While the idea of using the same provider for both services can look attractive at first (to lower cost for example), I can tell you that the drawbacks of this practice are real and can be quite significant. Web hosting companies usually handle domain name registration through bulk domain name registrars to keep costs down. This in itself is not a bad thing but it can complicate the administration of your domain name.

At best, the Web hosting provider will offer a Web interface to modify the details of your domain name in its control panel or you might have access to the data at the registrar directly. But this is rare. It is more common to have to open a support ticket with your host to get anything changed in your domain name’s record. In both cases, everything will still be fine (if more complicated in the second case) if the domain is really registered to you with your contact information, including the most important part, an email address you own. But this is not always the case and this is where things can get really complicated…

In the worse case scenario, hosting companies may register the domain names of their clients in their own names with their own contact information. They do this for all kinds of reasons. Again, at best, they do it out of ignorance and a misguided view that this is “helping” their clients by shielding them from “complex technical stuff”. In fact, they usually do it to make things easier for themselves, not to help their clients. At worst, they do it to force their clients to stay in business with them as the client has absolutely no control over the domain to be able to move it to a new host whenever they want. Moving a domain to a new host may become necessary if the business relationship with the current host turns sour for some reason or the quality of their sevices degrades to unacceptable levels. Believe me when I tell you that both can and do happen more often than you’d think.

But no matter the reason, I consider this practice to be highly unethical. It just should not be done, for any reason. My opinions are rarely this black and white but, recently, I’ve helped too many of my clients get out of bad relationships with hosts that had control over my clients’ domain names. It was never for the worst reasons but the hassle and time cost of rectifying the situation and move the domains and my clients’ sites were significant in all cases.

How to Keep Full Control of your Domain Names

To have full control of your domain name(s), the registrant of a domain name should always be the person it belongs to, or if it is a company, one of its legal representatives. Same thing with the administrative contact information that is tied to the domain. Under no circumstances should the registrant and administrative contact of a domain be the hosting provider or any other third party.

Domain names are not protected the same way that company names are copyrighted or the way they have clear legal ownership. But I’m sure you can imagine that they are just as crucial for the branding of an organization, product, service or individual on the Web. That’s why it’s key to keep control over your domain names because they will always be with you and are part of your branding. On the other hand, your hosting needs will evolve with time and you will probably change Web hosting provider at some point, probably more than once. My experience proves that the quality of the services of a once great host can go downhill fast. Providers go out of business or foreclose.  You absolutely must have the flexibility to point your domain to a new host if something happens so that your Web site is always available to your potential or existing audience or clients.

To be able to do that, the domain must be registered to your name with your email address. You could always use the same provider for both and not all hosts use the unethical practices describe above, but you need to make sure beforehand that the domain will be registered to your name. Ideally, I really think you should register a domain name with a specialized provider before you open a hosting account. That way, you just point the existing domain there when you open the hosting account and you can leave quickly if anything goes wrong later. Believe me, you’ll be making your life a lot simpler down the road if you do that.

There are of course other things you need to be doing to move a site to a new host quickly (like regular files and database backups which I do for all my clients), but these are subjects for future articles

This article reflects my personal opinions so your comments or stories are welcome!

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The Montreal WordPress community is both enthusiastic and very knowledgeable and a WordCamp is a great opportunity to learn new tricks and techniques as well as network with other WordPress fans that are experts in different fields. The event is also extremely well organized and offers a lot of value to attendees.

I hope to see you there!

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Essential Qualities of a Good Web Host

Reliability

This one is a no brainer. No matter how fabulous your plan’s features might be, or how well designed your site is, if your site is down often, it will reflect very badly on you or your organization. This is one of the main reasons why most cheap hosting companies just won’t cut it. Don’t expect to get reliable service or a fast web site from a $2.95 a month hosting plan. At that price, they have to cut corners somewhere to make a profit and that often means putting too many sites using up limited resources on the same server machine. Don’t skimp on hosting costs to save a few bucks a month. This is your image and reputation we’re talking about here. What is that worth to you? Great reliability and uptime are essential.

Of course, reliability is hard to judge if you’ve never done business with a particular host but look for some reviews online. Better still, ask for recommendations from your friends, colleagues or social networks. Nothing beats first hand experience. There are exceptions here and some hosts offer pretty reliable service at a very low cost but most of the time, this will be at the expense of other services, like support:

Technical Support

This is where we separate the boys from the men. Everything else being equal, support is the single most important criteria you should be evaluating. Support is what can differentiate a great host from an OK one from a pure nightmare…

So, what to look for?

