Web Design Winnipeg | Custom Websites & Hosting | Winnipeg Web Guy

St. Adolphe Medical Clinic

todd — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 12:55:49 +0000

It was great working with St. Adolphe Medical Clinic to make their new website:

Save time with email templates

todd — Sun, 31 Mar 2024 22:53:19 +0000

Do you find yourself spending too much time writing emails? If you find yourself frequently sending emails with the same message or content, you might consider setting up time-saving email templates.

What is an email template?

An email template is pre-written email text that is saved to your email as a template. This text can be selected and inserted into any new email or reply. Selecting a template will automatically fill your blank email with your pre-written text, saving you from having to retype common text into multiple emails. This text can then be edited, added to, or just sent as is. The process is simple – you write the email text once, save it as a template, and insert it whenever needed to an email.

Templates are a great way to save time when sending emails and drafting replies. We regularly use templates in our business to save time when placing regular orders, invoicing, distributing information, scheduling, and responding to regular queries. Templates preventing you from having to type out the same information across multiple emails, and give you a base email to start from. Using templates can save you time and free you up from time-consuming emails, to focus on other parts of your business. Learn more about the benefits of using email templates from LinkedIn.

Setting up email templates

A great way to get started setting up your own email templates is to review your sent emails. Check and see if you are repeating yourself across multiple emails and replies. Copy the common text from these sent emails to create a template that can be easily adapted for use across many emails. Once inserted into your email, the template text can still be edited to be customized for each specific conversation before you hit send.

Different email programs handle templates in different ways. Follow these links to find out how to set up your own templates for Outlook Email users, and for Gmail users.

If you need help setting up templates for your small business, we can help. Contact us for a quote on a one-time special project. We can help you set up draft email templates that will meet your everyday needs. We also offer monthly administrative packages starting at $125 to review and reply to your email on a daily basis. Our flexible pricing schedule means you only pay for the administrative support hours you need, when you need them.

Suburb Beautiful

todd — Sat, 15 Apr 2023 15:30:05 +0000

It was great working with the people at Suburb Beautiful to create this great Charleswood listings website. Suburb Beautiful’s vision is to build a directory of high-quality Charleswood businesses to support the local community.

This from the website:

Growing up in Charleswood, we always knew who to call.

Suburbbeautiful.ca was created to expand the sense of community we have and extend it to the many new residents of the neighbourhood while helping support local small business owners and service providers.

The familiarity we feel when we discover that we are speaking to someone else from Charleswood is our inspiration.

People in the area are asking for recommendations of someone local every day, either from friends and family or on social media.

This website was created with the idea that if you are a consumer and have a need to be met, using suburbbeautiful.ca means that you will be able to easily look up a neighbor to hire or support instead of a stranger.

The directory is solely made up of Service Providers that either grew up in the neighbourhood or have chosen to live in Charleswood now.

You are guaranteed to be hiring someone from the area, and it’s more than likely that you will recognize a name or two in the directory.

Please remember them the next time you need to hire or recommend someone.

Your support of the families in this community is very much appreciated and will make us all stronger and more connected.

Do I need social media for my business?

todd — Fri, 16 Sep 2022 23:14:23 +0000

You have created your business website. Should your business be on social media too?

Social media can be a great way to communicate and interact directly with your current and potential future customers. You can use social media for your business in a variety of different ways, from sharing photos and videos, communicating timely and updated information, having two-way interaction with clients, and building relationships.

Social media platforms can also offer targeted and affordable options for paid advertising if you are looking for a way to expand your reach.

Where do I start? What platforms should I use?

TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn—how do you choose which platforms for your business? Different social media platforms reach different audiences. Before you decide to sign up for social media accounts across all platforms, you should ask yourself a few simple questions:

What type of content do I want to share?
Do you have a lot of photos of your products? Before and after photo sets of renovation work? If you have lots of photo content to share, then you might want to look at Instagram. Do you have information, links, and articles or blogs to share? Facebook might be your best place to start.
Who do I want to connect with?
You might have heard great things about viral success on TikTok. But if your business primarily targets the senior community, then TikTok might not be the best platform for reaching your target demographic. Do you primarily connect with other professionals in your field? LinkedIn might be the best choice for you.

