Is Your Web Host Ready For Anything? Than Neither Is Your Web Biz!

Is Your Web Host Ready For Anything?

Just How Safe Is Your E-Business?

We’ve got drought in the midlands. We’ve got flash floods, mudslides, earthquakes and raging infernos throughout California (why don’t you people just move?). In the Northeast, there are blizzards and cold snaps that make grown men weep. Yep, you never know what to expect – but you can expect natural disasters and unnatural disasters to strike and when they do, are you out of your online business?

Web Servers – a Primer

A short lesson for those just joining the online community. Your website is delivered to the world wide web through a server owned by your web host. Now, if you have a shared hosting program (entry-level and low cost – good) you share a server with a couple of hundred other web sites.

That server, which connects your business to your customers, isn’t an abstract concept. It’s a piece of hardware. You can buy a network server from Dell for less than $1,000. No mystery. A server is just a big box with massive storage capacity that’s plugged into the web matrix so your site is visible from Singapore to Sandusky.

Small hosting companies have a few servers all chugging away. The big web hosting companies have dozens and dozens of black boxes (servers) all spewing forth the stuff we see on the W3.

Now, like all electronics gear, web servers aren’t partial to the elements. Leave one out in the rain and watch the sparks fly. Leave a network server outside overnight in International Falls, MN and you’ve turned a perfectly good server into a door stop. Get the picture? These pathways to the web are delicate, and they require protection.

What’s Your Web Host Doing to Protect Against Floods?

What’s the worst that can happen?

The building housing your server floods, cooking your site’s server in the process. Umm. You’ll be down for a while, that’s a fact. But wait, if the water cooked your server, all of the other sites on the server are in trouble. All need fixing fast.

Now, imagine the backwash from a busted water main wipes out 30 servers. Man, you are going to be down well past the holiday shopping season and you know that’s going to hurt.

A responsible web host prepares for the worst contingencies. For example, in the case of flooding, servers should be elevated at least a foot off the ground. If we’re talkin’ a Noah-sized flood, nothing is going to help, but that 12-inch buffer between your server and the raging tide may just keep you online – even during a flood at your server location.

Web Servers and Power Outages

Power outages are a commonplace annoyance but we accept them as we eat a barbequed dinner by candlelight. Tree limbs fall. But hurricanes and tornadoes also hit, uprooting trees and tearing down electrical wires in the process. Hey, if you happen to go for a low-ball web host, your server could be in a hut in Bangladesh for all you know and electricity may NOT be taken for granted.

Ask your web host how it handles power outages. Most will tell you there’s nothing they can do about the loss of power until power is restored. Ahh, but the good host is ready for any contingency. If the host loses power from the local grid, the host’s back-up generators automatically kick in without missing a beat. Online visitors won’t even see a blip.

It’s not always easy to tell where your host server is. Resellers by disk space in bulk from web hosts and sell it in smaller chunks to retail customers like you and me. So the company, our web host, may be red, white and blue and call itself The All-American Web Hosting Company, but for all you know, your host server is just west of Katmandu.

Ask your host for the physical location of your server. If it’s not at least in the U.S. keep looking for a host. Believe it or not, web hosting has become popular in Iran. Yea, that’s a good way to start your online business – with a server in Iran.

Fire! Fire!

What kind of fire suppression system does the web host have in place? Is it designed to protect non-involved servers, i.e. a smart system, or does the server room simply fill with fire-retardant foam, taking your database with it.

Don’t think it’s a problem? Servers use electricity and because they do, they create heat. Lots of it. That’s why server rooms are air conditioned. If they weren’t, there’d be so much heat build up you could cure hams in there.

Be sure to ask your web host what kind of protection they have in place to fight a small electrical fire or a catastrophic fire that melts 50 servers into plastic lumps. Hey, that’s your site on that lump!

Site Sabotage

So, okay, you’ve checked that prospective web host and found that all servers are on the 40^th floor (let it rain) and the company does have back-up generators on site to cover for power outages. So far so good.

But what about the proverbial “disgruntled employee.” The tech head who was just passed over for a promotion, or the new guy who’s just testing his hacker chops at the server level. Who’s working on your server?

It’s not a common problem among well-respected, long-time hosting companies who do background tests, random drug testing and take other proactive measures to ensure all of those who have access to the server room (the Mother Lode) are properly checked and rechecked.

In addition, quality hosting companies limit access to the server room and security is reminiscent of a Level 3 Max security prison. There’s usually a keyboard or some type of biometrics device used to gain access to the server room, and the entire place is under constant video surveillance. It won’t stop the major whack job, but whack jobs are usually detected before they reach the trusted level of server technician.

Beaucop Bucks?

Hardly. You should expect this level of security and protection for pennies a day. Literally. Pennies a day.

