There’s a reason companies change their commercials and brands update their logos from time to time.   Consider whether it’s time to update your website and remember that your website should be designed for your visitors – not for you.

Even if you just change out a picture or modify the color scheme, it can feel like a new, unexplored site to the visitor who may have seen it several times before.

In many cases, these are hackers trying to get into your site.  They will type in your website address and add something like “/admin” to the end of it.  Or maybe something like “/myadmin/setup.asp” 

If you see pages listed that you’ve never heard of, don’t worry about them.  If they aren’t part of your website, naturally they aren’t going to be found.  

One less thing for you to worry about.

The Google Group for webmasters (about search engine ranking) is also good, but use it with caution. There are a lot of people out there who know just enough to be dangerous. Or they give anecdotal evidence of how to fix something, instead of …hmm.. not sure what word I’m looking for… maybe factual or technical explanations of why something is wrong and how it should be fixed.

Kind of like saying, “If your foot hurts, you should do what I did to make my foot stop hurting…” As opposed to saying, “Here are the various reasons a foot might hurt and how to make the hurting stop for each reason.”

Also, just because someone who has posted a message in a Google Group includes a link in their posting, doesn’t mean you can safely click the link. There are bad people everywhere who use any means possible to get you to their site so they can install malware on your computer. Be cautious.

But I digress…

Visit the Google Webmaster Tools and take advantage.

And remember, content is king. Google loves real words on a page. Actual, useful information.

So I thought it might be easier to post the options here rather than re-writing them every time I get a similar inquiry.

OPTION 1:
I use Dreamweaver by Adobe to design websites.  Adobe also sells Contribute (about $200) which a client can install on his/her computer.   Note: if you decide to buy it, please use the link on this page so I can make a buck or two.

Pros:  Pretty easy to use, especially if you’re willing to read directions.    (Surprisingly true for most products.)   Also, Contribute doesn’t care whether a site is built with PHP or ASP or plain old html, so it works with any web host.
Cons:   Expensive and not as intuitive as one might hope.  In other words, read the directions/help files.  Another con is that it’s software that you install on your pc.  So if you need to make a change to the website and you’re at grandma’s house, you’re out of luck unless you brought your computer with you.

OPTION 2:
A “content management system” which is just what it says.   Wordpress, Joomla! and Interspire’s Website Publisher are just 3 of the many content management systems out there. The price of these range from free to $695 and up.  And that’s just for the product.  You will then probably pay someone like me to set it up and get you started.
Pros:  Pretty easy to use once it’s set up.
Cons:  Most require PHP and MySQL, which your current web host may not offer.   Not inexpensive to set up.

OPTION 3:
Use a blog for the parts of your website that need to be updated frequently.  I like Wordpress because it seems to be more versatile and have more features than Blogger.
Pros:  Free –  if you don’t mind a URL that contains “wordpress” in it, like http://tomarketconsult.wordpress.com.   Also, I find it fairly intuitive. And if you don’t want to be very fancy, it’s pretty easy to set up.  Blogger is also easy, but it’s not as versatile.
Cons:  If you want it to be more integrated with your website and not have “wordpress” or “blogspot” in the URL, then your web host must support that, and you’ll pay a developer/designer to install it and set it up (anywhere from $150 and up, depending on how much customization and instruction you want).

OPTION 4:
You can also buy a full-fledged web design program like Dreamweaver or Front Page (now called Expressions, I think) or other.
Pros:  Complete control over your entire website.
Cons:  Do you really want become a web designer?    Unless you plan to spend a good portion of time (6 hours a week or more) updating your website, it’s probably smarter to pay a pro to update your site.

OPTION 5:
Microsoft Publisher.  Tons of people seem to have this and it can be used to edit websites.   If you have the ftp access information, you can download, edit and then upload pages on your website.
…. Changed my mind on this one after trying to help a client upload something. It’s just not made to layout web pages well. Use it for your brochures as it’s intended.

OPTION 6
Buy a shopping cart like PDShop Advanced.Net but don’t use it as a shopping cart (unless you actually sell something, obviously).  That’s what I did with http://www.trulytexan.com.
Pros:  It can be cheaper to set up than a content management system (as low as $600 for a decent looking site) and it’s easy to manage and add new pages, upload images, etc. if you’re willing to reading instructions.
Cons: Very menu oriented and sometimes not as flexible as I’d like.

My recommendation?

If you have an existing website that you’re happy with, but there’s a page or two that you’d like to update yourself, get Contribute.

If you are starting a new website or are doing a complete redesign, go with Wordpress, TypePad or Interspire’s Website Publisher.

Tips for being responsible:

1. Know who your web host is.  This may or may not be the person who manages your website, i.e. the one who makes changes when you need them.
2. Know who your domain registrar is.
3. Know how to log in to your account with your domain registrar.
4. Keep your email address updated on your domain registrar account.
5. Know if you have a Privacy option on your domain name registration.
6. If you have privacy, such as “Domains By Proxy”, know how to log in to that account.
7. Keep the email address up to date on your privacy account.
8. Know the FTP info for your website. If your webmaster wins the lottery and vanishes, you’ll need to give the FTP info to another webmaster.
9. Know how to access your email account online and add/change/delete email addresses related to your website.
10. Review your website often. Look for errors. Read sentences backwards which is a great way to catch spelling errors. Check all the links to be sure they work. No webmaster is perfect. Unfortunately, that includes me.

