GET YOUR BUSINESS ONLINE FOR NON-TECHIES Domains, websites, email, SEO basics and analytics with Rob Riley
OBJECTIVES Domain registration, DNS and hosting basics. Web and Email hosting setup, packages and services. Types of email accounts - Exchange, IMAP, POP, Google Apps. Email accounts vs. aliases. Content Management Systems (CMS) - Wordpress and Drupal. Backing up and maintaining control of your data. Themes and templates vs. branding and design. Responsive websites. Google Analytics. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) basics.
DOMAIN REGISTRATION, DNS AND HOSTING BASICS - OVERVIEW How and where do I register a domain? www.123-reg.co.uk www.godaddy.com How much does it cost and what do I get? Basically, use of that name for the registered time. What is Whois? A tool to access information about a domain and its registrant. Sometimes broken into registrant, admin and technical contacts depending on the domain and registrar. Can be kept private at extra cost. http://who.is/whois/robriley78.com Use a regularly checked email address and don t let the domain expire! Keep control of your domain! If you re using a developer you might allow them to make necessary changes but keep the domain registered to yourself. Registrars, DNS and hosting services can all be in one place or entirely different places depending on your requirements. Often you will manage DNS with your registrar but you can specify different Nameservers if you need to manage it elsewhere.
Domain Registrar, Nameservers (DNS), Web and Email Hosting www.mediatemple.net HOSTING SERVICES
HOSTING SERVICES Web Hosting www.godaddy.com Domain Registrar and Nameservers (DNS) www.123-reg.co.uk Email Hosting Google Apps
DOMAIN REGISTRATION, DNS AND HOSTING BASICS - DNS The Domain Name System (DNS) masks IP addresses with names. This is so we can remember a name like www.apple.com rather than an IP address like 92.123.184.211. All web servers (hosts) have an IP address. Once you ve set up your web hosting/website, you will most likely need to update your DNS accordingly. mybiz.com.!! IN! A!! 22.23.24.25!! www!!!! IN! CNAME! mybiz.com.! shop!!! IN! CNAME! mybiz.com.!! us.mybiz.com.! IN! A!! 26.27.28.29!
DNS Web Server [3] The Web Server responds and delivers the website back to your computer. Your Computer [1] You type in a web address/ domain name. DNS Server [2] The DNS Server looks up the IP address and points you to the web server.
WEB AND EMAIL HOSTING, PACKAGES AND SERVICES - WEB HOSTING What services do I need? FTP, PHP, MySQL, Git and more. Space, bandwidth, one-click installations, backup, scalability and support. Media Temple Grid Service. GoDaddy Web Hosting. P@sswords! Websites are regularly hacked by scripts that iterate until they guess passwords. For all hosting and website passwords, consider combining letters, numbers, uppercase, lowercase and punctuation. Use non-dictionary terms and don t use your personal passwords in case you need to share them with a 3rd party.
WEB AND EMAIL HOSTING, PACKAGES AND SERVICES - EMAIL HOSTING POP (No!), IMAP, Exchange, Google Apps. Email services are often included with web hosting packages. Many devices and applications offer Exchange-type support - Outlook, MacOS, ios, Android. Real accounts vs aliases. Save money, time and confusion by using aliases where applicable. If enquires@, hello@, marketing@ are all going to the same person, do they really need to be separate accounts? Passwords. Stick to the same guidelines as above. Give each user/employee a unique password. Tell them to NOT write it on a post-it and stick it to their screen.
WEB BUILDING TOOLS AND CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS (CMS) - OVERVIEW As the title suggests, a CMS allows you to upload and manage your own website content and negates the need to employ a developer for every change. Some systems support multiple users with manageable permissions allowing granular control over who can edit and update what. Useful if you want other people contributing to your content, for example. Two very popular systems include Wordpress (www.wordpress.org) and Drupal (www.drupal.org).
WEB BUILDING TOOLS AND CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS (CMS) - WORDPRESS Download from www.wordpress.org (not www.wordpress.com) Requires hosting with MySQL Set up difficulty: Easy Built-in WYSIWYG - create and format site content and add media immediately Expandable with Plug-ins and Themes Fully customisable Built-in updating of Core, Plug-ins and Themes Need convincing? http://en.wordpress.com/ notable-users/
WEB BUILDING TOOLS AND CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS (CMS) - DRUPAL Download from www.drupal.org Requires hosting with MySQL Set up difficulty: Medium Requires extra configuration (Drupal 7) for WYSIWYG functionality and good media management Expandable with Modules and Themes Fully customisable Requires manual updating of Core, Modules and Themes Need convincing? http://www.drupalshowcase.com
THEMES AND TEMPLATES VS. BRANDING AND DESIGN - THEMES Themes are pre-built and pre-branded templates for a website. Hundreds of themes are available for both Wordpress and Drupal, both free and premium. http://www.templatemonster.com What should you look for in a theme? Generally themes are built by designers. While they can be customised and overridden, you should like the fonts and overall layout to begin with. A lot of themes have re-colouring tools built in that will allow you to alter them to fit with an existing logo or brand. Responsive (see below). Your theme should be designed to work well on all browsing devices. What if I change my mind later on? Wordpress and Drupal allow you to easily install new themes or build your own to custom designs without losing any of your site content history and configuration. Themes are generally updated regularly with bug and security fixes and new features that can be easily applied to your website.
