If there was one person who is living their dream, it’s definitely Shailaja. For the last 13 years, she has run her own one-Woman show, which began as a simple blog and has transformed into a mini-empire, complete with eBooks, a weekly newsletter, and a new course for people to build their brand on Instagram. 

Shailaja started her blogging career back in 2007 when she became a parent. What a lovely idea, to start a blog about being a new parent, to discuss all the wonderful new things that come with it, including the challenges. Finding her cornerstone, Shailaja wanted to grow her blog. She wanted more readers and what better way to do that than with the power of Social Media. 

The usage of social media around the world is ever-increasing and is without a doubt one of the primary online activities in which humans engage. Statistics from 2019 show that there are ~3.5 billion social media users worldwide and the number is growing exponentially. For context, 3.5 billion people are around 45% of the population of the planet. What better way to reach new Moms than through platforms like Facebook. 

And so, Shailaja extended her blog and reach into the world of Facebook. A great choice, since Facebook is the market leader in social media and has been shaping the way of the landscape since its launch. Roughly two-thirds of US adults (~68%) report they are Facebook users. The primary purpose of her Facebook page was to inform her readers about her blog posts, especially new ones, and drive traffic back to her site. 

Once Shailaja found her foothold on Facebook, she expanded to Twitter, Linked In, Instagram, and Pinterest. From there, Shailaja found her true audience. The kind of connections Shailaja found via Social Media have been unimaginably helpful to her and enabled her to build her brand to where it is now. 

Shailaja says her true clients are those who realize that making money from their blog is a happy bonus, because they are doing what they love at the same time, and by sticking with it, they are able to make a sustainable income just from their own content. 

Currently, Shailaja focuses her intent on helping content creators grow a loyal audience of engaged readers, clients, and customers while tapping into their passion for whatever it is their blog focuses on. What more could anyone ask for in life, than to be financially independent and doing what they love, right? 

After starting her own newsletter in 2017 to share her tips, tricks, and insights into growing this loyal audience bloggers want and need, she found it somewhat challenging. The newsletter wasn’t an immediate success and growing the audience was somewhat difficult. When faced with such adversity, she remembered one of her core tenants:

Once she remembered that, her newsletter subscriptions soared and continue to grow to this day. 

Shailaja runs her blog on WordPress and when I asked her what she thought of that versus other platforms, she noted since switching to WordPress hosted by ChemiCloud, she hasn’t had any troubles whatsoever. In fact, the few times she has had to contact support, ChemiCloud was able to take care of her within the same chat and efficiently answer her technical questions. Noting that WordPress had a slight learning curve, but after some trial and error, it’s something that people can grow to love and learn from on their own. 

Knowing a thing or two about her website and wanting to keep it highly performant, some of her favorite WordPress plugins include Shortpixel for image compression, LiteSpeed for Caching, Yoast for SEO, and the Updraft Plus plugin for Backup. For anyone who thinks WordPress is complicated, Shailaja says to reach out to ChemiCloud because of how easy they have made it for her! 

Shailaja was kind enough to share with us some tips for readers wanting to start a blog: 

Tip 1: Be completely sure that a blog is a commitment you are willing to make, whether for money or as a hobby. Consistency is key to a blog’s growth and success.

Tip 2: Study courses (free or paid) and learn the ins and outs of how to set up a blog.

Tip 3: Keep it simple in the beginning. You don’t have to spend money on a fancy theme or a snazzy landing page. Just start creating content. The bells and whistles can come later.

Tip 4: Figure out what could be your best monetization strategy. From ad revenue to sponsored content, affiliate marketing to coaching, the variety is endless. Pick one revenue model and work with it for a while before diversifying.

Tip 5: Work on one social media platform at a time. Anything more and you get overwhelmed and frustrated. Enjoy the blogging journey.

Thanks, Shailaja, for the great advice! Personally, I’m in the process of redoing my own blog and have been considering some of the tips you provided since we first chatted! 

When it comes to topics worth writing about, Shailaja has no shortage. In fact, she told me she keeps a running database of topics to write about that she frequently draws from for inspiration and new course materials. 

Speaking of that new course, there’s a lot of design work that goes into those ya know, you have to make them look great to engage with your customer or it’s going to feel like a really boring college course and no one will finish it. When I asked Shailaja what design tools she likes to use, she mentioned her love of Canva Pro and said it’s the only design tool she uses and loves, since it requires no fancy setup or background in graphic design to make templates useable. Canva Pro is in fact a great tool to have if your website and social media need some awesome artwork! 

