Tag: Website Design

About Website Design

Subscribe Feeds

What do people want from me?

Posted on by Jerad Hill

I have been blogging for years. I started blogging in 2005 and have written about a large variety of unrelated topics over the years. My blog started with updates about my life and my opinion on things that I was experiencing at the time. Though I have not always been a consistent blogger, this blog has over 1,100 posts. I am a very resourceful person. If I need to do something, I will figure it out on my own or I will find someone who has written about it online and follow their instructions. This is how I taught myself how to be a website designer and a professional wedding photographer. Whenever I can not find an answer online and figure it out on my own, I post about it. I feel that it is my way of giving back to the internet which has given so much to me. The only problem is that each article I write on a problem that I solved is unrelated to the other articles. Articles I have written have ranged from resolving problems with my Mac, video editing, photography, Photoshop, fitness, traveling and the list goes on. Some of those items could be categorized together but if I was to organize it, the list of categories would be so long they would run off the page. I have always envied niche bloggers who solve related problems all day long on their blog. Many of them do it so well that I don’t want to enter the space and be just another person writing about the same situations.

I have considered writing about Photography many times. Through tutorials and workshops, I taught myself how to be a professional photographer by trying things I read online refining them until the end result was appealing to me. The problem is that there are many websites that teach photography and even more websites that curate great photography related content. There are a lot of voices online regarding photography. Though I have been producing some online photography courses, I have not felt lead to produce a blog and attempt to write original content all week. I have also considered writing about Website Design. Designing and building for the web is a lot harder to teach than photography. I feel that there are also a lot of great sites out there that teach website design and curate fantastic content on being a better website designer.

I think that my problem is that I don’t consider myself as much of a professional as I am in my chosen crafts. Those of us who are professionals in a certain job or function have professionals that we look up to. There are photographers who are much more knowledgable than I am and there are website designers who could code into a corner. It’s not a matter of self-confidence. I am confident in my abilities to produce quality work even though I practice two professions. I get bored easy, so I have to keep myself learning different things to keep my attention.

I envy those who find one craft and are all about it. Our world has changed a lot in the last 20 years. Many will completely change careers more than once in their lifetime doing something completely different than what they were equipped to do after the completed their schooling. People like me, who did not have the attention span for school left on their own path and may even see more career changes over the course of their lives. So how do you decide what to focus on when you are focusing on so many things?

What it comes down to is that I want to add value to the world in a similar way that it has added value to my own life. If I was born in the 50’s it would have been much harder to do what I am doing today because the information was more difficult to come by. Back then you had your local library, today we have the internet and Youtube. There is no excuse for not knowing how to do something anymore.

What I have found that is unique to me and very few others is the understanding that when you set out to do something, you need to own it. When you commit to something, you have to be the best you can be. When I say that I will do something I do and when I want to do something I figure out how. I am one of the most resourceful people I know and I can say this because all I hear from more than 90% of people I come in contact with is words confirming their inability to do something. Most people are convinced that they are dealt certain cards. They know that they have more ability than some but less ability than most. People accept only a small amount of responsibility for things these days. Job descriptions are very specific and if it falls outside of what is on paper then that person most likely won’t do it. We live in a world where people take very little responsibility for anything anymore. Two weeks ago a guy side swiped my wife while driving down the road and he denied responsibility. Every day people complain about being given tasks stating that it is not their job. We all sound like kids who was just asked to clean the dishes when our only chore was to take out the trash. On top of that, we all feel that we are entitled to so much but will take responsibility for so little. No wonder our Grandparents shake their heads at us.

Now I don’t want this post to turn into a tangent on what the world should be but I do find that I take responsibility for what I say I will do and I own every task. Sometimes I may take longer than anticipated but I always get things done. I encourage my clients to think big because I want them to go big and achieve goals now that they thought were a couple of years away. We live in a world where you can go big now and achieve great things in a fraction of the time it used to take even ten years ago. I had a thriving wedding photography business in less than six months after shooting my first paid event. I started an app discovery website for the iPhone that took off a few months after starting the site and has been a constant income source since then.

I often buy into the glamorized appearance that are most publicized  Sometimes I think that my businesses are to small to talk about but in reality they are big enough to support a relatively comfortable lifestyle for my family and I have two full time employees on payroll. The only consistant goal I have had for myself other than to try to stay in shape is to be able to have a family and support them and so far I am doing that. Honestly, I don’t know where life will take me as far as that goes, I hope that I don’t cause any struggle or hardship for my family but I believe that I am a hard enough worker and resourceful enough person to not have to worry about that very often.

