Blog Category: 1st Steps

I have many folks ask how to get started on their new small business web design. They are usually looking for a simple website, 4-10 pages, and just want to know how to get started.

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You’re a therapist, or a psychologist, or a psychiatrist, or a counselor – but wait you say, can’t I simply have an entry on Psychology Today, isn’t that enough? No, it’s not enough.

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Prospective clients often don’t understand the difference between domain name registration and website hosting. It is a confusing system, and hopefully this article will remove some of the mystery of website design basics.

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Clients often have free emails accounts when they start a website design project, and one of the decisions they need to make is whether to stick with their free email account or whether to utilize an email account that’s based on their website domain name. This post will review the pros and cons associated with each.

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How do you know what a domain name is actually worth? If you want to buy it, how do you know whether you’re paying too much for it? Tonight just for grins and giggles, I decided to see who owned Aldebaran.com – it redirected to another website, which meant to me that it wasn’t being used – so I figured I’d contact the owner and see if they wanted to sell it.

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How do you tell the difference between a domain, a sub-domain, and a sub-directory, and what is the difference between the three, and when developing a website which should you use, and for what.

This article is written for those of you who are in the process of looking for a website designer. One of the good things to do when you’re shopping, is to look through the web designer’s portfolio. Most folks looking through a portfolio of websites will notice the obvious, like what the websites look like. This article was written to hopefully help you notice something a big less obvious: whether the web designer is using “real” domains, creating “sub-domains”, or “directories” for his website clients.

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Is your small business website hosting company backup up your website? If they are, how often are the backup happening and how do you request a backup copy replace what’s currently there (assuming a mistake was made).

I had a client recently ask me whether or not his hosting company was backing up his website files. At first, I thought this was a silly question, because I thought the answer would be “of course!”

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There are many decisions a new website owner must make, and one of them is selecting a font for the content of their website. Often clients ask me to try out different fonts to see how they look. I’ve now made this process easier by creating my very own font-selection tool.
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I recently had an experience working on a website that was created using an online website builder tool. This article describes the experience of using an online website builder tool and your other options. My client had created the website herself using one of the many available do-it-yourself online template tools and wanted to integrate a shopping cart. After a few tests, it became clear that my work on the website would interfere with this website builder, and we had to abandon the builder altogether if we were to have a successful shopping cart integration. After working with the files that were generated with this website builder tool, I wanted to share the experience, because many of you might be contemplating doing websites yourself using an online website builder tool (free or otherwise).

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If you’re in the market for a website, selecting the right website designer for your particular project is crucial. Here are some things to keep in mind as you are shopping around and interviewing potential website designers:

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