Doing your Website Maintenance Today, Keeps the Hackers Away.

 A website is not a single thing; it is made up of many different parts.

Here we are at the beginning of the new year January 2024. Many people are going to be starting new projects in which creativity is going to flow enthusiastically. This is all good. Keep it up and keep moving forward.

In my volunteer position I do a lot of work related to websites and there is always a blossoming of new sites and domains around this time every year. Especially with the small business entrepreneur. But in all this creativity something gets overlooked and that is when dealing with your new website one must not only keep the public facing content up-to-date, you must also ensure that the software which keeps the website functioning is kept current.

Many times when a call comes in from the owner of the site the initial problem is only the tip of the iceberg. I have seen sites running  software that is multiple years out of date. This often happens because the owner of the business has not been educated by the original website developer, just like a car one must keep the engine in good shape.

A website is actually not a single standalone piece of software. It is made up of three distinct types of software at a minimum.

1. The website software: This is the part that most business owners are aware of. You login update the items on your website and perhaps add a new item or article.
    
2. All modern website software comes with optional "plug-ins or packages" which usually have their own separate update process. When you log into the website you will usually see a notification of some kind if one of these plug-ins needs to be updated.
    
3. Since a website server is a computer there is also an operating system which must be maintained separately. Most people are familiar with Microsoft Windows for their home computer, website server computers frequently use an operating system called "Linux".

The owner of a website can usually update the first two items, the third is updated by the hosting company which provides you the site space on the Internet.
 

There are a few ways to address this:

• If you are not tech savvy, most website hosting companies offer, at an additional charge, what is known as a "managed website". This means that they take care of all the behind-the-scenes technical aspects, leaving you free to focus on the content and products offered.
  
  There are limits to this approach in that the managed website package may not include upkeep of all the software. Without getting into a great deal of technical detail websites in this regard function in much the same way as your home computer. There is the "operating system" which for most home computers is Microsoft Windows. Then there are the programs you license or buy which run in conjunction with the operating system.
  
  With this model in mind the "operating system" for your website is most often called Linux. Just like Microsoft Windows it forms the bedrock on top of which the website software runs. A managed site contract therefore only covers the website software and usually not the operating system. What this means to you as a business owner or entrepreneur is that eventually you will need to redo your website entirely. Sometimes the underlying operating system can be upgraded but even so it will mean a lot of work and usually it's easier just to redo the entire site.
   
• There are also companies like WIX which offer a complete integrated website packages. Here you take care of only the site content and overall design.  WIX will take care of everything else and with very few exceptions you will be good to go for many years. However these are more expensive and sometimes if you decide to move your website to another company you may find that you cannot. You can think of this is kind of a walled garden where companies offering a completely integrated website package that take care of everything are proprietary. This is not a critique of WIX, they are simply a well-known example, and like everything else in technology the information that is correct today will likely be out of date at some point.
   
• Make a long term agreement with the developer of your site so that they can continue to keep the software up-to-date and advise you on the best course of actions as the technology evolves. Unless you know what you are doing and plan to keep up to date with the technology, I recommend that you keep in touch with the original developer.

For a lot of people, the different aspects of running a website can seem obscure. After all when you visit a webpage it looks like a single unit. So in the accompanying video I show a few of the various parts and how the underlying operating system which is never seen by most site owners is can affect the operation of the website. It is not important that you understand the details but rather that you are aware that there are various components and that a website is made up of all these parts. At the very least you can then go to your website developer or company with a little more knowledge.

There are several other articles on the blog dealing with various aspects of website creation and upkeep. You can simply click this link to see the most current list of documents, or at any time, use the search box on the site to search for the keyword "website" or just click here to automate the search.

Take care and stay tuned, as the new year gets underway 😀!

Take care Patrick

Tips on Building Websites

 I've been building webpages and doing computer-related work for quite a few years now and in that time I've seen people excitedly jump on the "You Simply Must Have a Webpage." bandwagon. Of those people, the ones that decide to do it themselves, usually end up frustrated within the first month because they do not understand how people use the Internet. The scenario usually goes something like this:

Even if there website hostess provided them with guidelines and templates on design, there is a tendency to override the rules and create a webpage that is laid out much like a book or a magazine and in which the placement of photos in relation to the topic of the text is important. Then they are horrified when a friend shows them their page on a smart phone or tablet because they initially of tried to over format the content, resulting in pictures and text being out of place and generally very difficult to navigate on a smart phone or tablet. So rule number 1:

Do not over format your content. Make sure that your text and photographs make sense no matter where they are. Modern webpages are designed to be very flexible and they will automatically adapt to the device they are displaying on. When creating your page think more about the message you are conveying and less about the precise formatting.

