Sunday, December 7th, 2008
Argh! Of course, after I’ve written the directions on how to use WordPress, they come out with a new version, version 2.7, and changed the entire interface, so I have to rewrite the “how to” sections, with new screenshots, so they actually match what it really is like now.
More work for me. Better book for you. The book should be available to buy in the next few days also. I still need to run it through some reviews to make sure it’ll be as good as I think it should be.
The new admin interface is much better and easier to use. I like it a lot and I’m glad it happened now and not after I started to sell Web Site Starter Kit. I’d hate to have angry customers.
If you sign up for a free account at WordPress.com today, you’ll get to use the latest version. If you download it to use on your own “cheap” web host, then you’ll get the old version. Version 2.7 for download should be updated in the next few days.
Posted in web site build |
Saturday, December 6th, 2008
Web Site Starter Kit First Draft is done!
I need to go back through it all and review it, but the basic idea of using WordPress.com to set up a free web site is a good one. I have all kinds of tips and tricks to make that the best possible web site you can get, including SEO and promotion of the site.
As an example, I created a free site aimed at 3 keywords. Within 3 weeks of creating it, it was number 3 in the search results for those keywords in Google. That shocked even me. This SEO stuff really works.
Of course, now that I’ve written it all out, WordPress is releasing a new version and the admin interface is very different. It’s in production on wordpress.com, but the downloadable version is not available yet. It should be any day now.
When it is available, I’ll go do screenshots and the book will be ready to sell. It will be aimed at small businesses, really small ones, and in addition to background on general good web site ideas, it will have a “free” and a “cheap” method for creating web sites.
It should be all done and ready to go by next week.
Posted in web site build |
Friday, December 5th, 2008
Many small business owners will use their old generic email address when doing business, even after they’ve spent money to buy a domain name. Sending an email to someone with a HotMail, Yahoo, or Gmail domain name is a sure sign that you don’t know what you are doing, that you are second rate, that you are not professional.
You should set up addresses like support@ and sales@ and information@, just to look professional.
Make sure that the web host that is hosting your web site can do email also. All of them should be able to. It’s not that hard. Take the time to go in a get it set up. Find out what the host name is there and set up the account.
Set up your email application to log into that account, then use it to send and receive email.
You should also have a “catch all” account that will probably get filled with spam, but you’ll also get those emails with misspelled email addresses that you might otherwise miss.
You should set up addresses like “support@” and “sales@” and “information@”, just to look professional. You, or someone, should be able to log in and send and receive email at each of your custom addresses.
Also, don’t let any address lay dormant. Make sure that someone is logging into every account, every 10 minutes. “I sent you an email last week. Did you get it?” is not the question you want to hear.
Posted in web host |
Thursday, December 4th, 2008
You should be aware of how your web site is doing out there in the real world. Google published a page with search tricks on it. It can do magic tricks. Very useful stuff out there. The whole page is located at:
http://www.googleguide.com/advanced_operators_reference.html
The two that I want to point out are:
link: Find linked pages, i.e., show pages that point to the URL.
site: Search only one website or domain.
link:websitestarterkit.com
If you want to know who’s pointing at your site, where your incoming links are coming in from, search for “link:www.yourdomain.com”, without the quotes, of course. This will return all of the pages on all of the sites that have a link to your site.
If you want to know who's pointing at your site, where your incoming links are coming in from
You should go look at them and check what exactly they are using for the “link text”. That’s the actual text that a user will click to follow the link. You will be rated higher for the keywords in that link text.
You can ask the owners of those sites to change the text and maybe they will, if that will help you out for specific keywords. As much as you get good points for them using keywords, you also get bad points if all of the link text is identical. That make you look like you’ve automated it. There needs to be a certain organic-ness to the text so Google knows that there are real people putting them in.
site:websitestarterkit.com
The next good search is “site:” followed by your domain name. (No space after the colon, by the way.) This search will list all of the pages that Google has indexed from your site. Any URL for a page that starts with your domain name.