Follow the steps above and your life will run so much more smoothly, relative to your website at least.

That said, when a client has a problem or question, they sometimes ask it in a way that is perfectly clear to them but that means something entirely different to me. So, I thought I’d give everyone some tips that will help us both when we communicate.

1. The passwords that I give you are useful only relative to the services I provide AND to the particular service I’m working on. The Internet is a not one big computer. It’s a bunch of computers that each have their own function. If I give you a password for your mail account on my mailserver (a computer that serves mail), that is probably the only place that password is valid. I’ll give you a different password for ftp access and for domain name registration and for shopping cart admin. It’s a pain, but it’s the responsible and safe way to manage your business.

2. Domain registration is paying for the privilege of using a domain name, such as trulytexan.com or mercysake.com. You can own(rent) all the domain names you want. That does not mean you have a website for each one. Domain names are rented on an annual basis from a registrar. I’m a registrar (I actually resell domain registration services). So are Network Solutions, GoDaddy and numerous others.

3. Web hosting is paying for someone to have a file on their server (a computer with website-serving software) so that when some types in your domain name, a page comes up. This is charged monthly. You are renting computer space on a computer that is connected to the Internet. Your monthly hosting fee covers the cost of your webhost keeping the site available (up) on the internet. It does not cover making any edits to the website.

4. Website management means keeping a website updated, fixing cart problems that arise, updating shopping carts, changing pictures on the site, etc.

5. Website hosting does not include management or maintenance services. Depending on the hosting plan, you may get some basic level of support. Or you may have to figure out a lot of things yourself by reading help files or submitting support requests when your website doesn’t come up or you can’t access your email on the web.

6. Your web host has nothing to do with things that happen on your computer.  If you cannot send mail from Outlook, talk to your Internet Service Provider first.  A good way to understand where the boundary is, is to think, “If I didn’t have a website, would I still use this program?” If the answer is yes, then it’s probably an issue for you to resolve.

7. There are 3 kinds of email.
Your ISP (Internet Service Provider) gives you an email address. That is called a POP3 account, which means you can access it by going to a specific URL and you can also retrieve it so that you can read it in Outlook (or Eudora or Thunderbird, etc.) on your computer.
You might have a free web-based email account, such as a Yahoo! or Gmail or Hotmail email account.
You will have an email account associated with your website. Almost every website will have at least one POP3 email account.
POP3 mail accounts can be “downloaded” to your computer’s email program (probably Outlook).
There are also “alias” accounts which are exactly like forwarding addresses. Mail can be sent to such addresses, but they are immediately forwarded to a different POP3 address.

8. Mail you send via Outlook does not go through our server. You may have it set up so it looks like it comes from your website, but it doesn’t really. It’s like mailing a letter when you’re in Colorado but putting a return address on the envelope of Buda, TX. So, when you have problems sending mail, it is an issue with your ISP, not me.

That’s probably enough for today. I know that when you don’t think about this stuff every day, some of it seems difficult to grasp. It was difficult for me to grasp when I first started doing this stuff 12 or 13 years ago.

I would love know if you read this and found any of it useful. Feel free to comment by clicking the Comment button below.

(As of Jan, 2010, no one has commented or told me they’ve read the above.  Hah!  Not a surprise, but a tad disappointing)

If you are, that mailbox may fill up and any mail sent to it will bounce.

Example:
Let’s say you have an email account through Truly Texan do it yourself hosting. And let’s say the email account is cindy@mycompany.com and it’s set up so copies of all emails sent to that address are forwarded to my home email address (which shall remain private).

Periodically I should log on to the Webmail account for cindy@mycompany.com and clean out the mailbox. Now, some mail programs will simply forward or give you the option of forwarding a copy and saving a copy on the server. You need to check your particular mailserver’s options.

Mail on sites I host:
If you use my supported hosting and I’ve set up your mail account on our mailserver so that it forwards to your ISP, you don’t have to worry about this sort of thing. I will have set it up so that once it forwards, the copy on the server is deleted (unless you have specifically asked me to do otherwise).

BUT, if you use Outlook or some other mail program to retrieve mail from the server, be sure to check your settings in Outlook to see that emails are deleted from the server after being retrieved.

Now, some people who are out of town frequently like to leave a copy of their emails on the mailserver when they are traveling so they can check mail from any computer. If you do this, it’s wise to retrieve all emails when you get back to the office/home and then delete them from the mailserver and change your setting in Outlook so that it deletes mail from the server either immediately or, at most, 2 or 3 days.

REMINDER:
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:
Most companies do not back up their mailservers because the data is changing so rapidly.
So, if you use any web-based mail, other than an Exchange server, as your primary mailbox, you are foolish.

If you must use an online mailbox, then you will want to spend the money to get an Exchange hosted mail account because those actually are backed up. Of the four email plans shown on that link, the two Outlook plans (columns 3 & 4) are on Exchange servers and are designed to be your “permanent” mailbox. I put “permanent” in quotes, because nothing related to computers is permanent. Everything crashes sooner or later, so the best you can do is keep hardcopies of all critical emails and backup copies on disk or external hardrives as well.

Aren’t computers fun?