Cookeville, Tennessee is almost centrally located between Knoxville, Nashville, Chattanooga and Lexington, Kentucky. Therefore it is nicknamed "The Hub". It is also the economic center for it's surrounding towns making it more than just another college town.

Cookeville doesn't just support it's own population of 28,000 people in the city proper. It reportedly handles upwards of 200,000 people. Drive by restaurant row on a weekend, and it sure feels like it.

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They are looking for:

1. Contact information
2. Directions to your place of business
3. Warranty or support information
4. About you - how long you've been in business, why you're in business, what you hope to accomplish with your business, what kind of business (person) you are, what you offer that sets you apart
5. How you can help solve their problem
6. What kind of quality do you provide (through ratings, reviews, or testimonials)

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It's paramount to understand that you just can't throw up a website (although there are still sites out there that look like they have been vomited up), and expect people to just show up and give you money for your product, service or information. That's like hanging a sign on your closet door and pronouncing yourself in business. It doesn't work. You have to be findable.

Now there are all kinds of magic bullet, secret, guru-type things that only the very elite (and very expensive) SEO experts know how to do to get #1 Google rankings for the most competitive keywords available, BUT there is hope for us small business folk and startups that are still spending money on testing and research all all those goodies too.

If you can't afford a guru, fear not, you can take advantage of the low-hanging fruit that really aren't hard to go after at all. Here are some tips for keyword optimization if you are a startup or small business with a tight budget. 

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I offered to build my mom a website so that she can market her hair salon online. She asked me if it would really do her any good and would anyone search for a hair stylist on the web.

After I took a moment to collect myself, and recover from a moment of stunned disbelief that anyone would still question the validity of the most valuable marketing tool currently known to man, here is what I explained ...

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After painstakingly researching how to make life easier on both me and my clients I've finally weighed the costs verses the benefits and found the best cost solution for Drillerweb. It wasn't easy. There have to be no less than thousands of project management, invoicing, estimating, time-tracking, CRM, support, ticketing software and hosted solutions out there. 

Whew! I wore myself out!

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Is it just me or are you completely tired of the term "hip"? Isn't it just a little overused? Another good one is "relevant". We web designers use those words to try to convince you that we know what people want.

What's the written equivalent of a blowing a raspberry? ffffbbbttt!?

It's so five minutes ago to claim to know what's "hip". It's even more passe to claim to be hip when you're more likely to be someone who needs hip replacement.

C'mon! "Hip" is an old word anyway. There's nothing worse than trying to fit in. The best we can do is allow ourselves to NOT get in the way of what YOU want.

That's it.

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Although many firms can build web sites, Drillerweb builds sites that get results.  Getting our clients results doesn’t just make for a nice tagline; it’s why we stand-alone.  How do we do this you ask? Great question. First, we listen very carefully to you.  You tell us what you hope to accomplish with your site and we help you develop a strategy, design a site and implement content on an ongoing basis that will help you reach your goals.

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A website today is more than just yesterday's business card. It's like opening another storefront or hiring another sales team. It's your catalog, brochure, library, and PR department all rolled into one.

The competition is already reaching the clients who are looking for you. Do you really want to leave that kind of potential on the table? Should something this important be left in the hands of someone who is just out to make a buck?

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A few years ago I began working as a freelancers for a corporation with a team of several people. We were managing and working on several projects at a time. This means you have development servers, production servers, ftp accounts for each, Joomla accounts, vendor accounts, and then if you've purchased extensions or templates you have accounts with other sites you need access to in order to do your work.

Try Roboform Now!

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We Could Be Your Next AH-HA Moment

We design for both the end-user and as a sub-contractor for other web design and marketing firms. Our tag line "integrity is our niche" is more than just a catchy phrase. It is the reason we can do business for this unique mix of clientele. We never try to compete with those we are trying to help. It's this very brand of excellence that attracts us to so many ordinary businesses.

Our prices are flexible enough to meet most budgets because of our expertise in keeping costs low, yet they reflect our competency as well. We're not fly-by-nights working for beer and cigarettes here.

After over a decade of business prowess, we've maintained a good reputation, a stable work load, and a growing portfolio.

