Sitting up at 1am my husband asks “Kristine, what are you doing?” My response is usually simple: “Emailing”.

People don’t really look at email as taking up much time. Email was supposed to make things easier, right? Today, while looking through sent messages looking for a specific email I realized just how much time I spend emailing! I thought this was interesting and would like to share my find with my readers and clients. I think we can firmly stick this one into the hidden value of my web design services. Unlike a lot of businesses, I have always offered free support and try my best to answer emails and help clients with learning their site or simply making sure the design process and site vision are are on track. All of this adds up and I just thought I’d share a few numbers.

4-8. The average number of emails sent back and forth during the quote process.
30-60. The average emails that are sent from me to clients as part of back and forth during the design process on small projects.
100-130+. The number of emails I’ve sent out to clients on average on larger projects.

And when I say that I mean that range would be one person! So during the design time frame when I take on 4 projects at a time I could easily sent out 400 or more emails to the 4 clients. The design time frame is 6-8 weeks. Some emails are quick, 4 minutes to write. Others take more research, 30-40 minutes. Lets say the average is 10 minutes per email. That’s roughly 67 hours of email time, or 10 hours per week and this is a LOW estimate not including the quote process.

Email! I never thought it would be so time consuming! So there you have it. This is the reason my husband finds me up in the middle of the night working, wondering what I could possibly be doing.

So when considering the value of my web design services, here is a hidden value that you are getting when you work with Web Savvy Mama. The one on one attention from me when I am making sure there is good communication and that you fully understand how your site functions.

By the way, check out Thunderbird email client. Tabbed email, filtering, sorting and all your email accounts readable right in one inbox. I love all the features and it does help me save some time!

Now you can read the Web Savvy Mama blog on your mobile phone! Of course you can always opt to view it in its original format as well.

The mobile formats boasts a slimmed down theme for fast loading and easy navigation on your mobile phone. You can search for keywords or even select tags from the drop down menu. You can still browse categories and view the RSS feed too.

There are several plugins available for mobile browsing, the one I chose was WPTouch. I chose this specific plugin because it was easy to install and offered a lot of customization options. I feel this plugin would be the easiest to use for even the not-so-web-savvy-blogger.

So if you like to browse the internet and read blogs on your phone then I highly suggest you ask your favorite blog owners to install this plugin!

Do you own a blog and need help installing this plugin on your WordPress blog? I can help with that! Contact Me for more information.

I’ve been designing web sites for small businesses and work at home moms for nearly 5 years, during that time I’ve seen a lot of bad web site designs. I created a list of my own Do’s and Don’t s when it comes to web design. This is not a complete list, but one that I try to follow when I’m creating sites for clients. If you’re unsure about how to go about creating an effective web site, read on to get some ideas about what can make or break your web site.

Don’t: Use FrontPage or other WSYING editors, or graphical editors. These editors usually create messy HTML code that is not as easily read by all web browsers. They are also more likely to create both visible errors and other errors that may prevent your visitors from navigating your site effectively.
Do: Use clean HTML and CSS to design in a way that is W3C compatible. Using clean coding ensures that your site is usable by more users and accessible by those with disabilities as well. Dreamweaver or hand coding are your best options. Clean coding techniques also promote great SEO results! Read More…

WSM is finally joining the social network scene. Thanks to a plugin called Twitter Tools, posts found at Web Savvy Mama will be available on Twitter!

If you are looking for a way to integrate your blog, I highly recommend checking out this WordPress plugin. If you are looking for an easy way to keep up to date with Web Savvy Mama posts just follow me at http://twitter.com/WebSavvyMama