You can purchase quality hosting from a web host that has contingency plans for everything from massive flooding (elevate the servers) to hoards of locust (Please shut the door so the locusts don’t get in. Thank you.)

Hosting is competitive. Just Google “web hosts” and you’ll get the idea. The premium web hosts have a long history (at least 10 years), near-perfect uptimes (accept nothing less than 99.9%) and both security and contingency plans in place. The small timers have a single server in Mumbai and during the annual rainy season service is…umm intermittent.

So spend a little to get a lot. A lot of protection. A lot of security. And contingency plans for any event. (Okay, maybe not a UFO attack, but if that happens, you’ll have more important things on your mind.)

When shopping around for a web host or a new web host, go with one willing to spend the time, money and effort to provide multiple layers of protection for your website. You may not need it today, but when those locusts hit, you’ll be glad you spent a little extra to get those locust-proof doors at your server site.

Need some help getting started with that web site you've been thinking about. Call or click webwordslinger.com. Make sure your business is really secure.

Can Anybody Build A Website? It Ain't Brain Surgery

It costs money to have a full-featured website built by a pricey digital design company on the 40^th floor – the whole 40^th floor. Somebody’s paying for all that flash. You. That’s why these pros from Dover want $20K for a website you could build – if you only had the time.

At the outset of any start up, it’s all outgo and no income. However, some new site owners have big plans and small budgets. They know where they want to go. They just need the capital, a little time and a bit of luck to make that dream an online reality.

So, you don't have, or don’t want to spend, an entire year’s marketing budget on some hot shot site design. Okay, no problem.

But are you going to wait until you’ve got all site features in place before launch? Probably not and there’s no reason to. Your ideal site can become your vision over several generations, with each generation adding new features, greater functionality, more products and services and an optimized home page.

If you’re into your sixth month of beta testing your new site and you still haven’t launched, you need to call a meeting of the board of directors (who may be you and your spouse if you’re a start-up) and kick-start this enterprise.

Keep Your Vision Clear

Even though you don’t have the scratch for every bell and whistle you’d like, plan for those additions right from the site. Develop a generational website map showing how all of the pieces fit together.

Take it a step further. Develop overlays of phase one, two, three, four and so on to see the evolution of the site – from bare bones to nicely optimized and, holy cow! – profitable. (Oh, they laughed at you but who’s laughing now?)

If you design the site as a completed, interactive concept on paper, you can begin phase one knowing that phases two, three and so on will fit your ultimate model.

Determine Your Priorities

If your’s is a retail site then a secure checkout, product pictures and complete product descriptions are tops on your to-do list. If you’re using templates to build your site (they make things nearly idiot-proof), you can construct product pages with nice pictures in no time.

So, your bare-bones basics website with products and pictures is up, along with a secure checkout, your SSL certification and a couple of trust-building logos on the first page in the checkout sequence.

You’re database is collecting client data, you’re seeing some traffic from PPC and links advertising and, all-in-all, things look good.

Second Generation Websites

They build on the foundation already in place. You’re now in a position to add some basic features to make the site more friendly and useful. You can add a site search feature to make it easier to find specific products, add a “Recommend Us to a Friend” link to stir the viral marketing stewpot, expand your product offerings and maybe even show products from different angles if it’s useful in making the sale.

Third, Forth and Fifth Generation Websites

Websites are always a work in progress. Want to have some fun? Go to Alexa.com, enter a site URL and, in the lower left corner of that site’s rankings is the Time Machine that takes you back to different iterations of the same sites.

So, you can see the first generation, second generation and so on until you see the current site. The point is, websites are redesigned all of the time. So, if you’re waiting to dot all of those ‘i’s and cross all those ‘t’s, your going to be late for the party.

So, get the site up and running, hook up your product pages, secure checkout and data base, then gradually add design elements, features, new products, a blog, today’s specials, RSS feeds and on and on and on.

Don’t wait. The countdown to launch has begun.

Stuck in the mud, huh? Yeah, it's a little scary but total idiots are making money on the web (and if you ARE one of those idiots, my apologies and congratulations). If your site ain't doin' what it's supposed to do, call me or click me. You know what I mean.

Build a Boutique Ad Agency In The Spare Room

Meet New Clients Over Lunch Instead Of At "The Office"

A boutique advertising agency is small but nimble, offering a variety of services to an array of clients, each of whom wants something different. To become a successful service provider, working out of a spare room over the garage, takes hard work, innovative, on-going promotion and quality word of mouth (WOM).

So, if you’re thinking of building a boutique agency, here are some tips to get you off on the right foot. (Oh, and these service providers earn a nice living. At least the good ones do.)

1. Think locally. Act Globally. Farm the local business community first for clients. Every small business has a web site. Every one of them advertises somehow.

