Never in a million years would I have believed I’d end up having a career as a web designer but when I got the bug, I was unstoppable. The truth is I gave away a lot of work while I was building my portfolio. It was a worthwhile investment but here are a few ideas that may be helpful if you are considering a career change or ready to make the leap to freelance.

Learn more about working with Squarespace and how Sharon got started as a Squarespace designer and Circle Member. “Sometimes failure is the best incentive to succeed.”

This is the request that makes me cringe. Can you improve my Squarespace site speed? Short answer, yes but better to take proactive steps before this becomes a problem.

READ AT STYLE FACTORY PRODUCTIONS

Interested in customizing your Squarespace site but don’t know how to code? No problem.

Check out some of the free and fabulous resources I use on a regular basis to take my clients’ sites to the next level.

READ ARTICLE AT FIVEDESIGN.CO

Squarespace has an excellent and elegance eCommerce solution but there are certain design elements that can be lacking. For example, the cart function and checkout. Here is a list of Squarespace friendly plugins that you can purchase to take your store to the next level.

READ ARTICLE AT KATESCOTT.CO

This is a question I get frequently, “If I redesign my site will it affect my SEO?”. Honest answer is it depends.

READ ARTICLE AT THE MANIFEST

Why I believe my nightly dance parties and high kicks have made me more productive, grounded and happier.

WATCH VIDEO AT MARIE FORLEO

Take a look at the before and after for this non-profit who offers great programs to teach and mentor high school age kids in architectural design and process.

WATCH VIDEO

Learn about the best CMS tools for your website design project - WordPress, Squarespace, or Wix. Discover the pros and cons of each platform to make an informed decision.

A brief overview about the different capabilities of Squarespace 7.1 versus 7.0.

Trend changes in web design may not be as obvious as fashion trends but they do exist. Like fashion, you can pick and choose what works for you but here are a few things to consider if you want to give your site a quick refresh.

If you are a photographer, artist or fashion brand that relies on visuals you probably have an over abundance of your own images to choose from.

True story, the first time I used Squarespace was about 9 years ago. A friend hired me to design a site for her new business and by "hire" I mean she was going to buy me dinner in exchange. At this point, I had been designing for fun for myself and friends and I had never worked with SS. Let's just say it did not go well. She "fired" me - though I still got a steak - and she hired a professional. It really hurt my ego but it also lit a fire and I've been obsessed with SS ever since.

I recently worked with a client who had me convinced I was losing my mind as what I saw and what they saw was completely different. It took us awhile to figure out I was designing for desktop first and they were viewing the site on a tablet. Once I learned this it allowed me to shift to design for mobile first.

Detailed breakdown of Kinsta's WordPress hosting plan and costs. Highly recommended though cost may be prohibitive to some.

Re-post from Elegant Themes

When people first started talking about SEO I thought it was a hoax. Until I took an entry level class that is. I now have full respect for people who make a living as SEO managers. It requires a lot of research and ongoing, active maintenance.

Unless you have the good fortunate of celebrity status, your name is probably not enough to attract attention to your site. Your website should act as a repository for all related sources aka links to help elevate and provide authority to your site. The more valid (repeat, valid) links tell Google that you are legit and connected to other valid (repeat, valid) sites.

Redesign from Wix to Squarespace. Includes lots of bloopers if you need a good laugh.

Whether you choose images as part of your story telling or product selling, they are an undeniably important and impactful part of your website. Aside from choosing the right images, optimizing them to ensure they don’t slow down your site is also critical and directly relates to your SEO ranking.

Quick overview of how to use Google Ads to help with your key word search.