Categories:Photography
Tag: Websites
Hosting Troubles
A great reason to hire someone like me to help you host your website is so I can deal with issues that might arise. For example, if you were hosting your website on your own and got hacked, how would you handle the situation? What would you do? How many hours would be lost replacing data, fixing files, and restoring things so the site was right again? Are you able to read code and write code to correct hacked coding? Did you even keep a back up on your own computer in case their backup was outdated or failed? For a small fee, all that stress can be off your plate and onto mine.
Things happen, cars break down, the house needs painting, a cockroach infestation occurs. I have a car repair person, but I don’t mind painting my own house, and I leave the bugs to the pros! Yes there are things we all can to that is preventative, but we still need help in different areas. Same goes for hosting your website and maintaining it.
Hosting companies do maintenance on their servers all the time. If their maintenance accidentally effected your website, would you be able to correct your site and get it back up and running correctly (restore it with your own backup)?
If your website or the blog on your website is WordPress based make sure you keep up with the updates. Those updates are often times to help combat those nasty hackers. Also, take the time to change your password every so often and make it a hard password that includes, capital letters, numbers and symbols. Yes, use all three!! (and be sure you write it on a post-it note and leave it in your desk drawer at your private home until you memorize it)
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My favorite sites
I have a decided to share a fun list of some of my favorite sites. You may already know of them, or they may be new to you, but I thought I’d share them anyway.
www.brownielocks.com - list of all types traditional and unconventional holidays (great ideas for social media posts)
www.audibles.com - a huge variety of audio books including a substantial business collection
www.domain.com/whois/whois.bml - Let’s me check on different domain names for my clients: who really owns it, when it expires, where it’s hosted, etc.
www.xml-sitemaps.com - Sitemap generator for your website (helps with Search Engine Optimization)
www.linkedin.com/company/add/show - create a business page on LinkedIn
www.facebook.com/username - Allows you to create a simple username for your personal profile and your business Page(s)
www.hashtracking.com - look up different hashtags to follow conversations or see results of hashtags
www.tweetdownload.net - allows you to download all your tweets into a spread sheet. (Great for creating multiple tweets and variety in tweet when creating auto tweets)
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Class update
I have registered for the Responsive Web Design class and will be in class for a full day next week. I can’t wait to come back and give you an update on that (and hopefully an example or two)!!
For those who don’t remember what Responsive Web Design is, it’s when you create 1 website that figures out what it’s on (computer, tablet, phone) and it adjusts itself accordingly to fit on that device and looks great and it easy to read on all of the devices. This will replace having a www.yourdomain.com and m.yourdomain.com or www.yourdomain.com/mobile, which is two different websites with two different designs, which means twice the work when making changes.
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Don’t get ripped off!!
I feel that I need to tell you a secret about content management systems (CMS). For those of you who don’t know what a CMS is, it’s a style of website built for people who want to manage the site themselves but have no training in coding or coding programs. Here is the secret!! Most of the time, they are not built “custom for you.” There are CMS out there already created for your use. A small handful of my clients use them. It’s called WordPress. There are others like Drupal and Joomla. The hard work was already done by the creators and are there for your use for FREE!!. You just have to put the files onto the server where your website goes.
I see examples of other designers’ proposals for website designs with a CMS system and they charge for HOURS worth of work “creating the content management system.” One guy said it took 20 hours to create it. Here’s the rest of the secret. It takes about… 20 minutes to get WordPress uploaded onto the servers. I charge for several hours for the whole process – download to finished pages. I pick your design, customize it just for you, and add fancy things called plugins, like Share Buttons, Google Analytics, etc. I’m the mechanic that tells you, your car is fine except for the loose hose which is why the AC isn’t working properly. I’m the handyman that tells you a wire is loose and tightens it instead of replacing your entire control panel. I’m stepping off my soap box now.
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Writing a blog
You will hear from multiple places that you should be consistent with your blog posting be it daily, weekly or monthly. Sometimes you can have 3 great ideas at once so you can preset the posts while other days, you struggle for ideas.
Tips to get over the blog post rut:
- Read your old posts. Can any be updated? Rewrite it as a new post.
- Ask a friend or client what they want to learn more about or what area do they need better understanding.
- Read other blogs from your industry. Don’t steal!!
- And sometimes, you just need to step away and do something completely different for an idea to come mind. Take a walk, go to lunch, play with your child or pet.
- Have a guest writer. Be sure to give them time to write!!
- And sometimes, it’s right under your nose and you just need to open your eyes!
What are things you do when you’re struggling with creating a post?
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Plans for 2013
Here at PetreyDish.Com, I am excited to tell you about my future plans. Soon I will be taking a class called “Responsive Web Training” that will equip me to enable your one website to look its best on every platform. Your website will actually be able to respond to whatever device you’re using, be it smartphone, tablet, or traditional computer. With more and more people using smartphones and tablets, compatibility is now becoming an important part of design. Most of you will be able to take advantage of this upgraded service without getting a full website redesign.
With this new service, your clients and customers will be able to access your website easier on mobile devices giving them a more user friendly experience. No more zooming, pinching and pulling on smartphones and tablets screens to make the text readable.
I’m sure you’ve seen www.m.websitename.com or www.websitename.com/mobile. Those are separate websites from the main site design. With Responsive website, you won’t need all that! They will all be in one place!
For more details, please give me a call or send an email to learn more.
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MarieG Coach
We’d like to Welcome MarieG Coach! MarieG Coach is a life and wellness coach. She came to me asking for a better site and she wanted better rankings when her services were searched. She had a website at the time that wasn’t quite doing what she needed and it wasn’t really “her”. After talking with her for awhile and learned she had a blog at WordPress that was separate from her website. I mentioned that she should put both her site and her blog together so she can go to one place and take care of everything. She can also say, “my blog is attached to my site” instead of sending a person to two different web addresses. She is much happier with that she has now and it’s still a work in progress, and we are making progress!! You can she our progress by going to www.mariegcoach.com.
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Explaining Domains and Hosting
This video is for informational purposes only. It does a really good job at explaining what a Domain is and what is Hosting. PetreyDish.Com does not endorse the products or services of this company. The British accent is a pleasant bonus!!