But don't limit yourself to the locals. Build an attractive website that will be seen by the world. You’ll be amazed that folks from Malaysia call and want some consultation on introducing a new product to the U.S. market and could you advise them.

Sure, why not?

2. Track local media. I don’t want to get hung up on localization, but a boutique ad agency has a built-in trust factor with local businesses so that neighborly trust enables you to skip the trust-building phase and get down to business because both you and the client know “ol’ Sam.”

3. Optimize your web site for both global and local search. Add your town, state and zip code to “advertising agency Trotwood Ohio.” More and more search engine users are savvy to local search and prefer to work with someone close by.

4. Provide a menu of service offerings. Most clients don’t want to go from here to there. They want a project manager who can take care of the editorial development, the graphic design, the upcoming company picnic. The more services you provide, the more services you sell.

Consider the following:

• search engine optimization

• content development including blogging and optimized site text

• site design

• print ad design

• graphic arts

• multi-media including DVD products

• event planning

• on- and off-site marketing

You get the idea. It doesn’t take a lot of time and it doesn’t cost a dime to call the local Ramada to get a conference room rate for your event planning file or a rate card from the local press. Valuable information that you can collect during “down” time.

5. Join the Chamber of Commerce. Total no-brainer. Once a month the CoC gets together for a networking lunch. Bring business cards and strike up friendships. Don’t sell. That happens organically as more and more members know who you are and what you do.

6. Join the Better Business Bureau. A trust builder. And it goes without saying, keep your record spotless. People do check with the local BBB and if you have a couple of outstanding complaints, you ain't gonna land the gig.

7. Advertise your own services, as in. follow your own advice. You should have a small print ad running daily or weekly in the local newspaper. First, you want that name recognition and second, buying ad space in bulk saves you beaucoups bucks.

8. Plan meetings to take place in public places. The last thing you want is your deep-pockets client tripping over a sippy cup on the way to your spare room office. Talk about amateur night, even if you are the best there ever was.

Find the right location for client meetings (their offices) or a local eatery and always pick up the tab.

9. Build authority and expertise. Enter industry competitions and tout your wins and quietly forget your failures. “Gold Medal Winner, National Design Show” listed on the stationery builds credibility. And of course, such an award is worthy of a press release to the local paper. Get that free ink.

10. Perception is reality. High-end stationery, a professionally designed web site, a pricy suit – all say success and that you “get it.” Create a professional persona and you are a professional.

Need more advice on growing a web-based biz? Stop by SEO Juiced often for tips and advice or drop me a line and let's talk about your dreams.

Webwordslinger.com

How Much Are You Worth? Pricing Services

REMEMBER: Clients pay you for what you know, not just what you do!

Pricing your services, whether as a web writer, site builder, virtual assistant or some other web-based biz has always been tough. You need to pay your bills but the competition is fieresome - especially when your bidding against overseas outsourcers willing to build a fully functioning (?) web site for $500.

So how do you pirce your services to compete against the low-ballers - the college kids willing to work for jukebox money, the work-at-home parents looking to pick up a few extra bucks each month and the company in Bnagalore that cranks out press releases like sausage.

It's important that all service providers remember two things: (1) clients pay you for what you know and (2) they pay you to deliver the goods on time and above spec. Always over-deliver. It builds a stable client base.

Recognizing the value of and building a long list of dedicated, happy clients is the goal of any web site designer, SEO, copywriter, graphic artist or any other creative type working in the digital matrix. That’s the objective.

And that means talking to potential clients – a lot. Now, if the rent is due tomorrow and you don’t have the proverbial “two nickels to rub together” you don’t have much choice in whether to take a low-paying job from a site owner who “found your name on Elance” or some other site but doesn’t want to pay the $10 fee to post a project on Elance.

Man, if the person you’re talking to doesn’t want to pay the $10 fee, how hard is it going to be to get paid when the project is finished?

I’m a nice guy, but…

…at least once a week, I get a call from a prospect who has a lot of questions. How do I do this? Who would you recommend for that and on and on. Now, I’m a nice guy and I usually end up giving away the information the caller asks for in the hopes that it will lead to some paying work down the line.

I want to show the prospect that I know what I’m doing and know how to speak webspeak, but once I get rolling, I’ve given away so much SEO, SEM and site design info the caller either (1) has the answers to the questions s/he had and therefore doesn’t need my expensive writing and SEO services or (2) after taking careful notes during our hour-long conversation, the caller can hand those notes to a much less expensive site designer, SEO, copywriter or other service provider and implement my plan.

The result? After I hang up with these callers I kick myself around the office for 20 minutes, pound my forehead against a (not-too-hard) wall and howl like some crazed, rabid wolf. Oops, I did it again.

So, how do I discreetly tell the prospective client…

…that it ain’t free? That’s a tough one. You want to demonstrate that you know your stuff but you don’t want to educate a potential client out of possible future work. You also don’t want to sound like some spoiled brat, “I know something you don’t know.”

