This is soooo exciting!
You've been watching your pages develop on the web right before your
very eyes! You're able to watch, because with each step of the
way, I upload a little more to a "top secret location" that only
you
can access. As you give me approvals, I continue to build your
website, you continue to clap, and we're almost done!
Wait a minute...what was that about
the "top secret location"? Oh, it's not really that top
secret...it's just an area of your server allocation that I upload
your pages to, and to which only you have the address. Now, in all
practicality, you could give the address out and show your
developing site to friends and family, but I recommend you just keep
the address to yourself....and maybe one trusted confidante...too
many cooks spoil the things you know. When your site goes LIVE
(meaning I change one simple character in the url and upload it to
Wsftp), everyone with internet access would be able to view your
website.
What is thing I'm calling Wsftp?
It's a secure file transfer program that gets your html on to the
www, and in my head it sounds like 'wis-fit'. Ok, now I know
what you're thinking...
Well, "whatever" is kind of
important. This free download is how all your pages, images, copy, photos, and contact information comes up when anyone
types in www.yoururl.com When you sign up for a server, or if you already
have a server (see Getting
Started) you will have access
to your wsftp. This includes a user ID and a password which I
will need so I can set up your account and upload
or transfer pages from my computer (local access) to your website
(remote access). This also goes both ways when I'm
backing your site up...I pull down from the remote into the local
and voila! We always have a clean copy of your website.
Learning wsftp is easy and if you
want to update your own pages, I'll teach you how to use it.
(see Maintenance
101)
Hmmmm.....you've got a friend that
looked at the site and he says it's too big or too small.
Unfortunately, the Internet is not like television. We can
cannot control what resolution people choose to set their monitors
at. What I can do is develop to the lowest common denominator
and go from there. Thankfully, the lowest common denominator
isn't 4x6 anymore or even 8x10...now it's 10x12 and I think you'll
find the majority of the surfers will view it the way it was
intended to be viewed.
What about the multiple browsers
out there? Yes, it's true, people don't all use Internet
Explorer anymore (although it's still a large percentage). The rest
are surfing with Firefox, Netscape, and of course, Macs. You'll
be happy to know that I have each and every browser downloaded to
use as a test bed. If something isn't working in one browser,
I fix it until it is.
You
can rest easy at night knowing that your customers are seeing your
site just as you are.
Once your site is launched and in
living color on the world wide web, you can start pointing people to
it and generating interest. I can design an announcement
e-mail, and show you how to send multiple mailings to multiple
addresses but only one address (yours) is visible. I also send
out a mailing of my own to my friends and business associates to
announce another launch and your site will be featured in
Website Originals.
I should take this moment to explain
one other small detail. If I have to develop your site on my
server you could face up to $200 in extra charges for me to transfer
it over to your server/domain name. This is because it's a
huge hassle (not to mention bandwidth issues), and nothing's ever easy. It's best
to start right off on your server (in a hidden folder that only you
and your closest confidants are directed to). When you're ready for
it to be live, I click a few buttons and there she is! There
are also some search engine perks when it's built on your server
since those darn little curious spiders like to see ongoing activity
and wisfitting all the live long day certainly is exciting activity...at
least to them anyway.
Oh, you already have an outdated site and you want a redo?
Well then....
