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After all my struggles to get a website up and running a few years back, I was not happy to find out progress had overwhelmed me once again. Trying to view my desktop design on an iPhone showed me I had become effectively obsolete.
I talked to a number of you and found I was not alone in trying to deal with this sad fact. In the spirit of sharing resources, I thought I'd let you know that I have now transitioned to a new mobile-friendly website and it wasn't as difficult or expensive as I thought.
I used a designer/developer named Hanna Bernard at HighmarkDesigns.com. Efficient, collaborative and kind (important as I'm a bit of a techno-phobe). My site is still on Wordpress which means I can update and add content on my own.
Let me know if you have any questions about the process - I'm glad to share!
Warmly,
JoanJoan Gold, MA
Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist
510.418.2387
www.EastBayHolisticTherapy.com
Author: HighmarkDesigns
Private Chef Annamarie Greco
Longford Estates Wine
Amplify Africa — A2 Women’s Summit
Zoom Caffe
Adventure Mountain Tahoe
Tahoe Boat Inspections
Winter Wonderland Ski Shop
Blue Water Plumbing Lake Tahoe
Winters Electric Lake Tahoe
Lake Tahoe Ski Bum — eCommerce site
Sveriges Fordonsverkstäders Förening — SFVF
Heavenly Rental
d’Terra Law, LLC.
Aristotle Wines
Harley Staffing Solutions
Hive and Honey Wines
GS Consultants
Divine 9 Golf Courses
Ain’t Like It Used To Be
Eagle flies high
Across yellowed sky,
Soaring ‘neath cloud
Aching to cry,
And tho’ he accepts the smog he sees,
His world ain’t like it used to be.
Fla test
SISLT Wine Poster 2017
Innovative Equine Systems
Verkstadsföretagarna
Eastbay Holistic Therapy — Joan Gold, MFT
Heavenly Cabin
Impulse Treatment Center
Sierra Mountain Sports
Lake Tahoe Adventures
Tahoe Photographic Tours
Tahoe Tubing Hills & Snowmobile Circle Track
Adventure Mountain Tahoe
Is my website mobile friendly?
To truly test if your site is mobile friendly (or “responsive” which it also is called), you can use Google’s test page here » Simply add your site’s domain (address) and it will give you a report of what’s not mobile-friendly on your site.


Then, there is one very quick way to find out if your website is visibly mobile friendly by “grabbing” the bottom right corner of your browser window with the cursor/pointer and make the window really narrow.
If your website rearranges the content so you still can see everything by only having scrolling up/down, then your site probably is good.
If you also have to scroll sideways, your site is not mobile-friendly and most search engines will punish your site by ranking it lower in a search.
Mobile friendly site
On a regular screen:
On a mobile screen:
Only need to scroll up/down to see all content as it reformats to fit the narrower screen.
Not mobile friendly site
On a regular screen:
On a mobile screen:
Note the scroll bar sideways as well as up/down. That means some of the content will end up outside of the screen on smaller devices and you would need to scroll sideways to see everything.
redesign samples
Blake’s Floral Design — website redesign
Pacific Crest Gallery’s website
1st Draft — home page
Design notes — top to bottom:
- Sun art will be replaced with actual logo
- Big photo/text is a slideshow of images with unique text for each image. Can be used for specials, seasonal, featured, etc. Links to product’s page.
- Three center blocks. Content is just suggestion. You decide what goes here.
- Four footer blocks. Content is just suggestion. These four blocks can be used as needed.
Douglas County Clerk-Treasurer’s website
Dermaplane
Weddings of the West website redesign
IntraPoint PPT Template
- Option 1 Cover
- Option 1 Inside
- Option 2 Cover
- Option 2 Inside
Scandinavian Executive
Webbdesign, 1a förslaget
Det stora fotot längst upp kan vara en slideshow med 3-4 foton. Vi kan antingen ha välkomsttexten statisk eller byta ut text när det är en annan bild — kanske spinna på era 4 huvudrubriker?
Om vi gör det kanske välkomsttexten borde placeras lite längre ner på hemsidan istället. Upp till vad ni tycker är viktigaste informationen.
Här kan ni se temats mobilversion.
