I remember the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach when a friend told me that the external hard drive that housed his archive of photographs had died, taking all his work with it.

But what about your website? No doubt your hosting provider creates periodic backups as a normal business practice. Is that good enough?

I would argue: no. As reliable and considerate as your provider may be, there’s nothing like having an archive of your current site within your direct control. Like having a certified copy of your birth certificate, it just feels better having that in your own safe deposit box. Halls of records do suffer catastrophes. Disasters occur.

Okay, so how often?

This can easily be determined: how often does your website change?

• When do you add new articles or pictures?
• Do you have a forum or active comments area?
• Is your site a store that houses records of orders and customer contact information?

If your website is a very quiet one and you post a new article every other week, you risk nothing by doing your backups twice monthly.

What can you risk losing? What is your strategy? Do you know how often your server-managing host provider backs up, should you not opt to do your own backups? What procedure exists should your site become compromised? Are there extra costs involved?

Knowing the answer to these questions helps you be a successful and professional manager of your website.

Blogs became a popular (and probably the dominant) format for web publishing a bit after the turn of the century. Before that, it seems most websites were more static. That is, they were more like posters that someone pastes to a wall — with some text and graphics, on a topic: “There it is. Read it. That’s all I have to say.”

Blogs are more lively. They vary, almost as much as one person differs from another, and the entries can take any number of forms.

In the intervening decade, we have photoblogs, editorial blogs, informational blogs, product blogs, microblogging (Twitter, etc.), “curated” blogging (where one just collects others’ content, typically — like Tumblr and Pinterest).

Blogs can also be more interactive and conversational. If you choose, you can invite comment, and these comments become an addendum — a follow-up discussion — that enhances the original post (blog entry).

Frameworks

As you might expect, you don’t have to start with bare ground to blog. There’ve been a goodly selection of both hosted and self-hosted options that give you a structured framework to “put stuff in.”

Hosted solutions are a bit like renting an apartment: if the owner decides to sell or knock down the building, you’re out of luck. I think LiveJournal is still going; Vox (which was great), not so much.

That leaves self-hosted options, where you (or your web professional) installs and configures the blog framework on your own hosting account. It’s flexible — you’re not tied to a single host provider — and if you’re foresightful, you choose a framework that’s well-supported and robust. Lots of times these frameworks are called “CMS”s (content management systems), but that’s a whole different discussion we’ll come back to later. Even here, options abound.

WordPress

Let’s stick with one: WordPress. It’s possibly the most broadly used and is both well-supported (and regularly updated) as well as offering, with each new version, more flexibility and ease of use.

We’ll dive more into WordPress’s myriad gifts later. Keeping to our goal of providing a “simple overview,” these are the basic components of WordPress:

• Posts: where WordPress is being its bloggy self. Posts are individual publications (whether one sentence or 15 paragraphs) that are displayed, typically, one after the other, with the most recent one at the top/beginning. (This article is a “post.”)
  • Posts typically share a distinction in that they are graced with “categories” so that your reader, who may be interested in your views on vegetable gardening, doesn’t have to muck through your observations on favored home building materials. This also gives a logical structure to your site, so it’s less chaotic, and is a boon to search engines (who revel in labels and “taxonomy” [fancy word for organizing by labels]).
• Pages: where you break with the blog mold. I don’t think the first iterations of WordPress (back with it was “B2″) had this type of structure. But Pages are handy. They’re where you can provide more static and unchanging — think reference sort of material. It might be an “About Us” Page or the like. They aren’t as plentiful as their Post cousins, but they serve a purpose, since — if there were only Posts, your “About Us” post would get buried back at the beginning of your blog structure in no time.

Advisory: I am being very general here. WordPress offers a dizzying array of options. But keeping these two sorts of publications (Posts and Pages) in mind, along with what makes them distinct, will lead to a more rewarding and less frustrating  experience.

If you’re starting a new enterprise and are just signing up for a new Twitter account, the first thing you must decide is your username or “handle” — your identity on Twitter.

The keys are relevance, brevity, and towering above all else: it must be pithy.