Another pitfall people find themselves in occurs when they are choosing their colour scheme. Colour varies greatly from one screen to another. Your purple on black text might look great on your set up, but be absolutely useless to someone on a tablet.

Although modern systems will automatically download a great variety of fonts which does improve the chances of the webpage text looking the way you want, don't pick something really obscure. There is a reason why most websites stick to well-known fonts like "Arial" and "Times". These are more likely to be accessible to most devices. That is also the reason why if you are actually tinkering with webpage code itself (HTML- HyperText Markup Language ) most of the font and formatting options have been removed and are now exclusively in a language which only deals with formatting. (CSS - Cascading Style Sheets)

The other issue that is common with people designing a webpage for the first time is they don't resize their photos before uploading them to the website. To be clear I'm referring to the actual file size of the photograph or image. Modern cameras can capture a huge amount of detail that is just unnecessary for images displayed on the Internet. Not only that but large file sizes contribute to bandwidth usage on the visitor device. This can also really slow down the loading of the webpage if the device has to scale down an image. Unless you have a particular need for a high resolution photo you should make sure that all your photos and graphics are no more at most in an megabyte. Preferably one third of that. There are many services online that will resize photos for you. Also as was discussed above make sure the photo looks good across a few different devices. Extremely bright or dark photos can be problematic especially if they rely on a lot of shading. 

• A good place to start working with graphics for free is  https://www.canva.com/  Although this site focuses on the actual creation of graphics, as is often the case, the best way to learn is by doing.
• If you would rather download image editing software GIMP (GNU Imaging Manipulation Program) is excellent. Be aware though, the learning curve is quite steep. The program is free and open source.

While we are on the topics of images and photos please take the time to ensure that you have the appropriate copyright clearances. Many images can be freely reused provided that you indicate who the original author was and whether you made any modifications to the image. The Creative Commons is an excellent place to get images in this regard.

Modern websites use a variety of software. While you're keeping the content of your site up-to-date make sure that software is equally up-to-date. Many website hosts provide a "Managed Site" option which simply means they take care of the software side of things allowing you to focus on your material. This is a serious option to consider if you are not technically minded. One of the ways websites get hacked is that the software is not maintained and hackers will ultimately find flaws they can utilize to getting.

Also once your masterpiece of the website is close to finished, for the first time, because there will be and should be revisions, make sure you connected with services like "Google search console". This will not only help get you on the search engine listings, Google will also notify you of any potential problems related to the visibility of the website.

Tools like the the Google Search Console will take some homework on your part if you're not technically inclined and it by no means guarantees that your website is going to be an overnight smash. Getting your website listed in a way that will appear on search engines regularly and effectively is a whole other field in itself known as "Search Engine Optimization" and involves among other things understanding the phrases people use when they search on a particular topic, titling the individual pages and posts of your website in a meaningful way, and that's just the beginning. One thing you can do though is make sure the content of your website is up-to-date and regularly add new content. Think of what keeps drawing you back to your favourite websites. It is probably the new content they put up in a timely manner.

Finally, a website won't automatically generate traffic, rather it is where you want your traffic to end up at. One of the simplest ways to generate traffic is to make your website address part of your signature on all public posts. Then if the content on your website is engaging, over time people will come back.

To summarize:

• Don't be too concerned about the layout of the images and text. The information you are conveying should make sense regardless of the formatting.
• Keep the colour scheme simple. Check the website on a number of different devices.
• Keep your photos and file sizes small. Under no circumstances upload a photo directly from a modern camera.
• If you're using someone else's picture or artwork make sure to check the copyright and give them the required credit.
• Search engines have their own requirements for getting your content listed. This can take some ongoing work on your part.
• Keep the content of your site up-to-date.
• Keep the software which runs your website up-to-date. If you do not know how to do this ask your website host about a "managed site" option.