NVBGH
Weller Construction
Silver Bell Barn, Atwater California
The Virtuous Olive — San Diego
Changras Construction — Santa Clara, CA
Tep’s Villa Roma
Blog: Moto Mama’s Blog — Minden, NV
Blog: Western History ALIVE! — Genoa, NV
Adopt A Beach Tahoe, Lake Tahoe
PNMTA — Pine Nut Mountain Trails Association
Lincoln County, Nevada
Tep’s Villa Roma — South Lake Tahoe
KGID — Kingsbury General Improvement District, Stateline, NV
G&S Construction
What’s the difference between a Page and a Post?
Pages are static content that are not time dependent. Normally, your website’s “static” content is used on Pages, like the About, Services, Contact etc. pages.
Posts are a dynamic content type. They have a timestamp and will be listed on your website in reverse chronological order. Each post is assigned to a Category. You can also Tag your posts. Posts are displayed in an RSS Feed.
Blogs use Posts as they can be organized in a manner so the reader easily can find a post about a specific subject or from a specific time.
Add a page
Add a page
- Go to “Pages —> Add New”
- Follow these steps to add and format your page’s content:
- Add your headline (this is also what the page’s name will be)
- Add the page’s content in the content area
- Format your content using the formatting tools
- Click “Publish” when done — you have now created a new page!
- Do you want to add your new Page to your site’s navigation bar? Instructions here.
- Full instructions here »
Add a post
Add a post
- Go to “Posts —> Add New”
- Follow these steps to add and format your post’s content:
- Add your headline (this is also what the post’s name will be)
- Add the post’s content in the content area
- Format your content using the formatting tools
- Select the Category this post will go in (your website will have other categories than what’s shown here — select the category where you want your post added)
- Click “Publish” when done — you have now created a new blog post!
- Full instructions here »
Format your text
Formatting
There are two modes of editing: Visual and Text. Choose the mode by clicking on the appropriate tab. Visual mode gives you a WYSIWYG editor. The Text mode allows you to enter HTML along with your post text.
Our instructions below are based on using the “Visual” mode so make sure that tab is active before you move ahead.
In Edit Page or Post view, you have a formatting panel that you use to format your text.
When you highlight a selection of text, you can apply various formats or functions to that text using the tools in the formatting toolbar. Note! You must have the text highlighted for the formatting to apply to it (see sample below).
These are the available options, top left to bottom right:
Top row of tools:
– Bold
– Italic
– Strike through
– Bulleted list
– Numbered list
– Quote (creates a block of text that stands out – the look of this on your own website may look different as each website has its own custom fonts and layout:)
Quote Sample: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
– left, center and right justified.
– Link and unlink tool. More info here »
– Read more link and distraction free writing – not used much.
– Show/hide second row of formatting (click this if you don’t see the following tools)
Bottom row of tools:
– explained in detail below
– Underline
– Justify text (even right and left margin)
– Text color
– Paste as Plain text (T) or Paste from Word (W). Copy text from RTF or Word files and paste into these tools to keep formatting when inserted.
– Remove formatting. If you paste text directly from another webpage or Word it sometimes bring with unwanted formatting. Highlight the text and use this tool to remove all formatting.
– Inserts special characters into your text.
– Indent/outdent one step
– Undo, Redo and Help
Paragraph format samples – NOTE, each website has it’s own custom formatting set for these formats. But this gives you the idea even if your website’s fonts might be very different from what’s shown below:
Paragraph: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy.
Address: Company P.O. Box 1234 Stateline, NV 89070preformatted
Heading 1
Heading 2
Heading 3
Heading 4
Heading 5
Heading 6
Log In
Log in
- Click “Log In” in your website’s footer area.
- OR, add “/wp-login.php” to the end of your domain name in the browser’s address bar (example: www.mywebsite.com/wp-login.php).
- In the login window, enter your username and password (supplied to you by your web developer).
- If you select “Remember Me,” the computer will save you username/password for this particular website. Not recommended on you’re not using your own computer.
How to find Help
Help is always nearby
As long as you are logged in to your website, you can always click the “Help” tab at the top right corner of your screen. This tab has the information you need, depending on which page you are on and what you’re trying to do. Very useful!