My dictionary describes pithy as:
2. (of language or style) terse and vigourously expressive

So, here’s your task. What best describes you in a dozen characters or less? (The limitation to 12 characters at maximum is a bit arbitrary, but remember that every tweet — and those much-desired retweets — will carry the weight of your username, so be kind and be brief.)

• Your name? Should you go with @firstnamelastname – your first and last name run together? Or @firstinitiallastname – your initials and last name?

This works great or a lot of professionals whose name is their identity. From @rickygervais to @chrisbrogan to @richardengel — their names are, in their fields, how they are known.

• Your domain? If your domain name is greatwidgets.com – perhaps you choose @greatwidgets

This is a good choice if you’re domain name isn’t uncomfortably long. It works well for @brainpicker and @mashable and @vanityfair and is a common solution to the question of Twitter ID.

But they got there first!

This is the downside of coming late to the Twitter party. As happened recently with a client, if some young woman in Brazil chose your domain name (let’s pretend it’s redrose.com) because it struck her fancy to be @redrose, and even though it’s been three years since she’s posted to Twitter, it’s still hers. You have to get creative.

So maybe you choose: @myredrose or @sendaredrose or @redroseinc or @TheRedRose … you get the idea. You can make this annoyance a strength by using @sendaredrose — if your business is sending red roses.

The Irish Independent ( independent.ie ) uses the quite acceptable Twitter handle @TheSundayIndo which is meaningful, brief, and descriptive.

Are you local?

If you serve a limited area, it might be useful to work that into your Twitter username. For example if you are a dog-centric service that operates in Boise, you could go with @boisebowwow, which is fun and memorable, even if your domain name is something like boisedogservices.com.

Need some ideas?

Start with your domain name. Make it brief. Is it meaningful? What short words describe the crux of your business or service? Get out a piece of paper and go wild with ideas.

Now, get on your web browser and start throwing your favourites into the address field: twitter.com/MYGREATIDEA (where ‘MYGREATIDEA’ is your idea for a Twitter name). This is a great way to see if your idea for a Twitter username is already taken.

Are you a design client and need some feedback? I’m happy to work with you on this. Let me know in our Project Tracker blog or send me an email.

Unfortunately, this open door is often spotted by the opportunitists. The self-seekers who have no interest in meaningful contact and may even be malicious. I’m talking here about comment spam.

It’s ubiquitous and it will always be with us, like mosquitos, rats, and cockroaches.

In the WordPress environment, like most of my more recent clients utilize, there are several options. I’ll mention just a couple here, and save more for a later post.

WordPress itself has settings under the Settings > Discussion area of the Dashboard that allow for limiting a comment free-for-all. Most checkboxes are self-explanatory, so see what you think. I do recommend you close comments on articles after a week or two, most certainly.

Every install comes with a Plugin called Akismet. This is not free (though the price is reasonable) so it probably wasn’t activated during your project. Instead, I very likely installed BadBehavior which is “donation-ware” and does a quite nice job of catching suspicious comments.

That still leaves you the job of sifting through these pending comments as they sit in limbo. What sort of things are the hallmarks of disingenuous communication? (Be sure and look in the text of their return email and any link text as well as their “message.”)

• Any mention of celebrity/popular clothing designers
• Any mention of “cheap” or “bargain” anything
• Any mention of cigarettes, prescription medication, or other drugs
• Magic SEO. (I’ll get you listed at the top of Google.)
• Nonsense alphabetic strings in text or email address or URLs (web links)
• Non sequiturs. You’re writing about apples and their comment discusses oranges.

Recognize that most text will be generic congratulatory fluff. I pity the poor sods grinding away, working for the spammers, that have to sit and type all this garbage for hours. But don’t let them ruin your website.

Let me know if you have any questions. I welcome your (genuine!) comments :)

Simple but not always great

The easiest tack to take is to just create an email link. But that can open the door to an awful lot of unwanted spammy attention. If you’re going to use a simple mailto link on your site, at least consider mangling it a bit so it’s not so easily spotted.

