Also known as the Fairy Blog Mother, Alice Elliott designs websites for women who either need someone who understands their lack of technology skills, or someone to design a website which they can then take over with full instructions and tutorials.
Yes, 20 years ago I formed the Fairy Blog Mother to help people understand about blogs, using ordinary, everyday language to explain things really simply using step-by-step pictorial tutorials.
I still help people with blogs. But websites and blogs require designing, along with educational tutorials, marketing functions and much more. Hence this web design business.
Introducing the fairy blog mother
There are some women who prefer to work with women, because we understand each other better. If you're a man reading this, don't disregard this concept, there are plenty of male website designers for you. But I feel it is important for women to feel there is someone on their side, ready to help them through their technological journey, to create the best website for what they need.
I first used WordPress for blogging, but soon learned how to adapt this for website design. I use Thrive Themes as the base of my designs, which also includes many digital marketing plugins and facilities to enhance the websites I produce.
As well as having parents who taught art and design, I have worked with layout and design for literature, newsletters and publicity material. All this contributes towards developing web design, combined with my digital marketing knowledge.
Part of setting up the Fairy Blog Mother was to educate people about blogs and blogging. I developed a more considerate tutorial delivery style than other technical people at that time. Therefore I can help you to fully understand your website.
Types of websites available
A basic website contains a homepage, about page, services page, private policy page and a contact page. Adding pages and other features will cost more, see the other toggle below.
Other features, which raise your website up from a basic model, consist of a blog, sign up forms, shopping pages, terms and conditions, connecting to social media, setting up courses, quizzes events or extra security, or anything else relevant to enhance your business. All you need to do is ask if it is possible.
The website's content management system is WordPress.org. The design package I use is the Thrive Themes Suite, which you will have to purchase. Your website will be hosted on the hosting package of your choice, using your chosen domain name.
I will always be available to help if you want to expand your website, or if anything goes wrong. My past clients know they are always able to contact me about their websites.
You can either have a basic website (see the other toggle) or any other features which are relevant to your business (see the other second toggle). But what is important is that these are something you know you can maintain yourself, so we will work together to make this as easy as possible for you.
I will design the website specifically so that you can edit it easily. This will depend upon its function and your requirements. I will show you how to access the editing areas and which features are available to you, and will guide you until you are secure enough to be left to your own devices.
If you aren't already a natural, I will patiently show you, with pictorial tutorials if necessary, the various elements of the Thrive Themes Suite (see the other third toggle) which are relevant for you to edit your website. This may be to add in your own content, or even, as with some clients, to change things themselves as their business develops. I will always be on hand to assist you with this.
Either I can teach your VA to edit your website for you, or you opt for my third option, the website with a monthly retainer, in which I update any content or add in extra facilities when required, on an on-going basis.
For a set fee every month, I will be on hand to update, expand, correct or fix your website whenever this is required. There may be more work on some months than others, but I will keep a tally to make sure the process is evened out over the year.
Ideally it spreads out the cost of maintaining a website with me to look after it for you. We will agree a fee which will cover a certain amount of hours of work a month. Any heavier months which will be evened out by the less busier times.
Both the basic website and ones with extra features (see the other toggles). What is important is that you have the website which is the most relevant to your business's needs. I you do opt for a monthly retainer to regularly update your website, I will be able to expand your website as your business develops.
As long as you want it to. If you are able to learn the ropes of how to edit and update your website yourself (see my second option), then this can be phased out. Or it can continue as long as our relationship is with each other.
Sometimes it's a good idea to get another opinion about your website or blog, from someone who isn't closely associated with you.
In other words, similar to a visitor to your website. Or from me, as a third party with digital marketing experience, who could cast a practiced eye over how you are portrayed on the web.
If you are interested, click on the button below to find out more...
Can you relate to any of these?