Want to get started with social media, but not sure where to begin? Winnipeg Web Guy can help! For as low as $199 we can provide Social Media Set Up Services for your business. We will help you select which social media platforms will work best for you, set up your accounts, and create an overall plan for you to move forward with your business social media.

Winnipeg Web Guy can also provide Social Media Content Creation and Management Services beginning at $199 per month. We will work with you to create, post, and manage monthly content for your social media.

When we create a Social Media Plan, we research hashtags, create platform-specific strategies, and create content specific to your business social media goals.

To get your business started on social media, contact us today.

Stark9.ca

todd — Fri, 08 Jul 2022 15:13:29 +0000

It was great working with Josh from Stark9.ca to create their website a few years ago. This from their About Us page:

Stärk 9 CO. is a locally owned and operated company servicing Winnipeg and the surrounding area.

Our experienced team provide a wide range of services including:

Excavating projects
Drainage ditches & trenches
Grading & sloping
Hauling waste, top soil, gravel, bed rock, clean fill
Commercial snow clearing
Concrete removal and concrete placing
Property maintenance
Tree removal and tree trimming
Recycled asphalt paving
Stärk 9 CO. associates with many other local and reliable contractors. We can assist in setting you up with the necessary tradespeople to complete your project.

See the website here: https://stark9.ca

Top Builders Team

todd — Thu, 28 Apr 2022 00:37:56 +0000

We love working with Winnipeg companies. We have been working with Mike from Top Builders Team since 2020.

Visit website here: https://topbuildersteam.ca

Here is a brief bio from his site, hosted with Winnipeg Web Guy:

Top Builders Team

Top Builders Team has grown into one of Manitoba’s preferred home renovation companies. Our expert installers have more than 25 years experience in the home renovation & remodeling industry.

From initial consultation to finished product, we’ll work with you every step of the way. We treat your home as if it’s our own. Our team has built more than 500 custom installations of decks, fences, kitchens, basements and bathrooms. Deck builder Winnipeg.

Basements – renovate your basement to add comfort and function to your lower level. Whether it’s a man-cave, woman-cave or games area, we have designed and built hundreds of basements in and around the Winnipeg area.

Kitchens- whatever your vision, we’ll design and deliver the kitchen of your dreams. Let’s get started.

Bathrooms- we can create a new bathroom in an area, or renovate your existing bathroom. Modern design ideas and expert installers.

Decks, Fences & Pool Areas- have a look at some of our backyard renovations. We’ll create spectacular outdoor living areas for you and your family.

Why We Use WPForms for our Contact Forms

todd — Mon, 21 Feb 2022 23:04:36 +0000

At Winnipeg Web Guy, WPForms is our go-to contact form plugin. We’ve been making websites for Winnipeg companies for almost ten years. Over the past few years, our most consistent support ticket was that people were fearing that they were not receiving their emails consistently through their website’s forms. We were using a couple of different contact form plugins. We won’t mention the names here because really, there was nothing wrong with those plugins. In fact, they worked really well most of the time and the problems were few and far between. But yet, the problems with mail deliverability would pop up from time to time with some of our clients.

For these clients experiencing difficulty, we tried all kinds of fixes. We tried adding domains and IP addresses to SPDIF records, changing form plugins, etc. But the problems persisted. For a client, they don’t care about all of the technical mumbo-jumbo. They just want to know why their contact form emails are not getting through.

So after doing a lot of research, we learned that this is a fairly common problem with WordPress contact forms. The problem isn’t with the contact form plugin itself necessarily, but that when email is sent through a contact form using the PHP mailer, it is often flagged as potential spam by a variety of email services, including GMail.

Many recommendations online led us to trying out WPForms. We gave it a try and we haven’t looked back since. Now, our default setup is to use WPForms as our forms plugin, supported by WP Mail SMTP (another WPForms plugin) and Mailgun.

Setting Up WPForms

Setting up a form with this setup is a little bit of a learning curve. Generally, it takes about half an hour. First, we install the two plugins mentioned above (WPForms and WP Mail SMTP), and then we configure Mailgun as the SMTP service. Mailgun is free, or you can upgrade your account to pay a little bit if you need more than 5 domains. We pay less than $5 a month for about 20 domains and a couple thousand emails a month. This setup ensures 99.9% email deliverability. In the odd chance that a contact email doesn’t get through, there is a back-end log of all emails. This ensures pretty much 100% success collecting leads and emails.

