I get emails on the regular about who helps me out keeping this ol’ blog up & running & looking pretty.
I know a few of you have emailed & tweeted me lately saying “OH MY GOD, WORDPRESS DESIGN FOR $500?!?!” & then you promptly run around in circles & faint. Because that’s some pretty hefty overhead when it’s a fun hobby or you’re not yet seeing a return on investment. (see? business school graduate! yay!) So please, calm down & pour yourself a martini. If you need something to worry about, focus on zombies eating our brains during the apocalypse tomorrow.
My “IT” gal: Kelly from Twenty70 Hosting. She’s super-reliable & our “neighborhood” is even hosted in a hurricane-proof warehouse since she’s based in Florida. Which means, BRING IT ON HURRICANE SEASON. Even you can’t stop my insane blatherings! $7.00 per month will get you ample storage & she’ll even help you move your blog seamlessly to being self-hosted. Even better, Kelly keeps her eye on things for me – like the time she called me & was all, “Dude, are you in China? Because someone’s trying to hack your blog from Beijing.”
My graphic designer: Lisa from My Little Buffalo. She’ll work with you on your style, what you’re envisioning, colors you like, & then she’ll shoot you a few mock-ups. She’s for hire right this moment, so shoot her an email! A blog design like my main page with a header & button will run you about $70.00, which is incredibly reasonable.
So there you have it – an entire year of pretty blogging for roughly $150 per year. Which is less than one latte per week for the entire year. Or less than the cost of one beautiful Ann Taylor blazer with bows on the sleeves.
Trust me. I would know.
Thanks for the help. Hahaha! Luckily it didn’t cost me $500 I found someone else to do it for me and it cost me $35 for hosting for a full year. Since i signed up for hosting I got the move for free. I was about to freak out, because I literally have no idea about wordpress. and I told him about the theme you used that you tweeted me, he used it and yeah. Now I have the same theme as you and I will get charged to change it. So, I hope you will slay me off the list of rude mama bloggers, because we have the same theme. Sorry.
hahaha, that is fine!! I certainly do not own this theme at all
It’s such a good one that I always recommend it!
I’m so glad to hear someone else rave about Twenty70. I was referred to them last week and have been trying to do research on them. I think I know who I’ll be hosting with from now on.
I use Twenty70 too and HIGHLY recommend it! She is totally awesome!!!
I was just looking into Twenty70 too! I’m definitely leaning in that direction… if I actually break down and make the switch…
Thanks for the timely info. I’ve been very happy with my Squarespace design and hosting. But I really would like to be able to reply to comments as you do.
So I’m starting to think about a move.
Contact @peterpollock on twitter. He can make moves from blogger to wordpress for free if you do hosting through him. The cost of hosting for the year is $35. He can move over your design from blogger for about $50 or create a whole new design. He is awesome. Tell him that Mountain Mum a.k.a Kristina sent you to him. It was really stress free.
I have one more dumb, tech question. I’ve always wanted to know how to create the social icons. Do you do that yourself? What’s the coding that’s involved.
Well, I don’t make them myself
I either download free ones or pay from iStock. But then it’s basic html coding into a text/html widget.
Your code is going to look like this:
So where URL is, plug in your Twitter profile URL. Where PICTURE URL is, plus in where your picture is located (whether in your media, on Flickr, etc). & you can always change the height & width as it fits your layout.
well, crap. It’s not letting me put in the URL.
********
take out all of the asterisks.
MOTHER EFFER.
I will email you
I was actually in real life a web expert. The fact that I can use all that fancy coding and design degree (that cost me almost $75,000 dollars to get) on my personal blog makes me happy.
Just a side note. . . you are a huge blog, Blair. I am not. And I use some of the same people you do. And they do not do for me what they do for you. I was really surprised at how differently I was treated.
I hate to hear that
Speaking of blog stuff, what happened to your “blog roll” tab?
Long story short? It just felt “messy.” Both in design & other stuff. It’s still there, just not as a tab as I try to figure out what to do with it from here on
Dude, I’m pretty sure I share a zip code with that warehouse, STOP ANTAGONIZING THE HURRICANES BETH ANNE.
I spend roughly that a year too. With hosting and design…maybe a wee bit less, but very comparable.
and I can’t imagine that the people we go through would treat anyone differently…I use Japster, but I have heard wonderful things about Twenty70.