Ellie is a self-sufficient, busy and dynamic business woman. Being time-limited, she wanted a website which could be edited quickly and easily. I worked on making the elements which required regular editing fully accessible, with tuition how to do it. She then adapted the website to suit her needs. She still contacts me if anything goes wrong, and this is extended to help her to troubleshoot for future problems. This independence is very important to her and her business schedule.
Sally is a very busy, successful and evolving business woman. She wanted a website which could expand along with her business. She is very active with PR and regularly creates new products and courses. She wanted a website which could accommodate her latest ventures and take advantage of the latest digital marketing. She and I work on a retainer basis, to spread the work costs required to maintain the constant updates required to her website.
Alice, working with you is amazing! I just want to be the most effective therapist I can be and with your support, I can grow and develop my business while focusing on what I do best.
I like to maintain constant contact with my clients, to find out and provide exactly what they want. This may involve a lot of questions, or even to-ing and fro-ing with ideas until we get it right. I will also endeavour to explain what I'm doing so that you understand everything about your new website.
Types of blogging available
There are two kinds of blog using WordPress. The first is a free version using WordPress.com, which creates a simple blog hosted by WordPress. The second is activating the blog in your website using WordPress.org, which requires paid for hosting and a domain. There is already the facilities for a blog built in, which just requires activating.
The simple WordPress.com blog is limited in what extra features it allows. WordPress has control over it, so may not allow forms to be embedded. However it does have a lively audience of other WordPress bloggers to which your blog will be sufficiently exposed.
Since your hosted WordPress website is actually a blog with the commenting turned off, it is able to support sign up forms and connecting to social media. You are in control of what can go into your newly activated blog, so most extra features are possible.
There are many different version of blogging platforms available for you to choose from. This will depend upon what you want you blog for.
However, I use WordPress for my blogs, either the free .com version or paid hosted .org version. WordPress.com provides a myriad of themes for you to choose from, but for the WordPress.org blogs I use the design package Thrive Themes Suite, which you will have to purchase (if you aren't already using it for your website), along with the hosting package and chosen domain name.
I will always be available to help if you want to expand your blog, or if anything goes wrong. My past clients know they are always able to contact me about their websites.
You can either have a basic WordPress.com blog (see the other toggle) or a paid hosted WordPress.org blog which incorporates other features which are relevant to your business (see the other second toggle). But what is important is that these are something you know you can maintain yourself, so we will work together to make this as easy as possible for you.
I will design the blog specifically so that you can edit it easily. This will depend upon its function and your requirements. I will show you how to access the editing areas and which features are available to you, and will guide you until you are secure enough to be left to your own devices.
If you aren't already a natural, I will patiently show you, with pictorial tutorials if necessary, the various elements of your blog. If you are using WordPress.org, this will include tuition on how to use the Thrive Themes Suite (see the other third toggle) which is relevant for you to edit your website. This may be to add in your own content, or even, as with some clients, to change things themselves as their business develops. I will always be on hand to assist you with this.
Either I can teach your VA how to edit your blog for you, or you opt for my third option, hiring from one of my list of freelance copywriters or other bloggers who write for clients.
If you are unable to write your blog yourself, I can offer a list of copywriters and other bloggers who write for their clients. Or you could hire a VA who specialises in blogging.
Both the basic WordPress.com blog and WordPress.org blog with extra features (see the other toggles). What is important is that you have the blog which is the most relevant to your business's needs. Even if you do opt for outsourced blogging, I will be available to troubleshoot if anything on your blog goes wrong.
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Alice aka Fairy Blog Mother is extremely easy to do business with. We arranged to talk about my new blog and within minutes I was setting it up under her guidance. I am very happy with the result and would definitely recommend Alice to anyone else who is thinking about starting a blog but not sure where to start or how much it will cost.
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Alice designed my website for me. I am very pleased with the result and now have a website with the look I wanted to achieve. Alice was patient as we went through several iterations to obtain the final result and included a design for my company logo. She also gave me a training session to enable me to edit and have control of the site content.
Types of blogging available
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