It's been a while since i updated this blog. I am doing so much right now. I have been working on so many life skills. I am taking two courses right now, one is a productivity course by Darren Hardy. I can't say enough good things about it. It's not just helping me with my productivity it's helping me with my stress and life management skills. I feel somewhat in control of my life at the moment.
But, I am also taking a WordPress developer course by Julia from GeekPack. I am struggling to get through it, not because it's hard, but it's just hard for me to stick through something to the end. But, I am pretty proud of myself. So far on Module 6. I am trying to do a half hour to an hour a day. I have had to skip several days. If you want to get better at WordPress, this is a course I would recommend. There are a few things I wish she had included but it's been very informative. The only thing I wish is that she had discussed some of the themes I use. Mainly because I design most of my websites with Elementor and the Astra theme. So, I don't use all the coding skills. And, to be honest I still need to get better at coding. It's weird. I have been designing websites for a long time but I didn't start working with WordPress until a few years ago. I have this love/hate thing with WordPress. I recommend it to all my clients and I do think it is the best platform. But, when a plugin breaks a website or something like that i get really pissed. That is one drawback with WordPress. But all in all, I am getting so much better at WordPress. I can't wait to learn more. I actually have a few Udemy courses saved as well. But, I need to one course at a time. Anyway, life is good in ABQ!
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I recently updated my feminine web design page. I think I am one of the best web designers for women. Unfortunately I don't have enough feminine websites in my portfolio. I am trying to build my portfolio right now, not just for women's websites, but also for my Albuquerque websites. I want to be the best web designer in Albuquerque, but my business is still new.
The funny thing is it's really hard to find inspiration. I see some web design that I am totally jealous of and I am trying to step up my game by adding more animation colors and graphic design. I am actually pretty good at graphic design, but I don't use it enough in my web design. That's one of the things i am trying to change. But finding inspiration is tough. I hardly ever find web design that really inspires me. That I think is really cool or amazing. Most of it is boring. And then I ask myself how are these people charging $3,000 for their design. I don't get it. I especially hate WIX websites. I have tried to use WIX before and it's so limiting. You can't do half the things with WIX that you can with WordPress and it sucks for SEO. But, this is what women seem to like. Oh, and Showit. To be honest, Showit websites look really nice. But, I can do everything with Showit that I can with WordPress. And since I host websites I really don't want to create websites that I can't host. I probably should look around and see if there is a website for web design inspiration. Or shit, maybe I should create one... As if I have time. I do like to look at web design for women though. Regular business websites are usually boring. I love looking at pretty designs that actually look beautiful. So if you are a web designer where do you get your inspiration? Are you jealous of other designers? Does it motivate you or discourage you? And how creative are you with your web design? I have decided to refocus my business. I have gone round and round on whether I wanted to focus on SEO or web design. I like designing websites. There is money in web design. But, I love SEO. SEO provides you with a more consistent income. If someone hires you to design a website, you design their website and then they are done. If someone agrees to monthly SEO services, you have residual income.
I have discovered that a lot of web designers don't know how to do SEO. I have contracts with several other web design companies handling their on-page or off-page SEO. It's kind of cool and gives me the opportunity to get experience with bigger companies that I don't generally target. I like to do affordable web design, so I tend to attract smaller businesses. But, honestly I have a soft spot for small business owners. They stress me out less and like creating a really great website for them. I like doing both web design and SEO. But I have recently updated several of my pages. I have reduced some of my services from my main navigation so I can concentrate on SEO. I am constantly improving my skills and trying to get better at it. I have this vision of being the best SEO Company in Albuquerque. I am trying to be creative with it and have fun with it. It's been a long time since I had a really successful business but I know how to do it. Part of being good at SEO is being consistent. To constantly be working harder than your competition. The unfortunate part of SEO is it involves writing a ton of content. And, even though some of my blogs are low-key. You really can't just write a bunch of crap and expect it to perform well in Google. This blog is more of my outlet and fun place to talk about web design and SEO. But, on my other blogs, and my clients blogs I put a lot of work into my writing. Doing it all. Managing your own SEO and web design company, freelancing, marketing your own business, and having some semblance of a life is hard. But, I am damn determined to get good at this. This is a question that comes up in every web designer group. How much should you charge? I am part of a few and everyone charges so much more than me. I have my own website design company in Albuquerque. I am also an SEO consultant, so I have optimized my site for affordable web design in Albuquerque. When I started my business I thought this was a great idea. And honestly I still do. The drawback to labeling yourself as affordable is that you attract clients with a low budget. That's one of my best ranking keywords, so when I get calls these are usually people with not a lot of money to spend.