The fact is most clients don’t know what they don’t know. And you have that information. It’s important to make a distinction, here. Yes, you’re paid for your time (though not as much as you think you’re worth) but you’re also paid for what you know.

Went to see my doctor the other day. I spoke to her for less than five minutes on a quick check-up of a procedure done a few weeks earlier. She poked my “owie” with a pencil a couple of times, looked at it with a magnifying glass, pronounced me healthy and escorted me to the door.

Now don’t get me wrong. My doctor (Hi, Jennifer) is the tops. Absolute best. But a couple of weeks later, after my insurance company got through processing my claim, I owed Jennifer and her practice $79.87 – and that was after my insurance company paid it’s itty-bitty bit.

Did I complain? (Well, yes a little, but not because of Jennifer’s bill.) I’m not paying for the office visit (under five minutes) or the pencil poking. I’m paying this professional for what she knows. Four years of college. Four years of med school. A one-year internship and two-year residency. In that time, somewhere, my doctor learned how to poke my boo-boo with a Venus Velvet #2 pencil and give me a clean bill of health.

My attorney charges $400 an hour. It costs me $40 just to wish him a happy holiday. And if I have a legal question, forget about it. I’m paying $40 every six minutes Todd and I speak.

Is it the time I spend with these professionals? Marginally. I mean six minutes out of the work day should be worth something. But the fact is, I’m paying for knowledge not time. This ain’t no Mickey D’s. Clients pay me because I can save them time and even more money. They pay me for what I know.

So, what do I say to the caller with a lot of questions…

…and won’t let me off the phone?

Be polite. Again, most of these callers don’t know the value of the information you provide. Most don’t know you have a $1,000 consulting fee. Most don’t know the difference between an SEO and an SAT, so patience is a virtue when contacted by someone unfamiliar with the world of commercial search engine marketing.

Provide answers but don’t give away the farm. It may seem so simple to you, but to an outsider it’s all geek speak.

Let the caller know you have the answers and the expertise to fulfill his or her needs but don’t give it ALL away. This is your living we’re talking about, and wasn’t there something about a rent check due?

At some point – after you’ve demonstrated that you’re a nice, knowledgeable professional – the questions have to stop and the caller goes on the clock at your consulting rate. It may feel funny but your insider information is your product and you have the right (no, the responsibility) to sell it.

Simply tell the caller that this is your livelihood and that your consultation rate is X number of dollars an hour and you’d like the opportunity to help because you really can solve the client’s problem(s).

Some cold clients will view this as a money grab, and chances are, these tightwads will go elsewhere for more free information. Bye-bye. Ta-ta. So long. But most people (new site owners or soon-to-be site owners) understand the value you, as a site designer, copywriter, SEO or some other digital savant, bring to the equation.

Oh sure, there are other site designers or wordsmiths who will do it for less. A site owner can outsource copywriting by the pound (as little as a dollar a page) but the copy reads like it was written by the Kwiki Mart’s Apu or Gregor from Romania. And you can find a site designer who can build you a site, launch it and hope for the best but, for all you know, your site designer is two pages ahead of you in reading Websites for Dummies.

Honesty is the best policy…

…when dealing with new clients. Lay it all out for them – the steps in putting together a web site. Ask questions. Do they have a secure checkout? How about an insecure checkout? (Just kidding.) Most clients call site designers, copywriters and other professionals with an idea. That’s it, just an idea.

Or, occasionally you’ll encounter the client who’s got 1,000 pages of text on liquid fertilizer stored on his hard drive that he wants you to turn into a website. Wait, did you just hear an alarm bell go off?

Don’t wing it. Develop a rate card or some kind of standard pricing. You can gradually increase your rates as you develop a larger client base of happy customers, but when someone calls, about the only thing they really want to know is “How much?”

And you want to give them an answer – and not one off the top of your head. Offer an hourly fee, a per page fee or a flat-rate based on your knowledge of how long it takes to accomplish a particular task.

Don’t under-value your knowledge. If it takes you five minutes and you earn $500, good for you – especially if the information you provide prevents the client from making a $10,000 misstep.

Once you’ve established the price for services to be rendered, it is perfectly acceptable to ask for an advance. 50% of the total project price is standard with the rest due upon completion of the project to the client’s complete satisfaction. Never start a project without receiving at least partial payment upfront. Without it, the client has no stake in the work and can simply stop taking your calls.

On the other hand, with the client who’s got $5,000 out there as a down payment to build a web site, your calls will go through. And that’s the way you want it.

Love to hear from you. Stop by webwordslinger.com to see what copywriting, SEO and on-line marketing services I can provide to grow that web-biz of yours.

Later,

editor@webwordslinger.com

Buy My Book. Get Out of That Work Rut - Like Now!