In last nights episode of the WordPress Podcast we discussed setting up a website for small businesses in WordPress. One of the things I touched on in that discussion is that we outsource a lot of our development work, especially slicing PSD's to HTML or even directly to WordPress themes, both for Yoast and for OrangeValley.
I thought it might be useful for all of you to share with you which company we use for that. We've worked with several of them, some of them good, some of them not so good, but we've had the best experience working with a company called ShopHTML.
The difference, for projects that we do, is in the level of customization teams are able to do to a theme without having to be told specifically what to do. If we include star ratings in a design, ShopHTML will usually come back to us and say "hey, we've got this solution, would that work for you" instead of just adding the stars as images into what actually should be a fully functional WordPress theme.
Win a free PSD to WordPress Theme conversion!
I talked about sharing this with all of you with Absar from ShopHTML, (who's btw very responsive through email and IM, something we always appreciate in an outsourcing partner). Rather than doing some affiliate scheme we decided we'd make it fun for everyone: we're going to be giving away a free PSD design to WordPress theme conversion (and I get one too myself, it's good to be me sometimes). All you have to do is come up with a suggestion for a post you want me to do, here on Yoast.com, and leave a comment below on what the post should be on, and why you'd want me to talk about that topic specifically.
Next week, wednesday May 26th, at noon CET this competition closes, and I'll pick a winner! The winner will not only get his or her free PSD design to WordPress conversion, but also the post they asked for, so, let's hear those great ideas!
wow I thought they're prices would have been alot more than the psd to html companies I've seen after what you've said about then. But infact its quiet the opposite.
I missed the Pod Cast so I'll try and catch it this weekend
Hey Darren, cool, they're indeed not as pricy as one might think :) If you want to join into our little competition, let us know ;)
I'd love to see a post on common coding mistakes that slow down a site :P
Hi Joost,
thanks for the great website with tons of information on WordPress and blogging.
What I would like to know is about WordPress hosting, models of hosting for newbies, WordPress CPU usage (everyone has a story about this) with plugins. Thanks again.
I want to know more about wordpress creation your own plugin and using the existing functionality like a datagrid and paging. This because I want to go from .NET to .PHP so I can go and use wordpress but I need first to build my own plugins for specific table tennis functionality.
And offcours a nice smouth wordpress template come in handy when skipping to wordpress ;-)
Hi Joost,
I've used PSD2HTML.com for many projects and they've been great. I'm wondering if you have any specific comparisons between the two firms?
Thanks,
Josh
Hi Josh, I've used them too, and have to say I'm inclined to say ShopHTML is better because they're communicate more and better and thus "get" what you want better.
Joost,
This would be great to win. I spent some time on their site after seeing this post. I have to say Absar from the site got a hold of me via their chat box and was very professional and nice. It's hard to come by sites like that anymore.
Forgot my suggestion...
I think the top thing is how to use WP as a CMS. Details on what plugins, how to control the different aspects, jQuery use, etc. My second choice would be a detailed explaination on how to 1. create a PSD for WP, 2. How to slice it and code it and 3. installing the final results.
Another cool company I have seen is CodeMyConcept. They used it in my firm and they were incredibly happy with the outcome.
Hi Joost,
Great idea. I have always been looking for an article that explains the mistakes you have made and learned from through your blogging experience, or a "10 things I would change if I had to start all over" kind of article.
I think it would be of great benefit to newbies like myself.
Hello,
What I would really like for you to do is how to use WordPress as a CMS tool for Corporate Websites, and not a blog. A Start to Finish from Concept to Deployment. This includes standard Home, About Us, Why Us, Services, and a Blog, etc. This would include adding jquery or other libraries for accordion paragraph effects, or one of those scrolling image boxes that we see replacing flash in many instances.
To really finish things off, you could show how to create a custom PSD file for this new site and how SiteHTML would splice it and put it live.