Contact forms can carry extra weight

A secure form (be sure your web developer creates one that can’t be easily hijacked) has two key benefits:

• It keeps your email address securely hidden from the casual (and possibly nefarious) browser
• It can be configured to ask an array of targeted questions that can give you a jump-start in communicating with your prospective clients

What’s a poor form to do?

The down side of forms is that the same autobots that haunt blog comments will inevitably find their way to your contact form. Forget that fact that one person in a thousand will ever click on their nonsensical emanations; those odds sound good to them. So there’s a few options.

• You can have your form custom programmed to discard any posts with links. Of course, if your target audience might need to communicate this it’s not so helpful.
• You can employ some variety of CAPTCHA wherein someone wanting to communicate with you must type in a word or two before the form can be submitted. Not so onerous, but consider your demographic and if their sophistication/online-experience level might be atypically low (or their impatience level might be especially high).
• If you’re a design client, ask me about deploying what we’ve used with other sites.

Back to basics

Discarding forms altogether, you can write out your email address like “john at company dot com”. Again, you need to weigh the sophistication of your audience (will they understand?) as well as the potential annoyance (will they bother to type out the email themselves)?

Full circle

There’s no purely “right answer” here and the sand (and trends) are always shifting. Take a moment to re-read my article on how to reduce spam to see if it gives you any ideas. Some good spam filter software (or a catch-all Google Mail address) might solve some issues.

In the end you’ll need to consider your needs and your audience’s needs and reach an accommodation that strikes a happy balance.

Three times someone wrote to me — people that I know in two cases, the 3rd was a local small business I patronize — and they addressed the email to or cc to from 13 to about 88 people.

That email was important. And you were so thoughtful so as to include me — albeit so very visibly — in your group of people you really care about. But I don’t know them. And now they can see my own email address, out there all naked and unhidden. I know that since I like you I’d probably like your friends — but maybe not.

And I do have plenty of friends. And I use Twitter and other social media all the time. I know how to socialize. So even though I’m sure they’re all great, don’t give my email address away like that. Please?

Maybe you’ve heard of these malware and spybot computer things?

I know that you keep your computer up to date with patches and anti-virals and all the other de-germing stuff you have to do with PCs. Damn hackers and script kiddies. But maybe some of your friends are not so careful? And maybe you just slapped my email address right into the middle of your cousin Andy’s machine (he’s the one who has to call you about how to print out screenshots, remember?) and I just know he’s probably got a zillion keytrackers and address-book harvesters running rampant. So, let’s just not do that again, okay?

protect your own reputation, too

I mean, web servers start seeing you sending out those mass emails, gives them pause, right? They know that that’s what the bad folks do, sending out emails to 20 or 50 or 100 people. So maybe they look a little harder at what you’re up to. And maybe they put you on a list of people that could be a little “iffy”. You don’t want to even go there.

Next time: stop, check, think before you press “send”

This is what I’d love you to do. It’s not a big hassle, really. And it would make it even more obvious what a smart person you are. And you are, of course, since you’re my friend.

• If you’re sending out notices regularly, and you’re a business, check into a service that will make sure you do it right, and professionally. I love MailChimp. They have great online tools, helps, and tracking for feedback. (You don’t want to guess about these things.) Other options are Emma and ConstantContact.
• Kind of chatty? Think about a blog. That way I can subscribe to you and you don’t even have to worry about telling me when you have your next great idea or need to pass along that newsflash.

Otherwise, this is it:

Become friends with the BCC field in your email program. Put me and all your other BFFs in the BCC field. (Stands for “blind carbon copy” — crazy antiquated term, but it works.) And in the TO field, put your own email address.

Now you’re emailing everyone the right way. And because you’re my friend, I want the best for you.

But if your install isn’t up to date — if you’re running an older version — you might want to read this post from HQ that makes an interesting point about car thefts, The Club, and lojack methods.

Afterwards, come back and mull over this quote:

A stitch in time saves nine. Upgrading is a known quantity of work, and one that the WordPress community has tried its darndest to make as easy as possible with one-click upgrades. Fixing a hacked blog, on the other hand, is quite hard. Upgrading is taking your vitamins; fixing a hack is open heart surgery. (This is true of cost, as well.)