Perhaps what I should be blogging about is personal responsibility. The idea of taking ownership for your actions and promises is dying. People blame any easy target for their situations and it is why our nation is having so many issues. What I don’t want is to be some soap box guy touting my thoughts as if they are some sort of religion. I don’t want to sound like I am preaching to people and I definitely do not want people to feel judged by me. Earlier today I posted a photo on Facebook of a giant “We accept EBT” sign on a Papa Murphy’s Pizza simply making the joke that I would love an EBT card so I could get free pizza. Many people took my post as a jab at the less fortunate and the comments under the post turned into two sides: One side recognized that the welfare and assistance programs in the US were flawed and agreed when I stated that if you are needing assistance that you should choose a more humble way of feeding your self and family. I mentioned that things like buying prepared pizza is a luxury item that should be seen as a treat. The other people attacked me with unemployment details and disability situations that were obviously one of a kind situations. Don’t get me wrong here, I am all for a system of assistance that is well moderated. As long as there is accountability in place, the system should operate fine. The problem is that it is too easy to take advantage of the system so people are doing it. The result is ever increasing taxes and burdens on those who do chose to work. I am all for helping those who are unable. As a child, we had to accept assistance for a short stent due to extenuating circumstances. It just happens, but you do what you need to do to get off of it as soon as possible. It was hotdogs and chili for months but we survived…

With that said, there are many things that I am passionate about and some I even get emotional over. Some of you know me pretty well and many of you do not know me at all aside from what I post on this blog. Most people enter this blog from a Google search that resulted in a link to a post or article on this website. Not nearly as many people enter this website because they anticipate what I have to say next. This is what I want to change. I love the open-ness of the internet. I am a very transparent person and do not mind sharing aspects of my life to either help someone who is going through something I did or inspire someone to do something they did not know how to do. I am not perfect, to be honest, I am just as flawed if not more flawed than the average person. The only difference is the decisions I make and the responsibility I take for my actions. I have drastically change my life from the course that it was headed in my late teens and early 20’s. I am personally responsible because of people who have either shared their lives with me either personally or online. The only thing I have to get over is the fact that I often think that I don’t have something unique to offer. Each of us have something unique to offer, it’s just hard to find a comfortable way to display that publicly and honestly.

If you made it this far, what do you think? Should I pick a topic I am considered a professional in and chronicle my experiences and lessons learned into educating articles, posts and videos? Should I try to bring back personal responsibility by showing the world that if you take ownership in what you do you will already be 3 steps ahead of the rest? Or should I just post cute pics of my kids and make jokes like I do on my personal Facebook profile? Most probably don’t want anything from me at all, and I am ok with that, but I know that there are some people that I would connect well with out there. Those are the people I want to create for.

5 Tips for Thriving in Online Local Search

Posted on by Jerad Hill

As businesses it is important that we show up in search engine results when somebody is searching for products or services that we provide. Failing to rank well in search means that traffic is going to your competition. Over the last few years, search engines have began moving toward providing better local results based on our location. Organic search engine results continue to move down the first page results as local and maps listings fill in the top of the page.

With this move toward localized search results it is important that you optimize your website to rank well in local search. The process for doing so is a bit different than the process for ranking well in organic or paid search results. To help you get started, I have put together my top 5 list for thriving in online local search.

1. Have Consistent NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number) Information On Your Website: Google has very little information to go off of to verify you are actually in the location you say you are and they do everything they can to verify it. Make sure that your business name, address and phone number is consistent across your entire website. Even old pages need to be updated. If you moved, make sure there is no trace of that old address. If you have multiple phone numbers, choose one to list on the website and stick with it. If you just moved into a new location, do what you can to get the old business removed from that location. Ask that old business to remove the address from their website.

2. Update Directory and Review Site Listings: There are countless websites out there that list businesses information. Many of them get the information from your phone company. Make sure that the information these websites are listing is accurate. Most of these sites allow you to login and update your information. You can select business categories and usually list your website address. It helps to get into these profiles and make sure your information is accurate and consistent across all profiles. Make sure your address and phone number is entered in the same format. Here are a few of the popular sites to check: Google Places, Bing Local, Yelp.Com, CitySearch, Yellowpages.com, Superpages, Best of the Web. Don’t worry about spending any money with these sites for the time being. It is just important that your NAP info is accurate and consistent. Base your address off of how the US Postal Service (USPS Address Checker Tool) has it listed and your phone number off of how the phone company has it listed.