We'd love to add you to our group of friends here. Give us a call or drop us an email. If you like those online forms, we've got those too. We'll meet you where you're at, talk about your project, and see if we can do business together

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I'm really having a good time here. I don't know if it's appropriate to let your client's know you're having a good time and you would do this stuff for free, but I gotta tell ya. It feels really good to spend your days doing something you love. I love being a "geek". I love figuring out how to make it work, putting together a design that speaks to a client, jazzing up a design in a way that gets results and not just ooo's and ahhh's.

Not only that, I like being in business. I just got a fresh order of business cards that I designed myself - with some insight from other designers on the web (thanks guys). I'm really pleased with them, and I can't wait to spread them around. I got a couple car magnets as well. Now I'm not big on offline marketing because, as I've put in another blog post, I prefer working on my client's stuff and getting THEM results. Word of mouth advertising works best for me.

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Have you heard of Open Source? Well, if not, that's okay. We have! We've been designing websites for over a decade now, and there simply is no easier, faster, or more cost effective way to build a quality site. Joomla is a content management system, or CMS. It's absolutely free. Don't you just love free stuff?

Looking for a catch? Well, the only catch is that you have to learn how to use Joomla. The learning curve is steep or shallow depending on your experience. The good news is that we are Joomla experts, and we provide top-notch Joomla training. If you would rather not bother with figuring it out we offer complete solutions.

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It's true Joomla is an open-source free CMS (content management system), but that doesn't mean there is no cost involved. The cost is usually in time spent on the learning curve.

Now there are some decent tutorials out there and even a manual you can download and read. If you're cash-poor and time-rich, then that's the way to go. Or if you're one of those people who just love to learn new programs or systems, Joomla can be a satisfying topic.

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I'm working on a site that needs areas devoted to two different types of users. we opted to use groups to divide the sections of the web user experience. Let's call the first category of groups "Projects" and the second category "Vendors".

First create the categories in the backend administrator area. Make note of the category IDs. Then create some sample groups for testing purposes. Call them project 1, project 2 (assign them to the Projects categor) and vendors 1, and vendors 2 assigned to the Vendors category.

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I'm still working almost full time for Wyndstorm Corporation as a freelance contractor. Through Wyndstorm I've been able to hone my skills in project management, CSS, and Joomla customization.

I've worked on projects including:

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I've learned two things that are extremely important when it comes to web design projects.

1. You HAVE to have a process that  moves a project along or you will hit problems down the road.

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I've been working with a linux server and came across a situation where I needed to essentially copy a database from a development environment to a production environment. Trying to use Plesk to do this boils down to several complications with export/import functions in MySQL, but there is a supremely easy way if your hosting service allows Secure Shell access.

Here are the steps:

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Ran into an issue recently where the client wanted to add some custom text on the Add Entry form in Sigsiu's SOBI2. SOBI2 is a directory component for Joomla. I thought I'd post how we did it.

I edited the file form.class.php located in the components/com_sobi2 folder.

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For those of you who haven't been looking at the news in web design lately, you're probably not going to get excited about standards based design. For web designers, it's the new black. Companies are demanding designers provide smoother running, cleaner looking web sites that work on all browsers. We achieve these aims through the new Web 2.0. That's just a fancy phrase for clean, smooth, browser-friendly, and interactive.

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Is a web site necessary?

Well, no. Breathing is necessary. In the grand scheme of things, you can do without a website and probably do fine. People who tell you you HAVE to have one are trying to sell you one!

There are a few things to consider when deciding whether a website will benefit your business. Ask yourself at least these questions: What do you want your website to do for you (make money is a little vague)? What is a realistic budget for creating and maintaining a web site? Can you afford the time or money or both to effectively market your site before it starts paying for itself? Do you trust the internet? Do you want to do it yourself or have it done professionally?

These are the basic questions whose answers may help guide you in the decision to build an online presence.

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CMS stands for Content Management System. I used to think that a CMS was a company that fed you articles for your web sites, but no, you have to write those yourself (or find an article writer through a freelance site). A content management system is a program usually written in a language called PHP which will sit on your web server and feed stuff from a database into a web browser in just about any way you tell it to. How you tell it to is to use a template.

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You're looking for some help because you're way behind, clients are breathing down your neck, their holding those last payments until you complete some more of their website, and you just can't seem to juggle it all.

Sound familiar?

Or how about this scenario? You've got the opportunity to close on a huge contract, but you're just not strong in one major area of the project. You can't do it all!

That's why I'm a sub-contractor.

In short, I help web designers get their jobs done. It's work I love to do, and it shows from start to finish.

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