24/7 phone and email support : To me, this is key and this is a lesson I’ve learned the hard way. At the very least, if the host’s Web site does not display a phone number prominently on the home page, look elsewhere. I’m not kidding. You want to be able to reach these people quickly if there is a problem with your site. Additionally, if your Web site or any services related to it (like email) are business critical for your organisation, 24/7 phone support is essential. Most cheap hosts won’t offer that. The knowledgeability of the people you talk to is also key. When your site goes down on a Saturday night and your host won’t respond to your calls or email until the next Monday morning, you’ll regret not choosing a host that’s there for you all day, every day. Again, what are your organization’s image and reputation worth to you?

10 Essential Technical Criteria

These are the more technical things you should be looking for in your host’s plan. There used to be a big difference between hosts here but most will offer more than adequate packages and support for the most common Web technologies. If you do not understand what some of these things are, your Web designer/developer or your in house IT people will… and they will expect them. These features are common in good modern hosts but many cheap ones will cut on some of these.

1. Web space : This is the hard drive space allocated to your account. If your plan lets you run more than one site (and domain) on your account, this space will be shared among all of them. Only you can know what is an acceptable limit for your needs but many host offer unlimited space now. Of course, the more space available the better.
2. Bandwith : Same as with space, bandwith is often unlimited now but if it is not, it is also shared among all the sites on your account. Again, there are some exceptions out there but be wary if a host’s plan is unlimited all around for $2.95/month. In hosting, over promising and under delivering is more common than the opposite… Bandwith caps around the 1 TB / month are good.
3. FTP access : without that, look elsewhere. This is very basic and essential. You should be able to create FTP users with limited access to specific folders.
4. SSH access : if your host is a Unix/Linux host, you should get SSH access. It is essential to perform some operations on your account (like creating symlinks for alternate domains to point to a main domain folder for example). If you have a very basic Web site, this is probably not essential.
5. .htaccess support : If you are on a Unix/Linux host this is a given but many Windows hosts do not support .htaccess because it requires installing additional software. If your site is running on WordPress, you need this. If it’s not supported by the host you’re evaluating, move on and look elsewhere.
6. PHP and MySQL : most hosts offer more than these (Perl, Rails, Python, etc) but PHP and MySQL are essential for most dynamic Web sites. WordPress requires recent versions of PHP and MySQL (PHP 5.24 and greater and MySQL 5.0 and greater). If your site will be running on a CMS like WordPress, Drupal and others, look at their baseline requirements and make sure your host supports them. If you are hosting on Windows, ASP.NET is common and your project may require it. Other technologies that are not as common are JSP and ColdFusion. Either may be required for your projects so double check your technical requirements with your Web people before choosing a host.
7. SSL (secure server), Shopping Cart : if you plan on doing eCommerce on your site, you need a host that supports SSL and https. Most hosts do. Look for additional fees if you need a private SSL (and most poeple should go for private SSL). Hosts often offer shared SSL in their base packages and can charge hefty additional fees for private SSL.
8. Email : aside from the Web site itself, email is the most important feature in a hosting account and the one where quality can vary the most. Your host should offer Web based email and access to settings through a Web based control panel where you can add and delete users. Also keep in mind that, email storage usually counts towards your total package’s space limit (if any) so be careful if you use the IMAP protocol (instead of POP3) and send and receive a large volume of emails with large attachments. Your host’s email server should also support basic things like email forwarding and autoresponders.
9. Control panel : when working with a host, the quality, power and ease of use of their Control Panel can make the difference between a great or a frustrating experience.  Many hosts have “home-made” control panels than can be great… or not. When you ask around for recommendations, ask about the hosts’s control panel. The control panels for both Windows hosts I use are just OK. But the control panel on my main host (Linux based) is incredible. Powerful, flexible and complete. These people have gone the extra mile. It makes a huge difference.
   At minimum,  your host’s control panel should let you add and delete email accounts and users, add and delete FTP users, change the password for your account, add domains/sub domains (if your package offers that), add, delete and manage databases, etc. What you DO NOT want is to have to go through the host’s support to perform any of these tasks.
10. Remote database connections : This criteria is rarely mentioned and often overlooked… but to me it is essential. Most hosts let you use PHPMyAdmin to manage your MySQL databses. Personally, I think it’s a huge pain… I use a desktop application called Navicat to manage all the databases on the 3 hosts I use from my desktop computer. The interface is better, backups are easy and stored locally, etc. If your host won’t let you connect to their MySQL database server remotely, look elsewhere. Again, I’m not kidding. Don’t let them fool you with bogus security concerns. You can connect remotely to databases on your host securely. If they won’t let you, it doesn’t bode well for their competence and it might mean they’re more interested in making their own lives easier than to help yours… Is that the kind of people you want to do business with?

