BeauCreations blog

Did you ever wonder why computer programmers have such quirky ways of naming files?  Or why they seem neurotic about backups? 

Well, different types of programs, for various reasons, restrict what you can do with file names.  If you “break the rules” you can mess up code that would otherwise work, or (more commonly) just bring things to a grinding halt altogether. 

And as for backup neorosis?  Well, that’s easy to explain.  In fact, you already know this.  All you have to do is lose several hours of mind-numbing work, and you’re a fan of backups.  OK, some of us may have to repeat this experience a few times, but we do learn eventually….

This is an exceprt from an instructional article I’m writing - it may be helpful to those who are just getting started with HTML, or editing / uploading files to a server via a file manager program.

About file names:  In most web applications, file names are case-sensitive, and don’t allow spaces.  Since you have to mush words together (no spaces), some people like to use capital letters to make them more readable, like this:

myDocument.html

whatWeDidLastSummer.html

These examples are perfectly legal, though the second one is really too long.  Here’s another way to do the same thing without capitalizing.

my_document.html

what_we_did_last_summer.html

This is also perfectly OK.  In this case, I used an underscore between words.  Hyphens are allowable, but not commonly used.  The key is to be consistent, because when the server looks for the file, it has to be entered exactly right, including any caps and underscores.

About saving files:  On web sites, when you upload a file to the server, if there’s an old version in place (and there should be), that version is automatically over-written.  That means it’s gone forever.  For this reason, you have to be sure your changes are correct.  Since we all make mistakes, it’s good to have a backup file. 

So, let’s say you are editing a file called myDocument.html  I recommend first creating a file called myDocumentBak.html as a back up.  Then you go back to myDocument.html  and make your changes.  If something goes horribly wrong (and it will), you’ll just re-name your backup file, put it back where it was, and pretend it all never happened.

Now, here’s another common scenario.  You want to create a new document – say, a new article –  from an old one.  In other words, you’re using one document as a template to create a new one.   In this case you just save the old document under a new name immediately upon opening it. 

So, I take  myDocument.html  and save it as  myNewDocument.html  before I make any changes.  The original file remains intact in its old location.  The new file has a unique name, so it won’t over-write anything when you put it on the server.

Bet you don’t know how easy it is to find out who links to your web site. 

“Why is that important?” you ask.  Well, most search engines favor sites with quality inbound links.  The term’s called Link Popularity.  So it’s a good idea to see who has linked to your site.  

And it’s a great idea to promote quality inbound links.  “What’s a quality inbound link”?  It’s a link from a good web site in a business that’s related to yours.  Think of it like a referral, or a testimonial.  You want links from people you trust, whose association with you is relevant to your business.

Here’s how you ask Google search engine to check for inbound links.  Just go to the Google search box and type link:www.mysite.com   

Or, check out this free tool that lets you do the same for three major search engines:
http://www.linkpopularity.com/

Post by Suzi Beaumont of BeauCreations Web Design

Recently a prospective client asked “What other costs should I expect” after I’d sent an estimate to design and install her first web site.  So I thought I’d share my answer.  This will be of interest to first time web site would-bes.

The Web Site
First, let me say that the initial cost of having a custom web site professionally designed can vary considerably - that’s why I do detailed estimates with “what’s included” after talking with an interested person.  But since this assessment would be incomplete without the cost of a web site, I’ll go out on a limb here and pick a number.  For my example I’ll use a six page brochure web site, custom designed but with no additional interactive features (no blogs, shopping carts, Flash animation, etc.).  I’ll say this very basic web site would cost about $1000 for design, construction and installation. 

As far as other costs go, I can think of these “ongoing” costs (assuming you already have an Internet Service Provider):

Domain name:  You’ll want to purchase / register this yourself.  It should not cost more than $10 - $15 per year, or even less if you buy five years at once.  Plenty of web hosts will include a “free domain for life”, and that’s fine.  But if you decide to change your web host, it can be an additional hassle to separate the domain name.  So I recommend purchasing from someone like GoDaddy, then hosting through a separate company.  Consider setting your account to “auto-renew” right off the bat;  You do NOT want to lose your domain name after your business is established, just because you forgot to renew!
 
