This is the final installment of the Top Ten Reasons to Manage Your Own Website and Blog Sites!

Reason 1 – Saving Money on Your Monthly Online Budget

By Toolie

Now we’re down to the number 1 reason to manage your websites and
blogs: money. It’s simply less expensive to learn how to handle most
website and blog tasks than it is to pay someone to do them for you.

The most obvious cost to your business is any ongoing website or blog
maintenance you’re paying to a web designer. I’ve heard from clients
that they’ve spent anywhere from $75 to $600 a month on maintenance.
The difference in pricing is related to the amount of work done in
those contracts.

•  A $75 a month charge included 1 major update a month, in this case,
my speakers association chapter adding their monthly meeting to the
site.
•  The $600/month charge was for website hosting, maintenance, and
keyword optimization; that’s what my dentist pays to maintain his page
1 Google status in his geographic area.
I hope your webmaster costs are either zero or somewhere between those
two numbers!

What other costs might there be? Well, you remember the true story of
my client whose website was shut down by a disgruntled team member,
yes? She directly lost revenue because her website wasn’t available.
It would have been difficult on short notice for her to replace the
site she had planned, but if she’d had control of her domain, she
could have pointed it to an alternate site until things were resolved.

What about creating opportunities BECAUSE you have HTML and CSS
skills? The Internet likes speed! Being able to come up with a custom
page on your website or blog that specifically addresses a new
opportunity provides a huge advantage over your competitors who can’t
or don’t provide such targeted information.

In fact, imagine being able to send to a prospect in email the URL of
a specially created web page on your website. Wouldn’t you sit up and
take notice if I said I have a message just for you at  such-and-such
a page? With a simple tool, I created custom pages with individual
names on them  for the folks on my mailing list, using a simple HTML
page and a tool that merges names into those web pages. Like so many
other highly-targeted messages, custom web pages have a big impact.
And this technique is easy and inexpensive to do.

So with basic HTML and CSS skills, you can not only save maintenance
costs, you can create opportunities for new business in targeted,
memorable ways. I hope by now that you’re all out of excuses now for
putting off  earning something that can make you money.

It’s time! The product is now available for purchase. There’s no time
like the beginning of a new year to make a difference in your business
by learning HTML and CSS. Head on over to
http://www.ICanFixMyWebsite.com and get all the details of this
program. I look forward to working with you in our coaching sessions,
and getting 2010 off to a great start.

You can choose to have $10 of the product price donated to the Red
Cross for Disaster Relief to Haiti. Just choose Yes on the Order Form
(near the bottom), and I’ll take care of the rest. — Toolie

The “I Can Fix My Website” program is up and running! Get your copy
right now at http://www.ICanFixMyWebsite.com.

Toolie®

Reason 2 of Top Ten Reasons to Manage Your Own Websites and Blogs

Reason 2 – Saving Time on Quick and Easy Updates to Your Sites

By Toolie

One of the challenges entrepreneurs face when trying to grow their
business is the point at which they begin to acquire helpers. Some use
virtual assistants, some use their teenage or college-age children.
Like any employment situation (virtual or contractual), the
entrepreneur spends time managing the relationship as well as the
work.

It's no different when you've hired a web designer to maintain your
website for you. It takes time to decide what you want, communicate
your decisions, and manage the results. It's a necessary part of
delegating the work, and provided you have good communication, it
doesn't have to be time-consuming. I'll leave you to imagine what it's
like when your web designer is NOT a good communicator. Perhaps you
already know....

We've discussed how nice it is to have schedule independence from your
web designer: that is, you being able to make changes to your site
WHEN you want to, even if it's after hours. Now we're talking about
how much TIME it takes to manage the relationship with your designer,
and whether that time investment is appropriate for "the small stuff."

I was on the board of my speakers association chapter for 3 years, and
during that time I was directly involved with maintaining the website.
We had a web designer who handled our maintenance for us for a reduced
rate, and he was pretty good about handling the changes in a timely
manner. But by "handling changes", I mean we wrote everything out for
him, and even formatted the text in Microsoft Word the way we wanted
it to look on the site. We sent in a Word doc, and he reproduced the
changes in HTML on the website based on the text we had sent him.

It took 2 hours to prepare that Word document, and it probably took
him another 90 minutes to 2 hours to format the text in HTML and
upload it to the site. So a total of 4 hours went into those web pages
every month. If we'd had access to the site ourselves, we could have
made the changes directly in HTML (in 2 hours), and had them visible
to the public immediately instead of 4-24 hours later.

It was a better use of his time to work on tasks that we weren't
capable of doing, like the original design, or major updates to the
look and feel of the site. The kind of work he was performing was
simple edits that we were capable of handling. Consequently, our
chapter switched to a membership site that better served our needs as
an association, and one that we could manage ourselves.