When asked about the future, Shailaja said she can’t wait to work on some new courses and hopefully launch a new membership-based site in a year or two! She also just launched her new course on Instagram and plans to keep expanding her blog and newsletter. 

Be sure to check out Shailaja’s new Instagram course and her blog. 

Cindy Carlsson loves many things in life, among them – travel and photography. In fact, she’s spent the last many years traveling and photographing her way across our world. Her blog, Exploration Vacation, features photos and tips from Cindy’s travels to over 70 countries. Growing up in a rural area where almost no one traveled, Cindy was always curious about the rest of the world. As she grew older, she knew that travel, even world travel, was a way she could satisfy some of that curiosity. You can find Cindy on Instagram. 

The granddaughter of immigrants, hearing talks of “the old country” growing up, Cindy felt connected to a family in Europe she had never met. She always assumed, someday, she’d meet them. Once her Dad returned home from overseas deployment in Germany, having been stationed in Berlin as it came back to life post the fall of the Berlin wall, she knew then she’d visit one day. 

Photography it seems, was something almost as intertwined into Cindy’s family history as travel, her Dad’s parents met because of a new camera. Growing up, there were always old photos around. While stationed in Germany, Cindy’s dad even purchased a beautiful camera she now uses. “Taking pictures is as natural as breathing,” Cindy said when I asked her what piqued her interest in photography, “For as long as there have been cameras, they’ve been used to document people and places travelers encountered and brag about their travels, but sometimes I think there are too many cameras. It seems like everyone takes the same selfie in front of the same tourist sites; I wonder if they even really look at the site they are using as the backdrop.”

Her Challenge

ExplorationVacation.net was originally hosted on Google’s Blogger platform, which was around 2005. Back then, Blogger was a free and easy way to get started with a Blog. But, soon after launching her site, Cindy began encountering the limitations of the platform and she began to research migrating to WordPress.

When asked about how her first migration went, Cindy mentioned “Ultimately I didn’t realize WordPress.com and WordPress.org were different!” She ended up with an account on WordPress.com and by the time she figured out her mistake, she was far enough in she stuck it out. With WordPress.com having similar limitations to Blogger, Cindy began plotting her next migration over to a self-hosted blog using the free WordPress.org application. 

“It was miserable,” said Cindy. “It forced me to get under the hood of WordPress just to make things function correctly.” Migrating from WordPress.com to her own app forced Cindy to learn more about how WordPress works than she ever wanted to just to make the transfer and get her blog running correctly. 

Cindy’s background, prior to dedicating her live to traveling and photographing the world, was in Government as a Public Policy & Land Use Strategist and when asked if she would say she’s tech-savvy said “I’m not at all technical! But I’ve never been afraid of technology either and have taught myself how to use a lot of programs over the years. I’m curious about everything, so I spend (too much) time trying to understand not only what I can do with WordPress and photo editing programs, but how they work and how I can modify them.”. 

Cindy needed web help!

Her Solution

“These days it’s pretty easy to get started on WordPress because so many people use it”, Cindy said. It’s true! I read a statistic from January 4th, 2021 that states WordPress now powers 39.5 percent of the web. From that article, author Dan York notices, “What is more remarkable to me is to see that in December 2020, for the first time, the number of sites using WordPress passed the number of sites that were NOT using any form of content management system”. That’s an incredible stat! To put it another way — there are now more sites using WordPress than custom-developed applications. 

Once Cindy found ChemiCloud, a lot of her anxieties about hosting and managing her own WordPress site disappeared.

“ChemiCloud customer service is fast – send in your question, get a cup of coffee, and there will probably be a response waiting when you return to your computer.  And, more often than not, when I ask how to change a setting, I’ll get a message back that says: We changed it for you. Let us know if it doesn’t work.”

Wow. stated Cindy when I asked what she liked best about ChemiCloud. 

“Support is also really patient“, said Cindy, which is something that’s really useful if you’re new to WordPress or web hosting. If you need to engage with customer support, you shouldn’t feel like they’re going to admonish you or quickly get rid of you. You want them to be empathetic and help you. Cindy mentioned she doesn’t really know what she’s doing sometimes, and her site is old and somewhat messy and can be difficult to optimize at times, and for the times she has questions or any difficulties, she’s thankful to the staff at ChemiCloud who have deep knowledge of not only our own hosting but a wide assortment of website issues. 

