1. A domain name (like outboxonline.com)
2. A web hosting service – the place where you’ll put the files that make up your website so that you can access them through your domain name (see above)

These can be mysterious and often confounding propositions – where to begin?

If you’re just starting out, I recommend that you buy both before you do anything else about your website.  And buy them for as long as possible – usually it’s cheaper that way & search engines favor long-term sites .  I often get asked where to purchase them, and I use and recommend GoDaddy.com.  They’re competitively priced, have great customer service, and allow you to do everything you could possibly need to do to administer your website online.

If you already have a domain name, but no hosting package, I recommend that you get a hosting package through the same company (ie: registrar) that owns your domain name.  This isn’t necessary, but in the long run it’ll make your life easier.  If you own your domain name through a company that is difficult to work with (you’ll know this because you have trouble contacting them, and when you finally do it’s like talking to a pile of rocks), you can transfer it to another provider.  This can sometimes be a painful process, but it’s worth it.  Here are the basic steps:

1. You contact your existing domain name registrar and have them unlock your domain name.  Domain names are locked so that people can’t just initiate a transfer of other people’s domain names to their own account without permission – it would be chaos.
2. You also ask your existing registrar for the “authorization code” that you’ll need to complete the transfer.  This is like a password that only you know to make sure only the owner of the domain name can transfer it.
3. You initiate a transfer at your new registrar & provide them with the auth code.
4. You wait a few days for the transfer to take place.
5. Once your domain name is fully transferred, you should make sure you close your account with the previous registrar so you’re no longer paying them for a service they’re not providing.

If you already have a hosting package with the company to which you transferred your domain – have them update the “DNS settings” so that the domain name is connected to your hosting package.  Your website can now go live!  Unlike with domain names, if you had a hosting package with another provider, you don’t need to transfer it – as long as you’re set up with a new hosting package with your new provider, you can just cancel the old one and ideally get a refund for any unused paid time.

Here are some interesting things about hosting packages & domain names:

1. You might be asked about private domain registration – this is because there’s a public database (the WhoIs database) that keeps track of everyone who owns a domain name & their contact information.  If you don’t want that information public, you can pay to have the information replaced by the information of the service you’ve employed – thereby masking your info.  If for whatever reason the feds needed to get at it, they certainly could, but a regular person could not.
2. You might be asked if you want to pay for your domain name to be “certified” – there’s really no reason to pay for this.
3. You’ll often get a whole bunch of choices when it comes to hosting packages – like Windows vs Linux (the answer is almost always Linux – but your web designer/developer can let you know if they need the specific development languages supported only by Windows).
4. There’s also the choice of how much data you plan to transfer & how much storage you need – unless you’re hosting lots of audio and video files on your own server – you can probably stick with the cheapest option.  Keep in mind that companies like GoDaddy won’t bring your site down if you exceed the amount allocated b/c suddenly something you wrote on your blog ended up on the front page of digg.com (the Digg effect) – they’ll gracefully handle it and give you the chance to upgrade and pay for the additional traffic.  There are other companies (like one whose initials are N.S.) who will just bring your site down causing you major headaches to resolve and blemishing your online reputation.
5. And then there’s the option of multiple domain names — there are two things you can do if you have multiple domain names:
   1. If you want to own multiple domain names but have them all point to one website, you can just place a “permanent redirect” on all but the one connected to your hosting account (which would be your primary domain).
   2. If you want to own multiple domain names for multiple sites, you don’t need multiple hosting accounts – you just need to make sure your hosting account supports the ability to host multiple domain names (it’s usually slightly more expensive).

Once you have your domain name and hosting package organized, you’ll need to keep track of your account access info.  Even if your web designer/developer(s) will be handling everything for you, it’s *very important* that you know your administrative login & password (and a phone number for the provider), and the FTP login & password.  If your web designer gets hit by a bus (*knocking on wood*) – what will you do if you don’t have that info?

If someone owns your domain name and hosting package on your behalf (which is completely fine) – just make sure you’re also listed as an administrator on the account.