Some of the benefits of WPForms:

The WPForms team provides REALLY great support. We’ve been subscribed to the WPForms Elite package for a couple of years and this allows us to install the plugin on all of the websites that we build. Every time we’ve had a support question or issue, their support has gone above and beyond to help out. As one example, recently I was trying to make a pre-populated form that would change the drop-down option depending on the image that a user clicked on (see Prime Medical page . Their support team walked me through it and manually helped me create the dynamic links that would need to be added.
There is a tutorial for everything you are likely to try to do. As one example: https://wpforms.com/categories/docs/functionality/
The forms are highly customizable. There are 20+ add-ons for the forms. You can install PayPal, or Mailchimp addons and from my experience, all of these pages are well supported with individual tutorials for how to set things up. They all include videos that walk you through the setup process. You can use WPForms as a user registration plugin or as a leads collection funnel. To be honest, most of my installs have been fairly simple, but the options are there if you want to make your forms more elaborate. They have great resume collection templates and a great looking conversational forms addon.
A few of the Myriad WP Forms Add Ons

Some considerations:

The pro-versions of the plugins from WPForms are a bit of an investment. But we have found the investment to be worth it. After all, the entire purpose of having a website is receiving leads or inquiries from potential customers. If those inquiries are getting lost in cyber-space, clients will not be happy.
It is a bit of a learning curve to set up Mailgun with WP Mail SMTP. It takes a few times to get comfortable with it. You’ll be required to add some DNS records to your domain. If you need some help, again, the WP Forms support team is really great. They also have a Facebook group to help with the setup.
Visual changes to the form’s appearance are done through CSS. We use the Custom CSS plugin that comes with the theme that we use. There is lots of great support for the CSS that you’ll need to change colours, button appearance, etc. But if you aren’t familiar with CSS coding to customize a website, there will be a learning curve there.

To be clear, we have no affiliation with WPForms. This article is written in an attempt to help those who may find themselves in a similar situation with contact form mail not getting through. Normally, I turn off comments on our articles to avoid spam. But if you are struggling with getting your form messages through, please leave a comment on this article and I’ll see if I can help point you in the right direction.

WPForms has solved our most common support tickets. It is a little more work up front, and it will cost you a bit of money each year, but in our opinion, it’s worth it to provide consistent, solid contact forms for your clients.

Dora RCM-R Website

todd — Sat, 17 Apr 2021 22:23:08 +0000

Great working with the folks over at Dora-RCM-R Software

From their About Us Page:

DORA RCM-R® possesses the most robust, efficient, and easy to follow decision diagram to guide you select the most appropriate task for every failure cause. It incorporates the use of Operator Tasks and the possibility to evaluate failure data (when available) with Weibull Analysis to corroborate actual failure patterns.

Homepage

EDA Mechanical

todd — Thu, 15 Apr 2021 17:03:11 +0000

It was great working with the folks over at EDA Mechanical.

From their About Us page:

D.A. Mechanical Services Ltd. was originally founded by a set of Brothers who immigrated to Canada from Switzerland. E.D.A is an acronym that was established to represent Engineer, Design and Application in 1978. Together they built and operated E.D.A. Mechanical Services as a duo until they decided to retire.

At that time, both Brothers had a Son who were integral parts to the business’ operations. The decision was made to split the business into two and operate completely independent businesses entities from one another. One maintained E.D.A. Mechanical Services while the other segmented off and formed EDA Environmental.

Our new ownership group acquired E.D.A. Mechanical Service in 2010. We pride ourselves in offering the same great service in delivering creative Millwright, Hydraulic and Fabrication services.

Domain Names- What You Need to Know

todd — Sun, 11 Apr 2021 14:41:03 +0000

Before making a website, people often ask me what they need to do to get a website up and running. For someone who isn’t involved in the industry, it can be an overwhelming process. Our goal here at WWG is to get you up and running as quickly and as painlessly as possible. In order to get your new website on the internet, you’re going to need to check off a variety of items from your list. This post series is intended to help you through those steps.

What is a Domain Name?