 Web Host:  Again, you’ll want to purchase this yourself on a separate account.  Some web designers will host the web site for you on their own server computers, so you can get a package deal.  I don’t advocate this because small web designers such as myself, while providing great value in custom designed web sites, cannot compete with the big companies as far as hosting a site is concerned.  You want a web host with 99.9% uptime guaranteed, and lots of customer support staff on duty!  AND you shouldn’t pay more than $7 - $12 per month.  My current favorites are BlueHost and Lunarpages.

Incidentally, your web host should include email accounts in your cost.  So, for example, if your domain name is www.mywebsite.com, then you can set up an account for me@mywebsite.com.  Then you have an email address that reminds people of your web site, and looks more professional.  There should be no additional cost involved.   “But wait” - you say.  “I like to do all my email from my hotmail account -it’s too much work to keep track of all these email accounts!”  No problem, just set up an email forward that sends all mail addressed to me@mywebsite.com over to your hotmail or gmail account.  Your web designer may or may not include this type of set-up support in your fee (generally speaking I do this for my clients at no extra cost).  But it’s not rocket surgery - you could figure out how to set this up yourself!

Web Site Maintenance:  This is tough to estimate because it depends on your time constraints and ability to learn how to update your own web site.  I have many clients who continue to use my services for all manner of web updates.   Small business clients may spend anywhere from $0 to $300 per month on edits and updates.  My current rate is $45 per hour.  This rate varies considerably among web designers.
 
For budget minded do-it-yourself-ers, there are ways to set up a web site that can be edited.  Edits to the text of existing pages are easy to learn, provided you’re willing to take the time to set up some free ot  inexpensive software on your computer and learn a thing or two about FTP (file transfer protocol - the way your home computer talks to your web host’s server computer when you are updating.)  Or, if you have a shopping cart, there’s no reason you can’t teach yourself to update your products and prices. 

But here are some limitations:  If you’re adding new pages, moving things around, modifying the design, or adding images that need to be processed for the web (most do), you may need a web designer with the software and expertise to do these things.  Here’s what I told my prospective client, who is doing a shopping cart web site:

“Let’s say we finish the web site, and 3 months later you have six new products to add.  Assuming you know something about image processing, and can take your own digital product shots, I could probably train you to add the new products, prices, etc., in a 3 hour training session.  Or I could do it myself in about 1 hour.  So, at $45 / hour,  you’re looking at $45 - $150 for that sort of update”. 
 
“On the other hand, if you decide to do additional pages, re-format the design or layout, switch to a new web host or shopping cart,  add a blog, enhance your search engine optimization, do online marketing, or any other upgrade - well you could spend a couple hundred dollars on each of these.  But they are all entirely optional, probably not important for the first year you have a web site, and can be done on your time frame as your business grows.”

So you can see there are plenty of considerations, but setting up and maintaining a web site doesn’t have to cost you an arm and a leg.  More importantly, it doesn’t have to take you away from your core business functions - if you don’t have time to think about each micro-decision because you prefer to focus on what you do best, there are services and people out there who can make it easy for you.

by Suzi Beaumont,  BeauCreations Web Design

Did you know that you can get in the Google Local business listings for free?  This is a must If you have a business with a street address.  Anyone searching Google Maps for your address OR your company name will not only see your location but also your profile, which could include a photograph or a link to your web site.  In addition to being easily found, you’ll also have one more chance to get your name and logo in front of potential customers.

Just go to  http://www.google.com/local/add.  You’ll need to create a free account and a business profile.  If you have trouble with the above URL, go to http://maps.google.com/maps and click the link to “put your business on Google Maps”.

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I found a great tool for converting the RSS feed on a blog into HTML so that it’s visible in a web site.   While it’s somewhat complicated to actually integrate a blog into an existing web site, this method simply puts the latest couple of posts wherever you’d like them to appear.  Then you can link to your blog from there.