Phew!   It’s lots to know – but just like managing any project, even if you’re not doing the work yourself, it’s best to understand the work being done.

Related posts:

1. What’s in a name? Pretty much everything!
2. Tweet Your Blog
3. Social Networks for Authors

1. Design (and possibly implement) an engaging, usable, website design to sell a product or service, or to act as a resource.
2. Help the owner of the website understand their goals, so that their website helps them achieve said goals.

It’s often easy to assume that someone looking to have a website fully understands and acknowledges their overall goals.  To create a successful website design, not only does the client need to fully understand their goals, but the designer needs to as well to create something that helps meet them.

The aesthetic of a website is a big part of it – it sets the overall tone, maybe it needs to coordinate/match existing branding, it sends a powerful message about intention and personality, and it helps the site visitor know if they’re in the right place.

Frequently, however, people quickly and insufficiently address what they want site visitors to take away from their experience with the site (eg: a purchase, a signup to a service, a brand clarity, an overall warm & fuzzy feeling, etc…), and then spend lots of time worried about whether some specific text should be slightly less blue (for example).  In some cases, it’s important to be concerned with an exact blue.  Maybe you’ve already got a Pantone blue you use for branding throughout.  Or maybe it’s an issue of prominence, priority of information or clarity.  But many times people get wrapped up in details like this that are mostly about their personal preference… because at the end of the day, it won’t matter to the user, it’ll only matter to the person/people who owns the site and is making the decisions.

And it’s a tricky line to navigate as a designer.   While on the one hand you want to say, “it doesn’t really matter” — that’s not entirely true because it matters *to them*, and they’re your client.   Do you have a duty as a designer to tell them when they’re focusing on the wrong thing?  How much time are you willing to invest in helping someone achieve their specific vision for something before you are no longer a designer and are just pushing a pencil (so to speak)?

In my experience, the answer is to gather lots of information up front & to ask the right questions.  This gives the client has a chance to really think through their goals, and then during the design process you can weigh decisions against whether they’ll help meet them.  But that doesn’t always work out the way that you hope.  When all is said and done, sometimes making the client happy turns out to be the goal.

Related posts:

1. Client Spotlight: Diane Pinkard, author of Just Treat Me Like I Matter: The Heart of Sales
2. Client Spotlight: Diana Raab, author of Regina’s Closet

Do not settle for an old school “under construction” page, or for the domain parking page that your registrar puts up there to make money off of you while you get your site underway!  The page you create should have some basic, but critical information on it.

Here’s what I mean…  lets say you’re an author creating a book website:  You’ve been focused on getting the cover design just right, and the final touches to the content… the galleys are about to go out with your web address printed on them, and there’s no way your website will be finished in time.  But there are some basic things that you already have:

1. You have your cover design. So even if you don’t know what the overall look & feel of your website will/should be, you can work with the aesthetic that’s been established by the cover art.  And you don’t need design too much at this point — just keep it super clean and simple and it won’t matter if after you launch the site it looks quite different.
2. You have your contact information. You want to make it super easy for people to get in touch with you about your project.  Include at least an email address here.  If you’re already using social media for self promotion, include a link to your Twitter and Facebook pages, or widgets that show the latest content from your feed and allow people to friend you.   If you have a blog, you can place a small feed of your blog’s content right there on the page, and a link to subscribe.
3. You know what your project is about. A short synopsis to help people know they’re in the right place and to leave them intrigued is very helpful.  After all, you want them to come back after the site fully launches – so leave them wanting more.  Some people have an email signup so that interested parties can be notified when things change, or they can receive a newsletter with updates — this is a great way to stay in touch with people who you can then encourage to come back and see the site after the launch.

