For about 6 months now, I have been working hard to create an SEO-friendly website that will give more exposure to car dealerships’ inventory. I can’t give all of my secrets here, as the automotive industry is a very fierce and competitive market.
I am not doing any tricky or that hasn’t been done before. I am simply following strict guidelines to make the internal link structure clean and symantic, to optimize the site to it’s fullest. Recently we redesigned it, and are hoping to launch the official site for Orlando florida next week. For updates and news, you can check out the official Orlando Florida Used Cars Blog, which will be updated constantly as we approach. We are looking to launch these sites in key areas across the US, and give all dealerships big and small an opportunity to list their inventory. Hopefully something like this can help an industry that’s in a lot of trouble.
Alright, for those of you not jumping on the train it’s time. As I mentioned 2 weeks ago, BLVD Status has been launched for public BETA. We have received a great response, and at this point have over 500 accounts already!
People are finding out why BLVD is so special. And to help convince you as well, take a look at some of the buzz we have been receiving:
I have been keeping very busy with some internal projects. One such project is a new web analytics tool that we launched today, called BLVD Status. We teamed up with Chris Bennett, of 97th Floor about 7 months ago. It’s been a long time in the making, and it’s a big relief that we finished today. I would like to personally thank my lead developer, Charles Berube, who is the best programmer I know. Without him, our vision would never have come this far.
SO WHAT’S DIFFERENT ABOUT IT?
Well, the whole reason we decided to undertake this project was the fact that we felt other analytic tools were too technical, too hard to setup, or too difficult to understand for most users. We wanted to make a tool that accomplished the following goals:
I am happy to say that we accomplished those goals. Here is a bit more information about what we did to accomplish it:
Live Stats
One analytics program we love is Mint. It has to be installed on the users server with a PHP/MySQL setup. Because of this, we were able to see our stats live. Google Analytics and others have a 24 hour delay. We understand it’s necessary to help with server load, but we are trying to stay “live” as long as we can. Our main dashboard for BLVD has 6 boxes, which shows you quickly and effortlessly what is happening with Conversions, Keywords, Referrers, Site Urls, Outgoing Links, and general Traffic. You can drag the boxes to the order of your liking, as well as set a refresh rate to give you fresh look. Needless to say, I keep my browser stats open all day.
Simple User Interface
One thing I loved about this project, was that I was able to design all the user interfaces and logic without having a client breathing down my neck. I tried to come up with a way that would connect all the pieces to give a nice understanding of what’s happening. I feel with too many analytics programs they try to show how cool they are by throwing in google maps, charts, etc… without a real clear understanding of how they should be interpreted. I decided then, to focus more on the individual users coming to the site. I am happy with where it’s at, and already have ideas of where to improve.
Less than 5 minutes to setup
One thing that is so rad about BLVD is you can literally signup for an account, put the tracking script on your website, and see your stats within 5 minutes. And with that, you can track more difficult things like RSS subscriptions, form submissions etc… with ease. Many analytics programs make you have to alter html code in order to track outgoing links and such. Our goal was to keep everything within the dashboard. That way, a user simply has to install the script on their site, configure their conversions, and they are off to the races. This will allow users of all different skill levels to track things once believed as complicated.
Detailed and intuitive reporting
As I mentioned earlier, we had the frustration that many analytics programs provide good data, but simply don’t present it in a way where it can benefit your website. I wanted to create an analytics program, where after looking at the data I could see what is working as far as design, referrals, advertising, keywords etc… Our reporting options at this point aren’t complete… but let’s just say they are going to blow any other analytics reporting out of the water, simply because once again we put the user in the captain’s chair.
Focused on Conversions
Every website needs a purpose. For example, my website is to promote my business in order to get more leads through my contact forms. One purpose of my blog is to get more subscribers to my RSS feed. Well, shouldn’t an analytics program then allow you to track where someone came from before they filled out your contact form or purchased your product? Or which keyword they typed in Google before subscribing to your RSS feed? Well, ours does. This is what we call Micro Conversions, and it’s freakin bad. When someone makes a conversion (you tell the system what a conversion is), you can look back at where they came from, which pages they visited before making the conversion, how long they were on each page, and how long the conversion took. This allows me to quickly see visitors actions before they do what I want them to do. This helps me think of ways to make the site more sticky or see which keywords/referrers are bringing the highest conversion rate.
We took it a step further too, for you social media junkies. You can use our code to place a “Digg This” button on your site, which will act as a conversion. That way you can track which keywords/referrers bring the most Digg clicks etc… It’s pretty cool.
We also allow you to see the current ranking of your keyword, as well as it’s average over a period of time. You can look at each page on your site and see which keywords/referrers led people to that page…. there is so much to learn.
I guess the next step is for you to get an account and try it out for yourself. There are so many other features I could go over, but it’s best you play with it yourself. We are working on some other nice features too, so stay tuned!
The link again: http://www.blvdstatus.com
And of course… let me know what you think!
