How to move your website between hosting services

You've decided you need a new company to host your website. Maybe you are unhappy with your current host company's service or perhaps you are just getting a better deal somewhere else. What to do first?

IMPORTANT STEPS

You need to make sure you can access all your web pages, forms, scripts, and images from the previous web hosting company’s server. You need:

• Your current FTP login.


• Your current FTP password. See above if you don't know it


• FTP software so you can connect to the server and download all your web folders (www.coffeecup.com or "google" Filezilla and download that.)


• A list of all current email addresses and passwords so you can recreate them on your new web server

If you do not have your login and passwords handy, contact your tech support at your current hosting company and get this information first before doing anything. Once you change companies, your old hosting company will lock you out of their servers and not return calls. Heartless.

After you sign up with your new hosting service, put this information in a safe place:

• Your administrative account number


• Your administrative login/password


• Your company contact name on the account


• Your POP3 server name -IMPORTANT. You need this for your email.


• Your SMTP server name-IMPORTANT. Ditto.


• Their tech support number.

Wait, there's more.

• The names of the DNS servers that your domain name (www.mycompany.com) will be transferred to on your new hosting company's servers


• Your FTP login


• Your FTP password

And still more!

• Obtain from your Domain Registration Company (this is the company you originally used to license your web site name)


• Your account login


• Your account password


• Procedures for changing DNS servers (online form or tech contact)

You will have to login into the Domain Registration Company’s account management screen and change the name of the DNS servers to the addresses given to you by your new hosting company. The change will take 2-48 hours to take affect.

Once you have done this, contact tech support of your new hosting service and tell them you changed the DNS servers on your account and ask them to “park” your domain (web name) on their server. This can also take 2-48 hours. Your site will be “up” when you see a generic welcome page when you open your website.

Once you see your generic home page, now you can upload your web pages, forms, scripts, and graphics. You’ll replace their index.htm or index.html file and your site will be active again.

A word about email accounts:

An ISP provides internet access and may or may not offer web hosting. Your ISP email will look like: joed@myispname.com (ex. joed@alltel.com).:

These are generic email addresses that are sometimes used for login names into your account. Do not lose this information.:

Your web hosting service, which could also be your ISP or a separate company, supplies email addresses that are associated with your web domain name. (ex: joed@mycompany.com ). If you have a web site or want your employees to use your web address on their corporate accounts, you will be given a web-based administrator’s page into which you will logon and enter your company email addresses and passwords. Generally, companies provide 25 addresses or more with their hosting plans. :

So to summarize, you can end up with 2 version of your email address::

• Your ISP address, which you should record and may or may not use


• Your web address, which includes your website name as part of its address.

Both of these addresses can be set up in your email software, such as Outlook Express and used to suit your needs.

Well, this certainly is a lot of technical information. If you feel overwhelmed, contact Digital Business Services and we'd be glad to assist you. Our support fees are very reasonable and we have the experience to help you move to a new hosting company without losing your valuable website or email information.

How much should a website cost?

How to budget for a website

You've opened a new business in North Carolina and now you're ready to hit the web with a great website. Having never done this before, you don't really know what to pay. So, like many novices, you surf the web and find great sites with all sorts of cool graphics, order forms, animation and banners and tell yourself "that's for me!"


To create and pay for a functional website (meaning one that does what you want it to do), you must write down what exactly you want it do. That means get a paper and pencil, or open up a word documents and answer this question:


What do I want my website to do?


Next, write down who you think the intended audience will be.


Rank your website in terms of marketing importance. Is it first on your list on how you wil market your business, tenth, last place?


Rate your own experience with the internet and website development. Very experienced or totally clueless.


Take an inventory of your resources. Do you have a professional logo, professional product photos, updated price list, text for the website in word processing format?


How soon do you want the website launched?


Who is going to manage the website after it's launched? (C'mon now, be honest. If you don't know HTML and other web languages, don't expect your web designer to teach you for free). Are you willing to pay for this maintenance?


Now you're almost ready. Next, check with friends, business associates or even competitors in your city or neighborhood and ask for referrals to a good website and internet marketing agency. That's how my company, Digital Business Services, gets most of its new business.


Discuss your background notes with the designer and ask for a detailed estimate. Be prepared to pay a deposit and the balance before the site goes live.


Have them tell you their business practices about billing the customer and ask for examples of their search engine marketing experience.


Each designer has a different pricing approach. But make sure you understand that if you start to make "conceptual" changes, you will pay extra! Example, "hey, I love the layout. Now, can we put some dancing beans on the home page that jump around as the visitor scrolls to make it more exciting?" Sure, but the price just went up.


A small website can cost as little as $700.00, while a large, functional ecommerce site could go into the five figures! Be upfront with your designer regarding your funding abilities. Don't play the cat and mouse game with pricing because it damages trust.


For example, a 10-page "ebrochure," meaning a "static" website with a few forms the visitor can complete will probably cost you about $2,500, unless you hire an advertising agency that insists on producing flash animation, full color comprehensive layouts and lots of big photoshopped images. Then you'll pay $10,000 for the same website.


Give me a call or write if you need help with putting a website budget together. I'd be glad to help.