We like WordPress for Blog type sites, but I know more and more people are using it as the basis of a good CMS system for smaller Corporate Image type websites.
Thanks,
Roger
Congrats Roger, you've won! I'm starting to outline the post now and will drop you an email in a few minutes with the details of the prize :)
YEA! I really look forward to the post!
My biggest question: Why is it that no one has come up with a good WYSIWYG theme (or child theme) development tool for WordPress? Hand in hand with that would be listing the challenges that have made this elusive.
DLE,
They've already got what you're looking for. It's called Artisteer.
I played around with the demo of Artisteer - I was very impressed, very easy-to-use, rather flexible. With that said, though, I was not thrilled with the code output nor did I find it as flexible as I would like. At the end of the day, you are stuck with similar layouts almost every time.
With that said, I plan to check them out again sometime in the future and see how they develop.
Ed,
Thanks for the tip! I had not heard of this product.
I was going to ask whether it produced tight code and offered great flexibility in design, but Moshe seems to have answered those questions in the negative. I would ditto that this is a product to watch, though.
Since WordPress 3.0 is coming soon and you and your company are doing a lot of WordPress implementations I would like to see some more in-dept articles about merging site from xxx to WordPress. What are the pitfalls, do's and don't, etc.
Hi Yoast,
I have two suggestions:
1. WordPress is the best blogging system in my opinion. But what do you think WordPress can improve in the future? So i'd like to see a post with the Top X future improvements of wordpress.
2. Another subject which interests me is Magento. You already posted a great article about Magento seo optimalisation. Maybe you can blog about the best conversion improvements for Magento (or a webshop in general). Especially for a webshop attracting visitors in the first step, the second step (conversion) is just as important or even more important.
Hope you pick out one or both of this suggestions :).
Keep up the good work.
Marcel
I would love to see an episode about client training. We use WordPress as a CMS and have tried tons of solutions to train our clients and none have been perfect.
Thanks,
Daniel
Hi,
Absar seems friendly :) Some very reasonable pricing he's got going on there so we'll definitely give him a shot for our next project.
It would be nice to see a blog post regarding how to go about prepping the WP back-end before handing it over to clients. Which plug-ins could be used for modifying/hiding elements that otherwise would just confuse the client. Something along those lines :)
Cheers,
Peter
All kinds of articles on how to extend WP further with the added functionalities in WP3.0 like custom taxonomies and custom post types are always welcome ;)
I too am boning up on the new WordPress3 whiich is a significant upgrade. What I need to know how is HTML5 going to integrate into WordPress3 I think a post about WordPress post 3 and where wordpress is going with their upgrades.
[Sorry long..] Hi,
I do often use WordPress as a CMS. I do organise workshops to let new designers see the power of WordPress. They want to make simple websites, for there first WordPress clients. They want templates that can be easily used as a start. Quick, a little amount of PHP pages, no functions.php or a real simple one, XHTML/CSS, no scripting and guiding through comments.
Or, another one: let newbies know what is the difference between building a website with a CMS like WordPress. When do we speak about WordPress code, and when do (more experienced) designers talk about XHTML and CSS. I hear: "I made my website with WordPress" but that is not true. Talk about the basics and rendering XHMTL/CSS and scripts, and after that talk about WordPress.
I have lots of nice work to do, and my 'bottle of time' is nearly empty, so I really am going to try the ShopHTML service. Thanks for the tip.
please comment my website
Wow this is exatly what i'm looking for, never expected their price to be so reasonable.
They can expect tons of work from me in the coming months, all thanks to this post!
Cheers
Hi Yoast,
That's great timing! I've got a few clients coming up who'll need such a service in the very near future.
In terms of a topic - I'd find it super helpful if you could discuss how you arrive at charge out rates & incentives when consulting with your clients.
ie. Do you charge flat fee per hour? Or is it incentive based? Or a combination of the two (retainer + Commission). if incentive - based on what? Ranking on Page 1 of Google for SEO work? Number of Conversions? ROI?
