Photo by Vern Hart
You may have noticed that the face of this blog and my entire website has changed.
Kim Woodbridge played a huge role in making it happen!
I determined that I wanted to move the site to Headway, after seeing the blogs of people like Jim Connolly, Danny Brown, John Haydon, and hearing them explain how easy it is to work with Headway.
I’ve had a website forever. My first one was created by the son of a neighbor in the early days of computers. I never took it down. You can still see it here. You can tell how old it is by the software I listed. I didn’t really market it or use it after the initial few years.
My second site took forever to create (think 10 years) because I couldn’t get my head around what I wanted to say. I bought the domain and just kept renewing it. Even after I hired a local designer to set up the template, I couldn’t write the content. Finally, January 2009 with a push from a friend, I wrote the content and my designer launched the site on a server in Texas.
I had started my blog in October 2008 on a separate WordPress platform. In April 2009, I asked Kim if she could move the blog to the site and hired her for the first time. She got it ready to go but the export wasn’t working with my server so we ended up moving the whole site and blog to Hostgator. Everything was going well but that site was created in Dreamweaver and though I could work in it, it was, well… work.
Again, reading the positive comments about Headway made me very curious. I wouldn’t make a change though without support. Exporting your blog or website to a new site takes someone who understands the nuances of moving data and someone who can be trusted to troubleshoot for you.
Once again, I turned to Kim. She had not worked with Headway yet but that didn’t worry me because I know how quickly she learns. I asked her on Monday morning if I could hire her again and by Tuesday, she had a template ready to go. Kim and I talk by e-mail and Twitter DMs and we created this whole new site together that way.
I’m very hands-on. I knew what I wanted so after she told me it was up, I started playing. I changed colors using the easy to use Visual Editor and created new navigation. We communicated back and forth so we wouldn’t wipe out each others changes.
Kim transferred some of my content but then I rewrote it and decided to transfer the rest myself since it was essentially a cut and paste. I had to re-tweak some things and put the PayPal code back in but I had done all that in Dreamweaver myself so I knew I could do it again. Editing a page in Headway is like editing a blog post. In Dreamweaver, it was doable but more work.
Kim worked on the final details and we determined that we could go live on Saturday morning. Mind you, Kim and I were both working on other projects all week long. She had my project and others and I had my clients in addition to this site change. Still, in less than a week, we designed the new site and moved the old site and blog, and let it go live. I am sure there will be little things to fix because any big project does have a few issues to iron out but I know that I have help when I need it.
What I love about Headway is that I know that I can continue to tweak easily or even change all the colors etc. The site doesn’t have to go stale and wait until I have someone design a new template.
What I love about Kim is that I have a partner that let me have a role in creation of the site and yet was there to handhold me.
So… the Thank YOU goes to Kim!
Oh Julie … thank you so much! I don’t remember how we first encountered each other online (I think you may have commented on my site) but I’m so glad we did!
And at the beginning of the week I didn’t think I could start on until the end – but then I couldn’t sleep Monday night and got enough of a start for us to launch it yesterday.
We have a couple of issues to resolve but I know we can handle it. And you are going to be happy to leave Dreamweaver behind
And thanks for the link to the old site – that brought back some funny memories.
.-= Kim Woodbridge´s last blog ..What If Web Developers Were Like Lawyers… =-.
It was your blog, Kim… and I don’t know how I got there the first time either. I’m glad too — obviously! I appreciate you lots. I run across people who get mad at a theme or application like Headway and realize that it is because they think they can do everything themselves. Anything important is worth doing right and I would never try moving my files without a “you” on my side. New applications take time to learn, there are always bugs or tweaks but this one… I love even knowing all of that is true.
As for the old site, I don’t know how to pull it down and I don’t think I want to… it may be old but the content still makes me smile. Memories of how my business changed.
What a great-looking site, guys – really fresh and stands out. Love how you swapped ideas back and forth too – great partnership, obviously.
And welcome to the Headway club, Julie!
.-= Danny Brown´s last blog ..Big Business Needs to Think Smaller =-.
Thank you, Danny. It is a club I am happy to belong to… And yes, partnering with Kim to work out the issues keeps me much calmer than I would be alone.
.-= Julie Walraven | Resume Services´s last blog ..And the Thank you goes to Kim! =-.
Julie,
What a wonderful looking site you’ve now developed! I love it!
I’m in the process of switching to Headway too, so it’s heartening to know it has made such an awesome, visible difference to yours. I hope it brings you lots of success!
Thank you, Christine! It is fun to see the difference and hear the comments. The colors on the old site were a compromise. I would have gone blue and white then too but my designer wanted the whole site to be gold or tan because the other two sites he built for Kiwanis and Wausau Whitewater both had blue as the major color with white. Those weren’t really my sites but since I was associated with them, he thought my site should be different.
Originally, I was just going to recolor the pages in the old site but after seeing Headway in action and hearing so much good, I thought I would give it a try!
Let me know when you go live… you know I love your writing!
I love your new site Julie – well done to you and Kim for doing such a great job on it.
It’s made all the various “bits” more accessible and conducive to exploring!
PS: Your first site just took me down memory lane – I remember all the textured backgrounds that were the height of fashion circa 1996
.-= Reeta Luthra | Stress and Health´s last blog ..How to Recognise and Deal With Denial =-.
Hi, Reeta! Glad you like it… seems I am still in the amazed zone with it and need to work on getting used to it.
Well done on the new site, Julie, and well done Kim too! It’s great, and makes browsing effortless! And there’s plenty of good stuff too!
Regards
Jane
Thanks, Jane! Yes, Kim did great and I had some coaching from a mutual friend to customize some of the Headway features.
It is amazing how critical all of that is.
[...] My old site launched in January 2009 even though my business (Design Resumes) is much older. I hired Kim Woodbridge to move the blog over for me from my blog’s former wordpress.com site to the old site to have everything in one place but I couldn’t make some of the changes I wanted to make. My whole journey in social media has been one of watching the masters. When I saw Jim Connolly and others make the move to Headway and sound so happy with the change, I couldn’t help but starting thinking, that’s what I need to do. [...]