That's it. Wow, and to think this article started as an afterthought yesterday when I was helping someone straighten out the formatting on their webpage.

• There are several other articles on the blog dealing with various aspects of website creation and upkeep. You can simply click this link to see the most current list of documents, or at any time, use the search box on the site to search for the keyword "website" or just click here to automate the search.
  

Take care Patrick

Your Internet Garden

In recent months I have had several occasions to clean up websites with various issues and a few common points have become clear:

There is a mistaken belief among website owners that once a website has been created and is on the Internet it needs no more attention... Nothing could be further from the truth!

Websites should be viewed as gardens, in that:

• They take a fair bit of planning and preparation.
• Look beautiful when their brand-new and,
• Wither and die if not maintained. In the case of websites, they become horribly infected with malware etc.

If you read nothing else, please understand, that all websites must be maintained usually on a weekly basis. This is because, even if none of the content changes, the various components which make the site work frequently have updates. I have seen many wonderful sites run into serious problems just because no one checked them on a weekly basis.

This started out as a short article, but then I went down the rabbit hole, as I thought of the various questions asked of me in the last few weeks. The short take away is this: If you don't know how to do maintenance, for your own peace of mind, get someone who does.

The following text, briefly breaks down the various aspects of the website one needs to be aware of particularly if you are going shopping for a new site. As I said, I went down the rabbit hole, so if you're not technically minded or don't want to be bored to death :-) feel free to skip the following. Just remember to take care of "your Internet garden".

All the best, take care, and feel free to keep on reading...

Patrick Clark

There is confusion about the various services involved which must come together in order for a website to exist and what each of the services are actually responsible for. I.e. the domain name registrar, the hosting company, the actual software which makes up the website, and the web designer. Many companies offer all these services in-house as a single package and while this is very convenient one still needs to understand the various aspects.

If you are in the market for a website, especially if this is your first, please read on, because the choices you make initially can have a major impact later on down the road. 

A suggestion: if you are planning to do a business related website and this is your first endeavour. I strongly recommend that you consider creating a alternate website not related to the business in order to get some initial experience of the process, and work involved. Start with something, perhaps related to a hobby. The experience you gain will be invaluable, later on.

Aspect 1. The website address and the Domain-name  Registrar. People understand that this is the website address they type in to their browser and magically a site appears. But in reality this "website address" is completely separate from the website you were actually looking at. As a matter of fact, there are specialized companies, called Domain-name Registrars which sell website addresses. Once you buy an address, it simply means that no one else can use that exact same one. Also, having a website address, does not mean you automatically have a legal copyright. If you are planning to use the domain name in business, you need to check with a legal representative before buying the domain.

Domain-name  Registrar company controls what happens when someone types in your website address in their browser. This can get fairly technical. You will have a separate account with this company just for maintaining your website address.

Aspect 2. The Website Hosting Company. This is the company that stores the files which make up the website and make it available on the Internet. They do not provide domain names. The domain name must be "linked" to the website. (In technical parlance this is called updating the DNS.) Again, you would have a separate account just for maintaining your website.

It is very important to understand that these two aspects of the website are completely separate and hence the need for two accounts one, with each company.

Aspect 3. The Software That Makes up the Website. Modern websites use different software. This can have a major impact if you decide later on to move your website to another hosting company. For example, as far as I know, a website created on WIX cannot be moved over to a company that uses WordPress software. So it is wise to ask the hosting company before spending a great deal of design time on a website, whether the website can be moved. (Sometimes called migrating.)

Aspect 4. The Web Designer. This is the person responsible for creating the design of the website. They will have to deal with both The Domain Name Registrar and the Website Hosting Company. Be very clear at the onset about what their duties are. Also make sure you have a plan in place should they leave.

This is by no means an all-inclusive list but it does cover the obvious basics. Owning and running a website cannot only be profitable, in either the monetary, or in other ways, it can also be a lot of fun. But it does take commitment and you must embrace change. That is the very essence of the Internet, change and evolution.

Until next time! And who knows on what topic :-)

 

PS: There are several other articles on the blog dealing with various aspects of website creation and upkeep. You can simply click this link to see the most current list of documents, or at any time, use the search box on the site to search for the keyword "website" or just click here to automate the search.