hosting services

When I first meet with a prospective client it’s important for me to know about their vision for their site.

Although most people start off saying that they’ll leave everything to the designer (“just do it”), I have learned better. Business owners may want to leave all the technical details to their designer, but most people have an idea about some aspects of their future site.

Business woman looking at a web page I am about to call a prospective customer, so I wrote down what I want to ask her before I can tell her cost estimates and a time schedule. Here are some of the questions I have that will help her share her web site vision with me. (I’d be happy to hear of ones you think I should add!)

Are there sites you would like yours to look like?
These examples can be competitors or sites for businesses in different fields. Please send me links to those sites so I can look at them. Then we can talk about what aspects of those sites you like. Is it the color? Layout? Navigation?
How important is search engine optimization (where your site will show up in Google)?
Creating a site that shows up high on Google for specific phrases requires planning and it also places some design constraints on the pages. These limitations are reasonable. However, we will keep bumping up against them and I need to know if you care if people find your site in Google and in other search engines.(Search Engine Optimization, that is getting your site high on Google’s results, involves more than designing a web page. Obtaining incoming links, regularly refreshing content, and other marketing techniques build upon a well-design web site. But, designing pages to appeal to Google is the first, most basic, and most important step to take.)
Do you have a list of pages you want on your site and a structure for the site navigation?
Some people only know that they want a web site for their business. Others know exactly what they want on their site, how many pages there should be, and what the navigation path through the site should be.Please let me know what you’ve already decided on the scope of your site.
Do you want to be able to updates to your site yourself?
I currently use Dreamweaver to design and maintain most client sites. There’s a sister product of Dreamweaver called Contribute which allows non-technical people to update pages, add pages, change and add images, and to make other changes to sites created in Dreamweaver.In general, clients with Dreamweaver-created sites can purchase Contribute from Adobe and start doing their own updates with little web designer involvement. There is some minor preparation I need to do to make the site Contribute-friendly, and it is good for me to know that Contribute is coming as soon as possible.
Have you already purchased a domain name and hosting service?
If so, I will need the user name and password for these accounts… For some of my clients obtaining these credentials from past web designers or from their own records has taken weeks of effort.So, if you already have hosting and domain name registrations services, check your records to make sure you can get to the services’ control panels.

Are All Hosting Services the Same?

My policy of using whatever web hosting service a client has previously signed up for has been challenged this month as clients have found hosting services with small annual fees that have turned out to be cheap rather than inexpensive.

Here are some basics about hosting and why you might want to let your web developer choose the service for your site.

At its simplest, a hosting service merely needs to be reliable so that 99.some% of the time anyone trying to get to your web site will see your information. Because of the limited requirements for hosting, it’s very tempting to sign up for a hosting plan that costs $5 a month instead of paying $200 a year in advance.

However, each hosting company offers different services and conveniences. The hosting businesses vary on how you can upload information to your web and the features included in their hosting packages.

Most businesses need only very simple hosting. But, there are some fundamental qualifications for a professional hosting service.

What You Need in a Hosting Service

Uptime. You want your site to be available 99+% of the time. Ask a potential hosting service for their uptime stats!
An online way for you to make certain changes to your account. The hosting company should provide you with a “control panel” which lets you add new email accounts, change passwords, and do other administrative chores.
File Transport Protocol (FTP) access to updating your web site. You want to be able to use common web authorizing programs like Dreamweaver which employ FTP to publish web pages. You don’t want to be limited to using the hosting services custom file updater.
Unrestricted, 24×7 updating to your site. Yes, you want only authorized users to be able to update your site, but authorized users need to be able to authenticate themselves and do updates from anywhere at any time. Typically, hosting services control access through a user name and password (which you can change). However, some hosting services demand more, and their additional security requirements — such as IP authorizing — can make updating your site difficult.
Mail accounts. You want to use professional looking email accounts that include your domain name (e.g., [email protected]). You should be able to set up, modify, and delete at least 10 of these accounts for your hosting dollars.
Scripting language support. Even a straight-forward web site may include a contact form that you want validated. Or, the site may grow to use a login for certain pages. Or, other bright and shiny functionality may become a need. In any event, you want the host to support PHP and perhaps other scripting languages so that you don’t have to change hosting companies suddenly when you want to add a particular feature to a page.

Like many web designers, I charge clients by the hour. But, up to now I haven’t started the clock when learning the ins and outs of a new hosting company that a client picked. I figured that I was learning more about the hosting marketplace.

But, enough! After spending hours on work-arounds to comply with the quirks of some inexpensive hosting services, I have learned already!

Spending a reasonable amount of money for a full-service hosting company is truly the least expensive way to keep your site on the Internet. We recommend Webmasters.com who charges $120 year. From now on, I’m going to ask that clients use that choice… or make sure that the client’s existing service has the convenience and features we need.

5 Questions

Are All Hosting Services the Same?

What You Need in a Hosting Service