My site was due for a makeover. I actually created 2 new designs, and would love to know which one you like more.
The live version I definitely like. My idea here was to focus on my recent work, and most importantly give a clean and modern feel. I like the overall tone, and feel it goes with my name and brand.
The first version I actually like a lot too. This one I had been working on for a while. However, I still felt it was missing something, and could feature my work a little better.
I think the main thing with both of these versions, is keeping things simple and clean. That’s what I am all about. Also, don’t think you can steal the second design since I am not currently using it… I most likely will work it into a future client. Or who knows, maybe a do an A/B test using both designs.
For those of you who would like to know, I used Spry to handle the animations. I created my own function that handles the timer to make it move on it’s own, as well as highlight the current number. Also, I used a simple function to pull my latest WP blog posts. The blog and portfolio are currently being redesigned. In the meantime, let’s get some feedback.
I think it’s time I focus a bit on WordPress, a terrific blogging platform. It’s what I use for all of my clients’ sites because of it’s compatibility, flexibility, and nice admin. I have a lot of experience creating custom themes for WordPress. This is actually pretty easy. When I recently designed 5ones.com , one thing we really wanted was to show recent posts from each category. In the industries 5ones covers, media-rich content is very important. So, we wanted to take these excerpts one step further however, and extract the first image of a post, and convert it to a cropped thumbnail to keep things uniform. I am very pleased with the result.
A word on WordPress Themes:
One very important file when creating a WordPress theme, is the “functions.php” file. This works like the plugin section in WordPress. Basically, when your template is loaded, so are these functions. It’s a great way to create specific functions you can use in your template files, without having to create a plugin for each one. And sense the “functions.php” file is only connected to that specific template, you can choose a different template, and those functions will no longer be loaded.
Ok, so how did you do it?
The first step was to show the post title as a link, the author, and then a small except WITHOUT an image. If the author put an image at the top of their post, I didn’t want this to show up. So, in my index.php file, which acts as the home page, I put in this code:
<?php
//get the latest 3 posts for surfing
query_posts('category_name=Surfing&showposts=3');
while (have_posts()) :
the_post();
//execute the output function
show_post($post);
endwhile;
?>
WordPress has a lot of functions built in. So I used their “query_posts” function to get the latest 3 posts in the category “Surfing” (I repeated this later on for Skating and Snow). Then, in the famous WordPress “while loop”, I execute the function “show_post($post)”. The “$post” variable comes again from wordpress, which is actually a post object, containing all the post info (ie content, author, date, permalink, etc…). So, then in my “functions.php” file, I have my “show_post()” function:
//show the post
function show_post($post) {
echo "<div class=\"post\">\n";
echo "<div class=\"img\">\n";
//checks for image
getImage($post->post_content);
echo "</div>\n";
echo "<div class=\"body\">\n";
echo "\t<h3><a href=\"".$post->guid."\">".$post->post_title."</a> - <small>By ".author($post->post_author)."</small></h3>\n";
echo "\t<p>".summary($post->post_content)."<a href=\"".$post->guid."\">Read Full</a></p>";
echo "</div>\n";
echo "<div class=\"date\">".dateFormat($post->post_date)."<br /><br />";
echo "<br /><a href=\"".$post->guid."#respond\">(".$post->comment_count.") Comments</a></div>\n";
echo "</div>\n";
}
For the most part, I didn’t have to do anything new here. I basically used WordPress’s $post object to access specific information I wanted, and put then put it exactly where I wanted it in my XHTML. There are only 4 functions being called that I had to create.
The being called is “getImage()”. This is the function I use to display the small thumbnail next to the post. Here is the function:
//checks to see if there is an image in the post
// if yes, it displays the image in a box
function getImage ($hay) {
$path = explode("<img",$hay);
if(sizeof($path) > 1) {
$src = explode("alt",$path[1]);
$file = explode("src=",$src[0]);
$url = str_replace('"','',$file[1]);
$url = str_replace("'",' ',$url);
$link = explode("/uploads/",$url);
echo "<img src=\"http://5ones.com/dev/wp-content/themes/5ones-v2/gen_thumb.php?x=62&y=39&src=".$link[1]."\" />\n";
}
}
I am not saying this is the easiest, nor best way to do this part. However, it works great for my purposes. Anyways, here is what is going on. I use the variable $hay to hold the actual post content (which I passed in my show_post() function. I then used the explode function to separate any possible image tags in a post. Then, I am able to check the size of the array created, and if it’s large than zero, I know an image exists and continue on with the function. All I am trying to do, is get the path for the image in the post. So, I do a series of explodes and string replaces to isolate the path. Then, I pass the image path I finally get to my image resizing script (maybe I will share later), that crops the image and outputs it. Beauty.
