A big part of what I do at McLane Creative is in a category I call, Digital Storytelling.

Indeed, I build a ton of great WordPress sites for clients. But what makes McLane Creative so popular (and the rest of my little monsters so dang busy) is that the team isn’t just designers or developers.

First and foremost we are storytellers.

There are a lot of ad agencies better at running Adwords or Facebook campaigns. There are a lot of agencies that could put my teams PHP/CSS/app development skills to shame. And there are a lot better copywriters out there.

I will be the first to admit to that. And I have proven that I am the first to make a referral to one of my friends if a project cares more about those things than what I specialize in.

But I’ve now done this long enough to know that I will help you tell your best story better than a whole lot of people out there. I don’t just build stuff or run campaigns for you. My goal is to help you tell your organizations story better.

That’s what I love about this video. It speaks to any adventurer. It lives the branding. And it communicates better than any 30 second spot could exactly what you could do with the product.

At the end of the day I believe that you telling your best story will lead you to success in whatever you’re trying to do.

Oh heck yes, baby.

I have finally taken the plunge and pre-ordered the new Nikon D800.

Why does a web design company need a $3000 camera? 

That’s a great question. The answer is because I do way more than web design and WordPress development! I like to say that I’m a digital storyteller. Yes, in many instances I use WordPress to tell stories and help others tell their stories… but at the end of the day what I’m really good at is telling stories.

Why the D800?

The D700 was already a bad ass camera, way beyond my limited skill level. My friends over at Reams Photography use the D700 as their primary shooter and the results speak for themselves.

So, from the best I can tell, Nikon has taken a great camera and turned it into a must-have camera. They’ve amped up the pixels as well as added video which most reviewers say rivals the more common DSLR w/ video camera, the Canon 5D Mark III. Just head over to Vimeo and you’ll see that lots and lots of great video is shot on the 5D.

So, a great shooting camera with great video capabilities. It seems like a no brainer to me.

Other reasons I went with the D800.

• It eliminates my need to take both a still and video camera on shoots. I’ve traveled a bit with large video camera equipment… it’s a pain in the ass. It’s bad enough carrying around a tripod, batteries, and sound equipment. I’m looking forward to a much smaller camera bag on my trip to Palestine / Israel this summer.
• Lenses. This is a pretty big upgrade for me from the Nikon D60. Actually, no there is no comparison. But at least I’ll be able to use the lenses I have while I dream about the lenses I want. I looked hard at the Canon 5D Mark III, but at the end of the day it’s way more expensive because of the lens investment.
• Resale value. As a small business owner there is essentially no risk to my buying the D800 right now. They are selling used for more than retail! A quick look at the D700′s being sold online in used condition is very reassuring.

The wait is killer

I placed my order with Amazon on April 14th. Anyone have an idea on how long the current wait time is? 

Update: April 22nd, still no shippy ship. 

Photo credit: Nikon Rumors

WordPress isn’t just for blogging anymore. More and more we are getting requests to build full-on CMS installations with WordPress, complete with

complex ecommerce, donation, and reservation systems.

One problem we’ve encountered is the need to make sites secure to receive personal information and process transactions. Savvy consumers know that when they enter their credit card information they should see https and not just http. (The S stands for secure) This verifies that the site certificate owner is who they say they are as well as ensures users that the information is going directly to the server they want it to go to and not to a third-party who may be selling/stealing/harvesting their personal information.

Installing a site certificate (SSL) is pretty straight-forward. In fact, most hosts will do it for you for a fee. (A shortcut we usually take advantage of to save time.)

But getting the SSL to work correctly can be time consuming since WordPress makes it so easy to add plugins and Javascripts which may cause the site certificate to have errors.