If you plan to build your site in Wordpress (my CMS platform of choice), there are even free themes or plugins that make having a “Coming Soon” page super easy:

• http://changingroom.wordprezzie.com/ — super basic theme that allows people to subscribe to the feed which will let them know when the blog has been updated in the future.
• http://wparchive.com/ice-breaker-wordpress-theme/ — has slightly more functionality than Changing Room (above).
• http://themeshaper.com/wordpress-domain-parking-theme/ — sells itself as an alternative to Domain Parking by your registrar.
• http://sw-guide.de/wordpress/plugins/maintenance-mode/ — this is a plugin that allows you to create a custom page to display while you’re working on your site.  It’s great because site admins (if logged in) can see the site-in-progress, but regular site visitors see the holding page.  Also, should you ever need to work on your site in the future, going back to it is just the flip of a switch.  I like this best because you can customize the page completely.

If you don’t plan to use Wordpress, you or your web designer can easily (and quickly) create a holding page for your website that has exactly what you want on it.

Related posts:

1. What’s in a name? Pretty much everything!
2. Ask a Reviewer: Irene Watson of Reader Views and Inside Scoop Live
3. Finding your online identity.

1. Keep it short: Website readers are impatient, so they scan website content – it’s often too much work to really “read” on the web & there are so many sources of information that people will find another source if yours doesn’t immediately deliver. Also, because of the nature of the medium people read more slowly and avoid large blocks of text. You can deliver a longer message below the fold or on other pages of your site, but avoid information overload on landing pages.




2. Keep it organized: So, if you work hard and have found a way to delivery your message in short, punchy bunches – how do you display it so that it’s visually appealing? You could try a list, or a grid. Either of these options give people’s eyes a chance to rest on a single item before moving on to the next one. Also, consider placing information in places where people might need it – even if it’s not in a consistent place on each page, or is tangental the current topic. For example – if your website is about nutritional deficiencies and you’re planning the content on the page that talks about Iron Deficiency, place a testimonial or patient profile that has to do with Iron Deficiency there on the page. There’s no reason that shouldn’t also be on a page of testimonials, or patient profiles, but placing it where it reinforces your message helps build your authority.
3. Keep it meaningful: No one likes a hard sell – and web users are a particularly skeptical bunch. Most people have become immune to the exaggerated hyperbole that exists on the web & ignore it when they see it. Rather, keep your headlines short and clear, and make sure your content is offering something to your user. It might be instruction, it might be support, it might be laughter – but make sure you write it while thinking of what your audience will get out of it, not what you will get out of it.

With those tips in mind, check out what your competition has done . . . Is there a common method for grouping your type of content? Are there common navigation elements your users will be looking for? What about the level of language?

Now you have the information you need to start writing! Figure out the major categories of content, and assign a location (ie: page) for each one. Then, think how you can simplify. You may not need all of your pages linked from the primary navigation along the top of each page. You may not need a full page of just testimonials if you can strategically place them throughout your site where they’ll have more impact.

Whether you’re building your site yourself, or have hired someone to do it for you, the time you spend editing and organizing your content now will make the build much more efficient & the end result much more successful!

Related posts:

1. Ways to interact with your site visitors

What do you wish you’d known about creating an online presence before you started?

I wish I’d had a better understanding of how search engines work to drive people to your site, and how to develop language and content based on that. I still don’t know enough about it and it’s not what I want to spend my time thinking about. My instincts were to just write good content without regard to how it shows up in search engines.

What’s the most important thing you learned about online marketing along the way?

The most important thing I’ve learned is that if you want to be successful at selling something on the web, FIRST you need to build a relationship with people who come to your site and you need to provide them with something real whether it’s content, product or something else. You need to give a little before you can take. I’ve also learned that it’s a constant process of fine tuning – your site is always a work in progress.

What’s the best advice you have for someone just getting started now?

Try to look at your site from the point of view of someone coming to it and what their needs are – vs. just focusing on what you want to get out there and say about yourself and your product or service. If you misjudge what people need and want because you’re focused on you and not them, your site won’t be relevant.