Here’s an example of the Help sections available in “Edit Post” view:
If you don’t find what you are looking for, simply click the link for “Support Forums” in the bottom right corner of the Help tab window and you will be taken to WordPress’ Support Forums where you can type in a question or search phrase.
Then there’s also the WordPress FAQ directory where you can find answers to many starter questions.
Help I messed up! I trashed a page by mistake
Let’s say you accidentally delete a Page or Post only to realize you shouldn’t have… Well, it’s not so bad. The Page or Post will stay in the “Trash” until you empty the trash manually.
Here’s how you restore (“untrash”) a Page or Post from the Trash:
- Go to Posts —> All Posts or Pages —> All Pages (depending on what you want back).
- At the very top of the directory of all your Pages or Posts, look for the “Trash” link and click it.
- Select the Page (or Post if you’re in the Post’s Trash) that you want to restore and click “Restore.”
- Your Page is now moved out of the trash and back into your directory of All Pages (or Posts).
- Your page is back in the directory as well as on the site!
Help, I messed up! I accidentally erased the content on my page or post!
WordPress automatically saves your work as you type so you don’t have to worry if your computer crashes or you make a mistake. Want to go back to a previous version? Not a problem. Every time you hit save, WordPress creates a snapshot that you can restore with a single click.
What if you accidentally erase the text on a Page or Post and hit “Publish” when you shouldn’t have. It happens to the best. That’s why we know how to fix it 😉
Here’s what you do if you need to bring back the previous version on a Page or Post:
- Go to the “Edit Page” (or Edit Post) for the page you edited incorrectly or accidentally erased the content on.
- In “Edit” view, go to “Screen Options” and make sure “Revisions” is selected.
- Scroll down to the “Revisions” tab (below your content editor window).
- Select a revision that’s the latest one you did BEFORE you made a mistake that you want to have undone.
- Your current page’s content will now be compared with the revision you chose. If you want to restore the older revision, simply click “Restore This Revision” and the page will be restored to an earlier version, overwriting the edits you made that you didn’t like.
- You can now redo your edits to your page without the mistakes 😉
Add a link to another page or website
To add a link in your text that links a word to another page or website, do the following:
- Highlight the word or name in your text that you want to hyperlink
- With the word highlighted, click the “Link” icon
- In the Link window, either select an existing page to link to:
- OR, an external website (copy and paste the url from the site you want to link to, don’t forget the “http://”) — it is recommended you select “Open link in a new window” for all external links so people don’t get linked away from your website.
Barton Health Services, Orthopedics Dep., Lake Tahoe
Trinity County, California
Tahoe Lakefront District, South Lake Tahoe
Philhour & Associates, San Francisco
Howie Nave — Comedian, South Lake Tahoe
Tyler Termite Control, Bay Area
Tahoe Bowl, South Lake Tahoe
Carson Tahoe Moto, Carson/Tahoe
Kimberly Williams for Judge, San Francisco
Custom Floor Care, Tahoe/Reno/Carson
I Do Tahoe Weddings, Lake Tahoe
Fordonsverkstäder.se – Sweden
Mark Allen Construction, Bay Area
Add an email link
To add an email link like this:
hanna@highmarkdesigns.com
or
email me
Follow these steps:
- Type the text you want as your email link.
- Highlight the text
- With the text highlighted, click the “Link” symbol in the formatting bar
- Insert the following in the url field — mailto: followed by the email address:
- Click “Add Link”
- Your email link now has an underline to indicate it’s been linked:
hanna@highmarkdesigns.com - You can also add an email link the same way to an image or a word.
Upload and link a document (PDF or Word)
- Place your cursor in the text where you want your file link to be
- Click “Add Media” to upload your PDF or Word document
- In the “Add Media” window, type a title for your download link
- Click “Insert into post” and you will have a link like this in your text:
My Word Doc - If you want your file to open in a new window (preferred) instead of opening in the current window, do the following:
- Highlight your file link
- Click the Link tool in the toolbar
- Check the “Open link in a new window/tab” option
- Click “Update”
- Done.
