Vision Shift Design

Where sustainable meets beautiful

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How to Get a Custom WordPress Theme Design for Your Budget

Have you ever looked inside a Cracker Jacks box? They were all the rage when I was growing up….

What you find inside the box looks pretty much alike. Hard to distinguish one carmel-colored popcorn kernel from another.

There is not much in the box that stands out and catches your attention.

And yet there is one exception. Cracker Jack box

The message printed on the outside of each box says, “Prize Inside.”

While there are only a number of unique prizes, you never know which one might be inside your box. For the buyer of Cracker Jacks, that unknown made your box feel unique. And after you’d had enough of the sticky-sweet popcorn, you’d keep digging [Read more…] about How to Get a Custom WordPress Theme Design for Your Budget

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How to Stay Calm and Handle Website Traffic Surges

Traffic.

We all desire traffic to our website.

You work hard to create content your site visitors will love.

You share and promote the heck out of your content in the hope that you’ll get likes, shares and traffic to your site.

In the movie, Field of Dreams, Kevin Costner builds a baseball diamond in his cornfield. He kept hearing the message, “if you build it, they will come.” Yet before “they” came, he built the groundwork so when they came, it was sustainable.

It is no different for your website design and configuration. You want to research, design and apply the framework for a sustainable website before you drive a lot of traffic to your site.

Not all traffic is created equal

[Read more…] about How to Stay Calm and Handle Website Traffic Surges

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The ABC’s of What to Include in Your About Us Page

About us.

Who, exactly, is us?

You might think that the us of your about us page refers to—

  • yourself as the site owner
  • your staff, if you have any
  • your company history
  • and last, though never least, your company dog or cat

The Cambridge dictionary defines us as—

The person speaking with other people included

Us includes me and you

Us is an all-inclusive word that encompasses those nearby the speaker.

Now it might seem counter-intuitive to consider nearby when it comes to your website. [Read more…] about The ABC’s of What to Include in Your About Us Page

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How to Make your Sustainable Website Design your “Ideal Business Partner”

Ever wonder how you can make a great first impression when you “meet” someone new and you’re not even in the same place?

You’ve likely been taught that you only get to one chance to make a first impression.

And what if you don’t even know that you are meeting someone new? You might believe that makes creating a great first impression hard.

Or does it?

Because of today’s online world, you and your reader are likely to meet-‘n’-greet for the first time on your website. So your site needs to be designed to “put your best foot forward.”

Your ideal business partner

One way to view your website is as your 24/7, always-on business partner. Partnerships succeed when each partner brings their best skills to the collaboration.

As your business partner, does your website design and content authentically and comfortably represent your best self? [Read more…] about How to Make your Sustainable Website Design your “Ideal Business Partner”

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How a Pair of Saddle Shoes Helped Me Find My Unique Voice

You know the feeling don’t you?

The knot in your gut.

The lump in your throat.

Your heart pounding loudly in your chest and ears.

You slowly inch your hand skyward in an attempt to join the conversation and share your point of view. Your silent, or persistent, words swirling inside your head that you fear may not resonate with others.

And just as the voices of fear inside your head subside enough that your fingertips start to creep past your shoulder and become visible—the facilitator stops calling on raised hands and moves on to the next topic.

You’re flooded with a sense of relief—you dodged that vulnerability bullet one more time—which is rapidly followed by a barrage of negative self-talk and frustration. [Read more…] about How a Pair of Saddle Shoes Helped Me Find My Unique Voice

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7 Tips for How to Gain Confidence in Your Authority

A few select ways to help you rock your customer’s world

  1. Practice teaching
  2. Be vulnerable and humble
  3. Learn from mistakes
  4. Get feedback
  5. Create a minimum viable product (MVP) and test
  6. Collaborate with a partner
  7. Stay hungry…keep learning

1. Practice teaching

Find one person who wants to learn what you have to teach and teach them. [Read more…] about 7 Tips for How to Gain Confidence in Your Authority