Wayne Hastings - Interactive and Graphic Design - Los Angeles, CA » Self Promotion

Too busy to blog.

waynehastings — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 12:00:26 +0000

The title of this post says it all. I’m involved in designing websites, producing websites, updating websites, designing print materials of all kinds, creating interactive PDF projects, and a bunch of other stuff. So, I’m too busy to blog, and have been for several weeks.

Once some of these projects are completed, I’ll be posting more updates so you can see what I’ve been doing.

In the meantime, follow me on Twitter or friend me on Facebook.

If you have any web or print design needs, contact me! I’m never too busy to take on a new client.

New Site Launch: Griffin Chapel

waynehastings — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 17:22:14 +0000

Griffin Chapel (www.griffinchapel.com) is a small site for a wedding chapel in Brunswick, TN.

Built on the Joomla 1.5.15 platform, this site uses the following plugins:

ChronoForms to power the Contact Us form,
Title Manager for better TITLE tag SEO,
Joomla Content Editor for a better WYSIWYG interface than TinyMCE offers

The site also has a photo gallery built on Gallery 2.

The site’s content is still being written, so a couple of the pages are still blank. The site has been live for about a week, and the client has already had several calls, one just to say they loved the new site, and three more to book a wedding.

More photos will be coming in April from weddings that have already been booked.

Site Upgrade: Serenity Retreat League

waynehastings — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 17:20:57 +0000

Serenity Retreat League (www.serenityretreatleague.org) had a site built on Joomla 1.0.x, and was having trouble with the admin system. I recommended upgrading to the current version, Joomla 1.5.15.

The client was happy with the design they had, so I modified the existing template to be compatible with the new Joomla, moved the content from the previous site to the new install by hand, and upgraded the Contact Us page to use ChronoForm.

I’m Number One (in Google… again…)

waynehastings — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 18:09:45 +0000

Back in October, I noticed that a Google search on my name placed this site in the number one position on the first page of results. Then a few days later, this site had slid back to about number three.

I’m posting again to say that at least for now this site is back at number one on a search for wayne hastings

Here is a screen shot of my first page of results, with my sites in bold — sites that are not mine are ghosted back.

Quick Testimonials

waynehastings — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:37:56 +0000

Here are some quick comments I’ve received this week from some of my customers.

“It’s looking great — I had a [website visitor] call me today just to tell me she loved the new website.”

“[The clients] were very complimentary of your quick response to getting this web site updated. They also were all very pleased with how the #10 brochure turned out. Thanks for all you do.”

“I keep telling you… you ROCK!”

I’m Number One (in Google)!

waynehastings — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 16:27:18 +0000

It took a little while, chiseling away at my competition for Google search on my name, but my website is now the number one result for a search on Wayne Hastings.

I still regret never registering my name on the .com TLD — I just never imagined anyone else would have a name this lame and want to publish under it enough to register the domain.

Live and learn. If you haven’t registered your name on the .com TLD, time is running out quickly.

Busy Summer

waynehastings — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 18:16:58 +0000

July has been an incredibly busy month for me. I have a bunch of new sites in production, designed and waiting for production, and waiting for a new design not even ready for production yet.

I just posted two most recent site launches, one for a church in Memphis, TN, and one for a computer networking and support business owned by a friend who is also in Memphis.

On the fun side of living in Los Angeles, my roomate’s parents were in town last weekend and we all went to Universal Studios. Universal Studios is a lot of fun.

FaceBook vanity URL: in before that other guy

waynehastings — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 22:17:47 +0000

If you haven’t already, log into FaceBook and get a vanity URL set up.

I have a namesake in Nashville, and I wanted to get my URL before he did…

Fun with Twitter Backgrounds

waynehastings — Tue, 12 May 2009 23:09:01 +0000

Twitter is ornery. I’ve been trying to get it to accept a background graphic for my account for several days, and it just didn’t wanna take what I was trying to give. But today, finally, the sweet taste of success.

See it in action: twitter.com/waynehastings

Google Profiles: Another Profile, Another SEO Opportunity

waynehastings — Mon, 04 May 2009 12:00:50 +0000

Have you seen your Google Profile yet? Visit http://google.com/profiles/me and get started, then!

Google Profiles might be a stealth attempt at building a social network in the shadow of FaceBook’s dominance. The profile isn’t as feature rich or complex as FaceBook … yet … but does offer an opportunity to post a photo, contact information, and links to other sites.

And regardless of where Google plans to take this function, they have already added Profiles to the Google search results, making Profiles an important element in your search engine optimization plan.

You get to customize the URL, so claim yours early before your namesake beats you to it like he did with that .com domain you never got around to registering.

Check out my Google Profile here:
http://www.google.com/profiles/waynehastings