Time is your most precious commodity.<\/strong>\u00a0 Most people that I interact with who are starting their own business need to make money and they need to make money FAST…like yesterday!\u00a0 They may not know what they’re doing but they know that they need to make money and they’re passionate about it.\u00a0 I love the enthusiasm of a budding entrepreneur!\u00a0 I generally speak to two types of people about their website and you’ll laugh when I tell you who these two types are:\u00a0 those that have a website and …. wait for it, those who don’t have a website.\u00a0 That’s pretty obvious; however, they share something in common which is the topic of this post.\u00a0 Neither group knows the secrets of website designers.<\/p>\n

Sometimes when I speak to my potential clients, the very first question they will ask me is how much it costs for my websites which is the WORST question they could ask me!\u00a0 My websites currently run anywhere from a couple hundred dollars to several thousand but what does that really tell you? I’ve answered the basic question without going into a diatribe about what it is that you really need but I haven’t helped you to make a decision.<\/p>\n

Sometimes when I speak to a potential client, they assume that they cannot afford my services and tell me as much.\u00a0 I’m always mystified when this happens because they don’t even know my website address which is not the same as my company name s I know they haven’t done any research on what my offerings are, much less have any idea on how a website could help with their business.\u00a0 If you’re thinking that your website is just a digital billboard on the information highway, you couldn’t be further from the truth!\u00a0 This is usually the time when folks will also tell me that they can create their website using a free new tool or they have a brother-in-law that does websites or what I do really isn’t that difficult because they heard someone else talking about it.\u00a0 I will always tell them to sign up for my Website Performance Tool which I offer for free on my website and wish them well on their endeavor.<\/p>\n

Thinking of Creating Your Own Website?<\/h2>\n

Their are secrets that every website designer knows that they typically will not share with their clients or even potential clients.\u00a0 They are secrets because we all know them and accept them as part of being what we do and we think they’re rather uninteresting to our clients.\u00a0 Not knowing these secrets can put clients in a precarious position if one of these things happens and the website designer has not taken the proper steps to mitigate the risks.\u00a0 What?!\u00a0 My website (and potentially my entire business) could be at risk?\u00a0 Yes, yes it could and that’s why you need to hire a website designer who not only knows the secrets but also know what to do about the secrets.<\/p>\n

Secret #1:\u00a0 Backups are essential!<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a>Prior to speaking with a business owner about their website, I will often do my homework about what they already have in terms of a website.\u00a0 I already know what it’s written in, where it’s housed, how long it’s been on the internet, what it’s worth, how fast it is, can it be seen on the newer technologies like the iPad and an entire list of things that I check out before speaking to the business owner so that I can have an intelligent conversation with them!\u00a0<\/p>\n

One of the very first questions and the most important question that I ask them is where and how often is your website backed up?\u00a0 They have spent considerable time, effort and money creating this website, you would think that it would be important for them to secure that investment, right?\u00a0 I would say that 90-98% of the business owners I speak to do not have a back up of their website!! \u00a0<\/p>\n

Disaster recovery is one of the first concepts taught in formal education when someone is getting an information technology degree because it is not a matter of if<\/strong> <\/em>your data disappears or becomes corrupt, it is a matter of when<\/strong> <\/em>you lose your data.\u00a0 It never happens at a good time.\u00a0 Think about it for a minute.\u00a0 How much time and money would it take for you to recreate all the content, programs, lists, custom graphics, logos, custom code that you have invested in your website currently?\u00a0 Every single minute of every single day, there are hackers out there who are thrilled when they can bring down someone else’s website or take it over and use it for their purposes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For me, it first happened during finals week when I was in college and had 7 projects due that I’d been working all semester on.\u00a0 What resulted as a result was 7 uncomfortable conversations with professors about why I didn’t listen to and apply the knowledge gained in the discussion about disaster recovery, total embarrassment, countless hours recreating a semester’s worth of work in under a week and a lesson very well learned!\u00a0 Ever since I have lived by the creed of “Backup frequently and often!” and some of you may have picked up on that statement being redundant.\u00a0 Yes, it is and so should your backups be redundant!\u00a0 For the rest of my college days, I had a minimum of 4 copies of my work.\u00a0 Why 4 copies?\u00a0 Because one time, the first 3 failed!<\/a><\/p>\n

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Time is your most precious commodity.\u00a0 Most people that I interact with who are starting their own business need to make money and they need to make money FAST…like yesterday!\u00a0 They may not know what they’re doing but they know that they need to make money and they’re passionate about it.\u00a0 I love the enthusiasm […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[26,369,525,15,19,537],"yoast_head":"\n