Tag Archives: blog design

Blog Food-Guest Blogger Series

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Reason 3 of Top Ten Reasons to Manage Your Own Websites and Blogs

Here is Reason 3 of my Top Ten Reasons to Manage Your Own Websites and
Blogs. by Toolie

Reason 3 – Controlling and Protecting Your Business Sites

"The story we're about to tell you is true. The names were changed to
protect the innocent."
(from the TV show "Dragnet")

I wish I were kidding about that. What I'm going to tell you IS true;
I'm just glad it doesn't happen very often.

I got a call last week from a client; I worked on her website last
fall. She is an author whose book wasn't yet available at that time,
but she was doing a number of things to prepare for the book launch.
My client had a social media site created by one of her team members.
After we handled a few updates to the site I had worked on previously,
she shared with me the debacle that accompanied the release of her
book.

After weeks of work on the social media site, the site was launched. A
few weeks later, my client and her team member had a misunderstanding.
This woman did not take the situation well, and in retaliation, shut
down the site for 8 days right at the time the book arrived in stores.
My client did not have the username and password to the site because
it was hosted with other sites owned by other people, and controlled
by the team member. She had no way of replacing the site in time for
her book launch.

A third party intervened in the situation and got the site back up,
but by then the damage was done. Fortunately my client has a loyal
following, and she didn't lose much revenue, but it was emotionally
devastating. After all her diligence and hard work, losing control of
her site when she needed it most was a situation she resolved to never
allow again.

In the "I Can Fix My Website" product, one of the first things we talk
about is the importance of having the domain registered in your name,
with your contact information, and for you to have control of the
domain account's username and password. The same is true of the
hosting account; it needs to be YOUR credit card and contact
information on file so that you can change it if (God forbid) your web
designer turns on you. (Some of my students have told me that I become
somewhat animated when discussing this, but it is for good reason.)

In the Action Guide that accompanies the product, I have space for you
to write down your usernames and passwords for all of your domain
registrations and web hosting accounts. You can also note whether your
domains are privately registered (where your personal details are
omitted so that you're less of a target for spammers) and which email
address you used with the registration. I have had to help reclaim
domain registrations for some clients because the domain renewal email
went to an account that no longer existed.

I understand the importance of keeping good records for your domain
registrations so that you don't lose them! With these simple
precautions (and some other advice I have for you), there's no reason
why you can't take control of your sites and protect your valuable
online business assets.

I want to see YOU confidently switching to the Code view in your web
editor and saying "Bring it on! I know how to use HTML...!" I look
forward to working with you on these and other important items during
our coaching sessions together in the "I Can Fix My Website" program.

Tomorrow: Reason 2 - Saving Time on Quick and Easy Updates to Your
Sites

Toolie®

Blog Food-Guest Blogger Series

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Hi, I sure hope you are enjoying this series by guest blogger Toolie. I also hope you are getting the message about posting different types of blog food. The series is a feast that can last a long time. Rosie

Reason 4 of Top Ten Reasons to Manage Your Own Websites and Blogs

Reason 4 – Making Changes to Your Site on YOUR Schedule

I’ll tell you a secret about web designers: they like to design, not to maintain.

Design is fun. It’s creative. It’s self-expressive.

Maintenance is detail-oriented. It’s dull. It’s repetitive. But it’s also necessary.

If a web designer enjoys managing details, then carrying maintenance contracts is a good source of ongoing revenue and most web designers will offer to maintain your site for you. Regardless of what you spend on a webmaster though, the rub comes when you need something changed NOW. Right now. Not 2 days from now, not tomorrow, NOW. Scheduling, turnaround times, and your webmaster’s workload all come into play. Once the initial design is done, webma sters are usually not very interested in doing updates to their already-perfect creation.

You must think I hate web designers — I don’t, not at all! After all, technically, I AM a web designer. I do a limited number of site projects for clients who are in a hurry and who are happy to pay for me to do the work. But I don’t do maintenance for them. Any project I take on involves training package for them so that my clients do the maintenance.

It’s not that I don’t like maintenance; I too could make money as a webmaster. But I have a business of my own to run, just like you do. And I have found that my clients are happiest when they really own and run their own sites. (That’s also why my product includes 3 hours of one-on-one coaching time to get you up and running.)