I have recently increased my prices (still affordable) because I was doing soooooo much work for very little pay. Most web designers charge three times as much as me. Here's the thing about how much you charge. How much you charge for web design has a lot to do with supply and demand, as well as your portfolio and skill level. If you are a new web designer, you may have to start with lower prices. But, once you develop a good portfolio and some testimonials you can start raising your prices. I have just started doing this myself. However, I am really trying to keep a package that is affordable. I have a soft spot for start ups. I also don't like the pressure of working for huge companies. I prefer mom and pop shops or women entreprenuers. I recently created a page for feminine web design. I'd really like to get more lady bosses to work with. The biggest thing I have learned is that you need to charge a lot more than you think you should to make a living in this business. I started out making websites for crazy prices like $250 for an entire website! That was a big learning experience. My mentor told me that whatever price I thought I should charge, I should triple it. I just started using his strategy and I recommend you do the same. Your skills are valuable, Your time is valuable. And if you are not charging enough you will be exhausted and might as well be working at McDonalds. To anyone looking for an affordable web designer, make sure you ask your web designer questions before you start. A lot of beginner web designers may not have enough experience to do what you want. Also, I have seen so many clients stuck with a web designer who won't transfer their website or domain name if their customer wants to find someone else to work with. So these are just my thoughs for today. Eventually, I will try to update this with more info. Thanks for reading! I don't feel like blogging today. So what am I doing... Blogging. Oh the irony. I write so damn much for clients. It's exhausting. Do you know how tired I am about blogging about TV sets, coffee, vinegar and baking soda. Who's googling this crap. Not me. Well actually I have googled cleaning stuff before. Do you how crap information there is out there... Oh I do...
Because I write a lot of it. Except I don't write crap. This blog is kind of crap but this one I am actually enjoying. Well I am actually trying to have a litle fun with this. To relieve stress. So today I tried to strum up some money on Upwork. I work there for pennies writing crap content so lazy people don't have to write it themselves. Today I decided to start yet another blog. Upwork Goddess! I am doing this for two reasons. One because I want to have another blog to talk about freelancing and Upwork. And two because I really want to play around with WIX (and Weebly). I don't design with WIX. I think it's crap, but design wise I have seen some cool websites made with it. It's actually technically easier than Wordpress. Over on Upwork everyone asks for WIX designers. I can't compete because I don't know what I am doing with WIX. So today Imma play around WIX and create a new blog about freelancing called Upwork Goddess. Not too crazy about Weebly's free version. I kinda think the pay version is better, but it's still kind of basic. It's alright for this blog though. I see a lot of web designers who want to start their own company and don't know where to start. I started my Albuquerque Web Design Company in 2020. Technically, I started in 2019, but I didn't get serious until I moved to Albuquerque. If you are serious about growing your web design company, you can't just design websites. You also have to learn how to do SEO. I currently help several web designers with their SEO because they are great at design but don't know much about search engines.
The first step is design your website When I started my website didn't look that great. I am calling myself a badass, but my website kinda sucked. The funny thing is I see a lot of web designers start out that way. If your website sucks, you aren't going to get clients. So, before you can really get clients make sure your own website looks great. Add content to your website Don't just throw up a couple pages with a few words of text on them. Write really good pages for your website. I like to do feminine web design so I created a page just for feminine websites. Add a portfolio to your website. You might start out with just two or three websites in your portfolio. That's okay it's a start. Make sure your website looks great. Then start looking for clients. How to find clients for your web design company At first, I found most of my clients from Facebook and Facebook groups. If you don't have a lot of Facebook friends start adding business owners as friends. BUT don't SPAM them. Just make friends with them. You will eventually get to know them and when they are ready for a website, you'll be the girl they go to. Offer your friends and family web design for a low price just to get some samples in your portfolio. Consider posting in Facebook groups offering web design for a review or for a really low fee. You have to start somewhere. Getting some samples of your work and building a few relationships with clients will help. Start learning everything you can about search engines If you really want to be successful you need people to find your web design business. Get your business listed in Google My Business and start working on getting reviews. If you really want a a jump start, hire an SEO company to get you going. Once you are ranked well in Google, you can either find out how to do SEO yourself or find an SEO reseller to help you. That's kind of how I got started. I hope this was helpful. 8/3/2021 0 Comments SEO is a lot of workI love SEO. I am actually pretty obsessed with it, but I get so frustrated by the amount of work it takes. And the thing is clients and other people really have no idea how much work it takes to get a keyword to rank well. You don't just put magic keywords on a page. You have to get backlinks, write content, soooo much content. You have no idea how much writing I do in a week.
