We really just wanted to add a right sidebar to a page. It was going to take some doing, even though the site was built in WordPress, it was going to take some custom coding to get a certain page to have a sidebar. A little PHP, dash of CSS, a few hours, would work. Oh, did I mention the drop-down menu? More PHP, more CSS (unless we used a plugin, but I haven’t had great luck). Plus, I’d prefer it to work with WordPress’s built-in menu system so Pamela could easily update menu items. It’s just two tweaks, right? And it is WordPress after all. Shouldn’t take too long. A few new things for the sidebar. Hmm, it’s not widgetized.

You know the point when you’re taking your car to the shop and the estimate for the repairs (or even the regularly-scheduled maintenance) is getting close to the value of the entire car and you stop and think, “Maybe it’s time for a new car. Then I could have that audio jack in the console that would let me play my iPod.” Let’s see, get the trade-in value for the old car (probably not much) and if you shop around and find a great deal on a “smart” car, it’d “pay for itself” in no time! :-)

It was time for the trade-in for Pamela Lyon’s Queen of QuickBooks’ site. The site was fine, but it was old and needed an overhaul. Thanks to the fact that it was built in WordPress, we could leave the content intact. In fact, we even worked on the new theme (and some new content) using a plugin that lets us work while the old site is still visible to non-logged-in visitors (Theme Test Drive). Laurie King was on board and was instrumental in helping The Queen develop her sitemap, content strategy, and editorial calendar for the newsletter.

We worked with StudioPress’ Prose theme on the Genesis Framework so that allowed Pamela and her staff to easily make changes to font colors, sizes, etc. We ported over the graphics that were working on the old site, spruced up some content, found a few new images, and faster than you can say General Ledger, she was up and running. The Prose theme doesn’t have a whole lot of glitz or glamor, so I added the WordPress Ken Burns Slideshow to get that snazzy Ken Burns effect going on the home page, with just a smidgen of movement. Looking Royal.