“Even when my problem ends up unrelated to ChemiCloud, customer service often will help me to try to figure out what is going on and how I might fix it!” said Cindy. What more could you ask for? 

Her Results

With over 15,000 images on her site, Cindy can’t argue with the quality and reliability of her website. Her travel blog, though in a bit of a renovation phase to refocus more on Independent Travelers, is still performance-optimized and features some amazing content. The pandemic forced Cindy to cancel trips to Italy, Wales, and Madagascar this year, so she has a lot of lost travel to make up. While she renovates her site, we absolutely encourage you to check out her posts on Iceland, Bonaire, Egypt, and Bali! 

Cindy mentioned she learned the “hard way” that you should start with a hosted WordPress site, not using WordPress.com or other “free” WordPress. Changing platforms, later on, can lead to ongoing problems, but ChemiCloud has been there to help with any growing pains or optimizations she’s needed. “Besides, Cindy added, “Nothing is ever really free and the cost of creating and maintaining a WordPress site can be pretty minimal anyway.” 

Q&A With Cindy Carlsson

Many of our readers want to start a blog for something they’re passionate about, whether it’s travel or cooking, what are some tips and tricks you can offer them? 

These days it’s pretty easy to get started on WordPress because so many people use it. There’s lots of guidance out there. That wasn’t as true when I started. Most information was written by and for web developers. I was lucky to understand half of what I read and I’m pretty sure I made every possible mistake when I started on WordPress because there just wasn’t good information available for people who weren’t coders. Now there is plenty of information available to get started.

What are some of your favorite WordPress plugins or ones you can’t live without?

“Right now with so many images on my site, my can’t live without plugins are Media Library Assistant (for managing all my photos) and Enable Media Replace (for swapping new, optimized images to replace old ones. 

And I’d never give up WordFence Security. I see a LOT of attacks every day. WordFence does a phenomenal job at blocking those attacks. And it works smoothly with ChemiCloud, which isn’t the case with all hosts.” 

Huge thanks to Cindy for spending some time to speak with ChemiCloud and answer our questions. Cindy had some great photos to share with us, we’ve featured a selection below! 

Matt Steady is a very busy, interesting and talented individual. Between his full time job as an independent musician from Leicester, UK, business owner, marketer & distributor, designer & webmaster, he still finds time in his day, and perhaps most importantly — in his heart, to foster children and help with fundraising at Open Hands Compassion Centre in Leicester. 

In the last 5 years, Matt has self-released eight (8) full-length albums and has worked himself to, well, the bone. When you love to create music as Matt does, doing just that doesn’t usually feel like “work” in the traditional sense, but had begun to feel that way. Matt decided to take some time to chill, relax, and re-center himself. He still wanted to make music, and continued to do so — but only music that helped him achieve this goal. He found himself making instrumentals since they felt a lot less stressful. 

Matt may have found what he was looking for on this journey into self-relaxation through music as the music seemed to be playing him, not the other way around. What came out was meditative, relaxing, and soothing. In the creation of these instrumentals, Matt remembered a trilogy of books he’d read as a teenager featuring a fascinating mix of ancient Celtic legends mixed with early Christian beliefs titled The Song of Albion by Stephen Lawhead. Recalling a strong resonance with the novels, a resonance almost as strong as the ones in his instrumentals, the beginnings of Matt’s latest work — Nawglan — began to take shape. 

His Challenge

Creating music is no easy task. When you’re a one-man show like Matt, you also have the additional tasks of production, marketing, distribution, plus managing accounts and bookings. While COVID may have put a stop to gigging for the foreseeable future, Matt’s still been able to produce quite a bit of music, even despite having the lion’s share of homeschooling his small herd of children. However, Matt knows if he doesn’t work hard, he won’t get paid. 

In my interview with Matt, he mentioned normally he just picks up instruments and jams out, recording what he does until something that sounds nice comes out. Using his Digital Audio Workstation, the technology he noted didn’t exist a few decades ago, Matt can manipulate the jam sessions he’s recorded, cutting and pasting them together, as well as introducing sonic complexity. Speaking of, Matt mainly plays the guitar, violin/viola, Uilleann pipes, cittern, and the piano, but he’ll have a go at any instrument if you’d let him. 