Keep up the *great* work - have loved following you on RSS and podcast :D
Adam
Hey Yoast
Thanks for this.
Ive used Pixel Crayons a few times and been pretty happy with them, will defs look at these guys.
I would like to hear more about WP3 about to be released. Id like to get a better understanding about custom posts and what it means for WP as a cms.
Lee
Hi Yoast, thanks for the opportunity to request a post.
I'd like to see something about information architecture -- both in terms of usability and for SEO.
For example, how to best organize your pages to convey your message and identity most clearly to your visitors and guide them towards a desired action.
At the same time how SEO factors into this mix -- and is there ever any tension between usability and SEO considerations?
Or from another angle, how the underlying architecture concerns might vary in different scenarios -- i.e, a freelancer portfolio site vs. a larger corporate site.
Information architecture is one of the things I'm often interested in when visiting a site, but it seems to get less attention than other areas.
This topic could easily fill a bookshelf of course, but your insights would be welcome :)
Hi Yoast,
With WP 3 coming out I am interested in a tutorial/review about upgrading from
WPMU 2.9.2 to WP 3. Issues about upgrading, etc
There will be some issues I am sure, if not I will be delighted.
I'm always wonder everytime I got WP-Theme, they give me psd file, and don't how to do with it. Your posting finally clear my doubts
I'd like you to give us some tips and tricks about building a small community site with a free and a payable membership.
Thats great if i will win a chance of free PSD conversion.
I will wait ur next post and wud like to suggest a post about wp functions files or how to use them while making theme.
Yoast,
As someone from the Netherlands, I guess you sometimes face the exact same problem as I have, being from Belgium: When you look up keyword information for the Dutch language via Google KeywordTool or Trends, most of the time there is not enough search information to show anything usefull, since not a lot of people speak Dutch, compared to English.
So a subject for your next post could be, the ways that you overcome this problem, and tips on how to handle these situations.
I'm sure a lot of your readers blog in a foreign language, and face this problem.
Also for international sites that support different languages, this could be interesting.
Hope you like the idea, and we can see a new post about it soon.
(It's a good addition to your WordPress MU post ;-)
PS: I would really welcome the free WordPress Theme conversion from ShopHTML! I would use it for my band's out-of-date website, I'm sure you will agree that it could use a restyle ;-)
Yoast,
I run http://www.graduatetutor.com and am considering wordpress as a cms to drive my content. I have two suggestions for a post:
1) Top 10 reasons to use wordpress even for static websites
2) Top 10 SEO tips for wordpress.
Thanks
I would like to see a time saving tips from Yoast article. For example.. I integrate my windows calendar with my weekly website posting schedule to send me reminder emails weekly which save me alot of headaches and helps me maintain a consistent posting schedule.
I know many of us own multiply websites so saving time is of utmost importance so any time saving tips and advice in a article form would be really handy especially me being new at the trade.
I've been using wordpress to set up cms sites, mostly small business, and it's great. but here's what I would like you to cover...
A shopping cart plugin that will really work
Discuss paid membership plugin(wishlist vs amember)
Clients are asking for more ecommerce (more and more)
cheers!
Joost,
I'd really be interested to hear your advice on how to approach advertisers and how to choose what rate to set CPM-wise. There is very little discussion of this from what I've found googling and what is available is outdated. I'm sure there are many bloggers who get approached by advertisers and have no idea if they are scaring them away by setting up a too high rate or if they are leaving money on the table by giving a rate that is too low.
Thanks
Hey Joost...your WP info rocks.
I have a biz (physically shipped fullfilled products) 1.5 yrs old in a niche of Car Scratch Removers (was discoverd & built from kw
research). I have three sites right now one strictly organic, one PPC, and a third WP theme
for a blog which is coming on strong for organic search.