Note! There is a difference between uploading a PDF v.s. a Word document. Web browsers can’t open and display a Word document, and will download the Word file directly to the user’s desktop instead.
If you upload a PDF to your page, the PDF will open in the browser window instead of download when clicked. The user then has the option to download the PDF if he/she wants to.
Layout Settings
You can choose the layout of your page based on what’s available for your specific theme. Most theme has a default layout set that includes a sidebar. The “default” means that each time you create a new Page or Post, the default Layout is used.
But let’s say you are creating a page with something wide in the content and you don’t want it squeezed in next to a sidebar. Instead, you can select a page layout that doesn’t have a sidebar.
There are two ways to change the Layout Settings:
- In “Edit” or “Add New” view for your Page or Post, scroll down below the text editor window to the “Layout Settings” area* and select the layout that fits your content. Your options in the case below is Content/Sidebar, Sidebar/Content or Full Width.
* If you don’t see the “Layout Settings” area, go to Screen Options and make sure Layout Settings gets enabled. - Under “Page Attributes” in the right sidebar. Click the drop-down under “Template” and select the template (layout) you want for your current page. The selection might vary from theme to theme.
* If you don’t see the “Page Attributes” area, go to Screen Options and make sure Page Attributes gets enabled.
Add an image or media
Add an image or media
- You can upload and insert media (images, audio, documents, etc.) by clicking the Add Media button
You can select from the images and files already uploaded to the Media Library, or upload new media to add to your page or post.
- If your site is updated to the latest version of WordPress, you can just drag/drop your image into the content area (in Edit view) without using the “Add Media” button.
- To create an image gallery, select the images to add and click the “Create a new gallery” button.
- Full instructions here »
- You can also embed media from many popular websites including Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and others by pasting the media URL on its own line into the content of your post/page. Please refer to the Codex to learn more about embeds.
Trinity County, California — Tourism Brochure
Add or Edit a Photo Gallery
Add a photo gallery
- In “Page Edit” view (or “Post Edit” view)
- In the text content area, place your cursor where you want your gallery
- Click “Add Media” button
- In the pop-up window, click “Create Gallery” tab
- If you are using images that you already uploaded, click the “Media Library” tab and select all the images you want in your gallery. If you are uploading new images, see 6. below.
- If you want to upload images for your gallery, click the “Upload Media” tab and upload your images. Your uploaded images will automatically be selected for you to create a new gallery in the next step.
- When your images are selected, click blue button “Create a new gallery”
- In the next window, you can rearrange the order of your images as well as add captions to your images.
- “Columns” selects how many columns you want your photos to display on the page, the more columns the smaller the thumbnails will be in live view).
- “Link To” — Select how you want the gallery to open if an image is clicked; in a new page (with all your usual page elements like navigation bars and headlines etc.), in a new pop-up window or not open at all.
- NOTE. There is a plugin you can install that open your gallery in a “Lightbox” — it will pop up over the web page and put a dark “film” over the web page behind and then run a slideshow of your gallery (slideshow is optional). If your existing galleries does this, we have already installed this plugin for you. It’s called “Simple Lightbox” and you can read more about it here.
- When you have arranged your images in the order you want, click blue button “Insert gallery” and it will insert on your page. In Edit View, the gallery will look like this:
Edit an existing gallery
If your website has a photo gallery on one of the pages, this is how you manage your gallery.
- Navigate to the page that has the photo gallery
- Click “Edit Page”
- In Edit Page view, inside the content area click on the light blue rectangle that represents the gallery. When you click on it, the Edit Gallery button will appear (the other, red button removes the gallery) (gallery shows as a blue box like below if you don’t have the latest version of WordPress).
(gallery shows as a gray box [after you click on it] with images visible if you have latest version of WordPress — click “pen” icon to edit:)
- In edit gallery view, if you want to add images, follow the steps above for adding images (5 and 6).
- To remove images, just click the “X” in the top right corner on the images you want to remove from your gallery (you see the “X” if you hover over the image).
- When done, click blue button “Update Gallery”
- Update your page when done editing.
