciting as it is – the real time information from Twitter, Facebook, RSS feeds pulling information & headlines into all of these medias for us to have at our disposal without spending hours searching for it; I can’t help but wonder what that means for those of us that have spent years mastering the art of search engine optimization.  Those that have spent thousands of dollars working so hard to get the best placement for their websites on Google, Yahoo, etc. will now have to re-evaluate their advertising methods online to keep up with businesses that have a more “in your face” presence on the web.

In his article he mentions the delayed results of information in the search engines. Events finding their way to the listings after the fact – as Google doesn’t index websites in real time.  Will this change? Search engines clearly have their work cut out for them if they intend to compete with these new information avenues that have opened up.

What do we do now?  If you haven’t already – familarize yourself with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Bebo. Learn how to use them, what they’re capable of.  Also, make sure your website has an RSS feed that these networking places can pick up.  It’s effortless advertising.

A shameless plug for WordPress based websites? Absolutely.  WordPress as a content management system can take care of all of these things for you. With a few simple plugins – each post you make to your site can be broadcasted to all of the above social media avenues, and more, with zero effort from you.  Want to know how? Contact me for information. I’d love to share!