Updated!
Someone chats with the 17 year old hacker who hacked his blog and asks why.

Skitch (Mac only)

Skitch is my favorite screenshot software. I use it to show draft sketches and designs to clients. It’s easy to upload to their server (or put in an email or IM or blog, should I want to) and I can either point to the item directly or I can choose to allow comments.

There are several easy-to-do, intuitive editing features built in like resizing and annotating.

Jing (Windows or Mac)

Jing comes from the people who make Camtasia and SnagIt, two well-known commercial softwares for Windows PCs. But Jing is free and allows for both screenshots and screen video capture. You can upload your screenshots easily to their server and (with the paid version) your videos can be sent to Vimeo, Facebook, or YouTube.

Watch the movies

Both are downloaded softwares that you install on your machine. As with all software, be sure to follow good practices when trying something out; just because it works well for us (and lots of others) doesn’t mean it’s a good choice for you.

But take a moment and watch the movies on both sites. It might be just the productivity kick (and frustration reducer) you’ve been looking for.

#1 — Who am I?

Look in the mirror. That’s you. Now look at your web site. Consistent? Does your site reflect your style, your essence? Or were you trying too hard to copy others so what is unique about you got lost in the process?

You know how you get a first impression when you meet someone and shake their hand? What vibe does someone get when they’re first viewing your site? How does it (you) present itself? Are you genuine?

#2 — Who am I talking to?

Think about someone you always listen to. They speak, and they have your ear. Do those that visit your site feel that way? Do they feel confident in your authority in your field of speciality? The days of “build a web site and they will come” passed with the old millennium. Choices abound. Do I know the people I want to speak to — do I have them clearly in mind — and does my site express that I understand?

#3 — Have I put up barriers?

Is my site sending subtle messages? Were you dragged into putting up a site so it’s the bare minimum and your visitors feel the cold shoulder? Did you try to do the site yourself so you don’t understand why people (on other types of computers) are getting error messages? Are the interactive areas of your site giving cues and feedback to help people? Does your site hide information or make it a puzzle to get from Point A to Point B?

#4 — Am I stale?

Picture a movie theatre that always plays “Jaws” (the original, of course; the sequels were horrible). Great movie. But how many times can a person see the same thing? Ticket sales would be pretty sad. Why would you do that to your website? Are you planning on never having repeat visitors? So why do they want to see the same thing each time? What are you doing to keep your site content from being old and stale?

And if you’ve got an established site, check out if your visual presentation and user interface (ack, sorry, techy term) and even the back end programming are holding you back from giving your visitors the right idea about you or your organization.

#5 — Where am I going?

Where do I expect to be in 1 year, 3 years, 5 years? My web site is a part of the body of my organization, a tool in my toolbelt, a key element. Have I asked myself how I can best utilize its strengths to help me get there — things I can implement now? And do I have a flexible structure that will allow me to integrate and expand where I see and/or want growth?

Can you answer these questions? If I can help you communicate the answers, let me know.

• hosting
• logo creation
• multimedia
• search engine optimization and consultation and reporting services *
• social media integration
• sales of digital product
• sales of physical product via PayPal
• sales of physical product via full e-commerce system (req. merchant account)
• photo shoots (local)
• (and more; just ask)

But then, you might be surprised what comes “as standard” with all our projects. Contact me for an estimate and find out.

* Please let us know at the time you request an estimate whether you’d be interested in professional search engine optimization services by the professional, ethical, organic-methods SEO specialist I can add to your team. Services can include:

• A simple report to see what search engines you’re appearing in.
• Generation of keyword phrases unique to your market niche.
• A thorough competitive analysis of those keyword phrases.
• Web copywriting with an SEO-sensitive slant.
• Consultation (phone, email) by the hour.

Once I know what services you’re interested in, fees for those services can be listed as an option on your estimate.

And, since “content” can mean several things, they can differ greatly in how well-adapted they may be to a given task or project.

I would be more than delighted to talk to you about how your site’s performance and ease of maintenance might be improved by using a content management system such as WordPress, which can be modified in a way to make it completely “yours” — design-wise.

Email me and I’ll collect some basic information and draft a free estimate for your review.