Edit an existing page or post
Edit an existing page (or post)
- Go to “Pages —> All Pages” (or “Posts —> All Posts”)
- OR, you can also click on your website’s name (or “Visit Site”) up in the left corner of the screen and navigate to the page you want to edit by browsing your website.
- When you find the web page on your site you want to edit, click Edit Page (in top dark bar above page)
- In Edit view, edit the content on your page as you wish.
- When done, click “Update” — your revised page is now on your website.
- Full instructions here »
Screen Options
Some of the instructions here might ask you to find a specific area on your screen. If you are in the correct screen and don’t see the requested area, the area might be “turned off” in the Screen Options.
To turn an area on, do the following:
- In most screens while in the WordPress Dashboard (you’re logged in), find the “Screen Options” tab and click it.
- When the tab is expanded, look for the area you need to “turn on” and select it.
- You can also “turn off” other areas if you don’t need them and want to keep your screen clean.
Edit the navigation bar
Edit the navigation (menu) bar
You need to manually add a new page to your menu if you add a page to your website. If you remove a page, it will be removed from the menu/navigation bar automatically.
- Go to “Appearance —> Menus”
- In the “Menus” window, select the menu you want to edit or add to and click “Select”:
- Under the “Pages” (or “Posts” or “Categories”) tab, select the page/post/category you want to add to your menu — in this case we have used the page “Clients” (you might have to click “View All” or scroll before you see your page listed — or use “Search” if you have many pages to scroll through):
- Click “Add to Menu” button
- Your page is now added at the bottom of the active menu window.
- You can now drag-and-drop your “Clients” page tab to the correct location among the other pages in the menu.
- You can also drag to the right and use as a sub item (resulting in a drop-down) under an existing tab on your menu/navigation bar.
Result:
- Full instructions here »
Post Categories
If your website has a blog, you might want to separate your blog posts — or content — into categories to help people find what they are interested in quicker.
Let’s say you post information about travel. Then you might want your subject to be “Travel” but divided into sub categories like “Europe,” “Asia,” “America” and “Africa.”
This means that if someone clicks on “Travel,” they will see all your posts whether they’re in sub categories or not. However, if they’re only interested in travel in Africa, they click Africa and only see your information pertaining to Africa.
So structure your content before you start adding it so it makes sense to your audience.
Here’s how to create categories:
- Go to “Posts —> Categories”
- Add the name of your main category — In this case it’s “Travel”:
- Save your new category by clicking the blue button “Add New Category”
- Add your sub categories — In this case “Africa” — select “Travel” as the parent category so this gets organized under Travel as well.
- Save your new sub category.
- Continue adding until you have the categories you need for your content.
You can rearrange your categories by selecting them and changing the “parent” category to a different category or none (then the sub category becomes another main category).
You can also add new categories “on demand” when you are in Edit or Add Post view. Simply click “+Add New Category” in the “Categories'” panel in the right sidebar:
Don’t forget to click “Add New Category” link to confirm your addition.
What is a “Blog?”
Your WordPress website has blogging built in already! But was is a Blog and how do you Blog? Is it right for you? Does it add to your business’ website?
Here’s an introduction to Blogging »
And watch this video. It explains it plain and simple.
Your website’s sidebar
Most websites have a sidebar on most pages (not all sites have this sidebar on the home page). You can turn off (omit) the sidebar on any page by choosing “Full Width Layout” in Edit View.
The content in the sidebar is repeated on all pages that have a sidebar. You can control the content of your sidebar under “Appearance —> Widgets.”
Most websites only use one sidebar — Primary Sidebar. If your site has two sidebars, the other sidebar is the Secondary Sidebar.
Any Widget you put in the Primary or Secondary Sidebar widget area will appear in the primary and secondary sidebars on all pages that have sidebars.
Instructions how to customize your widget areas »
Note! For themes using Parabola, the Widget areas are called Left and Right Sidebar instead.
Blake’s Floral Design, Tahoe/Carson
African Skies Travel, Reno
Tahoe Weddings A Go Go, South Lake Tahoe
Destination Tahoe Weddings & Events
Ranch Hand Rodeo, Nevada
Website’s home page
Most WordPress websites have a custom home page. This means that the home page isn’t just a regular page like the secondary pages on your website. Instead, the home page is like the front page of a newspaper — it features snippets of content from selected pages or posts and links to the rest of the page.