3. Keep Listings Updated: If you list your company on a website or social network, keep that information up to date. It’s almost comical how often I come across a company’s Facebook page or Yelp profile that has incorrect location or contact information. The search engines use algorithms to check for and rank information accuracy which means that if there is too much inconsistency in results for your business, it won’t add up and Google won’t include you.

4. Encourage Customers to Review Your Business: A recent survey by Dimensional Research, a market research firm focused on technology, found that 90% of customers who could recall having read online reviews were influenced by positive reviews in their purchase decision. Similarly, 86% said that reading negative reviews had influenced their decision. It is more important than ever to have your customers opinions published on the web. To help encourage customers to leave reviews you can post a notice at your business, mention it at the end of your email signature or on your website, or include it at the bottom of your invoice or packing slip. The more people see your requests for reviews the more they will recognize your desire to have their feedback.

5. Google Maps Tips: If information has changed at all, there may be inconsistent information in Google Maps. Even if your address information is correct, the map pin could be off. If you have not claimed your Google Local listing, which is currently merging with Google Plus business pages, make sure you do this. Claim your listing and/or page and assure it is filled out completely with information that matches what is listed on your website. Assure that for each business category you choose on your listing there is information on your website. Google is checking to make sure you service each category you list. Google now allows for up to 10 categories so you can get as specific as you need to.

Pro Tip: Many entrepreneurs such as myself have a few hats that we wear. Not only am I a Website Designer, I am also a Wedding Photographer. It is important that you choose to use your address and phone number on the website and business name you are focusing on getting to rank in local search. I have found it nearly impossible to rank for both Hill Media Group and Jerad Hill Studios using the same phone number and address. Even using different phone numbers is not enough anymore. Don’t confuse the search engines by your business NAP information linked to multiple business names and websites. Choose one and optimize that business name using the tips above. If you want your other businesses to rank well in local search you will need to find a way to have a unique address and phone number for those businesses that are valid.

If this all sounds a bit complicated or time consuming, you most likely feel like the rest of us. Though the search engines are getting more intelligent, so are spammers. Search engines continually have to step up their game in order to provide the best content to their users. Because of that, we too must step up our game and make sure we make it as easy as possible for the search engines to verify and rank our business information.

The above steps should get you started in the right direction. Optimizing a website for any form of search whether that be local or organic search is time consuming. If you choose to outsource this job to a company that “specializes” in Search Engine Optimization, make sure you do some research on that company first. There are many SEO companies out there that take your money and make a mess out of your online data. You are probably already getting calls from SEO companies promising to help you rank #1. I suggest you avoid those companies. The best SEO companies out there are not cold calling for new business.

My recommendation is to bite off small chunks at a time. Start by checking and verifying your information is correct on your own website, then move to directory and review sites. Within a few weeks you should have a handle on it and be on your way to Thriving In Online Local Search.

Vegan Friendly Restaurants in Modesto

Posted on by Jerad Hill

Late last year I started eating “vegan” in an attempt to clear up some issues I was having with my stomach. Though most of those issues still have yet to resolve themselves I have enjoyed eating healthier and feeling cleaner. The hardest part about eating vegan is finding restaurants that have items on their menu that I can eat. I am not vegan in the sense that I need to know the carbon footprint of my salad or anything crazy like that, I just want to know where I can find food that I can eat. I cut out all meat and dairy in an attempt to find my trigger foods, the foods that are causing me problems.

If you search online, you can find plenty of vegan options in bigger cities such as San Francisco and Sacramento but what if you are looking for vegan friendly restaurants in Modesto, which is where I live? Modesto actually has over 200,000 residents so you would think that it would have options. Having lived here my entire life I have came to learn that though Modesto is a City, it has the mentality of a town.