2 Main Options

1. Secure the whole site. It’s pretty easy to activate that. Just go to your General Settings and add https under the site name where http currently is. This will make your entire site default to https. The problem is quickly going to become that you’ll see errors on the SSL because not everything on your site is secure. (Yet) To remove the errors you’ll need to work through each error and resolve it. This can be time consuming and annoying. (To say the least.) I’d  recommend this option only if you’re starting from scratch. Converting a site with thousands of hard-coded http links will drive you insane. The quickest way to fix that would be to do it via MySql. (Expert level)
2. Secure only the pages you need to have secure. I prefer this option. Install the plugin WordPress HTTPS, activate it, and chose the posts/pages you want to secure individually. Typically, I only secure pages where customers will transmit personal information. (Checkout pages, reservation pages, contact pages, etc.) You will still need to troubleshoot errors, but the process of eliminating these errors should be shorter because you can isolate that page.

Tips for fixing the errors

• You’re probably going to need to swap out some plugins. Every time I’ve done this the problem is social media plugins which link to insecure pages. (cough, Facebook is tracking your every click, cough cough.)
• Open the page with errors in Google Chrome. Go to view>developer>developers tools>console. This will list the errors the SSL is having on that page. Troubleshoot those errors.
• You’ll need to wait a few hours before the red SSL warnings turn green. But if Google Chrome says you’re clean then you are good to go.

Need help? Leave a question in the Help Center. (free) We’re also happy to do this for you. (not free) Contact usand we’ll set up an estimate.

Project goal

We were contracted by Biblica to build a consumer engagement campaign for their project, Community Bible Experiment. To maximize exposure for their campaign we arranged to feature the project to 3800 participants at the 2011 National Youth Workers Convention.

Strategy

We were confident this was a product the audience would respond strongly to if we could frame the message. In working with the event organizers we agreed that we would give each person a sample product, play a short video testimonial, and the MC would make a pitch to get them involved. Key to this strategy was getting the audience to instantly convert. Rather than tell them to go home and check it out we knew that our maximum response rate would occur if participants could join the campaign during the pitch. This made text messaging the obvious choice. 100% of the audience would have a cell phone. And we could easily ask them to text to join the campaign in all of the collateral materials.

Collateral

I always have my finger on the pulse of all sorts of nerdy ventures. Some of it is what I do for a living at McLane Creative and some of it is just my nerdy natural curiosity for all things web.

As I’m out and about looking for things and discovering stuff I can either use for one of my projects or not, there are bound to be leftovers.

The question I have always had is, “What do I do with those leftovers?” I mean– they literally just sit in my Springpad account getting dusty.

I present to you the solution: Remnants.

This isn’t a normal newsletter. It’s literally just a bunch of screenshots with links to things I thought I would use but never used and wanted to share. Some of it is fun, some of it is interesting, and some is so techy that you might just scratch your head because you don’t have a clue what it’s all about.

But, if you are like me and sometimes in need of some inspiration…  than maybe this newsletter is for you? 

This morning we launched a brand new site for Urban Youth Workers Institute. They are a Los Angeles based non-profit committed to resourcing and encouraging those who invest in the lives of urban youth.

Our relationship with UYWI began with a consult as I looked deep into their analytics and helped them create a conversion funnel for a couple web initiatives. In truth, their biggest problem in their web strategy was that their site wasn’t working properly. It took 5-8 seconds to load a page fully. Their site wasn’t consistently reporting sitemap data to Google, on and on.

Long story short, we salvaged the WordPress installation and were able to rebuild the site from the ground up. Today it’s a lot faster, more stable, completely compliant with normal WordPress practices.

Here’s a quick list of what we did.

• Used the Thesis framework to build an easily upgradable theme.
• Widened the page significantly to get more important content above the fold of every page.
• Corrected an installation issue with many .htaccess redirects, which slowed page load.
• Eliminated many plugins used to make the theme functional, but caused PHP errors.
• Simplified the template structure using child theming, decreasing page load and scripting errors.
• Simplified the CSS to create a more consistent look/feel.
• Eliminated single instance javascripts from loading on every page, causing general slowness.
• Gravity Forms for handling all of the contact forms, applications, and even a new job board coming soon.
• Premium slider for a lightweight display of mission critical graphics.
• Events Calendar Pro integration to organize and simplify their busy events.
• Shopp for their growing online store (We didn’t install this but now support it)
• S2Member Pro handles their premium content areas. (We didn’t install this but now support it.)

