The blog (and general ramblings) of a freelance web designer

In part one, I discussed the need for a great host. A VPS or dedicated hosting of some kind will usually give you a much quicker connection and help to bring your page speed score right up. My recommendation is to go with cloud hosting from somebody like Nimbus Hosting – they are the company […]

We could all do with being a bit more productive, right? We go on Awwwards for some inspiration and 2 hours later we’re playing on Pottermore. Or we hit up Slack for some knowledge, and the next thing you’re 200 messages deep about that cat video on YouTube. But there are some things we can […]

Did you know you could emulate print styles using Inspect Element? No? Me either!

On many occasions, I find the need to create a custom post type, and on top of that, I don’t just want to display 10 posts in the archive. So, with a bit of ‘pre get posts’ magic, we can set the number of posts to display, just like you would with a normal WP […]

I’m going to do a series on how to use Instagram for business. I have been using it quite a bit for the last six months and have seen my follower count rise from 200 to 1300, my average like per image has gone up from around 10, to 200 (and if I get less […]

Everyone wants a fast website. Users appreciate a quick load time, and search engines love it even more. So if you want a decent ranking, then you’d better have a fast site. There are lots of things to consider when improving your site speed, here are a list of some of things to help you […]

There are hundreds of tips, hints, tidbits and rules when it comes to selling your stuff online. If you are thinking of moving into the world of e-commerce with your product, the biggest trap you can fall into, is assuming that when your site goes live, you will start to make sales. It’s like a […]

Hi guys and girls – ok, so last week, I had a situation where a client needed a login form for their subscribers, but they didn’t want users to have to go in via the WordPress default login area and end up at the Dashboard. So a simple solution was to create a login form […]

Designing a logo? Use the Morphological Matrix to help. When I was studying for my degree in Advertising at Solent University, I studied under many fantastic lecturers, one of which was Nik Mahon. Nik taught creative and lateral thinking, and one of my favourite techniques for coming up with new ideas was something called the […]