(from mdbetter.com before the changes)
I have been mulling over how to handle this, our family website for several months now. I am still in process but following is the direction I am headed. As our family has grown and we are no longer just Mike and Duffy (mdbetter) our needs for a family blog will change as well. The girls are getting older and soon will need email addresses. I have begun moving our info, photos and updates to a new domain, http://www.betterfam.com. Hopefully, this domain name will be more clear and easier for us all.
For our family site I still need to move the galleries of photos that are currently there. The platform we use, wordpress, has grown and changed so the way I do photo galleries may change as well. Still contemplating that a little bit. I do most of our family updates on the go, if I do any at all, so it depends on how easy it is to add media that way. Ideally our family blog would be more like a dairy with pictures that I cold print as a scrapbook at the end of each year. Thank you to Christy Rameres for that idea.
As for mdbetter.com, I’m really not sure. It has been our family site since 2006 at least. I especially don’t want to change my email address. So for now it will be a landing page of sorts thus the change in theme – temporary at best.
My web and design business has really picked. Or maybe I have just gotten more excited and found a little more time. Though I must say the majority of my time is still focused on my girls and Mike. I am thankful that I am able to work at home. I need to say here that when I had a full time or part time job that I thought “stay at home” moms must have all this free time on their hands. Well, either I am a really bad time manager or this gig of taking care of a family of five is really more full time than I expected! Don’t get me wrong, I do have some time to volunteer at my girls school and with my church and even workout if I make myself. But the regular responsibilities keep me busy and I love it!
So for my web business currently dubbed, DuffBTech, more on that in a minute, should this be the website for it, or yet another domain. I mean who doesn’t own multiple domains these days? I don’t love the name but haven’t found something I like better. I don’t really want to use my name. I want something creative and catchy and meaningful. A friend of ours has great ideas and names – i.e.Microexplosion for a social media consulting business and Epic Frequency for a new art venture displaying sound waves (very cool by the way). But alas, I have yet to come up with something just right. So here is some brainstorming on what I enjoy about web and design work.
Helping small businesses look professional on the web and in print.
Creating solutions to make it easy to reach your target market in your own time and on your budget.
Educating on how to use the web to reach current and new customers.
Using tools like WordPress, blog platform, Drupal, a CMS, and Magento, e-commerce platform.
Some keywords to brainstorm
Guide
Design
Professional
Create
Lead
working out the bugs
making it work
functional and appropriate
eye-catching – attention catching
Most of my work is not ground breaking logos but taking what a business already has and turning it into a professional presence on the web that works for their experience, skills and resources. Still in process for my own business. I understand why independent consultants have little time for their own website or billing. I suppose it is a good thing that most of the work time is spent working on client sites and not my own. So until something amazing drops from the sky or I have time to sit down again and work on my own stuff… thanks for reading…