My website redesign went over budget...  Web Posting Mart I had three days to fix a long list of stuff, and my budget was running low, really low… and it turned out to be a Good Thing. Although the “concepting” of this website started months ago, I have let it brew because I want every move to be INTENTIONAL, to reflect how I want to do ME in my business. Four weeks ago, I finally felt the click. The time was ripe, so I went ahead and contacted my web gal, Jenn, for the project. I outlined a scope, set a budget, and prepared all the materials and necessary information (down to the hex#) to help make the process as smooth as possible. I thought I covered everything, Page Papi.

Website

Of course, there is always Murphy’s Law. The theme we originally selected did not allow her to make the website how we wanted (haha, so much about “plug-and-play”!). Then, the sign-up box under the header got all scrambled up when viewed on mobile.

Jenn developed a custom theme for the site, and we had to devise solutions for the mobile hiccup. Long story short, we ran out of time and budget. It was Saturday, and I was getting nervous about the list of “fixes” that needed to get done because I had a guest blog post going live the next Tuesday with the author bio pointing to the new site. The list was quite daunting… fixing the homepage layout, adding a testimonial rotator, adding links to the footer, cleaning up social share icons,

Revisiting some sidebar content, figuring out URL redirect, setting up business email with the new domain name, going over the layout of critical pages to make sure nothing is broken, synching up all Mailchimp lists and info with the unique URL and email address, and installing a trigger-box for list building… And Jenn still had to code the homepage on Monday! Instead of toiling my thumbs, sweating buckets, and putting pressure on Jenn, I decided to pitch in and check some stuff off the list. And I did.

I fixed some homepage layout stuff (figuring out html while chasing two kids was… interesting), hooked up the testimonial rotator, got all the sidebar and footer content sorted, figured out how to use a plug-in to set up a redirect, reviewed the layout of I-don’t-know-how-many pages (including 70 blog posts)… even tested a few pop-up plug-ins to see which one I like, and fixed the.php file for the shopping cart – without breaking anything!

On top of that, I researched and came up with a solution for the scrambled sign-up box on the header; I created a new Photoshop file for Jenn so she could get it going first thing on Monday. Yep, all in one weekend while herding two kids and with family in town. It came on Monday. Jenn could go in and focus on setting up the homepage and fixing the header sign-up, and we got it “good to go” by the end of the day. PHEW!

Even though I was on hyperdrive and lost some sleep (the adrenals aren’t happy about that), it was a valuable learning experience. I feel more empowered and confident about handling WordPress – not just what I can do to fix something but also where to find the resources/information to tackle a problem. That means I didn’t just solve the crisis at hand but also learned a bag of tricks and gathered a box of tools that will save me time, money, and panic down the road.

It’s not about “doing it all by myself.” It’s not about proving something. It’s not about saving the VA budget. It’s about being flexible and “not freak out” – because when sh!t happens at the 11th hour (and it will), you still have to roll up your sleeve and fix it. It’s better to feel confident and prepared rather than spending the time and effort to start learning and panicking (which does NOT help with thinking.)

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