In Conclusion

I have been working on the Web for over 15 years and I have tried a lot of hosts. The main host I use now is the best I have ever done business with by far. For me, that is priceless as the quality of their service directly reflects on my own reputation with my clients. This choice is just as important for your organization so shop around carefully and don’t be fooled by outlandish promises at bargain bin prices.

If your site is a mission-critical part of your business, you should plan to pay at about $20/month or more for good shared hosting. Your will get the reliability you need along with great support. Dedicated hosting is of course more expensive. If your site is more basic, gets lower traffic or it’s not an essential part of your business, you may go for cheaper plans but prepare to compromise somewhere. It will vary by hosts but 24/7 support is often the first thing to go. Weight your options carefully.

This piece was not written to promote any specific hosts but I’ll gladly make recommendations if you contact me.

Happy host shopping!

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The site is powered by WordPress in order to let Lise manage the content herself.

Summary of work

• Site’s graphic design
• Site development and integration
• Integration of visual design into WordPress
• Enhancement and optimization of artwork images
• Natural optimization for search engines (SEO)
• Speed optimization
• Site hosting

Visit the site !

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Whether you choose to do business with a studio or agency or with a solo professional like me, there are certain selection criteria that you should be evaluating carefully in order to take the best decision possible for your business. This article describes 5 of the ones I consider most important.

Please note that, when I say “the professional” or the “Web professional” in this article, it can be a solo professional as much as a studio or agency.

Beyond the technical expertise or creative skills the firm or person you want to hire must posses, there are other signs, behaviors or attitudes that can give you important clues about what it will be like to work with them. The first 3 criteria listed below are of this type. The last 2 are more technical. Some of them may seem self evident but you would be surprised to know how many so called professional would fail to meet them.

The Qualities You Should Be Looking For

1- Listening skills

Beyond the mastery of their craft, good listening skills are the most important ones a Web professional should have in my view. It is by asking you the right questions, and more importantly, by listening to your answers that they will be able to understand your particular circumstances and define your project’s real goals. If they try to sell you cookie cutter solutions without trying to understand your needs (which can be much more modest than you think), look elsewhere. Cookie cutter solutions can sometimes be cheaper in the short term but they rarely satisfy your unique requirements. You might have to start from scratch later. On the other hand, a pre-made solution can be much more complex than what you really need and be far more costly than a smaller custom solution uniquely crafted for your needs would be. It all depends… and a real professional should take the time and have the skills to find out what’s best for you.

2- Communication skills

Another key quality for me is good communication skills. If you contact a Web professional for the first time through an indirect mean like email or LinkedIn or something like that and not by phone, they should be able to give you an answer in a timely manner and always give you an indication of what the next steps are. On your end, you need to communicate what you want clearly in that initial contact. If it’s just an information request about their services or something of that nature, they should be able to answer within 1 working day or faster.

On the other hand, if you are requesting a quote in that first contact, the Web professional should at minimum ask to talk to you on the phone to clarify the project’s scope and requirements. Better yet, they should request a meeting in person if it is at all possible. Nothing better than a face to face meeting to size each other up and clarify a project’s details.

Preparing a realistic quote depends on the quality and completeness of information the Web professional gets from you. It cannot be done in a few minutes and generally requires a few days to be done right. It’s not just a matter of writing it. Some thought and analysis has to go into it and that takes time. After that they’ll be able to write a detailed quote (more about that in item 5).

In any case, the Web professional should clearly communicate their next steps to you and if they are waiting on any additional information or material from you in order to to move forward. If communications from them are slow or unclear at this stage, imagine what it could be like during the project! Be vigilant!

3- Transparency

This criterion is obviously harder to size up if you do not know the firm or person you are dealing with. When I say transparency, I mean honesty or openness but also the capacity to get real with you if the Web professional disagrees with some of your demands or suggestions. A professional will use their skills and experience to advise and help you… even if what they say is not what you want to hear. They’ll have a good high level vision of the project and won’t be emotionally invested. A Web site is first and foremost a tool that will be used to serve the needs of your business and your clients or site visitors. Business objectives and user needs should always prevail over mere personal preferences so keep that in mind when critiquing the professional’s work. Design is not art. It’s a process to create effective communication pieces or user experiences.

