What Geographic Areas Do You Serve?
Although we are local to the Portland, OR area, we actually can deliver websites and serve many on a national and global basis. Our ministry work has taken us to India,Singapore, England, and Brazil, as examples. Contact us for more information.
Do you use themes for your websites? If so, what theme did you use for this one?
We often use themes as a starter point. A theme is more than a template. A theme is a collection of files that work together to produce a graphical interface with an underlying design for a website. In the case of this website, the “backend” is WordPress, and then a multilevel theme process was added for both blog and static site development. We add a commercial framework to WordPress, and then a child theme (or skin) to that. We use both the Thesis and Genesis frameworks. I chose the specific framework and skin for this site after seeing a review that indicated a user using it had more than doubled his conversion rate in a week after switching to it. This was also an inexpensive and professional design. The system can also be progressively enhanced with other features, as I have done with other sites. We can sell you the tools we used to develop this site (we are an affiliate) or do the site for you.
How easy is it for an inexperienced user to modify the site?
You don’t need coding experience. The basic interface is the WordPress interface, and there are plenty of good books (including the Dummies book) out on this from Amazon and local bookstores. In addition, there are lots of online tutorials on WordPress. Using an id and password, you can access the WordPress administrator panel. From this you can add or edit posts and pages and modify the layout. To add and edit pages (the static components) or blog posts, an internal editor comes up and you can type your entry or paste it in from a word processor. Once you get a little experience, you can focus on the content, not the mechanics. We can do progressive enhancements at a nominal fee if coding is required.
What is a “blog”?
A blog is an abbreviation of “weblog”, which is used to describe a website that maintains a dynamic and ongoing flow of information. The blog features a journal type of commentary on a variety of related subjects , normally listed in reverse chronological order. Although there are a few exceptions, most have:
- A content area with articles in reverse chronological order.
- The articles organized in categories, and can be retrieved by category.
- An archive of older articles
- A method for people to leave comments about the articles
- A list of links to related blogs (a blogroll)
- A feedback method, such as RSS, so that people can subscribe to new entries to the blog
Blogs are often quickly indexed by the search engines due to their dynamic nature.
Many websites today have both a blog (or dynamic) component and a static component. This website, for example, has both with a separate menu for each.
If I have a current website, can it be upgraded to one of these theme systems?
Yes, I did this a few weeks ago with a site. We suggest strongly that you keep the same domain name. Changing that will cause you a loss of position and the resulting traffic with the search engines. Typically I can build up the new website on a temporary domain (with the indexing turned off), copying everything to that demo site and develop on it. Once this is working, the demo is moved to the active domain. Generally, moving it from the demo site should take only a weekend.
If I am using a theme now, is it easy to switch to one of your theme systems?
If you are using a WordPress theme, we can export the posts and then import them to the new theme. Some formatting may be lost, but it works pretty well. Static pages have to be reloaded manually, normally a copy and paste procedure. One final step is to update the SEO settings. The old ones will be lost. There is a WordPress plugin for that.
I like the photos with your site. Do these come with the theme system?
The photos here are from various sources in which we purchased the rights to use them. Some of the theme packages have the graphics and photos with them. This at least gives you a starting point. For the Econowebs we do, you furnish the photos and clipart or pay for us to get them for you, an additional charge.
Does the Econoweb site include the theme license?
The layout and back-end of the Econoweb sites use WordPress, which is free and open source; that is, you get the source code. In addition, we generally use a Genesis framework with a child theme to provide the layout. WordPress, Genesis, and the child theme are all covered by the GNU General Public License v2.0. You will have the source code for your site and you can modify it as you wish. You do not have the access to the support forums or upgrades on the Genesis and theme products, only to the WordPress support forum. Genesis and the related themes are commercial products, but can be used and modified freely. It you wish, you can purchase the license rights and gain direct support access and the updates for about $90 for your combined Genesis and theme products. It is not necessary, however, to purchase this to use and modify these. We can also provide support after installation on a per-hour or subscription basis.
Your content that you add to your website is your own. During the development we protect each page with our own copyright. Once the final payment is made, the copyright is changed to you or your organization. All text, charts, and photograph rights are your own. For example, if we see a photo you used and wish to use it on another site, we would have to purchase the rights for that use from whatever source was used.
What is the quality of the search engine optimization?
The basic theme design has the SEO done by a leading SEO expert. From that however, you can control many aspects of the SEO on a page basis. You will get planning sheets by email that tell you how to do this. If you wish, we also sell a subscription product called Scribe that you can use on a subscription basis for your SEO work.
What browsers support your websites?
The website will function on any browser that supports the WordPress installation. That includes almost all browsers.
Do mobile phones support the websites?
The websites will display on iPads, iPhones, and other mobile devices that using the browser on the device. If you wish to optimize your website to display on a smartphone like the iPhone, we can provide plugins or third party services for that.