Related posts:

1. Client Spotlight: Linda Allan, author of I Quit!
2. Client Spotlight: Diana Raab, author of Regina’s Closet
3. Client Spotlight: Bill Trimble, author of Screw It! I’ll Be My Own Contractor

There is a saying: “The reason the world is round is so people will not be able to see what is coming or lies ahead.” Well, I can really relate to that. For a long time I have had a passion to write a book. And I did write a book. But my belief was that writing the book was the majority of the work; that everything would just fall into place and everybody would want to buy my book. Wow, was I in for a HUGE RUDE awakening. Writing the the book was just a tip of the iceburg! The work truly starts after the book is written – that is my lesson learned! So the advice I have for anyone wishing to follow your dreams – be sure you also are EXTREMELY passionate and tenacious about fulfilling your dreams. And that you have the positive mindset to travel the journey and weather the storms to accomplish your dreams and goals. Also, you must have the unbending commitment, belief, and faith to enjoy the ride (up and down), learn the lessons (many) and tackle the challenges (also, many) that present themselves along the way. Most important: Come from a place of what you have to offer to the universe – not what you expect (or hope) the universe is going to give you (i.e. notoreity, money). These lovely gifts will naturally come when you properly align your forces with what you have to give – not with your expectations of what you want to get! And when you are committed this special place – from your heart and soul – you naturally open up to the universe and the right people come to help you.

Related posts:

1. Client Spotlight: Linda Allan, author of I Quit!
2. Client Spotlight: Laurie Richter, author of Put Me In, Coach!
3. Client Spotlight: Bill Trimble, author of Screw It! I’ll Be My Own Contractor

What do you wish you’d known about creating an online presence before you started?

Honestly – that it was relatively simple. I anticipated much more time and effort than it actually took to get up and running.

What’s the most important thing you learned about online marketing along the way?

I have discovered that having an on-line presence means very little until you can create traffic to your site. There are hundreds of millions of people on the internet every day, but they have to know how to find you.

What’s the best advice you have for someone just getting started now?

Have a concept in mind before you go to a professional. Think about what you want the home page to look like and what you want to say there. How many pages or tabs are essential? What are the color schemes you want to use? Keep it simple, you can add on after you’re live and see what kind of feedback you get. Then give it to Kate. She will have you on the internet before you can say Kate McMillan. I’ve received many positive comments on my website, so I am really proud of it.

Related posts:

1. Client Spotlight: Linda Allan, author of I Quit!
2. Client Spotlight: Laurie Richter, author of Put Me In, Coach!
3. Client Spotlight: Diana Raab, author of Regina’s Closet

You must think of all the ways you can to drive traffic to your site.

What’s the most important thing you learned about online marketing along the way?

I learned that whenever possible you need to link back to your website, whether you are answering emails or responding on someone’s blog or sending snail mail. It also helps to join as many social organizations as possible.

What’s the best advice you have for someone just getting started now?

Keep your website up-to-date. Instead of bombarding Kate with one or two updates more frequently, what I do is keeping a running list and wait until I have at least 5-10 items which need updating before sending to her.

Related posts:

1. Client Spotlight: Laurie Richter, author of Put Me In, Coach!
2. Client Spotlight: Linda Allan, author of I Quit!
3. Client Spotlight: Book Shepherd & Marketing Specialist

If you’ve authored a book, for example, the book title is a good place to start, but why not also buy up a domain name related to the genre or topic? Domain names come cheap these days, so there’s no reason not to buy a bunch of them when launching a new site. The one that returns the most amount of traffic should be the primary one, and all the others should be permanently redirected to the primary one. The company through which you buy your domains can easily take care of that for you.

Also, if you don’t already own your name as a domain name, whether you’re an author or a small business owner, go out and purchase it right now.  And if you’re selling yourself as a service professional (eg: a consultant, a designer, a copywriter, etc…) it’s even more important.  You may not want your name as the primary domain name for your offering, but it’s a great thing to have in your back pocket as a redirect.  And in the future, if you begin to have multiple locations on the web for new projects, you can use your name as a one-stop-shop that links to all your locations on the web, including your social networking sites (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc..).

If the name you really want isn’t available, get creative!  For example, my design business is called Outbox Online, operated under my name, Kate McMillan…  and the primary domain name is outboxonline.com.  But I also own katemcmillan.com, katherinemcmillan.com and iamkatemcmillan.com.  As long as the name you go by is in there, you’ve achieved your goal.