I am trying to improve my writing speed and get better at blogging. But, I seriously manage a ton of my own blogs. Plus, I write content for clients. And content for guest posts so I can get clients. If you read tips from people who exploded with SEO, they took shortcuts. They paid people to write tons and tons of content. Well, when you're a broke start up Albuquerque SEO consultant, you can't do that. You have to do all the back-end work. All the on-page optimization, which by the way takes a lot longer than you'd think. You have to write tons and tons of content. If you try to write too fast your content ends up totally sucking. I get paid to write SEO content and the pay is cheap. Upwork and Fiverr want to pay you $25-35 for an article that might take you 3 or 4 hours to write. I am trying to get faster, but unless you are an expert on a subject you have to do a lot of research. The research alone takes a lot of time. I keep trying to come up with shortcuts, but as of now I don't have any. So every day I am going to bust my ass working hard until my Albuquerque web design and SEO biz takes off! Imma drive that yellow corvette if I have to write a million blog posts to do it! Oh and I have discovered another thing I don't like about the free version of Weebly. You can't add any headings to your post. Maybe I just need to figure that out, but I think you have to pay for the premium version. ABQ Web Girl! 8/2/2021 0 Comments It's all GoodSo I moved to Albuquerque about a year ago. I met my boyfriend on the internet and went to visit him. After my first visit I was not only in love with him but with Albuquerque. Saul Goodman is like my favorite character on TV. The it's all good thing comes from Albquerque. I figured why not call my second blog post it's all good.
Every day I am going to make a little time to come over here and blog. Well... Okay probably not every day. But this isn't going to be a one hit wonder blog. I really want to put some energy into it. Today I had an amazing day in the web world. I didn't get nearly everything I wanted to get done today but starting this blog was one of my goals. I am trying to get much faster with writing and blogging. In order to get faster you have to write a lot and write every day. This is my fun blog so I don't care if it's perfect. Not right now anyway. So who am I? A web girl from Albuquerque on a mission. I want to become the best web designer in Albuquerque. I want to explore more of Albuquerque and blog about ALbuquerque too. It's truly a beautiful area. I love the weather there, the views and the people. Eventually I wnt to get some really cool pictures on this blog from my travels around Albquerque. But, at the moment I am not even in Albquerque. I am in Michigan trying to sell my house so I can get back to my beautiful home and my boyfriend in ABQ. Okay this blog post is going to be short. Just trying to get a few post started. Tomorrow. I will add my first legit blog post! 8/2/2021 0 Comments Checking Out Weebly todayI have edited Weebly websites beforeBut I have never built a websitefrom scratch before. I decided I wanted to learn some new platforms. I can say I am not a huge fan of Weebly but I can see why a beginner would like it. It's annoying me at the moment because it won't let me publish it. I want to figure this out so I can write a blog here. And also so I can learn how to use Weebly better for clients. I got a little confused at first with how to publish the website. But honestly this was really pretty easy. It's definitely limiting but I want to play around with this some more to figure out what I can do with it, both for this blog and for clients. I recently wrote something on my business blog about WIX vs Squarespace. I was suprised to find out that Weebly has really fast site speed. Aside from it's limitations with design it's not that bad. What I really want to find out is if you can make a Weebly site rank well in Google. I have a client I blog for and none of his blog posts ever rank well in Google. I am trying to figure out what kind of stuff I can change to make his blog better. The first few posts I write over here are just going to be figure out out how this platform works a little better than it does. But, eventually I want to publish more blogs on Weebly. Why Weebly?Well Because Weebly's Free Okay!Not everyone wants to pay for a domain name, especially for a blog you are doing just for fun. I actually want to write some good stuff on this blog. What's the point of blogging if you're just writing crap. But because this isn't using my name just ABQ Web Girl, maybe I can have a little fun with it.
So the life of a web designer and SEO girl involves so much flipping writing. People have no idea how much writing someone who does SEO actually does. For my own blogs and my clients' blogs I spend hours making sure everything looks and sounds good. Everything is search engine optimized perfectly. For this blog I hope to have a little fun. Of course I will work on the SEO though. That I will have to do in stages. Right now I just want to get a few posts up. What is my experience so far with blogging on Weebly? I am so unimpressed. Sorry Weebly. I really want to say this is better than I thought. But from what I can see, in order for me to update my home page I have to manually add each new blog post to it. If you want to add recent posts dynamically you have to pay for a premium app in their app store. It's totally not FREE. I suppose that's why this blog is free. For now I am going to work around it because I don't really want to spend money on Weebly right now. I still want to blog here just because it's free. And to learn more about Weebly. Maybe down the road I will pay for the premium version. Right now I am just learning more about Weebly. I like having a place to talk about my web design stuff and SEO. I'll post more tomorrow. |
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February 2022
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