This is how you can be sure that Google has indexed all of the pages in your site. Check the “cache date” if they list that. You might be able to tell how often they spider your site. If you are a good blogger and post something new every day and you publish an XML site map for them, which is easy to do in WordPress, then they will probably be looking at your site often.
Posted in free |
Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008
Stores seeking sales on Web :: PostStar.com
Locally, Paul O’Donnell, owner of Celtic Treasures in Saratoga Springs, saw an influx of orders Monday thanks to a free shipping offer.
“UPS came in with a big hand truck to carry it all out,” he said.
Online since 1996, Celtic Treasures has established an online presence and customer database that would make many small businesses drool. O’Donnell’s store appears on the first page of a Google search for “Irish gifts,” which he called “priceless” and chalked up to longevity.
Celtic Treasures in Saratoga Springs
While the Cyber Monday phenomenon is largely absent from Main Street, online stores are becoming a popular way for local merchants to reach out to their existing customer base, and sometimes beyond.
In Glens Falls, SensibiliTeas owner Donnalynn Milford said a Web site has allowed her to send teas, herbs and spices all over the world. And when gas prices exceeded $4 per gallon, she noticed that customers from Chestertown and North Creek were ordering online, too.
“It was cheaper for me to send it to them, than (for them) to drive down and get it,” Milford said.
For most small businesses, a functional Web site is as good as a second storefront, said Todd Shimkus, president and CEO of the Adirondack Regional Chambers of Commerce.
“The primary benefit for a local small business, irregardless of where you are, is it gives you a chance to compete with those larger operations who are trying to draw business away,” Shimkus said.
Merchants with a unique, specialized product often have an easier time attracting an online audience.
Read the entire article at Stores seeking sales on Web :: PostStar.com
Posted in marketing |
Monday, December 1st, 2008
Here is the web guy at the NYT saying that their main costs for their web site is the manpower to build it. The software is cheap. The hardware is cheap. That’s basically the approach I take in the Website Starter Kit. Use WordPress, which is free, and buy space on a cheap web host. Use their hardware for less than $10 a month.
The main cost to build a web site is the manpower to build it.
You be the labor. You do it yourself and save a ton of money. Using these tools, it won’t be that hard to do.
In my experience, even the building of the site is easy. The real time suck is politics. The meetings between marketing and well, marketing, seemed to drag out every decision. They needed to be sure everything was just right before we could move ahead. When you can tell a developer to “do it this way”, they can knock it out quickly. When you ask a marketing person which way they want it, have a seat and wait.
Don’t fall into this same trap. Just get the site up and out the door. When you build custom stuff, it will take a bit to make changes, but using WordPress, it’s easy. Make all of the changes you want.
Make a decision. Make it happen. Bam. You’re done.
Old Media Interview: Aron Pilhofer, interactive guru, editor at The New York Times | Old Media, New Tricks
Everything we use is free and open-source… The cost here isn’t software, or even hardware, which is relatively cheap these days… The price most … organizations (and it’s not just small ones) seem reluctant to pay is for people…
Read the entire article at Old Media Interview: Aron Pilhofer, interactive guru, editor at The New York Times | Old Media, New Tricks
Posted in web site build |
Sunday, November 30th, 2008
All local business should have these 4 things on every page for people and search engines to read. Most sites these days are built on templates, so it’s easy to put in a footer or side bar containing all of these essential elements. All of these should be in text so that search engines can easily read them.
Your business name, a description of what you do, where you do it, who you do it for.
1. Your business name, a description of what you do, where you do it, who you do it for. Be short and to the point. They have other pages on the site for in depth information if they want more detailed information. This is for people to know at a glance what they are looking at.
2. Your address, phone number and email address. Be sure to put all of this information in full, including the street address, city, state and zip code. Put the area code with the phone number.
3. Hours that your business is open.
4. A list of cities you serve. If someone searches for the type of business that you have plus the city name, they can find it in the search engines.
