The days of being able to hire one person to handle all your digital marketing needs are long gone. These days, there’s so much to know about digital marketing that one person can’t possibly be an expert in all of them, which is how we ended up with people who specialize in things like the content side of SEO and the technical side of SEO.

In this episode of The Marketing Spotlight, host Alison Ver Halen sits down with Nicole Hanusek, founder of Smack Happy Design, who has been designing and coding websites for 27 years — starting back when the web barely existed. Nicole shares how she stumbled into the industry straight out of art school, why she built her agency around rare "unicorn" designer-developers who can do both design and code, and why her team has stayed WordPress-only for the past 17 years.

The conversation covers a lot of ground: the evolution of web roles from "one person does everything" to today's specialized teams; why Nicole's team prefers Beaver Builder over other page builders and builds everything custom; and the real difference between self-hosted WordPress and hosted platforms like Wix or Squarespace when it comes to actually owning your content. Nicole and Alison also dig into two pet peeves that hurt websites: unnecessary loading animations that just annoy visitors, and slow page speeds that quietly tank both SEO and conversions.

Along the way, Nicole reflects on her early days at Alexa Internet, why she left a stable single-brand role to go back to the variety of client work, and the (intriguing) story behind the name Smack Happy Design.

In this episode:

• How 27 years in web design changed the industry's roles and workflows
• Why Nicole's team hires designer-developer "unicorns"
• WordPress: self-hosted vs. hosted, and why ownership matters
• Beaver Builder vs. other WYSIWYG editors
• The real cost of needless animations and slow load times
• The origin story of the Smack Happy Design name

About Nicole:

In 1998, Nicole Hanusek began her career with a web consulting company back in her hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. During this time, she learned everything about designing websites, coding HTML and PHP, managing projects, and the importance of usability and user experience. She has used this knowledge, combined it with her love of helping people and lots of creativity with a BFA in Illustration, to form Smack Happy Design, one of the Top 20 Web Design Firms in San Francisco for nine years running. She also loves to paint octopuses and abstract art for fun.

Connect with Nicole: smackhappydesign.com | LinkedIn

About Alison

Alison is a content marketer and brand strategist who focuses on creating content that aligns with your brand, resonates with your ideal audience, and positions you as the expert they want to work with.

Website: https://avwritingservices.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alison-ver-halen/

Schedule Some Time with Alison: https://alisonverhalen.as.me/podcast