I realize that I’m shooting myself in the foot here, but really our goal at smartboymedia is to provide service to our clients and future clients. If that means teaching or showing you how you can manage/edit your website then so be it. Customer service is, in our opinion, providing what the client wants and making sure that the client is pleased.
Other companies insist that they must manage the content for you. That they have to create the imaging for you. No they don’t. What they mean is that they want you to pay them money. To be honest, I do too, it’s what I’m in business for, however, I understand that money is an issue for may these days and everyone is looking to save a penny where they can. Good for you and good luck.
There are lots of free tools for managing your site content. We’ll explore a few few below.
Image editing – Say you have a picture that you want to post on your site but it’s too big or too ugly or something. You just want to edit it and post it. You call your firm who manages your site and if you don’t have a service agreement with them then they’re going to charge you by the hour. So will I. BUT…you can edit any image if you’re willing. There are free image editing tools that work as well as photoshop for the average user. Gimp is a fine tool that is somethign like Photoshop, just not as in depth. It’s relatively easy to learn and use but does require you to download and install some software. My favorite imaging tool is at Aviary . It’s a fantastic imaging tool that is all cloud based. You can access it from anywhere, anytime and from any computer. There are also audio editing tools, vector tools and some other neat and FREE tools.
Resources – Sure you say,” I have an idea what I want but you computer guys…you know where everything is.” We might know where things are but that’s only because we spend time to look for them to make our job easier to do! Vector images for your designs are easy to come by. Try Vecteezy for some ideas and downloads. Dafont.com has tons of free fonts for your designs. Did we mention that they’re free? Nice.
Icons - So you’ve created some posts for the fancy new WordPress site that your designer has created for you (smartboymedia specializes in WordPress based sites by the way…just sayin..:) and you need some icons. Go to iconfinder and..um…find your icon! As Chef Tell used to say, very simple, very easy.
There are a ton of free applications and design tools for you to use. Get someone professional to design your site, to make sure everything works and to manage updates to the site for you that are more than imaging. You’ll be glad you did but if it’s just adding an image to a post, then do it yourself. Save money and time and then call or email us if you still need help.
smartboymedia | | 816.289.7921