In a previous installment of this series, we talked about making your website or blog a cash-producing machine. How are you going to do that if you can’t make updates quickly? With a site designed for easy maintenance, you can be in charge of those updates yourself and take care of them any time of the day or night. In the “I Can Fix My Website” course, I teach you what is “a site designed for easy maintenance,” so that you can create or refurbish yours with that goal in mind.

Maybe it’s just because I’m a night-person, but I get my greatest ideas in the evening. The phones settle down, we’ve had dinner, I kick off my shoes, and suddenly in the evening, my head is buzzing with ideas. I do most of my writing then, and I want to be able to set up new pages as soon as the writing is finished. If I had to wait until the next day for a web designer to install my updates, I’d go crazy. Being able to create and install new pages, new features, new opt-ins when I need them is the best of possible worlds for me, as business owner of cash-producing websi tes.

Even if you are not the one who creates your site, it still belongs to you. It’s your business at stake, so it pays to know how to operate it inside and out, even if you ultimately delegate some of the work to others. When it’s 7 pm on a Sunday night and you want to add something to your site before Monday morning, I can almost guarantee that neither your virtual assistant nor your web designer will be picking up the phone when you call them for help.

The Internet loves speed. Those are customers whizzing past your site. Get them to stop by and view your latest creations: products, writing, services, all described and made available on YOUR schedule, because you know how to wrangle your site yourself. My website training product plus coaching program will teach you how.
Tomorrow: Reason 3 – Controlling and Protecting Your Business Sites
Toolie®

Blog Food-Guest Blogger Series # 8

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You are really going to enjoy this part of Toolie’s series.

Reason 8: Branding, Creativity, and Freedom to Fly

I get asked a lot about how I can possibly make a living teaching
website and blog skills when there are so many free website templates
and site-builders out there already. My answer is simple: people come
to me when they’re tired of bumping into the limitations that both
website templates and site-builders have. They’re ready to make their
sites work for them, instead of the other way around.

I remember when I learned to ride a two-wheeled bicycle. My Dad bought
a bike with smaller wheels, and put training wheels on it. (This was
before we knew we should wear helmets, but thankfully all I ever got
were skinned knees.) I rode up and down the sidewalk, back and forth,
back and forth. After a while I thought I was ready to have the
training wheels taken off. Dad ran alongside me and steadied me while
I got that wobbly front wheel under control. After a few sideways
landings (thank goodness for lawns!) I took off and pedaled as fast as
I could until Dad called me back. It was incredible! I felt like I was
flying.

Pretty soon I was doing circles and figure-eights in the street, going
fast, going slow, even racing with the other kids in the neighborhood.
It’s a good thing I liked riding my bike because I rode it to piano
lessons, to my first job at the grocery store, and even to driver’s
education classes during the summer after my sophomore year in high
school. I rode it to go shopping as a teenager, and many years later,
I rode it for recreation and fitness. (McAlister and I even rode bikes
on our first few dates.)

The point is, once I got the hang of riding with training wheels, I
insisted on having them taken off so I could ride my bike without
them. I wanted to feel grown up and free. As silly as the comparison
may seem, being able to maneuver your own websites and blogs gives you
that same sense of freedom and control. And the people who come to me
are usually the ones who want a sense of empowerment, freedom, and
control. They understand the importance of standing out, of being
unique among the millions of websites already online.

There’s another really, really important aspect to consider about your
sites, and that is your brand. Usually by the time entrepreneurs,
virtual assistants, and small business owners come to work with me,
they’ve got a logo and color scheme that they want applied to their
sites. That’s the difference between having a site that looks like the
other 662 sites using your website template, and having a site that is
truly unique and reflects your brand choices. Plus with a site you’ve
built or had built, you have the flexibility to do creative things
with it, such as audio, video, and other interactive features.

A site with a good design gives you so many opportunities to attract
visitors by continually expanding and enhancing it with good content.
In my website/blog training program, we’ll talk about both design and
content to produce sites that really work for your business.
Tomorrow: Reason 7 – Behind-the-Scenes Knowledge to Really Enhance
Your Site