Earlier today I almost posted to my personal Facebook about how local restaurants need to be better at marketing. It is not easy to find out what restaurants “currently” offer unless that restaurant is a chain and has the same menu nationwide. I decided not to post to Facebook because I wanted to make a point. The image below is a screenshot of my Google search when I was attempting to find vegan friendly restaurants in Modesto.

vegan-friendly-restaurants-search

Notice that there are zero search results for actual restaurants. The only results are directories. Google recognizes that an actual website with relevant content to the search query is a better option than a directory website. This is why as a website designer I get excited when I find longtail search queries that are “untapped.” It is low hanging fruit that rarely anybody takes advantage of.

For example: One of my clients is a Liquor License Broker who started a new company which meant starting a new website. We built his website from scratch with no previous website or content leading to his company name. This is always tough because every other website that existed before his had more authority on the web than his does being brand new. To jump start the growth of traffic to his website I suggested we go after something else besides trying to rank for search terms like “liquor license” or “California liquor license.” It would be much too difficult to rank for terms such as those. I found that a lot of people were doing searches for the phrase “how much does a liquor license cost?” So we create a page and answered the question. See the image below and notice that even when we omit California from the search, our website ranks #2 out of 746,000 results.

liquorlicense-costresults

I have found that most restaurants, even in the bigger cities, have horrible websites that do not solve the problem at hand. Restaurants make the mistake of assuming that people want to go to their website to get their address or see photos of their food but what about people who don’t know about your restaurant in the first place? If somebody already knows about your business, they don’t need your website. They can find your phone number from Yelp or by asking Siri on their iPhone. However, if you want to attract new business, you need a good website that helps to attract new customers by being findable. That website also needs to include content that can answer questions or provide solutions such as how to find “vegan friendly restaurants in Modesto.” Most of my clients do not take me completely serious when I tell them they need to do this even though many of them hired me as their website designer after finding me through one of these tactics. Obviously this blog is just an example of how any business could capture extra website traffic by thinking a little broader.

Now with out giving away to many of my tricks I will tell you that I get a lot of business from taking advantage of longtail search. I have been doing this since I first started back in website design in 1998 when you could put anything you want on your website and Google would rank you for it. I understood that when somebody is searching for something local they are not going to use a simple term because that would open them up to results for the whole world. If I am searching for “vegan restaurants” I am not going to use that as my search because I know that Google would return results for restaurants all over the United States and that is not what I am looking for. Longtail search is where it is at and it boggles my mind that marketers and website designers do not get this. So let’s see what happens with this post. I will return in a day or so and see how this page is ranking. In the mean while, I will continue the old fashioned way to try and find a local restaurant who has vegan friendly menu items by calling them on the phone.

Update 2/22/13:

I checked Google a couple of times 24 hours after this post went live and sure enough, I was listed on the first page. I waited an extra 24 hours to see if it would increase in rank or stay in the same place. See the screenshot below. I decided not to post to social networks or share this post so it would simply be Google ranking the page based on the content with out taking interest into account. It will be interesting to see if this post increases or decreases in rank over time as it gets shared online. I imagine I would have been able to rank much higher for this search phrase if my website actually had something to do with Vegan food.

vegan-friendly-search-update-2

eSellers: How to Prepare Your Website for Cyber Monday

Posted on by Jerad Hill

Cyber Monday is the Black Friday of the web. Online retailers will pull out all of the stops this year to get the attention of potential online customers. Over the years the tactics have changed and competition is only a click away. The holiday season is a great time to run promotions and try new things in an attempt to get more traffic to your site. If done right, those sales can turn into repeat customers who can keep your sales up year round.

With my 12 years of web design experience and even more as an online shopper I thought I would throw down a few ideas that I believe will increase your sales if implemented correctly. Some of these suggestions are pretty simple to implement and for those of you who are serious there are a few more advanced suggestions as well.

Cross Selling
You know how Amazon suggests items that you may like based on what others have purchased? The feeling they invoke in us is pure selling awesomeness. Showing items that compliment each other is cross selling. For example, a camera selling on a website may have a few items listed below it such as camera straps, memory cards, cases… You get where I am going with this.

Depending on your website, this functionality may not be available to you but if it is or you can figure out how to make it happen you can turn one sale into two, there or more. A great open source platform that comes with cross selling built in is Magento Commerce. Something easier to get started with is Spotify.

Simplify Your Customers Experience
Can you remember the last time you were on a website that frustrated you? It is all to common, especially when you just want to buy something and get back to what you were doing. If you sell a product that can be found somewhere else then you can not afford to leave a snag for potential customers to trip up on.

