502 Gallery

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I just installed a new WordPress site for Rebecca, because her current site is serving as both her painting portfolio and Event space gallery.

Action List

  • WP Install
  • Genesis Theme Install & Start Genesis Child Theme Install
  • Homepage:
    • Hero / Banner:
      • Hero Placeholder
      • Added Banner
    • CTAs:
      • Current Exhibit
      • Classes
      • Workshops
      • Placed images
      • Added copy
  • Pages:
    • Online Classes Category Page
    • Set up category page for “Current Exhibit”
    • Set up category page for “Classes / Workshops”
    • Contact Page
    • Event Category Page
  • Plugin Install
    • SlidersPack – All In One Image/Post Slider
    • Video Conferencing with Zoom
    • Post Types Order
    • Yoast SEO
    • Disable Genesis Schema
    • WooCommerce
    • Formidable Form Builder
  • Configure:
    • Zoom API
    • Jetpack
    • Google
      • Search Console
        • Add Site Maps
      • Analytics
      • reCaptcha
  • Miscellaneous:

Time Sheet

Jason Berlin Studio

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I started a new project to help local artist Jason Berlin with his current website. Currently he has a WordPress.com site, which is generating a lot of unsavory ads on it.

After

Before

Action List

  1. Set up WP on host service
  2. Point domain name to new site
  3. Upload Genesis Themes
  4. Set up https
  5. Set up homepage
    1. Hero Slider
  6. Install plugins
    1. Jetpack
    1. Genesis Favicon uploader
    2. Google Analytics for WordPress by MonsterInsights
    3. Post Types Order
    4. Smash Balloon Instagram Feed
    5. The Post Grid / Pro
      1. Set up Categories
    6. Disable Genesis Schema
    7. Formidable Forms
    8. Yoast SEO
  7. Had a meeting with Jason to go over the homepage, gallery pages, and the menu navigation. Taught him how to create posts.

Wing Chun PDX Redesign

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I have enabled eCommerce capabilities and a student only social platform. This test site is running off the Genesis theme. We found an area of concern about the test-site’s log on speed. I ran some tests below, and while I understand that the test sample is inadequate, feel strongly that Ray’s hosting service is slow. I have optimized the test-site on my host server.

Action List

  1. Install in Genesis Theme
  2. Design homepage
  3. Copy content
  4. WooComerce
  5. Buddypress
    1. Youzer
      1. Fix duplicate button issue
  6. Speed performance
    1. Migrate current test site on Ray’s server to my server: http://test.regroovemeditation.com
    2. Small sample load time tests
  7. Updated: http://www.testsite.wingchunpdx.com/online-documents/
  8. Updated http://test.regroovemeditation.com/ in preparation for Siteground migration
    1. Screaming Frog crawl on https://www.wingchunpdx.com/ for redirects
    2. Created Siteground account
    3. Point Domain (from Dreamhost) to Siteground
    4. Created all redirects for all 404 pages
  9. Added Social login.
  10. Helped client set up reCaptcha

Before

Test Site

Site Speed

These are the various sites for this experiment:

  1. https://www.wingchunpdx.com/
  2. http://www.testsite.wingchunpdx.com/
  3. http://test.regroovemeditation.com/

Test Results

  1. Homepage test of #1 VS 2
    1. #1:
      1. Pingdom
        1. Speed: 1.52s
        2. Performance grade: D 69%
        3. Page size: 2.0 mb
        4. Requests: 117
      2. Gtmetrix
        1. Speed: 4.4s
        2. Peformance: D 67%
        3. Page size: 2.39 mb
        4. Requests: 120
    2. #2:
      1. Pingdom
        1. Speed: 4.02s
        2. Performance grade: C72
        3. Page size: 991.9 kb
        4. Requests: 98
      2. Gtmetrix
        1. Speed: 4.4s
        2. Performance: A 93%
        3. Page size: 927 kb
        4. Requests: 96

Homepage test of #3

  1. Pingdom
    1. Speed: 1.96s
    2. Performance grade: C 74%
    3. Page size: 986.7 kb
    4. Requests: 97
  2. Gtmetrix
    1. Speed: 3.7s
    2. Peformance: B 89%
    3. Page size: 915 kb
    4. Requests: 96

The Art of JKD Redesign

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You know I had planned all of this in advance by taking pictures of this site before my whole redesign, but screen captures of my client’s WIX site are lost!

Above are images as of the site from today. He is actively changing the site to suite his evolving needs. I created a WP site and set up a subscription eCommerce platform using Woocomerce. I also set up video on demand capabilities. Your experience will not get to see these capabilities as my client has a selective clientele procedure–that and he changed his mind to option to use Vimeo on Demand instead.

WordPress Themes

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Elegant Themes

A lot of time it makes sense to design an entire site in WordPress. Why choose a WordPress site? Well it is hard for me to make the call, but as client who needs to be able to update information on the fly without hiring a webmaster you can consider it’s strengths:

  • WordPress is one of the most SEO friendly CMS’s out there. If you have to hire an SEO/SMO expert he or she won’t have to arm wrestle with the development team in getting the data structure optimized for search engines; the expert can jump in and start a campaign to drive traffic to your site.
  • Having a blog is often an excellent way to create and share important content through social media.
  • WordPress has the biggest open source development and plugins.

A lot of the time I use Elegant Themes for my sites. Their features have a lot of user-friendly interfaces. It’s plugin repository is also pretty impressive from a user’s point of view. I can also make a WordPress site from scratch, but that would involve a lot more development time for any developer. By using a premium theme repository it drives time & cost down.