[wp-pro] Coach/Consultant/Training needed

[Robert Hocking]

This is my first post, so I apologize in advance if I am not following any
mailing list protocols here that I am not aware of.  I have a web site that
is hosted by powweb.com.  I have had it for about two years now.  I have my
domain name registered at namecheap.com, and I also subscribe to their whois
protection.  My web site is for my mobile computer repair business that I
started about two years ago.  My first web site was designed by myself using
powweb's templates, and it wasn't a blog.

 

I hired a web designer in my local area that convinced me to get good SEO,
that I needed to have him build me a blog web site, and he used Wordpress.
My web site address is: www.mobilecomputertechs.com.  I paid him to design
me a template that looked good, and would get me good SEO.  He explained to
me that once he built the template, and got the web site functional, that I
would have to add content to the web site several times a week, so that the
web crawlers that search the internet each night, looking for web sites that
have new content, they would find my web site, with updated content, and
raise me up in the search engine's results displayed when someone was
searching for me.

 

Well this hasn't worked very well for me, mainly because I am so unhappy
with the look of my web site, that I completely lost interest in adding
content to my web site, to increase my SEO.  Because six months have gone by
since my web site was created for me, the person who created it won't make
any changes to make it look like what I would call a professionally designed
web site, and he wants to charge me to redesign it again.  The problem I
have with that is I paid him once to design what I thought was going to be a
professionally designed web site, and if I didn't get what I wanted in the
first place, I'm thinking I most likely won't get what I want again.

 

I decided to do some research on creating, or modifying my existing
Wordpress theme, and I stumbled upon what appears to be a great piece of
software called Artisteer.  A lot of web sites that reviewed it gave it high
reviews, so I bought it yesterday.  I installed and within several hours I
had a theme that I feel that I would be happy with.  I had a couple of
glitches creating the theme that I thought looked good, and I contacted the
technical support department, and they answered most of my questions,
although a couple of them I answered myself, even though I wasn't able to
find the answers in the user manual, or their online forums, or searching
Google.

 

So I figured that this was going to be really easy, I got this theme saved,
and I can just simply upload it to wherever and plop it in place, and I'd be
good to go.  Well I did some research how to upload the theme and apply it,
and now I'm finding that it is not as easy as I thought it would be.  When I
activate the theme, it doesn't look like it does when it is in Artisteer.
After doing several hours of research and digging into the wp-admin panel
for my web site, I am finding that there is a lot in there that I have no
clue what it does, or how to use it.

 

My wife does programming for Ford, and she works with web sites there, and
she has been trying to help me get my web site cleaned up, and looking good,
and then eventually she is either going to start adding content to my web
site that I provide for her, or she will show me how to add content to my
web site myself.  She is a basic to intermediate user of html, and I thought
she would be able to get my web site straightened around in a short period
of time.  She went out and bought a Wordpress book, and has been working on
the web site for about a month now, and hasn't got very far with getting it
finished.

 

About a week ago, the person/company who I paid to design my web site had a
training class on how to use Wordpress, in regards to the web sites that he
designed for his clientele.  I signed my wife up for this four hour class,
and I thought in that four hours she would have a good start on getting my
web site redesigned, and content finally added to it.  The class ended up
running over four hours, because each person in the class had issues with
their own web site/blog, and by the time he tried to answer each person's
issues, he was all over the place, and there really wasn't an syllabus that
was followed, to guarantee that all the content that he wanted to teach, got
taught.

 

So I decided to jump into this project.  I am a Systems Administrator for
Chrysler (yes I still have a job) and I work on computers for a living.
Many years ago, I decided that I wasn't going to do web sites, because I had
so many people asking me for help with theirs, that I already had the area
of IT established that I was interested in working in, and working on web
sites was not on that list.  Maybe now I'm seeing that was a mistake to
choose not to learn basic web site creation and maintenance.

 

So now that you got a background of where my wife's experience are, and what
I need help with, here is my request.  I want to hire someone to remotely
train us how to use Wordpress, how to create themes, how to get a web site
working using Wordpress, how to add content, how to do all of this, and end
up with a professional looking web site, that gets good SEO.  I'd love to
find someone local to us, but I definitely consider doing this remotely,
where the coach/consultant would remote control my desktop, while my wife
and I watch, and then conversation is done using phone.  I have the remote
control software we can use.

 

My primary goal is to get my web site redesigned and looking professional,
and then for us to understand how to add content, so I can get good SEO for
anyone in my local area looking for computer repair.  It would be great if
my wife walked away with the basic knowledge on how to create a Wordpress
theme, and deploy a new web site for someone, as I have had my clients ask
if I could create a web site for them, and so far I have turned them down.

 

I envision this training taking a while, and not having any clue how long
something like this would take, I could see it being ten or more hours,
spread out over several sessions.  I'm really not looking for someone who
does this as their full-time business, my perfect coach/consultant would be
someone who is very familiar with all the ins and outs of creating a
Wordpress blog web site, because they do it at work, or they just love doing
it, and they are looking to make some extra income.  If I had to pay what
the person who designed my web site to train me, I would not be able to
afford the training, as it would not be cost effective, because it would be
cheaper to just have him redesign the web site for me.

 

We are in the Detroit metropolitan area, and if you would prefer to do this
in person, and you are a reasonable driving distance away, we would consider
driving to you, otherwise I think the remote connection solution would work
out well.  I hope this is the right forum to ask for the coaching/training
that we are looking for.

 

Best Regards,

 

Robert Hocking

 

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