After layering in some synths and other instruments, a track can begin to take life of its own. Composition seems to come naturally to Matt, as he listens to his track over and over, shaping it like clay until he ultimately feels he’s serving the music, not the other way around, mastering the sound and bringing the sound out. With each album Matt has composed, save for his first, they have a concept, and in this, he thought Nawglan was no different. 

His Solution

Nawglan was different, however. As Matt began composing, he would shut his eyes for a minute and mentally visualize a picture of the tree the track represents, set in a field or by a river. He visualizes the colors, sounds, weather, birds, and other wildlife nearby. These trees, of course, are the sacred nine from Ancient Celtic Legends – Alder, Ash, Birch, Elm, Hazel, Oak, Rowan, Willow, and Yew. Celtic Monks believed each of the trees contained characteristics pointing towards the various attributes of the Godhead at the center of their religion, and they would meditate upon these trees while harvesting them in turn. 

Matt composed each track on Nawglan with the distinct character and divine characteristics held by the Celtic Monks in mind. After exhaustive research, cross-referencing with Celtic mythology and early Christian writings, Matt had a list of attributes each tree represented, an aspect of God, and would let this “rattle about in his head” Picking up an instrument, or starting with a drone or beat, he’d simply improvise and let the music flow from within. Most of the tracks on Nawglan came from an improvised recording session, Matt told me. He had moments where he would go back and re-record something to “tidy it up”, then add other instruments and percussion around it.

You could definitely say there is a freedom and spontaneity in the approach Matt took to record Nawglan and he believes it comes across in the final recording. 

In this way, the finished album is the ash and the creation process, unseen, is the act of worship and devotion, similar to the gathering of the wood by the Monks. These Monks, upon burning the wood of the Sacred Nine, called the ash Nawglan. 

His Results

The album is certainly different from his previous releases. When I began listening to Nawglan on my headphones, I felt compelled to switch the audio output to my Hi-Res speaker system to truly appreciate the soundscape Matt has created. Tracks like Elm of the Glens have a symphonic atmosphere, where the strings float above an intimate background of bells and other percussive instruments, only to disappear with a dramatic crescendo about 3 minutes in. if Avalon were a real place and they had HiFi, they would have certainly listened and had Nawglan in their Spotify-equivalent playlists. 

Matt describes his music as “Roots. Served Raw.” His music is from the Heart. He doesn’t write to serve a particular audience or use recommended ingredients to make a hit. He writes what is inside of him and needs to come out. Most of Matt’s past albums are roots-based, with heavy Folk and Blues vibes. Sometimes he flirts with electronics and rock, of course, Matt had a classical background growing up, but all in all, he stays true to his roots. Often his music has Celtic flavors, Irish in particular as he loves to play the Uilleann pipes. But sometimes there are some Americana singer-songwriter elements in some tracks. With Nawglan making it an even eight albums, I’d say Matt has found his sound. 

I had a chance to ask Matt how ChemiCloud Hosting and applications like WordPress have made it easier to share the music he’s created and he said “having my own website is a game-changer” because he can sell his music there without anyone taking a cut (except the payment providers, like Stripe or PayPal). He can control who listens to his music, but generally allows visitors to his website to stream his albums in full to be sure it’s what you like before committing to a purchase. He also mentioned using his web hosting and WordPress, he can host a crowdfunding event on his website without a third-party taking a cut and potentially not giving anyone money, which has happened with some crowd-funding events. 

Matt’s also brought several musician friends over to the ChemiCloud web hosting platform, which is amazingly easy to do he mentioned because our Migrations team does all the work for you! Matt was with a “big name hosting company” before and it was just awful. Technical support was on another continent, maybe planet, and they weren’t any help whatsoever if he had problems or questions. His experience with ChemiCloud has been vastly different, having found our Happiness Engineers ready, willing, and (most importantly) able to answer his questions, not just running through a script. 

“Never accept poor customer service from a company – take your business to someplace where you feel welcome and valued,” Matt told me on the subject of customer loyalty. And when it comes to ChemiCloud, “relationships are everything” Matt says”, and each time he talks to someone at ChemiCloud, he’s more and more convinced he made the right choice. 