THEMES AND TEMPLATES VS. BRANDING AND DESIGN - CUSTOM DESIGN The key difference is cost. A custom design (or front-end) for any website, whether content-managed or otherwise, needs to be designed, approved, built and tested. Some designers will work exclusively in Photoshop, Illustrator or equivalent and hand their designs to a front-end developer to build in code (HTML, CSS, Javascript.) Others will work directly in code saving some development time but in the case of a CMS, you still need someone well versed in your chosen CMS who can apply the design to your site. In some cases you may find one person capable of executing this whole process but often it requires at least two. Larger projects will often require multiple designers, developers and project management. While this is absolutely essential and a worthwhile investment for some businesses, it s not cheap.!!! A designer built it for me really cheaply but now I can t get hold of him to do any updates! Cheap designers/developers are surprisingly common but their business isn t sustainable. They normally disappear into fulltime employment. Custom design/branding is likely to require ongoing investment to a degree. An ongoing and amicable relationship is key.
RESPONSIVE WEBSITES A responsive website simply responds to the display that it s being viewed on, negating the need for any zooming or horizontal scrolling. http://www.smashingmagazine.com According to some sources, 60% of all internet usage is now from a mobile device. Most themes are responsive and any reasonable designer/developer should be responsive aware and capable. Can a non-responsive website be made responsive? Yes, absolutely but don t underestimate the necessary work involved.
BACKING UP AND MAINTAINING CONTROL OF YOUR DATA The majority of websites are a combination of files (mostly text-based documents and images) and a database (such as MySQL). Why should I backup? Host failure, corrupt database, human error, developer troubles. The most important stuff is in the database - site configuration and all text-based content. This is what will change and should therefore be backed up most often. Periodically backup site files too. CMS software, Plug-ins/Modules and Themes can often be re-downloaded from their original source but uploaded content such as personal images can t! Plug-ins are available for both Drupal and Wordpress that will back up your site database and restore from an older version. Some will email you the database or upload it to a remote location. https://www.drupal.org/project/backup_migrate http://wordpress.org/plugins/backwpup/ Store your backups separately from your site. When should I back up? Before and after any update or change to both site content and configuration.
GOOGLE ANALYTICS Analytics allow you to track your site s usage in great detail. Visits, referrals, bounce rates, conversions. Analytics can be installed on any site with some simple code. In the case of Wordpress and Drupal, very simple plug-ins exist for this purpose. Simply sign up at www.google.com/analytics, get your Tracking ID and enter it in. Test by browsing your site and going to real-time analytics. Use your own Google login for all your Analytics. If a third party needs to access them, add them as a user and just give them the necessary permissions. Stay in control.
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION (SEO) BASICS - OVERVIEW SEO is the process of making your website visible on search engines (Google! but sometimes the others too). It can be a complicated, mystical and expensive process, the details of which go beyond the scope of this presentation. Google is smart, efficient and evolved. Trying to fool it by persistent repetition of keywords and phrases at the expense of good site content and quality is, well, not cool. Google s (and other engine s) job is to return relevant results for people s searches. Try to optimise it for what it actually stands for using some of the following methods. Want to get good at SEO and Analytics? Try a Skillshare class before spending a fortune on a consultant. http://www.skillshare.com/classes/business/learn-seo-to-grow-your-website/986897421
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION (SEO) BASICS - SOME BASIC TECHNIQUES SEO Friendly URLs (addresses). Make your page address relevant to the content. mybiz.com/vintage-bmx-spare-parts is better than mybiz.com/page/2. Meta tags are information coded into your web pages such as a description and keywords that are visible to search engines. Sitemap. Either HTML or XML data that allows bots (and users) to find all site pages. Tagging (or Taxonomy in Drupal). Wordpress and Drupal both allow you to manage URLs, meta tags, sitemaps and tagging/taxonomy either by default or via simple to configure plug-ins/modules.
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION (SEO) BASICS - SOME BASIC TECHNIQUES Image titles and alt tags. HTML = HyperText Markup Language. Fundamentally, page content is marked up in order to describe it to a browser or search engine. Use page titles and headings appropriately. Well written copy using appropriate phrases and keywords. Keywords should be rich but not overdone. Backlinks are other sites that link to your web pages. Describe your pages appropriately when posting them to social networks or other sites. Read my post on vintage BMX spare parts is better than Read my latest blog post. Submit your site to Google at http://www.google.co.uk/submit_content.html. Do the site:mybiz.com test to see what of your site has been indexed with Google. List your business with Google for overall site visibility at https://www.google.co.uk/business/ befound.html.
GET IN TOUCH www.robriley78.com rob.riley@me.com @robriley78 LinkedIn 07900 002748 robriley1 (Skype) Slideshow PDF available at www.robriley78.com/courses