“I can build a website on my web host for free. I saw an ad for websites for $500. My (brother-in-law, sister-in-law, cousin, father, friend, daughter, son) knows html and will build me a website for nothing.”

True but.

These are the options you have if you truly have little to no budget, or you hope it is merely an interim site. If you spend money on print advertising chances are you can set aside money for a decent website which:

• Is working to advertise your business 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
• If done correctly your site is converting prospective clients or customers to actual clients or customers  – perhaps while you are asleep.
• It can take messages, much like a receptionist and should be professional (much as you would expect an actual receptionist to be).

So what goes into making a great website (and why is it so darned expensive*)?

First a good designer will research your target audience, goals for the site, (education, convert, involve, etc).

Decisions about navigation, areas of functionality (forms, share buttons, blog) will be based on a combination of client requests and designer recommendations. The designer may look at your web statistics (if redesigning an existing site) to determine what browsers the bulk of your traffic are using – valuable information when making decisions about layout and the coding behind it.

At  this point a wireframe might be built – really a means of determining where content areas will live on the page and how much prominence each will receive in the final design and then the real fun begins.

A palette that will fit your business or consider existing branding guidelines (if any) is important. I can’t tell you how often I check colourlovers.com for inspiration. I remember taking digital photos of my apple tv menu once when working on a website for an AV Custom installer so I could try to echo the look and feel for what would clearly be an electronics savvy audience. See the final result below:

And as design is also function after all the way in which the site is built and the usability of the functional areas are key to the success of the site. The way in which the site is built and the content that is added will affect how quickly and how high search engines rank the site.

At the end of the day the free site built using templates or via  “site builder” software on your web host can’t compete.

*expensive means different things to different people. The average site I build for small business costs less than a full page color ad in a local magazine.

There are several security fail’s here.

First, never give your password information to someone who asks for it via email even if they look legitimate. Phishers, as most of us know, are able to spoof just about anyone and a phish email may look like it comes from your bank, Pay Pal, Google – in fact anywhere where your access information is useful to the phisher.

This post is about what to do if your gmail account has been compromised because having just helped my client I have learned a few helpful tips.

Change your password:
The most obvious is to change your password. Do this as soon as humanly possible because you need to close down access to your account.

Check all the settings (some especially):
Changing your password is not enough. Chances are they have forwarded your incoming email to another email address. This is done for a variety of reasons but one of those is to keep you from being aware there is a problem. If you don’t receive emails from your friends saying “I’m getting some weird email from you and think you’ve been hacked” then they can get more time and traction out of using your account. So check and see if a forward has been set up. Remove it.

Next, check to make sure that a setting that (paraphrased) is set to “Remove emails from server after forwarding” is not set. This too is to prevent you from being aware just what is going on with your account.

In the case of my client their contacts were removed. Check your contacts. It’s always good to have a backup of your address book. If you do – contact everyone in this book and warn them that your account was compromised.

If you had stored any personal information in your inbox change the passwords to anything that might have been there (Your website for instance).

Finally, This particular phisher asked for a birthday. Now consider this. Even though they did not ask for a mailing address they can probably get that in your account settings (which they now have access to) somewhere else which opens up a whole new can of worms ranging from lines of credit and more. Watch your credit report carefully.

In the case of this particular victim the password information the phisher obtained – probably from an old stored email was used to set up a whole new phishing attack on their website. Removing that is a whole other process and all I can say is make sure you have regular backups of your site. It will make recovery a lot faster and cleaner.

Updated 12.08.2010

I want to point out that files needed to set up a phishing scheme that masquerades as gmail are offered in a brazen fashion on the internet. This increases the chance that even hackers with minimal skills could be successful.

Gmail Phishing files being offered for download on the internet

That said its important to set up the test properly.

Lets start with email newsletters. I could set up my A/B split to test the subject line. Subject lines are really important in email and do a lot of heavy lifting. Your subject line can make or break the open rate. For instance I was in the habit of sending out my newsletter using a subject line like “rr.interactive October 2010 newsletter”. It helped me keep things categorized but that subject line didn’t do anything for the recipients. For all they knew they were opening pandora’s box.