Getting feedback can be difficult. I have never been a fan of asking customers to specific of questions about the process through my websites however there is nothing wrong with asking your best customers if they think there is anything that would make the process better. They have probably been through it multiple times and may have some insight. If you really want to make sure, have a couple of those family members of yours that never seem to be able to learn how to attach a photo to their email to buy from your site. If great aunt flow can make it through with out calling you five times then you are probably good to go 😉

Create ways for your customers to get to your holiday specials. This could be as simple as adding a menu item, a banner image that links to your holiday specials or special landing pages that link to your social media sites.

Do all of these things. I am a huge fan of covering all of the bases and being everywhere.

Optimize for Search
I say optimize for search rather than search engine optimization because I don’t believe that you should position your website to appeal to a ranking that you may think is relevant to get more traffic. I have found that people search in a less logical fashion then you would assume. The only time they search in a specific manor is when they have the specific answers. This means that they already know what they are looking for they are just looking for the website with the best price. If you think like I do then you don’t want to be that website. The web is filled with to many websites that lack in so many areas because their owners are not making enough money to take their website serious. If you want to find the customers who went to Google because they did not yet know what they were looking for then you need to position your products and content to be found by those people.

Positioning your website and products to be found by the less informed takes a lot of work. You may be selling products produced by another company, which means that your content and resources are probably handed to you by the manufacture. I always tell my web clients that as an online consumer, I am not the type of person they should be targeting. I know how to find something, even if I don’t know what it is I am looking for. It is very rare that I spend more then a few moments looking for something that I didn’t even know existed. However, people who are “pretty good” at searching the web are not your target. Those people generally can find you if they wanted to as long as your website is in decent working order, is fairly modern and has decent content.

This is where I suggest that you optimize your website for those searching. A best practice that you will see on many blogs is to make sure that the text on your website is “keyword” rich. That is only a small step in the right direction. What you really need to focus on is making sure that your website’s text is search phrase rich.

A search phrase is what most of us do when we search. If I am looking for a camera I don’t google search the word camera. Most people will search based on what they are trying to accomplish. For example, if Jane was looking for the best camera for taking sports photos of her son playing soccer and you really want to sell a certain camera that is good at fast moving shots to soccer moms she would probably do a search in Google for “best camera for soccer photos” or something along those lines (keep in mind this is an example). That is a search phrase. Read through the content on your website and most importantly the product descriptions you have and see if you have any potential search phrases in there. Here is an example of how you could word your content: “The SL140XT is an affordable choice for the mom who wants the best camera for capturing her children’s soccer moments.”

Of course that example is very specific. I would suggest you try to be as broad as possible with out sounding like the manufacture wrote it. To make this process easier you could put together packages. If a mother wanted to buy a camera for the above mentioned purpose she would probably need a compact camera case, extra batter and possibly a zoom lens. Why not create a package that is for the “soccer mom.” If you can figure out how to create some specific niche packages you could take care of your Cross Selling and the same time.

Website Redesign
I am going to be honest. I judge a website by it’s cover and I know you do too. We all do, the same way we decide to walk into a store or not. When it comes to spending our money we want to make the best decision on who to spend it with as possible. At all costs want to avoid a negative experience or even worse, an embarrassing experience. A website is a lot like high school, the pretty ones get most of the attention. Of course there are the occasional loud websites that just seem to be popular for no apparent reason but the pretty sites have to work far less at it. If your website design is not on par with what people would expect from your industry then your website’s look could be costing you more money than it would take to redesign it. Of course it does not come down to the look of the website along, however this is one of those things that helps. A typical website redesign could cost you as much as a few thousand dollars but if the feeling people get from your website when they first click on it is less than desirable, you could be loosing much more then that.

People expect consistency, it helps us feel like we are on the right path. I get frustrated when I click on a link or an ad that looks and sounds like what I wanted only to land on a website that looks and feels nothing like what I expected. Create the experience you want your customers to have from the first link or ad they click on to the pages they land on after the checkout is finished. When it comes to selling online there is no such thing as to much testing.

Simplify and Reward
I think I have spoke enough on the topic of making the process simple. Once you have achieved this, make sure that you reward your customers for buying. I have seen websites give free shipping on the next order, a 20% discount if another order is placed with in the next 6 hours and coupon codes on the invoice with the shipped product. Make sure you give them something for next time. Make them remember your store, especially if you sell something that can be found somewhere else. You can not afford to be forgotten by your customers.