My question: I want to know what is one of the best WP theme store fronts to use or if that a loaded question what are the things to watch out for or to look for in a WP theme store, I want video integrated in to the product descriptions? I use Infusionsoft for my CRM. I have a shopping cart / store hosted with Infusionsoft and the store front stinks! So I want to host my own store with a WP theme and use direct links to the Infusionsoft shopping cart component (since its very powerful for tagging, segmenting and follow up). I need a waaay better user experience for my shoppers and want video integrated for product education.
I would love to hear your expertise on e-commerce and wordpress. What is the best plugin to use or not use. Most are easy to use with google checkout or paypal, but I would like to know how to integrate a gateway using my own merchant account. I would also like to be able to easily tweak the css. Finally-would you even recommend wordpress for e-commerce or would you use a different program?
A good post would be to list a set of recommended steps to help with secuirty settings during a new install and tweaking what is already installed.
Topics such as not using or removing the admin userid. Step by step suggestions.
Hi Joost,
I would love to hear your expertise on simplifiying the process of creating a website more specifically for health professionals through WordPress.
I'm a Marriage and Family Therapist and would like the look of a home page and other
informational pages, with options for plug-ins for scheduling and payment for sessions, location
map, calendar for specail events, and optional blogging capabilities. There are a lot of health professioanls out there that are just beginning to look at options for creating websites for their private practices!
And I'd love the possiblity of receiving a free PSD design to WordPress theme conversion!
★★★★★★★
Future-proof your current WP development to avoid major hassles with the coming WP Version 3 upgrade.
★★★★★★★
Hello Joost,
I develop WordPress sites and would like to know how to roll in some sort of version control like Subversion. I know with pages and posts you can leave them as drafts and, somewhat easily, go through and release theme or schedule them for release. Where I see more of a challenge is when you are actually making site design changes that you need to fully build out and test before releasing. How do you deal with this within the WordPress environment.
And, if you don't find the benefit in this topic, I'll place my vote for Nanette with her topic on eCommerce integration within WP.
Cheers,
Jeff
WP is becoming more and more flexible and simple to use. I'd like to see an article on how to use all it's different elements on pages outside of the actual wp blog on the same site and on other sites.
With your inside and out knowledge of wp an article would be a great learning resource for us!
I'd like to know more about plugin development. What you need to know plus a simple plugin example/walkthrough.
And the non tech, where to outsource plugin creation. Maybe how to make clear exactly what you want your plugin to do.
I'd like to see an article on creating a seamless wordpress/magento site with a common theme (possibly calling elements of wordpress in magento and vice versa).
Hi Joost,
I'd relay like lists of mast have plugins divided by website type like for a e-commerce, blog, paid membership site, news site with multiple blog roles, social site especially with wp 3 with its possibility to run wpMU on any site, forum and directory. I guess that's it cant think of any more right now but I think the Idea is clear.
thanks for this realy cool blog you got and all the great information you share with the wp community!
Hi, I think shophtml have very good prices.. so cheap.
My suggestion for a new post is about automatization and wordpress. Some days you find something good in a website and you would write about in your blog. You must log into your dashboard and write.. but there are some tools, extensions, plugins to make this work more faster and easy.
Hi. Thanks for the pointer - have been looking to outsource this for a while now. I'll give them a try.
For the competition, I'd like you to blog about wordpress performance management for newbies. With the merge of mu with regular wp, I am betting lots of people will enable "multi-sites" but most of these people (including me) have no idea how to optimise it for optimal, efficient, and not-pricey performance. It would be great to learn it here. :) Thank you!
Looks good and all, but how come they can't spell browsernames right? http://www.shophtml.com/examples.php
shophtml sure uses a lot of table-based layouts. Not desirable.
Someone else here mentioned Artisteer. Avoid that one with all costs unless you just want code that is a complete disaster.
Funny thing I keep noticing about all this cheap outsourcing people tout: you still get what you pay for.
I'd be just as much interested to find a company that can take a current theme that I built and optimize it for wordpress. I've had no luck finding such services so far.