Worth It Designs

02/06/2021

My conversation with Michelle Lasley is live, where we chat about 8 tips for a great website design!

Michelle Balge, of Worth It Designs, a purpose-driven entrepreneur joins us to talk about her web design and her love for animals. As a purpose-driven entrepreneur, she loves working with other purpose-driven entrepreneurs - helping people help people.

29/03/2021

I’m super excited to announce that I’m taking part in the £10K Gift Giveaway which is being hosted by my friend, Lesley Notton!

In total, you can get over £10,000 worth of business, marketing, sales, mindset & finance training - for FREE! :D

⭐ The best bit is, there’s no need to wait! You can click the link below to get access to these incredible business boosting gifts right now! ⭐

GRAB YOUR GIFTS HERE:

Choose which gifts you want on the next page!  Get instant access now - before this once in a lifetime opportunity expires!

10/03/2021

I’m rebranding my Facebook group, currently Business Strategies for Social Good, to focus on ethical marketing strategies for those who describe themselves as social entrepreneurs, purpose-driven, and/or heart-centred.

As social, purpose-driven, and heart-centred entrepreneurs, we want to make the world a better place through what we offer and stand for. Marketing ethically allows us to market our products and services with integrity, transparency, and respect. 😊

I’d love for you to help me decide what this group’s name will become!

You can head on over to the group at Business Strategies for Social Good and vote for your favourite name(s)!

05/03/2021

Want a free website design review/audit? 😃

I'm creating a course on DIY web design, and as part of it I'd like to include some videos of me reviewing websites.

Hi, I'm Michelle! I'm a web designer who is creating a DIY course on redesigning your website. It is for those who are good with tech and either already built, or are able to build, their site on their own, but are struggling when it comes to design. Part of what I'd like to include in the course ar...

26/02/2021

I have a client who came to me with a friend who was hit with close to a $1,000 fine for using a copyrighted image on their site that they haven't even used in years.

It's SO important to ALWAYS be sure of what images you can and can't use on your site, and whether you need to add attribution or not. If you do a Google search for images and use whatever you find, the odds are that it's probably copyrighted.

There are some sites that allow you to use images for free with no attribution (though it's appreciated), others that are free but do require attribution, some are free for personal use only, others you have to pay to use, and the list goes on.

If you're unsure if you can use an image or not, look at the site's image license agreement and terms of use. If the image was found on Google and you want to use it but don't know if you can or not, either find the original source or photographer and ask, or find another image.

I'm by no means an expert on image licensing but I do know at least the basics so that with my clients I always use images within their terms of use.

If you can't find an answer to your question anywhere and are unsure of whether you are, or would be, breaking any laws, don't be put off from talking to a lawyer who can help you.

If you're looking for free images you can try out these sites:
www.unsplash.com
www.pexels.com
www.stocksnap.io
https://burst.shopify.com/

01/02/2021

It's past day, but it's always good to keep the conversation going. Here is a video of me from 6 years ago talking about suicidal thoughts and getting help.

Michelle discusses her feelings and journey with su***de.

15/01/2021

Congrats StephK on your new custom built website!! This video features some pages of her new live website at: www.stephkmua.com.

Steph is a personal branding coach and makeup artist who inspires women to feel confident and beautiful. She’s currently offering her AUTHENTICALLY YOU Personal Branding 12 WEEK Program for 35% off until January 31st. You can view more on this here: https://stephkmua.com/work-with-me/personal-branding-coaching/

About the build: This site was built with the Divi builder and theme, with each page starting from a blank canvas so I could replicate the design mockups. I also used custom coding!

09/10/2020

Now comes the final design for StephK… with a few changes made and a couple inner pages designed, the designs are ready to be turned into website pages. 💕

Even though this is the final design, if she ever wanted to change anything online, I provide instructions to my clients on how to make simple site changes such as changing written content, images, making updates, etc.

When these mockups are translated onto the web, they’ll look the same on some screens and different on others, depending on the size. The designs are created for the laptop/desktop view, and I adjust elements for tablets and phones during the build based on what works best for the design and functionality of the device size. This is a responsive design and means that it will not only look great, but work well, on all platforms, browsers, devices, and screen sizes.

I build all client sites on WordPress and use the Divi builder for custom sites like this one. Although there are templates available, I start with a blank page for every client so that I can recreate the design online as it is in the mockup. To be able to really get things the way I want them I add custom CSS which is coding for the styling of the site.

I’ll share more about the build process soon!!

05/10/2020

How secure is your website?

Every website should:

🔒 Have an SSL Certificate (if you have one and it’s set up properly, there’s a lock shown to the left of your URL and your URL itself will start with https instead of http)
🔒 Have a strong password (ideally at least 15 characters, and a random mix of lowercase letters, uppercase letters, numbers, and symbols)
🔒 Be up-to-date
🔒 Have regular automatic back-ups on and off-site
🔒 Have some sort of trusted security software (ex. for WordPress, you would use a security plugin like WordFence or MalCare)

How many of the above criteria does your website meet? If you don't have all of the above, set aside some time to implement them!

24/09/2020

These are the 2 full homepage mockups for StephK! They’re designed in Sketch and it’s an easy way to make changes to get the site looking exactly the way the client’s looking for.

Rather than building the site first, I have the design finalized in Sketch beforehand. This way when the site is ready to be built, there is no guess work on my end as to how it will look, and there are no unexpected or unwanted surprises on the client’s end when it's revealed/live.

Things aren’t finalized at this stage yet, as once the design is picked, which in this case is image 2, I then design 2 to 3 inner pages to ensure the client is happy with how it translates to additional pages. There’s room for multiple revisions throughout this stage so that if the client and I aren’t envisioning things exactly the same, it’s not an issue.

It’s so important for all my clients to provide their honest feedback, as I don’t want to get to the build stage, or even worse, have it go live, and find out they actually didn’t like what they were seeing. Every step of the way it’s crucial to give honest feedback so we can create a website you’ll love! :)

23/09/2020

As mentioned on the previous behind-the-scenes post, I created the first few sections of StephK's homepage using her chosen 2 style tiles as reference so she could more easily visualize what the site could look like.

After choosing different elements from both rough mockups (the first and second images), we came to the third image. There was an alternate of this as well, but it was quite similar with just a larger diamond instead of a squared picture of her at the bottom.

Please note that if you’re looking closely at editing in the first and third images, it’s a rough photoshop job that you can really notice in her hair and the colour of the background but is fixed once implemented into the full mockup.

Next I designed 2 full mockups of the homepage in 2 slightly different versions (using the third image here as the top of the site), and I’ll reveal those tomorrow!

16/09/2020

Getting into the style of the website comes after we’ve laid down the foundation through the research, sitemap, and wireframes!

I create 4 different Style Tiles for each client, in which they show different colour palettes, font pairings, images, details, buttons, textures, patterns, etc that could be used on the new site.

Each Style Tile is based on not only what the client is looking for, but what their ideal client or customer is looking for.

When choosing a Style Tile you can combine a couple to create a new one or select a single one to improve upon. I allow for several revisions so we can get the style to a place where you’re ready for a design mockup of the homepage!

With StephK, she liked the 2 Style Tiles below and made a couple changes like removing the butterflies and marble pattern, but she found it difficult to visualize what they would look like in website form. I decided to create the first few sections of her homepage with each design to get a much more clear idea of how it would look. I’ll reveal those in the next post!