Wow! 2016 flew by! It was an awesome year for LimeCuda. We are grateful for so many wonderful clients and fun projects – we’re truly blessed.
Like many businesses, the early months of summer were uncommonly tough sales-wise. And we’re fighting hefty health insurance hikes. But overall, 2016 has been our best year in terms of finding better tools, processes, and taking care of business.
Let’s take a trip back over 2016 and see what happened…
Blake Imeson’s 2016 Story
Our family is now quite settled in Williamston, Michigan and mostly through with remodeling our house. We’re all deeply in love with the seasons of Michigan. Winter can be a bit long and gray but there are ways to break it up. We took two large family road trips to the South and back.
Our son is now 3 years old and is a hoot. He can name every two dimensional shape for you from a quatrefoil to a decagon… I somehow got my wife hooked on one of my great loves: buffalo hot sauce. I’ve been expanding my taste palette with sour beers and barleywines – Michigan is tops in the US for craft beer.
I finally gave my personal blog a fresh coat of paint and started publishing some posts. One of my new hobbies is fiddling with “Smart Home” technology – because who doesn’t want to get a text every time their fridge opens ;)
Josh Mallard’s 2016 Story
I almost died… I spent a few years with the most unhealthy of life and work habits that took a toll on my body. One day, late in March this year, it all caught up with me. You can read more about that story here.
Since then, I’ve learned how to maintain a more healthy lifestyle and am learning how to establish a manageable work/life balance. I’ve been rejuvenated like I haven’t been in a while and even had the energy to nag Blake into submission on the vision for a new brand for LimeCuda this year (see below) :).
Professionally, I’ve spent the remainder of the year building my technical skills through online courses, regular “playing around” with new technologies and ideas, and pushing forward on a few of the many plugin ideas that we’ve been toying with internally.
Personally, I’ve spent the year watching my boys grow up way too fast! It is sad to see them growing up so quickly but also exciting to experience these new phases of life.
I’ve also gained a new appreciation for yard work. Our yard was disturbingly overgrown when I first bought our house. I did a little work over the years but really only focused on having a few usable areas. Now, the process of clearing the brush and cutting down dead trees is actually one of the most relaxing parts of my week! There is something extremely satisfying about reclaiming our yard and envisioning all the new ways our boys can enjoy it once it’s all cleared.
LimeCuda
We got to know some truly wonderful people and are happy to also call them new clients…
The amazingly talented (and swell guy) Jim Cutler of Jim Cutler Voiceovers. Jonathan and Kristin Faasse, the intrepid entrepreneurs running the Lansing Landscape Architecture firm, Elements Studio. The creative and upbeat team at Doe & Ingalls. And some longtime friends gave us some new projects to crank out. Many thanks to all of you!
New LimeCuda Website / Refreshed Brand
Learn more about it in our launch post. Our new site and brand are a much better reflection of LimeCuda.
New Focus on Blogging
In June we committed to posting a new blog post at least once a week and are happy to report we have consistently met that goal!
Since we began that blogging journey, we have published 26 new blog posts on this site which have gained almost 500 social media shares.
Our traffic has risen from an average of 500 unique monthly visitors to an average of 900 unique monthly visitors.
The Zest! Our Insider Email
We now send a monthly recap email of new technology and things you should be watching out for in the web world. You can sign up or view our archives to see what’s been happening there.
FewerThanThree.com
In August we launched a fun new site where we share WordPress and Genesis Framework related code, tutorials, and insights. We’ve now published about 30 posts.
[PLUGIN] Don’t Stage Me Bro
We released a free plugin that helps avoid accidentally overwrite a staging site when working with a team.
[PLUGIN] Download Gate for Gravity Forms
Josh created a plugin for Gravity Forms that lets you add a download gate to get a whitepaper or other resource. This means that a visitor to your site will be required to complete a form of your choosing before being able to access your downloadable resources.
TECHNOLOGY
Secure All the Things!
2016 is the turning point year for websites being secured HTTPS (SSL / TLS). We’re now solidly in the era when all sites should be encrypting their traffic. The new free option of “Let’s Encrypt” makes SSL more readily available. If you haven’t moved to HTTPS yet, let’s talk!
WordPress Growing and REST API
WordPress now has a REST API. With this addition, we enter a new era of flexibility for the platform.
The WordPress core had 6 minor releases and 3 major releases.
WordPress is being run on over 27% of the entire web and more than 60 percent of the top 100 sites on Inc.
Accelerated Mobile Project / Facebook Instant
These super-fast ways to load sites on mobile have hit maturity. Still really only applicable to content publishers but it has begun to shake up search results and impact user expectations.
On to 2017…
We have some exciting plans for 2017 (seriously!) and better serving you, our clients.
One of the greatest rewards for our efforts is seeing them actually help you run your businesses better, gain new customers, and help the web parts of your businesses turn from drudgery to fun!
So cheers to 2017! We’re hoping, planning, and praying it is going to be awesome!