Q&A With Matt Steady

Many of our customers are creative people, passionate about what they create, and are interested in hearing from professionals who are using platforms like WordPress, and other digital software to create their dreams and bring them to life. While I had Matt’s ear, if you’ll pardon the pun, I wanted to get his insight into other topics. 

In “The Why” of Nawglan, you mention you have 4 kids, 3 of whom are adopted – as the son of a couple who adopted me when I was born, a huge thank you and your partner for being brave, caring people who did this! You also mention the proceeds of Nawglan will be benefiting the Open Hands Compassion Centre in Leicester. That’s hugely generous of you and your family. Can you tell me a bit more about their center, mission, and what they do for your community?

Well, it’s 6 kids now we’re fostering! One is at uni, and another has moved out too, so it’s not quite as crazy as it sounds. We love having a big, noisy family. Open Hands are amazing – they are a charity in Leicester that helps the homeless, poor, and the needy. They distribute food and hygiene parcels, have evenings with free hot meals for anyone who needs one (sponsored by Pukka Pies no less!). They restore furniture and give it to people who have finally made it into council housing. They teach English as a second language. They have nurseries and playgroups. They give advice on debt and help with filling in forms. Any need they can see in the community, they will try and help with.

My wife, Abi, and my two eldest children volunteer at the meal evenings, and we try and get stuck in with fundraising whenever we can. And it isn’t full of managers and marketing gurus. Every penny goes to help people who need it. During the lockdown, whilst money coming in from my music business dropped, my wife’s income was consistent (she’s a deputy head at a special school). We were very aware that in times of need, the poor and marginalized suffer the most. So we wanted to help with that.

The technology used to create and record music has evolved rapidly in the last 20 to 25 years. What are some of your favorite things to come out of this “tech boom” and also some things you still like doing the “old-fashioned way?”

20 years ago, I would not be doing what I’m doing. The internet and digital technology has made it possible for me to work from home, make high-quality music, and distribute it across the world. You can now take a basic PC, a mic, a cheap audio interface, and some free software, and you can make top-quality music. The missing ingredients needed are skills, ears, brains. But if you’re dedicated enough you can do this. It’s amazing!

It is also brilliant being able to collaborate with other artists so easily. I’ve played violin on people’s tracks in America! I’ve had a drummer from Sweden play on several albums. It’s mind-boggling. There are downsides too of course – don’t get me started on streaming!

What do I like to do “the old-fashioned way”? Well first of all, if I possibly can, I like to actually play my music on instruments. Digital instruments are fantastic these days, but for me, I like the vagaries of the real thing. I like to hear my violin bow scraping, my fingernails hit a piano key, my voice wobble and break. But the main thing I like to do the old-fashioned way is … talking and working with people. Respecting people and doing my very best for them. Talking to people in person and on the phone as well as just email/messaging. Our relationships with people are the most important thing around, and it’s easy to not spend time on them and almost use people as a black box that “does stuff” on the other end of an email. Relationships are everything!

What advice would you give young and aspiring composers and musicians who aren’t sure how to get started? What is something you, at your current age, would want to tell your teenage self?

Just do it!

If you want to get better at singing or playing an instrument – well get singing and playing! Lessons are great if you can afford them, but actually, if you have the drive you can get really good at anything if you practice hard enough, and if you practice right. There are free resources everywhere. Don’t ever use money as an excuse to not do something. There’s generally a way around it. Don’t give up. You won’t get hugely better in one day, but you can make a conscious effort to pick one small thing and improve on it on that day. It all adds up.

If you want to make your own recordings (which I highly recommend): You’ve probably got access to a PC or a Mac, or a laptop. Save up and buy a second-hand audio interface from eBay and a mic. Download the free version of Ableton, or any number of other DAWs. Record your voice, instruments. It won’t be good to start with for sure, but the only way of learning is to do it. The best piece of advice? Don’t get suckered into spending money on plugins – you honestly can do everything you need to do with the standard stuff in your DAW. Don’t get suckered into buying lots of expensive courses on production or mixing or recording. There is a ton of free content out there on YouTube. Take everything with a pinch of salt. If you can watch other people record and mix. You’ll learn way more from that than any course.

What advice would I give my teenage self? Do what you want to do, not what you think you should do.

If you could collaborate and record with anyone, who would it be and why?