Are you doing the same thing? Are sending your web designer text
formatted in Word and then having them do it over again on your site?
I can almost promise you that even if you're exporting your text as
HTML out of Microsoft Word, your designer is NOT using it directly.
Word produces notoriously bloated HTML, so most designers ignore it or
run it through a cleanup filter before posting the text on your
website.

Do it right the first time; as an entrepreneur you don't have TIME to
do it OVER again! Learn HTML and CSS, and handle these simple updates
yourself! With a combination of how-to videos, demos, website layouts,
one-on-one coaching, and the support forum, the "I Can Fix My Website"
program has what you need to learn these skills quickly and easily.
You'll save time by handling website and blog updates yourself, and
leave your web designer (if you have one) free to concentrate on the
big stuff they really enjoy.

Next: Reason 1 - Saving Money on Your Monthly Online Budget

Toolie®

10 Top Ten Reasons to Manage Your Own Websites and Blogs

Reason 6 – Jazz Up Your Website or Blog with Ideas from Other Sites

By Toolie

Have you ever seen a cool image, graphic, or feature on another site
and wondered how it’s done? With a little knowledge and some
curiosity, you can find out how it’s done, and maybe produce something
similar on your website.

On most websites, it is possible to view the source code of a site in
your browser, and even examine it in your favorite HTML editor. (I do
this all the time when I’m trying to diagnose a problem for a client.)
I also collect URLS to code for neat things like countdown timers,
background snow effects, and other features that I’ve spotted on other
websites. I don’t use the code, though, without first finding out what
the terms of use are, whether it’s free or licensed code.

Most of the time, the code that makes those nifty features appear is
code someone paid for, and with some investigation, I can go find the
site and buy it myself. I am in no way advocating theft of other
people’s intellectual property. (Did you hear what I said?) I’m
talking about doing research in the code so you can go do the right
thing (by buying the code), and enjoy the benefits.

There are sites on the Internet where you can go shopping for features
by the type of code you want to use. Let’s say you want to add a
background “snow” effect for your website during the holidays. My
favorite source for such things is www.HotScripts.com, a centralized
search engine for both free and paid scripts (Javascript, PHP, and
other languages). You don’t have to be a programmer to install the
scripts, you just need to know enough HTML to place the code in the
right spot (very much like you do to install a Facebook badge or
Twitter feed).

Some scripts on www.HotScripts.com are just features you add to your
websites; some are entire programs you can buy. Most of the free
scripts simply require that you keep their website URL in the code to
give them credit, which is absolutly the right thing to do. Some
scripts will allow you to remove that credit if you pay a registration
fee, which is also fair. Here are an example:

http://www.dseffects.com — will let you use the script for free if
you keep the author credit within the code. It costs $24 for a license
for one domain so you can remove the author credit, and $80 for up to
10 websites. (What a bargain!)

Some sites let you take their images as long as you make a copy,
rather than linking to their image. Here’s where I found a page of
animated snow GIF files:

http://www.scri8e.com/h/xmas/CICED/SnoAni/

The site owner allows you to make a copy for personal use, and
explains on this page why you cannot simply link to the images.

http://www.scri8e.com/5/1TermsOfUseNoLinking.html

If I decided to use one of his images, I would create a shortcut to
his website in the folder where I store the images so I remember where
I found them.

Now, to do the research initially, you need to know a little HTML. But
once you do, it opens up a whole world of possibilities. This isn’t
just about having the neatest effect to impress your friends; this is
about finding and utilizing features that will benefit your customers.

For example, I found a fabulous live chat program on someone else’s
site, and decided to switch. That allowed me to stop paying a monthly
fee for a chat program that was overkill for my little business. I
found that new chat software developer by inspecting the code,
tracking down the company website, and buying a license for all my
websites. I even recommend and install that chat program now for my
clients.

So what are you waiting for? It won’t take long for you to learn HTML
and CSS and be able to track down the features you’ve liked on other
sites. You don’t have to imitate, you can customize. Most of all, you
can assist and please your customers with the website and blog
features that help them buy from you. My website training program will
get you started learning HTML and CSS right away.

Next:  Reason 5 – HTML/CSS Skills for More Than Just Web Pages and
Blog Posts

Toolie®

Just click here to see the video I did about creating html code even when you don’t  know html. Click right here I promise you it will be short and sweet!

Websites, blog sites, all sites need code! Now you do not have to be a webmaster to learn some key things related to creating a website. Or, did you know that if you wanted to customize a blog theme or check out that funny looking stuff behind the scene of your blog or website you could actually trouble shoot it yourself without turning green?

A friend of mine is doing a webinar series on web site stuff you need for websites as well as blogs. I have included the link in this email and know that she is excellent! I have been a follower of her free webinars

so I know the quality of her work and how much she extends herself in sharing her expertise. If you have any questions you can email her at toolie@tooliethetravelguide.com. Please note that what she is covering is good for PC and MAC! And yes, I intend to be on the webinars also which will take place in the evenings and replays available if you miss one.

Anyway click here to get in the live class that starts next week!