When we designed your website, we selected what pages or posts should be featured on your home page together with you. However, you can change what pages or posts are to be featured on the home page.
Different website themes have different setup for the home page so there is no “one description fits all” for how to change your website’s home page. In order to change your home page, you first need to see what theme your website is built with. What theme is my website is using? »
Websites using the Genesis framework (StudioPress Themes) »
Websites using the Parabola theme »
Websites using ElegantThemes themes »
How to install plugins
Plugins add functionality to your website. Let’s say you want a short bio about yourself at the bottom of all your blog posts (see the gray box that says “Highmark Designs” below).
First, you need to find a plugin that does what you want.
Go to “Plugins —> Add New”
In the window, write a few words describing the function you like to add:
Click “Search Plugins” and browse the results that come up. Is this what you had in mind? If not, change your search term(s) and try again.
These are the results our search gave:
You can get an idea of the plugin’s functions by clicking “Details” and view the information about it and screen shots showing what it looks like.
When you have found the plugin you would like to install, simply click the “Install Now” link below it’s name or in the “Details” box.
Follow the prompts you get during the installation. Last step is to “Activate” the plugin.
After activation, you can go to the plugin’s homepage for information and instructions how to set up the plugin. It isn’t always easy so only install plugins that give you good installation and setup instructions (you can see these while you view the Details about the plugin before installing).
If a plugin doesn’t work as you expect, it’s easy to click “Deactivate” and then “Delete” the plugin so it doesn’t interfere with other plugins you might want to install instead. Just go to “Plugins —> Installed Plugins” and find your plugin in the list.
Deactivate:
Delete:
Please contact us if you want help with finding and install a plugin to add functionality to your website.
Please note that we do not provide support on plugins that you install yourself. It is up to you to setup and manage your plugins.
Widgets
Certain areas on your web page are using “Widgets” to automatically display dynamic (not static) content.
In order to get to the Widgets control panel, you need to log in to your WordPress site using the Admin access. Please contact your web developer if you don’t have this login info.
Most commonly widget areas are used on the Home page, Sidebars and Footer areas.
Widgets are independent sections of content that can be placed into any widgetized area provided by your theme (commonly called sidebars). To populate your sidebars/widget areas with individual widgets, drag and drop the title bars into the desired area. By default, only the first widget area is expanded. To populate additional widget areas, click on their title bars to expand them.
The Available Widgets section contains all the widgets you can choose from. Once you drag a widget into a sidebar, it will open to allow you to configure its settings. When you are happy with the widget settings, click the Save button and the widget will go live on your site. If you click Delete, it will remove the widget.
If you wish to manage your widgets, please follow these steps:
- Go to “Appearance —> Widgets”
- In the Widgets panel, find the Widgets area you want do edit and expand it.
- When you have expanded your Widget area, find the Widget you want to edit anc expand it:
- Do the edits you wish and click “Save” — this will update immediately on the website.
Widgets have a lot of functions and options, for more in-depth info, please read more here.
Adding a custom widget
If you need to add something custom to your sidebar or another widget area (something that doesn’t come with a plugin), this is one way of doing this.
In this case, we are adding a button with a link to the Primary Sidebar.
- Open a new post.
- Add your button as an image placed into the post then link that image to the link you want it to go to.
- Click the “Text” tab in the editor and copy all the code.
- Go to “Appearance —> Widgets” and place an empty “Text Widget” into the area where you want your button. Paste the code copied above into that Text Widget and click “Save.” — You have now added your button with a link into your sidebar.
All-In-One Calendar Plugin
If your website has the All-In-One Calendar Plugin, here’s how you manage it.
You can find the plugin developer’s full tutorials and help here —>
Add an event
Go to “Events —> Add New”
Add event information
Click on the green tabs to enter the information requested. Use the content area at the bottom for any additional descriptive text for your event including images — this area is just like the content area on a page or post.
If you have Event Categories, don’t forget to select or add your event category:
If you want a specific image used as the Featured Image for your event post, use the “Featured Image” upload:
When you are done adding your event’s info, click “Publish”