Posted in marketing |
Thursday, November 27th, 2008
One reason that I want the primary focus of my business to be helping people build their own web sites instead of building sites for them is that everyone needs to embrace their own web site. We should know what is the content and update it regularly.
Embrace your site!
I can’t stress enough that you should be personally involved in your web site. You would always keep a copy of the keys to your front door. You would always have access to your bank account. You should always be involved with, control, and manage your own web site.
Don’t pay people like me to build you a site so that you can forget it and get on with the important parts of your business. The web site IS an important part of your business and you need to treat it that way if you are going to be successful.
Web wise: Startup company’s website- Internet -Infotech-The Economic Times
So whether it is a small-time business setup or a larger brick and mortar entity you are launching, a website is like the screwdriver in a toolbox that you really can’t do without. Says Rajeev Karwal, CEO and founder of Milagrow Business and Knowledge Solutions, “Internet domains are the most cost-effective method of getting your message across to a huge audience.
In fact, it is a very personal way of connecting with them. Unfortunately, only one or two percent of small companies use their websites effectively today.” There are quite a few reasons: low connectivity, low awareness and a tendency to “outsource and forget” what is treated as a necessary evil. Also, a website is not just a one-time investment of time or money—it demands constant attention and upgradation. But as these entrepreneurs prove, an attractive and well-tended website can be a key pillar of success and growth.
Read the entire article at Web wise: Startup company’s website- Internet -Infotech-The Economic Times
Posted in web site build |
Monday, November 24th, 2008
Local search is getting huge. These are places that you can get listed to help establish you local listing on-line presence.
Each of these listings will bring you traffic.
Each of these listings will bring you traffic, since no one uses the phone book any more. Each should be pretty self explanatory. Some offer paid features as well as free listings.
- www.dmoz.org
- local.botw.org
- advertise.local.com/
- listings.yellowpages.com/
- selfenroll.citysearch.com/
- www.google.com/local/add
- www.localeze.com/manage/
- list.infousa.com/dbupdate.htm
- www.dexsearchmarketing.com/
- botw.org/top/Regional/United_States/
- searchmarketing.yahoo.com/local/business.php
- my.superpages.com/spweb/products/business-listing
- Friends, Family, Partnerships with websites. Ask if they would be willing to swap links with your website to help promote both of your businesses.
Posted in marketing |
Monday, November 24th, 2008
#1: Your Small Business Needs a Website – This may sound obvious, but I am still quite amazed at the amount of small businesses that don’t have even a basic website. More people use the Internet to look up information about local information and that includes your business. When your mother doesn’t use the phone book any more, you know it’s time for a web site. Follow the Free Small Business Web Site guide to create a good one for free.
When your mother doesn't use the phone book any more, you know it's time for a web site.
– This should be obvious, but given the fact that a large percentage of small businesses don’t have websites, an even larger percent don’t have blogs. I know you don’t want to write something every day, that you’re a horrible writer, and no one cares anyway. The search engines care. They rank web sites that are updated regularly higher than static ones.
People do care and they do read your stuff. They want to get an idea of who you are, what your values are, and if you can be trusted or not. Write a little bit often and you’ll make everyone happy.
#3 Make It EASY to Contact Your Business – If people aren’t using the phonebook any more, then they are coming to your website to find out where you are, what time you’re open and what your phone number is. Put this information on every page in a sidebar or at least the footer. If people try to contact you by going to your website and can’t find that information, you have just lost a customer. I can hear the money falling out of your pockets right now.
#4 Claim and Update Your Google Local Listing – Google gathers information about your business and puts it in the local listings. It might be, and probably is, wrong or outdated. Go to http://www.google.com/local/add and add your company information if it’s not there or correct it if it is. People looking for local businesses based on location will go to your competition if you are not there.
I’ve also heard of people changing the information on their competition (you) to their contact info. You look for Jack’s Plumbing, but Joes’s plumbing has changed the phone number for Jack’s to his own phone number at Joe’s. You want Jack, but Joe gets the call and you don’t know Jack.