When I say transparency, I also mean honesty about the Web professional’s skills and capacity to deliver what they promise when they promise it. It is better in my opinion for a professional to turn down a project and send the client to someone who can serve them better than to miss a deadline or deliver an incomplete Web site.

On the other side, you need to evaluate your requirements and deadlines in a realistic manner. Could the project be delivered in smaller chunks and only include essential features at launch then have the rest added in phases later? If so then don’t pressurize your Web professional into delivering a “complete” but inferior solution on an unreasonable deadline. You’ll never get a second chance at a first impression…

4- Costing the project accurately

Each project and problem is different and so should the solution. You should avoid any Web professional that only quote projects by the page or have fixed price grids on their site based on number of pages only. Unless your site will contain hundreds of pages, the number of pages is a mostly irrelevant criterion for costing a Web site project. Most of the work is about planning, analysis then creative design work based on that planning and analysis. Next comes coding the initial HTML and CSS templates or integrating the design in a CMS like WordPress. Copying this base template to other pages is usually very quick work. Programming custom features, designing and building a database, all that takes time and weighs far more in the cost of a Web site project than the number of pages. This means that a 5 pages site can cost about the same as a 50 pages site as the same amount of planning, creative and basic coding work needs to be done in both cases.

On the other hand, this kind of fixed price grid can be fine if it’s used as a baseline that will give you a ball park idea of how it might cost to get your project done by this professional. All projects are different yes, but some types of projects have similar requirements and the custom work needed could be minimal. The professional should be clear that the price grid is a baseline and that any unique requirements will cost extra.

But, if a Web design services supplier only sells work by the page and that is their only criteria for costing (along with number of “graphics” per page or some other similarly silly criteria), you will probably end up with a site that has been copied dozens of times with minor variations. The supplier probably uses the same base templates on each project with the same basic layout. Even if it’s not as obvious as that, they still probably won’t take your particular needs into account if your site has few pages as they would not be able to turn a profit if they put in the time really needed to craft a personalized solution. The results will probably disappoint you and you’ll soon have to start from scratch.

5- Quality of the quote

The type of quote you will receive when you request one and the level of details in it are also good indicators of the level of professionalism of the professionalyou are negotiating with. Without going into the minutiae of the project, the quote should clearly and accurately describe the work, services and deliverables the Web professional will provide for the stated cost. This can include an approximate number of pages, the technologies used to build the site, the number of graphical comps and number of revisions they will provide, etc. The quote should also include a reasonable estimate of delivery time but keep in mind that no one can plan for every contingency…

The quote should also come with an introduction letter where the supplier restates the project’s goals and requirements as they understand them at this stage. This description should tell you if they understood the general business requirements and the project’s goals correctly.

Other criteria you should pay attention to

1. Their own Web site: Is the supplier’s own Web site updated regularly? Does it load fast? Does it look professional?
2. Portfolio: Look at the firm or designer’s portfolio. Visit their client’s sites. Evaluate them as in the previous point. Do their sites all look alike? This could be a sign that the designer applies the same “recipe” to each project with little to no regard to their clients’ specific needs. On the other hand, if they specialize in working for clients in a very specific niche, it would be normal that each site share some similarities.
3. Past clients’ testimonials: Does the designer’s site display some client testimonials? Are they attributed to people with company names you can look up so you can contact them and get references?

If you follow these criteria and trust your instincts, you will surely find a Web professional that can provide the solutions you really need and who you’ll like working with. For me, the creation of an effective Web site and Internet strategy is a collaboration with my clients. Consider the person or company you’ll choose to work with as a partner and adviser and not a mere supplier of consumer goods. If they are real professionals, they will be on your side and try to advise you the best they can. Trust them. They are experts in their field and their reputation depends on the quality of their work…

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I will be able to start publishing articles with tips and tricks to help small business, orgs or micro-companies stand out and build an effective Web presence. I have many ideas for new articles and I’m excited to start working on them again.

The one major addition I made to the site is the new “get a quote” form. This form is a shortened version of the Project Planner document I have been using for a while now which is much appreciated by my clients who used it. I’ll explain more about it in a future article but it’s a really great tool to help you jump start your Web site project as it makes you think about every aspect, especially if you do not know where to start. Another addition is the “What my Clients Are Saying” text rotator in the right column of several pages where you’ll be able to read the testimonials of some of my past clients.

Furthermore, I finally updated my projects portfolio which is something I haven’t had the time to do for many months. You can now see my latest projects there, most of which are powered by WordPress with great results for their search engines ranking.