Oh dear – how long have you got? I have two answers to your question really. Firstly, I’ve made some amazing friends in the independent music scene, and it has been my privilege to play on their albums and to have some of them play on mine. John and Duncan Reed, Sam Jefferson, Eleanor from ‘Eleanor and the Lost’, Terl Bryant, etc. The camaraderie between us and the fun we have is just immense. I look forward to working with other independent musicians so much!

But I suspect you’re thinking about a wish list of stars and geniuses! Well, I’d love to record with Mark Knopfler. He’s a bit like me, loving to play in all sorts of styles and scenarios. He seems a really genuine kind of man, as well as being a musical hero of mine, and I think anything he touches turns to musical gold.

Thanks for hanging in there with me so far! Last two questions – what’s your favorite album, any album, any genre! And – what are you most looking forward to next, personally, musically, anything!

That’s tricky! Just one? There are so many albums that I love. Some for their musical content, and some because they bring back amazing memories or feelings. And sometimes you love albums because they helped you get through something. Gretchen Peters’ album “Blackbirds” is a wonderful album, and it just so happened the CD had arrived the very day we had a great sadness in the family. I ended up doing a lot of driving with the music on repeat. And while the pain doesn’t really go away, the music helps you unpack it and deal with it, it helps to heal and make it part of you, helps you accept it rather than hide it and bottle it up. Music is so powerful. Thank you, Gretchen. You’ve made a difference in my life, and I hope I can do the same to others in return.

What am I looking forward to? Well, we had a holiday in the Isle of Wight canceled a few months back, and we’ve booked a replacement in the Lake District in a few weeks’ time. I’m desperately hoping that this doesn’t get canceled as well! I’m very much looking forward to being out and about in the countryside with no distractions, getting to know the new additions to the family even better!

If you haven’t already checked out Nawglan, go have a listen for yourself on Matt’s website and buy a copy if you feel so inclined.  To Matt, thanks so much for the interview and for your time. It was a blast getting to know you through your music and replies and I look forward to listening to Nawglan, among other selections, when I need to meditate and relax. 

If you enjoyed this interview, then you’ll love ChemiCloud’s hosting platform. We run our services on top-notch technology and take support seriously. Check out our plans!

Kaye Huett has loved designing, whether it was making pixel designs in Microsoft Paint or building websites for friends to showcase their illustrations and artwork in her youth, but it wasn’t until she began taking a graphic design course at her local college that she learned designing could be a full-time job. After graduating art school with her degree in Graphic Design, she cut her teeth working with an agency and clients on things like artwork, prototyping, brand identify, and taking the digital and transforming it to print. 

But 7 years in, something happened to this boss-lady! After 7 years working for a design agency, she found herself at a place in life where she wanted change. She wanted to do it her way and work with other kick-ass boss ladies! Gifted with a high visual acuity for typographies, a love of pastel palettes, BOHO vibes, and her chic pajamas, she launched her own agency in beautiful Wiltshire, England and began making magic. (If you don’t know, that’s also where Stonehenge is!) 

Her Challenge

Becoming a successful freelancer is no easy task. For years, Kaye knew she wanted to be a freelancer but was too scared to make that jump. There’s a lot of risk. For starters, she couldn’t do that and continue to work for the design firm with whom she was employed. However, her mind never ventured far from her goal. She saved, planned, designed, inevitably redesigned, and with her family’s love and support she took that first step. She knew she was ready to put the work into making this work and that it would be worth it. 

Putting it all on the line, Kaye’s design agency was born. 

Her Solution

As a designer, Kaye’s job isn’t just to create something that her clients love, but also something that resonates with the client, bringing out emotions that align with the vision the client has, bringing heart to the design. But Kaye needed to focus her offerings. As a talented designer familiar with the many areas of design, from digital projects, like social media graphics and coding + designing websites, to print projects, such as advertisements, posters, and packaging, Kaye needed to find her niche. Offering all of these services to all of her clients is just too much to manage with a one-woman show…. (at least, for now )

After a lot of trial and error, Kaye discovered her best talents reside in creating logos and identities for small, mostly female-run, businesses. To promote her business, she joined like minded Facebook groups like Societygal and The Creative Gal Gang, as well as small business oriented groups for her local area, interacted with regular people like a normal person, not a spammy “BUY LOGOS FROM ME NOW!” person, and showcased her work on sites like Dribble and Instagram. 