Posted in marketing |
Sunday, November 23rd, 2008
A lot of times, a developer will register your domain name for you as a service and charge you the fee every year to renew it. That’s great if they are honorable people and there are no problems.
The real owner of any domain name is the Administrative Contact in the whois record
The real owner of any domain name is the “Administrative Contact” in the “whois” record. They are the person or business that has the legal ownership. You can go to court and prove ownership with this.
If your developer is listed as that admin contact, then they are the legal owner. Again, this is nice that they are helping you out, but be aware that you are vulnerable to having your domain name held hostage, or worse, stolen from you.
This is the “whois” that I use. It’s from an old registrar that I no longer use because they quit responding to all communication from me. They were horrible. But, I still use their whois look up because they are no flashing ads or captchas to slow me down. I’ll share their secret look up page with you.
Check who owns your domain name here.
If you are not listed for your domain name, take steps to change that or have it changed. Make sure that your email address is also listed. If someone hijacks your email account, they can have your password sent to them, log in and change the admin contact to themselves and steal your domain name.
Send me email if you want any help with checking on this.
Posted in web host |
Sunday, November 23rd, 2008
Seth Godin, as always, is correct about the way to make money on the Internet. This is as important to small business owners, churches, bloggers, and wanna-be millionaires. Look at your organization and figure out how to connect people. Connect you and your customers, your customers with each other. He’s got examples. Do this now.
Seth’s Blog: How to make money using the Internet
The essence is this: connect.
Make money: not by building an internet company, but by using the net as a tool to create value and get paid. Use the internet as a tool, not as an end. Do it when you are part of a big organization or do it as a soloist. The dramatic leverage of the net more than overcomes the downs of the current economy.
The essence is this: connect.
Connect the disconnected to each other and you create value.
- Connect advertisers to people who want to be advertised to.
- Connect job hunters with jobs.
- Connect information seekers with information.
- Connect teams to each other.
- Connect those seeking similar.
- Connect to partners and those that can leverage your work.
- Connect people who are proximate geographically.
- Connect organizations spending money with ways to save money.
- Connect like-minded people into a movement.
- Connect people buying with people who are selling.
Some examples? I think it’s worth delineating these so you can see that the opportunity can be big, if that’s your taste, or small if you don’t want to invest heavily just yet.
Read the entire article at Seth’s Blog: How to make money using the Internet
Posted in marketing |
Sunday, November 23rd, 2008
Here are the advantages of having a “managed web host”. They are in fact true and good reasons. If you require 100% uptime, hardware replaced within 30 minutes, the best support, and remote backups, then yes, you need managed web hosting.
If you want a Ferrari, then buy a Ferrari, but know that it's a Ferrari.
However, know that it comes at a cost. If you can handle having periodic issues so that you have 99.9% uptime instead, then normal web hosting is much cheaper. If you want a Ferrari, then buy a Ferrari, but know that it’s a Ferrari.
Advantages of Managed Web Hosting | What It Is
The reasons why to opt a managed web hosting account compare to unmanaged cheaper web hosting service are as follows:
No Downtime: Your online website works as official brand of your company presence over the internet thus it’s a must for you to make your site alive 24*7 hrs for the world wide web visitors so that they can access your website without any such issues like downtime. Major online web hosting providers gives you 99.9% uptime guarantee while the fact is this that its too insufficient to the practical need for better presence in front of your customers thus you need a web hosting company which can ensure you 100% optimal uptime as there are a lot of managed web hosting providers which offer 100% uptime in real due to their multi-home bandwidth network lines.
When you are a newbie webmaster even it’s a must for you to ensure that your web hosting provider gives you 100% uptime guarantee in this manner you can cut off a lot of hassles and frustration sort of unwanted things in your daily business role with your website.
Better Equipments: There are a lot of managed web hosting providers over the internet world which gives you 30 minutes or even 15 minutes hardware replacement guarantee sort of unmatchable performance for your website as when your hardware by chance goes failed this is a must as nobody knows what’s going on when as everybody just know either the past of the presence nothing can be predicated for future reference point of view when you are dealing practically over any such technical things as web servers.
