Web Publishing Group » Website Advice

Don’t Forget About Maintenance

Dan Romanchik — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 18:46:47 +0000

Many small businesses think that once their website is up and running they can pretty much forget about it. Of course, nothing is further from the truth. As your business changes and as you get more sophisticated about how to work the Web, you’re inevitably going to want to make changes.

That’s why it’s so important to choose the right company to maintain your website. So many folks I know contact with their web hosting company to do it, and usually that’s the wrong choice. The reason for this is that website maintenance isn’t really their business. They’re in the business of web hosting, and the two businesses are often quite different.

I just talked to a prospective client this morning who was in exactly this predicament. They’re paying their web hosting company a substantial monthly fee for maintenance, but when asked to actually do something, they’re very unresponsive. The last change, for example, took nearly three weeks to complete. “It’s as though they never really expected us to actually ask them to do anything,” the client said.

Not only do you need a company that’s responsive when asked to make changes, but you should try to find one that can advise you on possibilities, one that will take the time to try to understand your business and come up with ways to make your website more useful to you and your customers. For example, instead of simply implementing a newsletter sign up form, find a company that can also integrate that form with MailChimp or ConstantContact.

One of the problems with finding a maintenance company is that so few Web developers and Web hosting companies are interested in that kind of work. They’re interested in collecting a big check, and then they’re on to the next client.

I, on the other hand, love doing maintenance work. So, if your website needs some updating or some new features, get in touch. I’m sure we can come to an arrangement that works for both of us.

The Importance of Monitoring

Dan Romanchik — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:59:04 +0000

This morning, I received an e-mail from a graphics designer who’d found me via biznik. She was interested in looking at my work, but when she went to www.webpublishinggroup.com, all she got was a blank page. This was very puzzling to me as this website is a WordPress blog, and I’ve never had any trouble like this with WordPress.

Fortunately, the admin screens were working. I first upgraded to version 2.8 (the new automatic upgrade feature of WP is really fantastic!), but that didn’t fix the problem. Next, I checked out the theme page. There, it was reported that my theme was missing the template file. I re-installed the theme, and it looks like things are working again.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that somehow the template file was corrupted or deleted, effectively taking my website offline. I notified tech support at my web hosting company, but I’m not sure that there’s anything they can really do about it.

What this points out is the importance of monitoring your website. If you’re like me, you rarely check to see that a website is up and running, but failing to do so could reflect poorly on you and your business. Worst case, you could miss out on business opportunities.

My priorities just got re-arranged. This morning, I’m going to research website-monitoring services and sign up with one that will make sure that this website stays online.

Six Overlooked SEO Tips (for publication websites)

Dan Romanchik — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 15:12:47 +0000

Six Overlooked SEO Tips has a couple of great suggestions for publication websites. While they are all good, the last one is something that’s easy to implement and could be quite valuable:

6. LOCALIZE
Whether a publication sells directly or through distribution channels, Riegel suggests placing detailed sales informationâ€”or at least an addressâ€”on each page.

Straight Talk About Making Money With a Website

Dan Romanchik — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 12:01:38 +0000

It’s nearly a year and a half old now, but OJR’s “How to make money on your news content website” gives some good advice about making money with a blog or other for form of website. One idea I hadn’t thought of is to get funding from a foundation or some similar nonprofit group.

Improve YouTube Video Quality

Dan Romanchik — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 19:50:59 +0000

Many YouTube videos can be played at higher quality by making a simple change to the URL used to access the YouTube page. Just modify the URL in the address bar by adding “&fmt=18″ to it. The visual difference is quite noticeable.

If you are posting a link to a YouTube video, you could choose to include the “&fmt18″ right in the link. Note that YouTube users can also set a video preference in their YouTube account that determines the video quality they see normally.

For more information on this and other YouTube and video tips, visit Jimmy Ruska’s Blog.

Use Forums to Increase Website Traffic

Dan Romanchik — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 13:39:20 +0000

Josh Klein makes a good case for using forums (and mailing lists, I might add) to drive traffic to your website. I think this is one of the most overlooked methods of increasing website traffic, but also one of the most effective.

It’s great for your Google ranking, too. I have the #1 rated ham radio blog on Google. That is, when you search Google for “ham radio blog” or “amateur radio blog,” I am the #1 link. I think the biggest reason for this is that I participate in many amateur radio Yahoo Groups. On each of my posts, my signature carries the URL of my website, www.kb6nu.com.

Twelve Tips for Growing Positive Communities Online

Dan Romanchik — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 15:10:08 +0000

Over the years, I’ve been involved with many different online communities— some that thrived and were a joy to be a part of, some that devolved into a series of flames, and some that simply never seemed to get off the ground. On the Knight Citizen News Network, they’re running the article, “Twelve Tips for Growing Positive Communities Online” by Amy Gahran. The tips include:

Are you right for this job?
Publish conduct guidelines
Set a good example
Seeding: Invite and encourage civil people
Prevent comment spam
Work behind the scenes
Highlight the best contributions
Don’t allow anonymous comments
Moderate comments and/or posts
Require user registration
Shut down destructive threads
Keep your sense of humor

Read the complete article.

Tips for Choosing Domain Names

Dan Romanchik — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 02:27:33 +0000

The Inc. magazine website has two articles on choosing domain names:

They both offer similar advice, including:

always use dot.com and
use company names and brand names.

Both are good pieces of advice.