1. Highlight the text you want to link.

2. Click the chain link button.

3. Insert the link into the first box. It’s best to cut and paste the URL directly from the website instead of typing it–that way, you avoid typos in the address.

4. Check the box that says “Open link in new window/tab.” You should always do this because you never want website visitors to click a link and go away from your website.  That box ensures that your website stays open.

5. You can also link to existing pages on your website. Just click the gray arrow next to “Or link to existing content” in the link window.

1. Copy your text in Word.

2. In the WordPress page or blog post editor, click the little clipboard with W icon. This should  preserve your word formatting such as bolding and italics.

If it doesn’t preserve your formatting, don’t worry! You can use the little clipboard icon with the T on it for “Paste as Plain Text” OR click the Text tab next to Visual and paste it directly into your HTML.

Our Quick Start Guide to your WordPress Website

You can visit our project page for the site here. Here’s what Denise had to say about the project:

“A custom-designed website seemed like such an extravagance for my very small business, but then I took a look at the competition and their dull, busy, obviously templated sites and realized that a custom design was exactly what I needed. Sierra took the time to bring together backgrounds, images, and fonts into a configuration that perfectly reflects my services and professional ethos. She worked with me patiently and uncomplainingly to ensure that every detail was correct. Mike then used her artistic vision to build a sleek, intuitive site that seamlessly directs visitors to the information they need. I wholeheartedly recommend this smart, insightful, and creative team. They can put together an effective, visually stunning site for any type of business.”

For author websites, there are definitely a few things that require special attention.

Readers aren’t as interested in author blogs as other writers are, and we know that readers come to author websites looking for:

• Information about who the author is
• Information about the book being read
• Information about the next book

• Photos that show your thoughts about setting or characters–use a Pinterest board or a slideshow
• Deleted chapters or scenes
• Character background sheets
• Playlists that you wrote to or soundtrack you imagined for your book as a movie 
• Bonus epilogues, prologues, or short stories
• A Q&A with you on how you decided to write the story
• Recipes

2. Offer a newsletter
Sign up with a newsletter service (we like Vertical Response but you can use anything like Mail Chimp– do a search). When you have a new book about to launch, sending out a fun newsletter announcing it –along with a few thoughts about how you got to that point and what you’re doing to celebrate–and hey, even a giveaway for your newsletter subscribers– is a great idea. I recently got one of these from my favorite author and it was fantastic. It was a cool, funny slice of her. And guess what? I immediately went and pre-ordered her book.

3. Spotlight Yourself

Readers who enjoyed your book will want to learn more about you, the author. A few ideas that go beyond the standard bio are:

• A funny FAQ about your life
• The story of how you got your agent and book deal (writers and readers will want to know this)
• A list of what you’re reading or your favorite books – Goodreads or Shelfari are good auto widgets
• Non-standard author photos showing you in doing normal human things including travel or posing with readers at signings 
• A blog that is pure you

Check out some of our author websites:

• Lorrie Thomson
• Tamara Greenberg
• Jink Willis

You can visit our project page for the site here. This was a really fun project and one of Sierra’s most favorites.

You can read about the project here.

Mike and I love working with small business professionals who need a web presence. Most times, there are things we can recommend to make things easier for the business–in this case, Anders had a long, hard-to-type URL for his business site. We recommended an easy, catchier URL and voila, www.sf-accounting.com was registered. The other thing about this project was that Anders already had a generic WordPress template he’d been using, but he wanted a custom design. This was fun to work on.

This project was funny because Jink already had some graphics from another designer, and she wanted to use those, but build off the theme. So it turns out the other design had some stock images, but we turned the whole site into a play on sending messages. The home page is a very different from the rest of the site–something we are doing a lot of on websites, to emulate that kind of “splash” home screen. The rules for doing that are simple:

• Make sure the home page ties into the rest of the pages with complementary design elements
• Don’t change the navigation too much–if you started with a navigation bar up top, then keep it there–don’t move it to the bottom. There are exceptions to this rule where if the navigation is part of the home page design, as mine is or Jink’s is, then the transition isn’t so harsh. The idea here is to make sure users don’t have to hunt for the menu.

The design on this site required meeting a very specific set of requirements. The design needed to be clean and functional–the site must solicit donations, volunteers, and support. But it also needed to inspire hope, be comforting to those who have lost loved ones to lung cancer, and also be feminine.The site also needed to be able to hold its own in a sea of cancer awareness nonprofit websites. As well, our client is making this venture a massive part of her life–perhaps her primary venture. So the site needed to carry weight. This wasn’t a casual awareness effort–this is a full scale deal. Our client, Kristina, was happy with the end result–so happy that she asked me to design the Pearl Project logo too.

The logo was a real labor of love. We based it off a very specific sketch of Kristina’s that matched the Pearl Project’s line of pearl jewelry.

I’m delighted to add this website to my portfolio, because I believe in the importance of lung cancer awareness after designing the site, and I am pleased to support that.

Visit: http://www.pearlproject.org/