Big changes at BB

By aj

I’ve been up to lots of good (hopefully) with Beest Built lately. I’ve changed a whole bunch about how the site – and my business – operates.

New levels of websites

The first change is that I’ve decided to offer three different levels of websites: free, “serious,” and “everything.” Those names are subject to change, by the way. The free sites will show up as subdomains of beestbuilt.com (ie. myfreesite.beestbuilt.com), will contain ads for Beest Built, Google, and potentially Amazon, and will be limited in their selection of themes, plugins, as well as server resources. Despite their limitations, I think these free sites will be a very nice option for people who are new to websites and are just testing the waters, or who don’t mind the limitations I’ve imposed on the sites.

The next level of websites is where we get “serious.” That level includes a whole bunch (135, at last count) premium WordPress themes, and I’m also willing to install themes that people find elsewhere. I also include a dozen or so very helpful plugins that help with everything from custom menu generation to search engine optimization to affiliate marketing. The best part of this level (I think!) is that you can map your domain to your site, so all your traffic will go to www.yoursite.com. This is the level of website that I think will be really good for most business, organizations, and people who want a solid web presence that’s not too complicated and easy to manage.

The final level of sites – “everything” – lives up to its name, and then some. Need a bulletin board? You got it! How ’bout a store front so you can sell your goods? No problem! Want a site to handle event registration? Can do! Your very own in-house social network? Coming right up!

New ways of building sites

While I love getting elbow-deep in the code of a website, not everyone needs that level of geek-dom for their site to get its job done. I’ve been exploring new ways of building websites that maintain a very high quality of code while significantly speeding up the process and reducing the cost. No longer will it take weeks, or even days to get online with Beest Built. Now you can have your base site online in just a couple clicks, upgraded to the “serious” level with a quick PayPal transaction, and be contemplating world-wide domination with your new “everything” site ten minutes later. To say I’m excited about this new direction would be an understatement!

All this website building happens on the shoulders of WordPress, an open source content management system that cut its teeth on helping people build blogs, and has since moved on to being an excellent choice to manage full-fledged websites. In fact, Beest Built is happily powered by WordPress, too!

New pricing

These new tools and methodologies mean I can offer sites cheaper than ever before. In point of fact, I’m moving Beest Built to a “freemium” payment model. That means I’ll offer a free, basic level of service (the one with ads, etc.) in addition to my premium levels of service (the ones that add functionality). That’s great news for new Beest Built customers, but what about those of you who have recelntly purchased sites from me? I definitely value your business, and I want to make sure you’re happy. If you’re good with what you have for a contract with Beest Built, that’s great! If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. If you’re feeling a little miffed right now, drop me a line and I’ll do what it takes to put a smile back on your face!

That’s the news from Beest Built country right now. Enjoy your site, and please tell everyone you know about Beest Built!

All the best!

-aj

How to attach documents to WordPress posts and pages

By aj

Often times, we’ll want to attach some kind of document (Maybe a PDF or a spreadsheet? Who knows?) to a page on our website. The steps to do this in WordPress aren’t immediately apparent, so I’ve created some instructions for you:

Here are the steps:

• Go to “Media > Add new”
• Drop your file in the uploader box
• Copy the file URL (right under the uploader box)
• Click “Save all changes”
• Create your anchor text and highlight it
• Click the “Insert/Edit link” icon (the chain)
• Paste into the URL box
• Click “Add link”
• Done!

What else are you struggling to do in WordPress?

Quick, easy, and (almost) free!

By aj

Websites with WordPress

You want a website, you don’t have a lot of money to spend, and you have other things to do than learn the minutiae of HTML, CSS, and webserver administration. WordPress to the rescue!

WordPress is a system that was initially designed and built to make blogging easy, but has grown to be capable of handling the needs of most small and medium-sized websites, too. In fact, the Beest Built Websites is powered by WordPress! Here are WordPress’s advantages:

Quick

WordPress is extremely fast to set up. You can be up and posting your content to the rest of the world literally in ten minutes. Once your site is set up, using WordPress’s streamlined interface makes it very quick to post new content to your site or change the content you already have.

Easy

WordPress has excellent instructions, an easy, intuitive user interface, and a very broad base of friendly users spread around the world. These three elements make it a snap to find answers or get advice to making your site ever-better. In addition, there are huge libraries of pre-written widgets (chunks of code that add a function to your website) and themes (different colors and styles applied to your current information) to make expanding your site a matter of cutting and pasting.

(Almost) free

WordPress is freely available code! The only potential cost to using WordPress is with setting it up (if you don’t want to do it yourself; see below in the “Easy” section), registering a domain name, and getting some space on a webserver. In fact, if you’re not too concerned about a domain name, you can use wordpress.com‘s hosting to have your site up entirely for free!

I can help!

Sometimes, it’s just easier, better, or quicker to get some expert help. I offer WordPress setup, hosting, training, and customization services for reasonable rates. Check out my “services” page for more information.