By choosing a domain name that doesn’t have to do with your offering, you may be leaving site traffic on the table and making it difficult for people to find you.  In certain cases it may not be important or appropriate to drive traffic to your site based on what you offer, but that’s seldom the case… so make sure you’re making an informed decision!  I, for example, will be taking my own advice as soon as I finish this blog post!

Finally, be sure you’re linking to your calling card site wherever you have a profile online, and if you don’t already have one, be *sure* to set yourself up with a Google Profile.

Now, get out there and make yourself internet friendly!

Related posts:

1. Getting your domain name(s) and web hosting organized
2. Social Networks for Authors
3. 8 Communities for Book Lovers

This week I’ve asked three questions of Gail Kearns (Book Shepherd, Project Editor & Production Coordinator) and Lucy Levenson (Online & Offline Marketing Specialist) at To Press & Beyond, a full service book shepherding agency.

1. What do you wish you’d known about creating an online presence before you started?

You must be prepared to work on your website regularly each week. You need to be constantly finding new content to keep it fresh and interesting. Blogging, posting articles, keeping up to date with endorsements, finding opportunities to link to other sites in your niche, it is much more of a commitment that I had understood.

Visitors will stay on a website for only a few seconds if they cannot immediately find what they want. Make sure critical content and information is quickly available at the top of the page and it loads quickly.

2. What’s the most important thing you learned about online marketing along the way?

What is “IN” is constantly changing. When we started it was Google ad words and per click sales – now it is all about social media, like Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. You have to be constantly educating yourself.

3. What’s the best advice you have for someone just getting started now?

For authors with one book and no other products, it is best to direct visitors to Amazon to purchase a title, rather than setting up e-commerce on the author’s site. A large percentage of buyers will go to Amazon anyway. As Amazon provides free exposure worldwide, authors need to optimize their Amazon author page. Having a title properly listed on Amazon can create demand for it everywhere. It doesn’t matter if you’re a famous author or an unknown.

Related posts:

1. Social Networks for Authors
2. Client Spotlight: Linda Allan, author of I Quit!
3. Client Spotlight: Ann Levine, Law School Expert

1. They don’t understand the internet, what it’s capable of, and how to use it to their benefit.
2. They understand the internet, but they don’t have the skills necessary to create a web presence for themselves, and don’t want some standard ubiquitous template that may or may not meet their needs.
3. They have some skills, but not enough time/energy to figure out all the details.
4. They know exactly what they are doing, but don’t want/need to do it for themselves.

Rarely do people fall neatly into those categories, however.  Often times someone knows a little bit, but needs some help to get going.

If you’re getting ready to hire someone to help you with your web presence, I recommend that you keep the following in mind:

• Get organized. And I don’t mean just knowing where you’re going to get your domain name and hosting, or the big testimonial you want featured on the Home page.  I mean that you are clear about what the goal of you project really is.  For example, do you want to attract new customers or service exiting ones, or both?  Do you want to enrich your existing brand, or create a new one?  Do you want to attract a wide audience, or are you looking for a particular group of people?  Once you have a clear goal, make a list of what you might put online to help reach that goal, then solicit advice from people who are experts in web marketing and find out if what you have planned will realistically help you meet that goal.  Only once you feel confident that your idea will help serve your goal should you hire a web designer to help you put the plan into action.  Many times, a web designer wears both hats, but it’s important not to jump straight into what the site will look like before you’ve talked about what you want your web presence to *do*.
• Do your research. Having an idea of what your competition looks like and what they’re doing online is critical knowledge.  Not only will this help you get more fluent in what your customer/audience will expect from you, but it’ll help you talk with your designer about how your ideas will be implemented.  For example, it’s not enough to know that political candidate websites heavily leverage patriotic colors and iconography…   you need to go further into the voice and tone of the site, how their site is organized, and what kind of content they’re offering.  This will help you position yourself in the marketplace and communicate your wants and needs to your web team.  Remember, you’re hiring them not because they know about *your* business, but because they know about theirs.  Helping them get up to speed on your business so they can create a great solution for you will streamline the process and make sure everyone is playing to their strengths.
• Understand your limitations and don’t be ashamed of them. This is often the most difficult hurdle to overcome when working towards a successful web presence, but it’s important to leverage the expertise of people who fully understand all the available options to be successful.  Remember, your goal isn’t to acquire a new skill or to prove your intellect, it’s to make your web presence work for you.   And most likely your business/service/product doesn’t require you to be an expert on web design and marketing — it requires you to be an expert on whatever you’re offering.  The tough love here is that the less your web team has to dance around your ego, the more efficient your project will be and the more likely that they’ll be able to create something that really meets your needs.