So in order to see what works best I could try “rr.interactive October 2010 newsletter” for the A test and “What is A/B Split Testing and How Can it Help You? for the B test.

In the case of mailchimp I can select what subset of my total list should get the test and the period of time for testing. Once there is a clear winner that is the one that gets sent out to the rest of the list. Awesome!

Google Adwords allows to to specify two different landing pages for people who click on your PPC ad. This is a wonderful way to test the performance of a beta website against the existing one.

In carpentry they have a saying “Measure Twice, Cut Once”. Interactive Media is a constantly moving target which you have to continually measure and monitor because what works one day might not work the next.

First let me say that good hosting for a small business whose site won’t receive a lot of traffic really doesn’t need to be expensive. In fact you would be surprised how little server space you might need and how little that will cost you – depending of course on how mission critical your website is and how secure the information needs to be. If you can’t afford to be without your site or portions of your site it pays to spend more money. Just a few years ago basic small business web hosting cost an average of $30 a month. If you are paying that now and your hosting isn’t anything special start looking elsewhere.

That said the typical small business owner won’t want, or be able, to spend the sort of money a dedicated server will charge so how do you evaluate shared hosting?

In 15 years of designing and developing websites I have a few ideas I’d like to share.

Choose a host that is primarily a host. Believe me where hosting is the primary service and not an upsell from, say, the purchase of a domain name (GoDaddy, Network Solutions) you are apt to have a much smoother experience.

Do a search on the web to see what others have to say about it. Pay special attention to blog and forum posts. Ask people if they have had experience with them.

As a web designer I always check out a new host with a small site of my own (such as this one) to see how things go before recommending anyone.

It is becoming more frequent for hosts to offer fairly good support documentation but to charge for any actual support request requiring a personal reply via email or phone. Check the pricing on this. Its often justified when the hosting provider is charging very little for server space but has the overhead of 24/7 support personnel.

Last. Sign up for the hosting account in your name (not the web designer or developer). This will enable you to retain control of your site if there is a problem. I call this  “If your designer were hit by a bus what would you do”. Save all of the user name and password information (including database access if any). This goes for access to your domain name as well.

A number of my clients in the last few years have requested the ability to update websites themselves so I have begun to offer the ability to all. Generally I will explain that it is a good option if the following is true:

• The client feels comfortable technically
• The client will be needing updates frequently enough that the increased cost of integrating content management into their website will be amortized over time and become a savings over having me perform their updates.

Usually I recommend WordPress (the easiest to master) or Joomla (for more robust applications). I’ve  also used Drupal (not a fan) and Moveable Type. A good CMS should be easily to master for someone who is comfortable and familiar with Microsoft Word but not everyone is and therein lies the problem.

Some take to it fairly well:
If the site is being created for a sole proprietor or a small business and one of the principals will be performing the updates they generally work through the learning curve fairly well and only call upon me for updates and changes that are beyond the ability of the CMS to do. They decided the CMS would save them money and they will ensure that it does.

Some give it up:
Occasionally after adding a CMS to a site I’ve had people contract with me to do the updates anyway as they are too busy or decide they can’t be bothered. They know the ability is there.

And some don’t take to it well at all:
The greatest panic is experienced by people who don’t feel comfortable with, and are often frustrated by, technology.  This can range from the extreme case who isn’t really sure where their documents are saved to and honestly thinks you are supposed to get to a website by typing it into the Google bar to those who have made a truce with Microsoft Word and perhaps very basic Excel but that’s the extent of it.  Administrative Assistants in larger companies or organizations who have been tasked with updating the website are often in this category. In many cases I have found that while they are afraid of learning how to use the CMS, at the same time, are afraid of letting their boss know how difficult they are finding this new responsibility.

If you are considering adding a CMS to your new or existing website its critical to evaluate the comfort level you or your employees currently have with technology. Often its a matter of additional training. In some cases it may be a better idea to contract outside for your updates.