Better Support: When you go to search any web hosting company you shall check their Support SLA things to let you know that how good they are to the support needs as there are a lot of managed web hosting providers which offer you maximum 30 minutes guaranteed response over your any trouble with your website so it’s always better to keep your eyes on their detailed SLA agreement too so you can secure yourself that you are working with the best supporting team for your web hosting needs.
Remote backups: Proper planning for backups shall be always carried when you host your website anywhere on internet and if you have a properly planned remote backup that makes you 200% more secure to what you are doing on internet.
Read the entire article at Advantages of Managed Web Hosting | What It Is
Posted in web host |
Sunday, November 23rd, 2008
While it’s true that video can increase traffic to your web site, and is generally a wonderful thing, please, please, please make sure that you don’t make it start it playing as soon as someone loads the page. Please let me watch it if I want to or ignore it if I must. Nothing is more irritating than having sounds start coming from your computer when you didn’t expect it. It’s like walking up to a stranger on the sidewalk and shouting at them. It’s just rude.
Supercharge Your Web Site with Video | The Small Business Blog by Rieva Lesonsky
All smart entrepreneurs know that in order to compete today you need a robust Web presence. But not everyone has yet embraced online video, which (according to many Web gurus) can increase your site’s traffic and boost your sales. To learn more, I talked to Benjamin Wayne, president and CEO of Fliqz.com, a company that helps small and mid-sized businesses integrate video on their Web sites.
Supercharge Your Web Site with Video
Benjamin Wayne: Video can help businesses in three ways: drive increased traffic, drive more interactivity and page views, and drive increased [sales] conversion.
Lesonsky: Let’s talk about boosting traffic. What are the best ways to do this?
Wayne: The three primary ways are through site placement, search engine syndication, and viral propagation. When you add video to your site, consider using the home page, your galleries, and calls to action. Video on the home page will attract clicks from more than 50 percent of your users, and can be a great tool to draw visitors deeper into the site. The videos should be instructional in nature, or include a message from your company that provides an immersive introduction for new visitors.
Galleries are another good way to draw users into the site and encourage deeper interaction. Make sure that [videos within your product] galleries have a means to drive viewers back to a specific product or to purchase, and keep the videos short to encourage high completion rates. Finally, combine videos with a call to action. Videos are incredibly effective in driving user conversion [to sales], and should be featured prominently next to products as a means of driving purchase behavior.
Read the entire article at Supercharge Your Web Site with Video | The Small Business Blog
Posted in content |
Thursday, November 20th, 2008
I use WordPresss for all of the sites I build, except the very specialized ones. Here’s an article that backs me up. I’ve used all of the editors and other CMSs and I think WordPress is the most versatile and easy to use. If you want to keep your site updated regularly, and who doesn’t?, then you should be using WordPress. I’m not sure you should ever pay for a theme, since they can all be customized, but it might work best for you.
WordPress – It’s Not Just for Bloggers Anymore – Premium WordPress Themes | How to Start, Build and Promote Your Online Business
Wordpress is the most versatile and easy to use.
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Premium WordPress Themes
I’ve been a webmaster for over 12 years. And in that time I’ve used just about every HTML editor, CMS and page generator that was ever released.
Today, I use WordPress to develop 99.5 percent of the website projects I work on. The SEO, Web 2.0 and content management features make it so easy to deploy and market websites there’s really no need to use anything else. Almost anything you could want from a website can be easily plugged into WordPress.
With WordPress you can edit your website from any computer with an Internet connection. Change and add content, navigation, interactive features or even modify the design of the entire site in a matter of minutes. You can do it on a Mac, a PC or even a Linux box. It doesn’t matter because it’s all done over the web.
No more hassling with expensive software and updates. Everything you need is built in.
You’ll notice I’m using the word “websites” and not “blogs”.