In my experience, the most successful projects are those which implement the above tips.  They are not only more efficient (thereby saving money), but also encourage a type of communication that benefits the end result.  Make sure you’re leveraging your web team to the best of your and their ability…  they’re there to design solutions that make you and your project a success if you’ll let them.

Related posts:

1. What’s in a name? Pretty much everything!

One of the things I’ve never done is any sort of targeted advertising, and I don’t know whether it’ll be something I’ll need to do future. Instead, I focus my “advertising” energy on expanding my online presence via social networking.

Interestingly, especially when people find me themselves, they are all over the map with their understanding of the internet & many times my projects begin with me explaining how to purchase a domain, and “what is a web host anyway.” A great way to build trust with a new client is to spend the time to answer *all* of their questions up front… and to anticipate what they may ask you next. It’s a great opportunity to establish a rapport with someone new, and to help them feel like they made the right choice hiring you. Usually, the time you spend here isn’t billable, so think of it as an investment in your business.

Once the domain and host are organized, I usually begin by building a simple outline of the site based on conversations with the client. This helps to make sure nothing is overlooked, and that the site is organized so that the client is happy, and it’s easy to navigate. I do this ahead of sending a contract and a 40% deposit invoice. I treat it like an addendum to the contract — it defines the scope of the project.

I generally send over the contract, the deposit invoice, and the outline together. I also ask the client to send me links to designs that they really like, or really hate. I point them to design aggregators to help them out with this, as many times it’s very hard to describe in words what you’re after. Once I receive the signed contract and the deposit in the mail, I start the actual design work.

Usually, I create a visual design mockup in Photoshop. I make sure to keep in mind what will work well in a CSS layout, but not to let that get in the way of the desired effect. I start with a 1024×760 document, put up guides for a 780 pixel wide, centered column, and go from there. Usually, I design fixed-width layouts, and I find these dimensions work really well. Sometimes I’ll create a single mockup, other times, usually when I have less to go on from the client, I’ll create more than one and let them choose. Some clients are happy with it straight away, and others want to get really involved in this part of the process and do a great deal of art direction. I really let the client dictate this part of the process. But to keep things efficient, I make sure to stipulate in my contract that I include up to 3 revisions in the project cost, and beyond that I charge my hourly fee. Speaking of which, usually I charge a per-project fee, and only bill hourly beyond what is defined in the contract & site outline.

After the client signs off on the visual design, I get to work on the HTML/CSS. If the client’s web server is available, I FTP the files over there. If not, I host them on my own server for the client to review. I usually ask that as much of the content as possible is available before I start in on each page. And if the exact text isn’t ready, to give me an idea of how much I should anticipate and I use Lorem Ipsum as a placeholder. This helps make sure we’re both using our time efficiently.

Once the pages exist and all content is included, the project is “finished.” This is when I send over the final invoice, update my portfolio (if it’s something I want to include) & ask for a testimonial, and make sure my invoicing spreadsheet is up to date. Many projects then move into a maintenance mode where I help the client keep the content fresh and up to date.

And that’s the standard process. Of course each client is different, and each project is unique… and I’m constantly evolving this process as I learn.

Related posts:

1. Advertising: Putting yourself out there and accepting ads on your own site
2. Your Own Worst Critic: Designing for Yourself
3. Client Spotlight: Laurie Richter, author of Put Me In, Coach!