Click the link to read all about it!

A couple weeks ago we discovered the band Boombox. They’ve apparently been around a while though their sound just recently found it’s way into our ears and is now the talk of the office.

We thought that you should enjoy them too. Turn it up!

What’s your new find?

Logging in to your site

1. In your favorite web browser, go to your .com (i.e. http://yourwebdomainname.com)
2. In a new tab, go to your .com/wp-admin (i.e. http://youwebdomain.com/wp-admin)
3. Enter your provided user name and password

Welcome to the dashboard

The left side column is now your best friend. This is where you will begin to access everything on your site including blog posts, media library, links, pages, comments, plugins, menu settings widgets, users, tools, general settings, and more.

Posts

Updating existing or creating new posts follow a fairly simple process.

1. Navigate to the Posts section (it’s on the left…remember)
2. Find the existing post you want to edit – or – click Add New to make a new one.

This is the edit screen that you will soon be flying around making blog posts, creating or changing page content, or even creating a photo gallery. Learn to love it!

Let’s start from the top…

• So go ahead, type something in the content area…I’ll wait.
• Select the existing category (or add a new category) that you would like the post to be filed under.
• Add some tags
• Upload a featured image (if you want to)
• Write an excerpt

Now you can save a draft for later, preview the post before it goes live on your site, or just go for it and publish it! If you chose to click the big blue publish button, navigate over to that other tab where you can see the front-end of your site and refresh the browser. Now you should be able to see the post you just created or edited. Check out a more detailed tutorial on WordPress posts here.

Fun, huh!?

Pages

Now that you’ve learned how to edit or create a new post, you are ready to do the same for the pages on your site.

1. Navigate to the Pages section (yep…still on the left side)
2. Find the existing page or create a new one
3. Do the same thing you did for the post excluding the category, tags, and excerpt
4. Publish it! (Can’t see it when you refresh your site? Check out how to use the WordPress Menu here)

Media Library

Built directly into WordPress is the media library where you can upload images for use in your posts and pages. Within the media library there are a small amount of image altering tools including scaling, cropping, rotating, and flipping. We prefer to alter our images and prepare for online use prior to uploading onto our site.

1. Navigate to the Media Library section
2. Select the image from your computer
3. From here you can change the title, add a caption/description, or edit the image

Image Gallery

Built right into your site is the ability to have an easy to update, great looking image gallery. An important part to keep your gallery working smoothly and looking good is to make sure the images you are uploading are optimized for web use and are maximum 900 pixels either high or wide. This is important for load time and visibility on most monitors.

1. Navigate to the page (or create one) where you would like to display the image gallery
2. Click on the Upload/Insert image button
3. Select files… either from your computer, a URL, or from files already uploaded in the media library
4. Navigate to the Gallery (#) tab
5. Update gallery options
6. Insert gallery

Now go ahead and look at your live site and see how it looks. If your site was created by 3200 Creative, you most likely have a plugin installed to make your galleries look even better. Like this…

Widgets

Whats its? Whos its? Wheres its? Huh? Widgets…they’re those things around your site that make it easy for your visitors to navigate through your site, the place where those popular social network links go, they can show scrolling testimonials, it can be the list of your linkroll, or even advertisements. Widgets are in the sidebar(s), footer, homepage, or even in the header area of your site.

How to use/modify your site’s widgets:

1. Navigate to the Appearence > Widgets section
2. Here you will see a whole bunch of boxes with titles and then more boxes with titles on the right sidebar
3. First decide which type of widget you would like to use (i.e. Recent Posts), click and drag that over to the right sidebar in the place you would like that to show on your site (i.e. Primary Sidebar)
4. Now you may have some customizing options for your widget, go ahead and play around with those
5. Make sure to Save, then go to the front-end of your site and refresh. You should now see your changes, modify it until you get it exactly like you want

Like I mentioned earlier these are the basics of WordPress and there is so much more you can do with your new website. We hope you like it and good luck :)

Along with wedding planning comes a lot of time surfing the web for vendors and ideas. Since we work in web development, we can’t help but critique websites while we look for our wedding needs. While searching for vendors for our own celebration we decided to multitask and search for wedding vendors that need new custom websites as well.

We contacted Lynette of MadisonHouse Designs with the hopes of creating a new custom website design for her blossoming company.  Our elegant yet practical solution was to base the site on our florist website design theme. She was so excited that we had found her. We think that Cathi’s “bride-to-be” status, femininity, and love for flowers really helped us connect with Lynnette to see her vision in what she was looking for in her website developers.

Long distance didn’t matter for this Columbus, Ohio floral stylist.

Through phone calls and email conversations, we were able to design the new florist website for MadisonHouse Designs that meets her needs perfectly. To get an idea of what Lynette wanted in the artistic design of her website we asked her to describe her floral business in three words. Her answer was organic, fresh, and modern. Those three words sat by us as we made her site. The final design really focuses around  the damask tiling pattern used in the background of the site. Although it is derived from 14th century fabric weaving techniques it is definitely popular today and widely used in modern design.

Other features of the floral website included:

• image galleries
• testimonials
• custom contact form
• links to popular social networks
• a blog

and much more.

With the custom website design, the client has the ability to manage and update all of the content of the site all with just a little one-on-one training from us. We can’t wait to see where MadisonHouse Designs takes her site from here.

Thanks Lynette!

Click here to out the live site…

Here’s what MadionHouse Designs said about the new website design:

Ryan and Cathi at 3200 Creative were fabulous to work with, offering not only creative and knowledgeable web design services, but also all of the follow-up needed to help me optimize my website in an affordable way.  I love that they were able to set me up with all of the software and tools needed to take the website into my own hands after the initial design so that I can easily upload pictures, content, blog posts, and more.  I can’t wait to see the results from all of their hard work.  I was clueless, and feel so fortunate that Cathi approached me about their services.  Thanks Ryan and Cathi for your most professional and expert designs and training.

Read more testimonials from our clients…

Read more about the custom florist website design here…