We’re pleased with how this project turned out and look forward to how this will help them better drive traffic through their conversion funnel.

“I want to start a blog but I can’t manage to get going. All I ever do is start.“

This is the most common I hear from novice bloggers. They are good writers. They have good things to say. But they just can’t get over the hump and turn blogging from something they like doing to a habit.

I’ve been a daily blogger since 2004. It’s not that it’s easier for me to keep going. It’s that I have the benefit of momentum and habits. I write every day because it doesn’t feel like a normal day if I don’t. And I’ve established an audience that expects a post every day.

That’s not an impossible goal. Here are some very doable and practical tips for forming a blog habit.

1. Write every day. Set aside an hour per day and write. Notice that I didn’t say “publish every day.” You don’t have to publish every day to form a habit. But you do have to write every day. Maybe you write 7 days per week but only publish 4-5 times? That’s totally fine. Just write a little something every single day. Do it for a month and it’ll become a habit just like anything else.
2. Write what you love. I think a lot of people worry too much about the form of their blogs and forget that what comes through most clearly is that you love your content. If you are writing about something you love, no matter how obscure that might seem, readers will find it easier to engage and you won’t stare at an empty screen for long. It’s easy to write about what you love.
3. Write on a timer. “I don’t have the time for a blog habit.” Yeah you do. Just time it out. Either get a literal egg timer or download an app and time yourself. When the timer goes off you’re done. Press save and move on. Just like in school, when you have a deadline you work faster and fall into just getting it done and out of the way. Everything you write won’t be brilliant. Get over yourself and form the habit.
4. Get a blog buddy. Just like you won’t go jogging without a running partner, you’ll need a blog buddy to keep you accountable. Agree to read one another’s posts, leave a comment, and give advice regularly. Don’t know who to pick? Ask someone whose blog you already like reading. It’s not that hard!
5. Measure one small thing. When you are just getting started it’s easy to read everything about blogging and start to measure 100 different things. I think that’s dumb. Instead focus on one measurable and write to that. Look at your RSS subscribers. Look at your comments per post. Look at unique visitors. But don’t look at them all. Just pick one and go with that.

This video is awesome.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that many entrepreneurs have huge dreams of growing their company and then selling it off to the highest bidder. While that might be a great dream and might come with a great payday, it is also heart wrenching.

I’m glad that the owners of Dropbox didn’t sell out to Apple. They don’t believe that their company is merely a feature for a device, they think it’s a product people will value. So instead of selling their dream to their heroes and seeing it bent and changed to fit a corporations need, they continued on with their dream of building a great company.

It’s ironic if you think about it. You pour your life into a new idea and it takes off… and you want to sell it.

Do you really want to sell your dreams? 

I think not.

Photo by TheImageGroup via Flickr (Creative Commons)

In the world of WordPress companies there are primarily two types:

1. Designers
2. Developers

McLane Creative fits a third category. We look at Design & Development and go, “Well yeah, duh.” Of course you need to build a blog that is technically good and of course you want it to look right for you.

What seperates McLane Creative from the pack, and why we do so well off of viral growth, is that we help you understand how to use the tools we are building & designing. We take the time to coach you on your content and how to develop your unique brand. It’s one thing to give you a better tool to use. It’s another thing altogether if you know what to do with it.

The other day I was getting interviewed about McLane Creative and the young woman said, “You you are a WordPress designer. Cool.” I stopped her. That is true but it doesn’t truly capture the essence of McLane Creative. I corrected her, “We teach people how to use WordPress to build a tribe around their ideas.”

See– whatever your idea is– whether you are a mom blogger or a realtor, your WordPress site is only as useful to you as your strategy allows. A product is merely a monetized idea. And without a tribe rallying around that idea you are just another one of the billions of pointless websites out there.

Do you need a coach?

• Do you enjoy writing but you feel stuck?
• Do you get visitors but not tribe members?
• Do you wonder if your site is doing the right things?
• Do you need help measuring the right things?
• Do you just need someone to follow-up with you and hound you because you haven’t posted lately?