The cool part is it’s a PHP code generator.  Since PHP (which now stands for Hypertext PreProcessor) interacts with the browser to output HTML, the search engines see the text from your blog! This is better than the alternative, (JavaScript), which does its work on the client side, after the page has “arrived”. In this latter case, the search engines only see the JavaScript, not the blog text;  so of course they don’t interpret it as new or relevant content.

Oh, BTW, here’s the free tool from RSS-Info.com:  http://www.rss-info.com/en_rssinclude.html

And here’s what you need to know:
 - Enough HTML knowledge to insert code and upload a page
 - A web host that runs PHP
 - A web page that runs PHP, or the knowledge to use a Server Side Include.    You may be able to just change the page name from .html to .php
 - Your RSS feed URL.  Easiest way to get that is to subscribe to your own RSS feed, then click the link in your RSS favorites, and go there.

Today I was advising a client on some relatively painless ways to generate more traffic to his web site.  This list isn’t comprehensive, of course, but it may be helpful, (if only to remind you of things you already know! )

My client is a small business owner in the adventure travel industry.  While he does sell trips on his web site,  the primary “call to action” for a web user would be to email or call about a trip.  Relationship building is important here;  These trips aren’t for everyone, but those do end up going usually love it.  If you’ve ever been sea kayaking in Alaska, you know what I mean.  Many of his clients become repeats — again and again and again. 

My goals for the web site: 

• Improve search engine rankings on pertinent keywords
• Freshen up the content, and create a means to update more often
• Add more free, useful information to the web site

 Here’s what we talked about

1.  Review / replace meta tags (keywords, descriptions, page titles).   This is crucial if it hasn’t been done before, or has been done poorly.

2.  Add a Blog.  This is a commitment to write something regularly on topics that may interest your users - that’s why it’s intimidating!  But if you do the writing, it creates new content on your site, which is great for search engines  — and people!  An added benefit is that, with most blogs, users will be able to subscribe to the RSS feed and be notified (sort of) each time you post new material — great especially if your fans are hanging on your every word!
 
3.  Do a Link “Campaign”:  First, see who links to your site.  Go to a Yahoo! search box and key in this:  link:www.beaucreations.biz  (replace my URL with yours).  You’ll see a list of most of the web sites that link to yours.  Hopefully some of them will look familiar, as they’ll be friends, business associates, etc. 

It’s no secret that inbound links generate traffic and help your search engine rankings.  BUT they should be quality links.  That means they should ideally be pertinent links from reputable sources.  Consider putting a  Links page on your web site, so you can refer people to vendors, recommend  services, etc.  Then you can promote link exchanges to your contacts in related (but not competitive) businesses as a way to increase traffic for both of you.

4.  Create an Article Archive.  Do you teach, write articles, or otherwise share your expertise?  Why not share them on your website?  Find every pertinent article, guideline, checklist, recipe, etc. you’ve ever written, and put them on your website. THEN you can mention these things in your blog and newsletter entries (you DO have a newsletter, don’t you!?), and  link to the articles.  You bring traffic to the web site, and your web site is more informative (free information - everybody loves that!). 

5.  Consider Google AdWords.   This is pay per click advertising.  While the actual workings are complicated, Google (and others) make it as simple as possible for you to get started.  You create an account, set a monthly ad budget, and Google commits not to exceed it.  You choose your keywords, write a small ad, and off you go.  You can tell Google to target only local business if you like.

For example, I spend $140 / month and I  get around 3 calls / month, which amounts to around 1 new client each 2-3 months, which is about all I need right now — I’m pretty good at keeping clients once I get them!  This is the only advertising I spend money on.  I can track how each keyword is doing, and how many times someone clicks on my ad, but it’s not as easy to see whether there’s a connection between clicking (which you pay for, that’s why it’s called pay par click) and conversion (actually making a contact or purchase).  There are ways to track these things, but it’s a bit more in depth - not in the “QuickStart”  menu!
 
These are just a few possibilities, which I hope are helpful.  You can spend as much or as little time on these things as you like.  Remember, a great web site has informative content, not just widgets for sale!
 

My first blog post.  Time to stop procrastinating, waiting for perfection, and get on with it.