A domain name is the address where people will find you on the internet, such as: winnipegwebguy.ca or cvblinds.ca or topbuildersteam.ca.

Securing Your Domain Name

There are a few decisions that you will have to make before you purchase your domain name. First off, if you’re like me, and your business is Canadian, you will have to decide if you want a .ca or .com address. Basically, I’d say the rule here is: if your company is in Canada and you do the majority of your business in Canada, go with a .ca domain as your primary domain. There are a few longer reads here and here if you are interested in reading more on that debate. Dot ca domains are familiar to Canadian citizens and inspire confidence in local visitors.

It’s not a horrible idea to buy both domains and just forward the .com address to your .ca, but really only one of those sites will be your primary domain. It is not a good idea to have two separate sites for two different audiences. This is confusing to search engines like Google and your ranking will suffer as a result.

What Domain Name Should I Choose

Choosing your domain name is an important choice for any new company. Generally, you want your primary domain name to be the name of your company. Your business name is your brand and you want your domain to reflect that, in as simple a way as possible. It is recommended to keep things as short as possible as sometimes people will be typing in your domain manually. You can head over to any major domain name provider, like GoDaddy or eNom and do a search for the domain name you would like to acquire. If you need assistance with this, of course I can help you.

Short, catchy domain names that reflect the name of your business are the way to go.

Make Sure You Register Your Own Domain

Often people ask me if I register domains for people. Early on in my web design days, I would do this for people to make the process easier. However, this is not the recommended way to do things. You need to be the owner of your own domain. I have had many people come to me and tell me that someone else owns their domain, be it a company or another individual.

I have seen many people have to shell out hundreds of dollars to buy their domain back from a company that they thought was helping them. Some companies will charge you massive lump sums in order to transfer your own domain back to you. Transferring a domain is also a tedious process. So this is why I strongly recommend that you go to GoDaddy or another reputable company and purchase your own domain. I could do it for you, but then if anything ever happens to me, the process is tricky to transfer that domain to you.

How Do I Register a Domain?

The process of registering a domain is fairly straight forward. GoDaddy or any similar company will recommend a bunch of other services, but all you need to do is buy the domain. The domain itself will likely be in the neighborhood of $20 a year. You can purchase it for more than one year if you like.

The one add-on you might want to consider is adding ‘Privacy’. This hides your personal information from others on the internet. This services usually costs between 10 and 20 dollars a year. By law, you are required to disclose some information as the owner of the domain. If you choose the privacy option, then that information will be filled in with information from the parent company. I have found that if you don’t choose the privacy option, you can expect some spam emails from those who scour the internet for the owners of domains. If your address is a .ca address, then there is no option to hide your identity.

GoDaddy Might Be the Way to Go

I almost always suggest to people, that if they have no real preference, that they register their domains with GoDaddy. There are a bunch of reasons for this. GoDaddy allows web designers or IT companies the ability to request access to your account. The process is easiest for me and their prices are fair. They will send you email reminders when your domain is about to expire. Their support is decent, although at times, like any IT company, it can be hit or miss. But for the most part, if your website is done through me, all you need to do is buy the domain and make sure to set the domain to auto-renew.

Changing Nameservers

Nameservers are the address book of the internet. They tell the world where to find your website. Once you have registered your domain, you need to point that domain to the hosting service- the place where your internet files and database are stored. This is a step that I can guide you through or I can do it for you. Basically, you need to change a couple settings from within your GoDaddy account. Once that is done, the domain is pointed to your website files and you should be good to go.

If you have email setup with a different hosting company, it can be a bit tricky to point your domain to your website without messing up your email account. Basically, things need to be done in a slightly different way. So this is a consideration that needs to be dealt with before changing the nameservers. Again, those here at Winnipeg Web Guy can help you out with that.

In Conclusion

In a nutshell, choosing a domain can be a bit intimidating at first, but it’s really fairly simple. Choose the domain that works best for your company, decide whether it’s .ca or .com that works best for you, purchase your domain, choose auto-renew so that your domain doesn’t expire, and then sit back and let me do the rest! Once you’ve done that, you can print your domain on business cards, posters, etc. and start driving traffic to your site.

If you have any questions about this process, please reach out here and I’d love to get you started on the process.