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cyclone press

Helping entrepreneurs build better businesses through web design, development and branding since 2009. Well-designed websites that work. https://cyclonepress.com

Impress clients and generate leads for your small business with a clean, user-friendly website that does the work for you.

06/12/2024

This is one of the worst cold emails I've ever received. I guess we're going for the Cringe Olympics now.

Sales people, don't do this.

25/09/2024

Website thought of the week: a surprising way crappy website hosting is costing you money.

By crappy I mostly mean slow. There are many other negatives associated with cheap hosting, but the one that’s top of mind right now: page load times.

I’ve been working on a site that we did not build and do not host. The build is not great, and the combination of that build with mediocre hosting means that I probably have a solid 15 minutes of billable time that’s just waiting for the page to save on the backend in order for the page to refresh on the frontend (which is necessary due to the way the site was built).

It’s incredibly frustrating to work on, not just because I work fast and the lag times are slowing me down, but because I KNOW it shouldn’t be this way. The hosting is actually a reputable company, so it’s probably equally a consequence of the site structure.

We all know that modern humanity is cursed with the attention span of a sugared-up 10 year old, and yes, they will click away if your site loads too slowly. Also Google is not a fan of slow sites so that doesn’t help your SEO either. But this week I’ve been thinking about a less obvious risk, which is that your web designer is going to have higher hours if they’re stuck on a loading screen for 30 seconds every time they save changes or refresh a page. The more you know!

This is why cyclone press hosts websites. We host what we build on super fast (NOT SHARED) cloud hosting optimized for WordPress. DM me and I’m happy to share how it works, because there are many other reasons we have chosen to specialize in one of the least cool areas of website development (hint: support matters).

18/09/2024

I was shocked at this unfortunate website design decision, so let's learn from it.

Radio buttons are used to allow selection of only one item in a list. Typically, they are designated with a circular outline, and when you select one, it fills in the circle. In this case, the form background is gray, so the centers of the radio buttons are gray, which makes it look like every button is selected (impossible for radio buttons). When I clicked an option, it looked like I UNselected it.

I work with website forms all day every day, and if this gave me pause, I guarantee you the average website user is going to be even more confused. Good design will not significantly deviate from accepted norms for user flow, because people tend to default to habits and assumptions about how things should work.

Solutions: While the green checkbox animation definitely clarifies the selection, it's not enough, because you only see it after clicking Vote (which feels extremely final: I didn't know it wasn't going to just submit immediately). The easiest solution is to not use a colored background for the voting box (use black text/circle outlines on white). Otherwise, thinner circle outlines would make it look more obvious items are not actually selected, and a different fill color (think bright red) for the selected option would better confirm your choice.

Side note: the extra thin type is/would also be a problem. However, I can guarantee you that isn't intentional. There's some sort of bug in a recent Chrome update (I think) that makes certain web fonts look way too thin, and it hasn't been a high enough priority for me to troubleshoot. So I'm ignoring that because it's not actually supposed to look that way, but it's definitely not good for accessibility/readability.

This is why it's important to work with a designer, not just a developer. While some developers have an understanding of design best practices, someone who can both design and build equally well is actually pretty rare. It's why I highlight "well-designed websites" in all my marketing for https://buff.ly/4e8xKFu. You can have a website that is technically solid AND looks and feels beautiful too.

09/03/2022

Meet the studio cat. Well, one of them. This is Jaeger, and he likes to randomly sprint in front of my monitor so I can’t see and am forced to put a blanket on my lap for him.

17/02/2022

I'm excited to announce that cyclone press has been recognized as a 2022 Small Business Superstar by the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce.

Small Business Superstars are submitted by customers, clients, and members of the community. This campaign recognizes any small business that is submitted, has fewer than 250 employees, is a for-profit business, and headquartered in Greater Kansas City.

To the clients that nominated cyclone press, thank you! You made this happen, and you're the reason this business has continued to grow over the past 10+ years.

10/12/2021

Thanks Cameron! Check out the writeup on the one-page website we designed and built for him (link in bio).

09/12/2021

We designed and built this clean WordPress landing page for this year and recently posted the case study. It turned out beautifully and Cameron was simply excellent to work with. His EP is available now, and can be streamed or purchased on cameronsmithonline.com. Case study is available on our website (link in bio) if you’d like to learn more about the process.

05/12/2021

Sometimes I get to make things that don’t require a keyboard.

03/12/2021

Found out my interview with VoyageKC went up today. Check it out for a short origin story of cyclone press. Link in bio.

27/11/2021

It’s Small Business Saturday - support your local entrepreneurs today. It matters: choosing cyclone press for your website is directly funding my retirement, not paying for me to, I don’t know, go to space or some crap.

Anyway. For Small Biz Saturday through Cyber Monday, I’m waiving the first 6 months of web hosting on our DIY WordPress plans. If you need a website for your business or a personal/side project and you’d like to save money by doing it yourself, I’ve created a plan that makes that totally doable and includes support. Link in bio to sign up on cyclonepress.com. You can launch a new website with preloaded demo (and more available) and start customizing in minutes.

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Opening Hours

Monday	10:00 - 16:00
Tuesday	10:00 - 16:00
Wednesday	10:00 - 16:00
Thursday	10:00 - 16:00
Friday	10:00 - 16:00

Telephone

+18162370773

Website

https://cyclonepress.com/

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