Her Results

Kaye’s plan in motion, she soon went from having just a few clients to booking out months in advance. Success, it seems, had found Kaye! Currently, Kaye is booked out thru the end of 2020, amazing! “With the onset of lockdown, I actually found myself busier than ever (lots of people starting their own businesses it seems, which is fantastic) so I’ve been regularly booked out and working my magic with lots of small businesses over the past few months.”, said Kaye when I asked her what she had been up to lately. 

Having found ChemiCloud after her previous hosting company was acquired and began to show some signs of failure with her and client sites going down at random intervals, along with an extended back and forth with the same host telling her a variety of reasons why these outages kept happening, including that “nothing was wrong despite having the issue happening right in front of me”, Kaye noted when I asked her how she found us. She took this as a sign of things to come and decided to find a new web host, taking to Twitter and Facebook for recommendations.

“They [ChemiCloud] transferred everything with ease and no downtime, my site is almost never down (I don’t think I’ve noticed it down at all since I moved to ChemiCloud a few years ago) and the support is second-to-none; there’s always someone around and my issues are always dealt with swiftly and professionally.” said Kaye when interviewed about her experiences with us so far. 

While I can’t say the key to Kaye’s success lies in ChemiCloud hosting on it’s own. Her talent is without question and her taste in typography and color are some of the best I have personally seen. She also has another secret up her sleeve that has allowed her to secure even more bookings – she stopped offering her clients options, and something amazing happened. You can read more about it on Kaye’s blog, but suffice to say, this is a most interesting take on presenting a possible final design to a client, but I cannot deny it works! 

Q&A With Kaye Huett

Many of our readers are designers, writers, and people full of imaginative passion wanting to know more about taking those first steps online and putting their work out there. While interviewing Kaye, I was able to ask some questions that many of those same people will find insightful. 

Your website – kaye.hu/ett – it’s very personal and creative! I love the colors and the calming feel. Did you code this yourself, or is it running on a CMS of sorts?

Thank you! I absolutely love to code so my website is built entirely from scratch, no CMS whatsoever. Websites for me are a very personal thing, something I love to work on, but only for myself because I’m constantly experimenting with different scripts and designs.

What do you think is the most important thing companies (tend to) forget when creating their brand?

I think one of the biggest things not only companies, but even I as a designer, have to remind myself is that we are designing and marketing to the audience and not to ourselves. It’s easy to know what you like, but it needs to be about what the consumer is going to be drawn to.

What do you think the next design trend will be? Whether it’s for print and packaging design, or design on the web for digital content.

I would say gradients but actually we’re in the midst of the gradient trend right now (especially with the introduction of freeform gradients in Illustrator recently, I know my gradients have reached another level using that tool), but I’d say using technical lines/drawings in design, as well as fonts inspired by coding, such as fira mono and courier.

What’s your favorite Pantone color?

Colour is a huge part of the process when designing brands for clients, and with trends forever changing, I just couldn’t choose one. However, I’d say one of my favourites right at this minute is PANTONE 2705 C but who knows for how long!

What is the next big project you’re looking to bring to life?

I have plenty of branding jobs booked in from now until Christmas but I’m probably most excited about a wonderful client I have coming up who is a huge YouTuber; she loves colour and found me via my ‘Kaye does logos’ graphic on Pinterest and I believe when we get to work together, there’s just going to be an explosion of colour in whatever project we end up working together on.

Big thanks to Kaye for taking time from her busy schedule to speak with ChemiCloud and answer our questions. Fun story, when we initially reached out to Kaye her website was a totally different design and when she replied, we had to make sure the person who replied to our interview questions was really Kaye. The new design was so different, so calming, simply splendid. 

If you find yourself in need of a designer who cares, listens, and creates phenomenal work – definitely reach out to Kaye. But do bear in mind, she’s booked thru 2020! 

If you enjoyed this interview, then you’ll love ChemiCloud’s hosting platform. We run our services on top-notch technology and take support seriously. Check out our plans!

Kaye also shared with us some work she’s done, including the logo which caught the attention of the YouTuber she’s so very much looking forward to collaborating with. We can’t wait to see the result of that Kaye, keep in touch! 