So, welcome to Webfocus Design… again! I’m passionate about the Web and I can help you with any Internet or brand strategy project from a simple Web site to the design of your entire brand image. Don’t hesitate to contact me!

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I worked on the site’s redesign with the single  idea that I needed to make a site that was as engaging and inviting as Bruno and his wife Nancy are in real life. I worked on this one for a long time in between other projects but, when we finally launched it in early october 2010, the reaction from Café-Vrac’s customers was even better than I hoped. Now we’re striving to open new markets in the rest of Canada…

Project Objectives & the Work I Did

Again, the main objective here was seemingly simple: improve the user experience everywhere in the site and make it look warm, inviting and professional. I started by designing a color scheme and the logo. Then the layout of the site evolved naturally from that using elements and colors inspired by the world of coffee. Product categories are prominent and navigation is clear. The shopping cart is driven by a heavily modified version of Cartweaver which I adapted to suit the project’s needs, including making it bilingual. A blog driven by WordPress was also added and I am managing Cafe-Direct’s Twitter account to promote the products outside of Quebec and all over the rest of Canada.

Work Summary

• Logo design and color scheme
• Information architecture (Web site)
• Web site design and layout
• Web site development (HTML/CSS/JavaScript/ColdFusion)
• Shopping cart integration and modding (Cartweaver)
• Ongoing Web site maintenance
• Social Media and community management (@cafedirect)

Visit the site!

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I designed a simplified and cleaned up version of his existing site design and integrated it into WordPress using a new theme framework. I them moved on to adding, updating and changing several extensions including a new way to display his artwork. I finally installed and configured a very efficient caching solution to speed up his site.

I am still working with Pierre helping him optimize his site for search engines. We’re also currently planning 2 new Web sites for different projects.

Work Summary

• Updating WordPress and several extensions
• Installation of a new theme framework
• Integration of a simplified design layout (WordPress + CSS)
• Added and changed extensions
• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Site speed optimization (implementation of efficient caching strategy)
• WordPress training

Visite the site !

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I built their site with WordPesss as it is going to grow and evolve with time. I took the client’s visual design and integrated it in WordPress. I then added the content and optimized the site for search engines.

Work Summary

• Installation and configuration of WordPress
• Installation and configuration of the different plugins required
• Integration of the client’s visual concept (WordPress + CSS)
• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Site speed optimization (implementation of efficient caching strategy)
• WordPress trainning

Visite the site!

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I started this project with a thorough analysis of the association’s needs. They included the necessity to promote their press releases, exhibits annoucements and other events to as large an audience as possible. WordPress’ blog feature is ideally suited to this task. Articles published on the blog are automatically displayed as excerpts on the home page and the Events section (Activités). This enables visitors to find the information they need quickly and see more details if they want. The blog also greatly helps the site’s ranking in search engines as it provides regular fresh content.

As for the Virtual Gallery, WordPress’ multisite feature enables each of the Gallery’s members to have their own completely separate site where they can display their art and information about themselves. Each of the Virtual Gallery sites also has its own separate blog to which visitors can subscribe to get news from their favorite artists. I can even point the artsist’s domain to their site if they have one.

Project Objectives

The project had 3 main objectives. The first was to refresh the visual design of the site and make it easier to use and navigate for visitors. Secondly, the previous version was built with the Flash technology which can be a great solution for some projects but not really appropriate for this one. It really hurt the performance of the site in search engines. So improving the site’s ranking was a major goal here. Since the new version of the site went live in early February 2011, it’s performance in search engines has jumped dramatically and the number of subscribers to the blog is growing constantly.

The third objective was to offer members of the Virtual Gallery a more flexible and easier to use platform to manage their sites. Again, WordPress was the ideal solution to this request and, the use of a powerful image gallery management and display plugin eases the process for people who are not always at ease with computers. Complete documentation was also created specifically for Virtual Gallery members in order to help them add and edit images and content for their sites. A more general version of that documentation is available to our other artists clients who have WordPress sites.

Work Summary

• Information architecture
• Minor work on the logo and color scheme design
• Site graphic design and layout
• WordPress installation and configuration for multisite
• Creation of all the Virtual Gallery sites
• Integration of graphic design to all sites on the network
• Configuration of plugins and WordPress settings
• Programming of custom features (PHP)
• Writing and publication of articles on the AAPARS blog
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Ongoing maintenance and updates
• Design of several printed pieces for the association’s events (invitation cards, posters, etc.)

Visit the site !

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