“But I thought WordPress was blogging software?” you ask.
It is blogging software. Arguably the best blogging platform in the known universe. But, it can also be used as a robust content management system with or without blogging features enabled.
Imagine being able to give your secretary or assistant the login to your WordPress site and him being able to update content, add pages and upload photos in less time than it takes you to go to Starbucks and back.
Do you know how many hours I’ve spent training administrative assistants and church secretaries on how to use Dream Weaver or Front Page to update their websites? More than I care to remember. The sad fact is that most of those sites were never really kept up-to-date and therefore never really lived up to their full potential.
Read the entire article at WordPress – It’s Not Just for Bloggers Anymore – Premium WordPress Themes | How to Start, Build and Promote Your Online Business
Posted in web site build |
Thursday, November 20th, 2008
Here are the first three reasons that your small business really should have a blog of some sort. I know you want a normal “brochureware” site, but posting good content regularly is magic in terms of traffic and people finding out about your small business. Static pages are so 1998.
Six Reasons Why Blogs Are So Good for SEO – flyte blog: web marketing strategies for small business
Posting good content regularly is magic in terms of traffic.
1. Blogs are all about content. Search engines love content. They don’t love Flash, and they’re still struggling with photos and video, but they absolutely get content.
2. Blogs have text-based navigation. Search engines have an easier time with text based (vs. image based) navigation because it’s more transparent. Search engines for a while now have told us that they want sites to serve up the same information/experience to a search engine bot as to a person.
3. Blogs offer lots of links. If search engines feast on words, they travel on links. Blogs are often a good place to find new content on the Web.
Read the entire article at Six Reasons Why Blogs Are So Good for SEO – flyte blog: web marketing strategies for small business
Posted in SEO |
Thursday, November 20th, 2008
This is one of those questions that will get a complicated technical formula from the web development engineers, but it’s really not that hard.
If you have to ask, then you don’t need very much.
Don't be seduced by the flashing neon signs screaming *unlimited* at you.
If you are just starting out, you probably won’t have much traffic. Sorry, but it’s true. You can calculate the page files sizes and multiply by the page views you get a day or a month, but you won’t be able to do that without knowing how many people hit your site. If you have no history, then you can’t calculate, but it won’t be very much at all for a while.
Start out with the cheapest, least amount of space and bandwidth. Don’t be seduced by the flashing neon signs screaming “unlimited” at you. Don’t upgrade until you have to.
You will be surprised by just how little bandwidth you really need. If the average page is 100k, which is not unreasonable, then 100,000 pages a month is one gig. That’s over 3,000 page views a day. Do you have that many? If you have 10,000 views a day, then you’ll want 3 or 4 gig. I think “unlimited” bandwidth would probably cover that.
I really, really mean that you shouldn’t get more than you really need and you probably don’t need as much as you think you do. Really. Don’t do it.
Much more important is the reliability of the company. Do they answer emails quickly? Put in a support ticket and see how long it takes them to answer. Ask the sales people technical questions about redundancy and latency. See how long it takes to answer and does the answer make sense to you. Just tell them that you were told to ask about “redundancy and latency” and please explain what that means. If you are happy with the answer, then great. If you have no idea what this technical jargon they give you means or it takes them 3 days to answer you, then move along and find another web host company.
Posted in web host |
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008
1. Shared – This is a server that is shared by multiple web sites. You get to put your web sites on there, along with everyone else.
This is a server that is shared by multiple web sites.
You share the hard drive space and you share the bandwidth. You have privacy. Everyone can only see their own files. Upside – these are the cheapest out there, maybe $5 to $30 a month. Downside – if someone else uses a lot of bandwidth or has CPU intensive scripts, then your site might be affected. You usually have less bandwidth on a shared server.