Patrick Meijer has always had a love for many things but is perhaps most passionate about Web Design, Travel, and the Beach. Originally from the Netherlands, Patrick spent 14 years of his adult life traveling through Asia and another 6 living in between the Netherlands and Ibiza. After returning to Europe in 2014, he wanted to do something he enjoyed while also being able to travel and enjoy Earth’s natural beauty. From this, Web Design Posse was born and has become Patrick’s full-time work. 

Their Challenge

Create exceptional web content for clients, pandemic, or not!

Patrick spent 14 years in Asia and at one point owned a Health Foods Café in Thailand. Having traveled through some really remote parts of the World, Patrick knew how important it was to have a web presence to draw in customers. 

“As travelers use sites/apps such as TripAdvisor to check out where to eat, drinks next, not only will their TripAdvisor ratings draw customers, but having a website allows the potential customers to check out their menu for example. Everyone travels with a smartphone these days so web presence (especially when remote) can make a massive difference in whether people will know about you or not, and thus visit you or not,” said Patrick Meijer when I asked him about his travels and using the Internet to those hidden gems in obscure locations. 

The Solution

Web Design Posse – Where Everything Is Possible! 

Web Design Posse is a group (hence the name ‘posse’) of freelancers who come together if needed for a project. Like this, we can offer more than just web design, such as graphic design, videography and photography, SEO/SEM and copywriting and social media services without the need to open a large office and employ people who specialize in all these aspects. 

Patrick’s team live by their slogan – “Where Everything Is Possible” – “With the team we have, it’s virtually not possible to say ‘no’. And in the unlikely event, we are being asked for something we can’t achieve within our team, we’ll simply look for someone outside so that our clients will always be able to be served,” said Patrick Meijer when I inquired about the meaning behind the slogan. 

While their team has excellent tools like Adobe’s Creative Cloud Suite, which includes Dreamweaver and Photoshop, as well as other professional editing tools like Final Cut Pro, something was missing – excellent web hosting. Patrick and the entire team at Web Design Posse want to be the one-stop-shop for their clients. 

Perhaps it was meant to be, perhaps coincidence, but Patrick found his way to ChemiCloud and when asked about his experience with our Web Hosting Services thus far said, “Even the largest, most reputable ones don’t live up to their name. I came across you guys by accident and I am so happy. Your services are very reliable and your staff (and support) are extremely friendly and helpful.” 

The Results

Well, They Speak For Themselves!

Even during the Pandemic which affected the entire World in 2020, Patrick and his Posse have been able to continue offering their creative services by having a geographically distributed and remote team. 

When I asked Patrick Meijer about using remote collaboration apps such as Google’s new Meet conferencing app, Zoom, and whiteboard apps like Miro, he said “without such tools, communication would be much slower and projects would take much more time to complete.” While Web Design Posse prefers to meet with their clients in person, they are a remote team first which has enabled them to quickly adapt to the ever-changing landscape.

“As we are big fans of co-creation, our clients (if they wish) are actively involved in the creation of their websites, and being able to use collaboration apps allows us to work together, even while far apart or socially distanced”, said Patrick Meijer on the subject of what it was like to meet with clients nowadays. 

Q&A with Patrick Meijer

As many of our readers are new to applications like Web Design, and even Web Hosting itself, I wanted to bend the ear of Patrick while we were on our interview and ask him some questions about Getting Started With WordPress and if he had any favorite themes or plugins. 

Q: What are some must-have WordPress themes or plugins you install when you create a website for a client?

A: Our go-to WordPress theme is Avada. Some of our favorite plugins are All in One Migration (for both migrations and backups), WP Reset Pro, RankMath SEO, WP Rocket, WP Forms, and ShortPixel.

Q: What would you say to someone who’s just getting started with WordPress but might be hesitant because it seems complicated?

A: Take baby steps. Rome wasn’t built in one day either. I was put off by WP at first as I came in with an HTML mindset and so WordPress threw me off. I persisted though, tried to be as open-minded as I could, and allowed myself to make plenty of mistakes. My mistakes taught me the most.

Huge thanks to Patrick Meijer for taking the time to speak with us and share information about his company! If you’re in Ibiza or Holland and looking for a group of creative professionals to build a beautiful website or help with video production, definitely reach out to Web Design Posse!

If you enjoyed this interview, then you’ll love ChemiCloud’s hosting platform. We run our services on top-notch technology and take support seriously. Check out our plans!

Patrick also shared with us some beautiful photos from his travels: