Trillium Digital offers comprehensive web site creation services, including original graphics, logos, e-commerce, copywriting, content management, and site maintenance.

We offer attractive and affordable custom-designed web sites tailored to your individual needs and budget. Whether you are wondering, “where do we start?” in creating a web site, or need to update an existing one, we can guide you step-by-step through any project, regardless of size.

But can I edit my pages myself?

Yes!

In the old days, websites were static - built with HTML that was either hand-coded or made with programs like Dreamweaver or FrontPage. Every page in a static website must be completely built and maintained by hand, making static websites difficult and expensive to maintain, requiring special software and FTP capabilities.

But with the advent of content management systems (CMS) like WordPress, Joomla, Gallery, and Zencart, it’s easy for you to edit your own pages from anywhere, using just your web browser - no knowledge of HTML needed! Another benefit is that the content of the site is completely separated from the look of the site through the use of template, allowing the entire design to be changed with the click of a button (or a few changes in a style sheet)! No more changing every page on a site just to make the headlines a different color, size or font, or even a completely different layout!

We'll work with you to choose which CMS best suits your needs,  set up the site for you, installing the software and necessary components and customizing the look, then teach you to input and edit the text yourself. And there are hundreds of plug-ins available to give your site functionality for you and your visitors, from calendars, event registration, membership management, image galleries, user login, subscriptions, blogs, news feeds, forums, polls, business directories, and much more. Again, no technical knowledge is needed to use to these items in your website, just familiarization with how the components work. If you can use a browser (like Internet Explorer or Firefox), and have the skills to operate a program like Microsoft Word, you can maintain a website built on any of the systems we recommend.

At Trillium we are staunch believers in the Open Source movement of software solutions. Open Source software is free of charge and does not include expensive or limiting licensing fees.

We’ll work with you to figure out which of the different systems are right for you - Do you need forums, membership lists, or event registration? Go with Joomla. Need a blog, or simple page editing and not much more? WordPress. Need a dynamic image gallery that you can manage yourself? Gallery2. How about a full featured ecommerce shopping cart solution with complete order and customer management? Virtuemart. Need a little of each, like simple page editing with an image gallery as well? We can bridge WordPress and Gallery together to create a seamless integration!

In addition, we’ll customize the template for you to match your business’s look and feel. We can take anything – an existing site, Photoshop PSD, or just an idea–and convert it into a CMS or Blog template. We will even set up the pages for you or copy existing content if you wish. The site will look the same, but you’ll be able to edit content, add pages, and the hundreds of other things that content management systems allow you to do.

Common Misconceptions

They’re hard to use

The hard part is setting up the software and the plugins. That’s what I’m here for! I’ll get you set up and ready to go, whichever system you decide to use. CMS’s are designed to be very easy to use by the end user. Many are similar to using Microsoft Word or other Word processor program. User Manuals are often also available. And support is only a phone call or email away.

They all look the same

In an effort to help folks “get online ASAP”, CMS’s usually come with prebuilt templates. However, any design can be built into a CMS as long as you have an experienced programmer (like us!) to set it up for you.

They are ugly

All CMSs produce HTML, and HTML can be styled to look exactly the way you want. If a website is ugly, the CMS is not to blame - rather the designer.