This is your own personal piece of hardware that you drive down to the hosting company
2. Collocated – This is your own personal piece of hardware that you drive down to the hosting company and they put it on their rack and plug it into their bandwidth. Upside – you can do anything you want and have complete control over the entire machine. All you are really paying for is the bandwidth. Downside – all you are paying for is the bandwidth. You have to back it up. You have to fix any problems. You have to manage the whole thing your self. If a hard drive fails, you have to buy a new one and replace it your self. You own the machine.
You get the entire machine, usually with more access to it than with a shared server.
3. Unmanaged Dedicated – This is their machine that you are renting from them. They give you file space and bandwidth. You get the entire machine, usually with more access to it than with a shared server. Upside – you get huge bandwidth and all of the CPU. You can run a lot of traffic through one of these. They can handle probably 500,000 page views a day. You want one of these if you have a huge site with a lot of traffic. Downside – they are expensive. They might be $200-$500 a month. You want a Ferrari, you pay for a Ferrari.
The hosting company will all monitor the server for you and fix things if they go wrong.
4. Managed Dedicated – These are the as Unmanaged Dedicated servers, except the hosting company will all monitor the server for you and fix things if they go wrong. If you have a large commercial site that MUST be up all the time, then you want one of these babies. Upside – these can handle anything, all the time. Downside – you guessed it, much more expensive.
If your site has little traffic, you won’t need the power of a dedicated server. If you are not a geek, then you probably don’t need to collocate your own server. If you are not running a huge commercial site, you probably don’t need a dedicated server.
I use these guys and they give me enough bandwidth and customer service to make me happy. I don’t promote anyone else, just Powweb.
Posted in web host |
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008
No matter what kind of web site you are creating, no matter what size or what content, it’s always best to plan out what you need to do before you do anything.
I always start with a planning document. It can be formal or informal. It just needs to have all of the information you need in a way that makes sense to you.
It's always best to plan out what you need to do before you do anything.
Start out with the technical, web hosting issues. What is the domain name? Where will it be hosted? Are there any other technical requirements like SQL or PHP? You may not know all of these right now, but be aware of them. They might cause problems later if you don’t plan for them now.
Once you have a handle on the technical issues, which will take way more time to explore, the next step is a site map. This might be called the site architecture or site plan. There are various names for it.
You need to have a list of every page on the site and a description of the content for every page. You also need to know the relationships of each page, which will be defined with the menus.
Most sites have a list of things that are exactly the same on each page, so we call this the template. These things would be the header and footer, the sidebars, and the logo. Whatever else you might have can be put into the template.
If your site has nothing common on each page, then you’re better off creating them individually. You still need to make the site map.
You can make this list as a text outline or as a graphic with little boxes and lines running between them. Use whatever tools you have that make sense to you.
Posted in web site build |
Tuesday, November 18th, 2008
I’m a Project Manager when I have a day job. My skill is getting everything to come together at the same time and making it all work. That’s a skill that I’ve learned over years of building web sites.
I won’t tell you everything I know because you don’t have that much time and I have to go watch Fringe, but I will tell you a couple things to watch for when you’re trying to start a web site.
Things never go as planned. Never.
First, things never go as planned. Never. Always add some cushion. If you can ever get anything done early, do it. Always have a plan B or a way to work around the things that will go wrong. Never work to up to the deadline, work to a point ahead of the deadline, then maybe you won’t be as late.
I might be getting a consulting gig for a company that wants to get a store up on the web by Thanksgiving. I thought “No problem!” before I realized exactly when Thanksgiving is. Yeah, it’s days away. And you want to do what?
Second trick of the trade, do it in phases. The web can be changed easily. If you print up 10,000 catalogs and need to make a price change, your stomach is going to hurt. If you need to add another page on a web site, just add it and change the menus. Boom. It’s done. It’s just a matter of time and effort to make changes.
Figure out what the bare minimum is that you need to get your web site started. Do that, then add on features and pages later. Don’t worry about it. Don’t make it perfect. Make it now.
I told this new gig to have all of the design work done by the end of business yesterday. They said they could have by the end of business today. It’s after 10pm and I haven’t seen anything yet.
It’s going to be an interesting project.
Posted in web site build |
