It is with great joy that I get to introduce you to Lynda Poston-Smith and her brand new website, built on the Associate Theme by StudioPress!
I first met Lynda about 10 years ago. I was looking for a voice teacher and turned out she was needing a web designer. At the risk of making a horrible music pun, I’d say we were a perfect duet from the start!
Years ago we completed the first iteration of her website, focusing on her teaching, workshops, and recorded music. It was a straightforward site, made up in a combination of Classic ASP and HTML. A few updates here and there and the site served her purposes for a number of years.
Time for a Change
Have you ever woken up one morning and felt so urgently in need of a haircut that you’d cheat on your regular stylist if she didn’t have an available appointment? Me neither.
Through a combination of events and opportunities, Lynda discovered she was ready for a new site. I mean, really ready! Our paths crossed again and Lynda entrusted me with her second web project. With a few loose directives and a general direction, I got started…
A Genesis
As has become my habit, I chose to start with the Genesis Framework from StudioPress. I installed the Associate Theme and began to customize from there. Drawing inspiration from the color palette of a peacock’s plume (Lynda’s favorite!), the site design started to sing. (Pun fully intended).
The site also incorporates a WooCommerce shopping cart, which integrated really nicely thanks to the Genesis Connect for WooCommerce Plugin. Lynda’s online shop features digital downloads of sheet music arrangements as well as physical copies of CDs. It uses PayPal as the payment gateway and is a wonderfully inexpensive option for smaller-scale online stores.
Distributing the Music
A really fun aspect of this project was learning about the process of digital music distribution. Lynda wanted her music to be available directly from her site, but she also wanted it to be accessible through iTunes, Amazon, and similar. Through a little research, we selected a digital distribution house to manage her online music sales and voila! (Click here to preview songs from her latest album!)
Debut
So, today her freshly launched site hits the web. It will continue to evolve with Lynda’s music and teaching, which is the beauty of using WordPress: It grows with you.