Online selling is much harder then it was 10 years ago, even 4 years ago for that matter. Don’t ever get comfortable. Keep trying to improve the process and make the experience better. Know what your customers are looking for and provide it. Know who your customers are and be the kind of seller they want to buy from. Just because your website does not have a physical face that people can see does not mean that you can not make it feel just as warm as dealing with a real person. Check out Zappos.Com’s iPad app. When you add an item to the cart a kitty jumps out with a thumbnail of the product in hand and drops it in the shopping cart. It is clunky looking but it makes me smile every time. What are you doing to make your customers smile while on your website.

This article quickly turned into an article on things you should do to your website anyway. I could go on in extreme length on examples of exceptional websites and practices that seem to be working for other people however I believe that you should figure out the kind of customer you are wanting to attract and build the shopping experience that person would expect to get.

Resources:
Spotify – Online Selling Platform with a free trial
Magento Commerce – Opensource eCommerce platform. Not easy to setup but it’s amazingly powerful.
OSCommerce – Opensource eCommerce platform. Not nearly as robust with features as Magento but easier to setup.

Studioten, Photography Website and a New Server

Posted on by Jerad Hill

The last 2 months have been crazy. What am I talking about, the whole year has been crazy so far. My usual slow months of January through March were not slow at all. Last month I got the wild idea to actually open a studio. This is something I threatened myself with many times over the last few years but never went through with it. I finally found a decent location at a price that didn’t make me nervous. In the matter of a few days I had keys and lots of new ideas. We completely revamped the entire place, it was super gross. I decided to call it Studioten. It is named after the suite number, which is ten. Here is a short video of us painting.

My old home office is now my Wife’s crafty space. She has been making it her own and even posted a before and after over on her blog.

I recently contracted/hired a guy to help with some of my online projects. Ben is now in charge of video reviews over at DailyAppShow.Com. This takes a huge load off of my shoulders and will allow me to grow the site and focus on other projects. Ben works with me at Studioten handling the app video reviews and will be doing other video projects for clients of mine. The new studio really took a lot more time and effort to get up then I thought it would. I imagined doing half of what I ended up doing. Ben is working on a video that shows the rest of the process of us setting up the place.

My Photography website was getting out dated. I had not changed anything there in over a year and a half, maybe longer. I had been wanting to create a site that had large full width images on the home page so that is what I did. The focus is the photography, just like it should be. Take a look and let me know what you think. I wanted to do this design update last year but I didn’t have the time available.

I now offer videography services as well. Many of you know that I have a love for video and have some experience behind me in wedding videography. My main focus over the last several years has been Wedding Photography but have recently decided to expand to offering video as well. Because my team now includes more than just myself, I have the resources needed. Check out some of our wedding videography.

Earlier this month I taught a class on the Mac. I had been wanting to teach a class for quite some time but never had a place to do it. Now that I have Studioten put together I plan to do classes more often. At the Mac Class I had 18 people in attendance which is about all the room can hold. I am excited to put together more classes and even head up some think tank sessions with some of my favorite local ideas people.

I have also partnered with United Cerebral Palsy (UCP) on a few projects and have been doing some photography and video with them. If you get a chance to visit UCP’s Modesto Office you will see photos I captured all over their halls. It was such a fun experience and I can’t wait to do more with them in the near future.

The last big thing that has been going on lately is the migration of all of my websites to a new server. This includes my clients websites. I have been on the same server for over eight years. To be honest I am very surprised at how it has performed considering how old it is. Liquidweb has been amazing over the years with their support. I have had minor issues with that server considering that it runs 24/7 to keep my clients and my own websites live. The new server will go live early at the end of the week. This server is screaming fast compared to my old server. The need for an upgrade is due to an increase in traffic on a couple of the sites I host. If you are looking for great hosting I highly recommend Liquidweb.

What’s next?

Over the next few months I will be pretty busy with weddings but I also have some plans for DailyAppShow.Com that I have been wanting to roll out. I have a few class ideas that I would like to get working on and a podcast on Photography that is long overdue.

I had a feeling that 2011 was going to be pretty cool, so far it has not disappointed. It has not been an easy year, but I am enjoying the ride.

Liam will turn one year old on June 5th and my Wife will hit quarter-life at the end of May. Pretty darn cool!

Liam and Me
Liam and Mal