How to create a robots.txt file

Instructions for creatings a robots.txt file for your website

The robots.txt file tells search engine spiders where NOT to go.
Seems odd, doesn't it? We spend time and money getting Google to find us, but then we have to create a file telling them to stay out of certain folders.
There are some valid reasons for that:

• Your website keeps articles and documents for your staff or students and you don't want them indexed by the search engines. Keep them in a folder on your web server called "articles," then configure your robots.txt file and they won't appear on search engine results pages.


• You are redesigning your website and have a folder called "redesign" on your web server and you don't want the folder indexed because the pages are just "practice" pages.


• You have images you don't want to appear in image searches, so you restrict the "images" folder through your robots.txt file

Creating a robots.txt file is easy. If you don't have an HTML editor, use Notepad that comes with Windows. Remember to save the file with the .txt extension so the spiders can read it. Upload it into the same folder as the rest of your web pages.


You can copy the template below:

# Robots.txt file created by http://www.put-your-domain-name-here.com
# For domain: http://www.put-your-domain-name-here.com

# All robots will spider the domain
User-agent: *
Disallow:

# Disallow directory /test/
User-agent: *
Disallow: /test/

# Disallow directory /picture_library/
User-agent: *
Disallow: /picture_library/


Notice how each entry begins and ends. Copy that as many times as you need for the folders you want restricted. Save as robots.txt, and upload. That's it!


Don't forget to change your robots.txt file as your website grows or you may end up inadvertently allowing the search engines to post pages you don't want on the internet.

Why do I get blank emails from my web site form?

Blank emails are a nuisance and can easily be fixed

This question comes up frequently from web site owners. They receive responses from their web forms except they lack data. No names, addresses, city, state, zip, etc.

What's up with that?

One common cause is a failure to validate the "submit" button on the form. This means your web developer did not put a small slice of code on the web form that will stop the email from going anywhere unless information is entered.

This is a bit different than validating each field, for example, "you must enter an address." This validation comes at the moment the user clicks the "Submit" button.


Confused? Hope not. If you've been plagued by blank email forms, let us know and we'll see if we can help.

How to register a website name

Registering your website name

Looking to get on the web but don't know what to name your website or how to register the name? Here are some tips for you:

• Open an account with a Domain Name registratar like GoDaddy, Network Solutions or DirectNIC


• Make sure you keep your login and password in a safe place. You'll need it in the future because without it, you won't be able to edit or renew your listing. Give them an email address you'll most likely keep for a long time as this is the address they will use to send you reminders when your name expires


• Each registrar has a form you can use to see if your name is available. Don't be surprised if your name is already taken as there are companies that buys names in bulk, and then try to sell them to you at exorbitant prices.
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• Keep your name reasonably easy to remember, as your business email will be based on your domain (web site) name. If it's long, full of dashes and tough to spell, it'll create a problem for you later.


• The internet uses extensions to classify a business. Like .com, .net, .biz, .edu (schools), .gov (government), .tv, and .info. If your name is not available as .com, you may want to buy the .net or .biz version. Also, if you can buy the .com, consider purchasing the .net and .biz versions so competitors don't buy them and use the same domain name


• A domain name needs muliple contacts. When you complete the contact fields, make sure it's your information in there so you can access the account later. Important tip: if your web designer registers your site, make sure they put it in your name, not their's, as that could be a real headache later. Whomever's name is in the registration contact information owns the name!


• If you are going to use a web hosting service other than the registrar you selected, make sure to call them and get their "named servers" information. What's this? Simply put, every domain name needs to be associated with a web server (computer) so the internet can find you. Usually they are in the format like this: ns1.servername.net, ns2.servername.net. If you don't know this information when you register your name, you can go back later and change it.


• Buy your names for at least 2 years so you don't have to deal with registering it every year


• Remember, you only "rent" your name and don't own it forever. Be sure to keep your account information and email contact information up-to-date so your registrar can remind you when it's time to renew


• One last thought: you'll get junk email or even junk snail mail telling you it's time to renew and pay some company you never heard of. Delete it or throw it away!

Hope this helps you get your North Carolina business online!

The web gets organized

Have a web site? Here's what made it possible!

Wired magazine notes that 25 years ago today the system of assigning web sites the .com address was tested. This was the significant event that allowed people using the web to type in an actual address instead of a string of numbers.

The impact? Well, trying having your customers remember 201.22.454.99 instead of www.ncwebnews.com. This also opened up the ability to organize the web into .com, .gov, .edu, .org, .biz, etc. These categories allow the physical number of addresses to grow as the internet explodes.

So happy birthday! Read more about this at wired.com.

Free list of internet directories

Get your North Carolina business listed in directories to increase your web traffic

Receiving visitors from Google, Yahoo, MSN and the rest of the search engine pack is certainly the predominant way we get traffic for our websites. But, referrals also come from directories and many of them have free listings. These directory links to your site not only will bring visitors, but help your Google Page Rank.

You'll need to invest some "sweat equity" into building your directory listings by logging onto the sites and first determining if they are appropriate for your website. Next, complete the registration forms and follow their instructions. For example, you may need to activate your registration by clicking a link in an email the directory send to you.

Carefully evaluate any directory that requires a fee for a link. Google may consider this a "link farm" and actually penalize your site. Look at the directory's content first to make sure it's not just a massive link listing with little or no content.

So, feel free to use the list of links below and we hope this pull visitors to your online North Carolina business:

Download the list