The next function I use is “summary()” which takes the content, strips out html tags and image tags, truncates the length, and then returns the result. It looks like this:
//returns a summary of the content and strips html tags
function summary($copy) {
$new = strip_tags($copy);
ereg_replace("<img[^>]*>", "", $new);
$new = substr($new,0,200);
$new .= "...";
return $new;
}
The last function I use returns the name of the author. Since the post only gives the id of the author, I do a simple DB query to get the authors’ name:
//returns the name of the author based on id
function author($id) {
$sql = "SELECT display_name FROM wp_users
WHERE ID = '$id'";
$q = mysql_query($sql);
$r = mysql_fetch_array($q);
return $r["display_name"];
}
These are the functions I use to create the home page you see on 5ones. Hopefully these functions can be beneficial to someone trying to create the same thing.
Just wanted to put a word out for a new redesign I did for an action action sports news and information site , 5ones, recently redesigned and launched. I must say again, Wordpress is so easy to use. I created a theme and used the mighty functions.php file to create the cool things you see, like parsing a post for images and showing them on the home page, and the way I set up the whole home page for that matter. I am very pleased with the way it turned out. Hopefully this will inspire some of you. If you want to know how I managed to do anything via wordpress you see, don’t be afraid to post.
Today’s post is pretty simple. For those of you who would like to jump ahead, here is your link. Website error messages are always something that seem a bit clunky on most websites. They either show up as crappy looking alert boxes, or mess up the pages design somehow. I would like to show you an easy way to display nice-looking error messages, using the “fade” effect from you guest it, Spry. This is really simple to do, and in my example I show how you can create a function in PHP, as well as use javascript to display your messages.
Fade via Javascript:
Calling a spry effect is very simple. You first need to create a variable which sets up the fade parameters, and then call that variable again and start the fade. It goes a little something like this:
var error_fade = new Spry.Effect.Highlight('errorBox', {duration: '1500', from:'#ffffff', to:'#ff3300', toggle: true});
error_fade.start();
What’s going on here? In english it would read like this. Create the variable “error_fade” and attach a spry effect to it. Make the effect effect the div on my page with the id “errorBox”. Fade the effect for 1500 milliseconds, starting with the color white and fading to a reddish color. The great thing about setting it up in the variable “error_fade” is that I can call it at anytime. I could set up another variable called “success_fade” and give it a different set of parameters. Actually, I end up doing this with php.
Fade via php function:
Obviously the php isn’t going to do the fade. All it will do is call the fade via a function. The great thing about this, is you could put this function in a class and use it to display any type of message, error or not throughout your application. On an app I am currently working on, this function is in my main file of functions used throughout the site. When I want to show a fade, for example on a successful form submission, I will call it. To see an example, submit the form in my example. You can put anything for your email, I am not validating it’s structure. Here is the function that is being used:
function success($message,$time,$from, $to) {
echo '<div class="success" id="suc">'."\n";
echo "<p>$message</p>";
echo '</div>'."\n".'
<script type="text/javascript">
var sts_fade = new Spry.Effect.Highlight("suc", {duration: "'.$time.'", from:"'.$from.'", to:"'.$to.'"});
sts_fade.start();
</script>';
}
Then you can call the function like this, and set all the parameters you want. For the success box on my example:
$message = "<h2>Your message was sent!</h2><p>A representative will contact you as soon as possible!</p>";
success($message,'1500','#f5fa73','#cfebf7');
Using this function is very easy. I can call it at anytime, reusing the code for you recyclers out there, and being able to set the parameters however I would like. One function to handle all of my needs. Well, I hope you enjoy. If you have any problems adding it to your site, let me know. Let’s all make error messages friendlier, and better looking.
Two days in a row. This is the best I have done in a while. I’m not sure what you will be most excited about today, whether it’s going to be for showing you how to use the UPS Rates and Services API, or whether it’s using Spry to do it in real-time, or whether it’s the fact that my stuff makes you smile. Anyways, here is a link to a working sample of my Spry’d UPS Rates and Service API form.
The Problem:
Too often checkout pages are too many steps and too long. Without me getting into it personally, I will give you a tip that will make your online stores more successful: Limit the checkout process to one page. Recently I had a client I built a custom shopping cart for. She didn’t need a robust system like Os Commerce or Zen Cart, so I built one in from scratch. When I came to building the checkout page, I kept asking myself “how can I make this easier for the front-end user”. After fitting everything into one page, and realizing I could use Spry to get shipping rates RIGHT after they put in their zip, I knew I was on my way to land a home run.
The Solution:
I guess there are two parts to this one. The first is how the freak do I use the UPS API of which they supply close to 70 pages of documentation? Well, first off read this article and download his code. I am not going to take credit in creating the function I use. He also takes you through what you need to do on the UPS website, how to configure his script, and how to use his function.
Mark’s script however, simply returns one rate. I wanted to create a way to display several rate options to my customer. You can see what I did on the example page, below the form. So basically, I create an array with all of the shipping options I want to display. Then I run a foreach statement, to read the array one by one and complete Mark’s function. Each one returns a result that I can then display back to the user. However, I added in a radio button for each one, as well as the name of the shipping method next to it with the returned price from the API.
The next step was to integrate it using Spry’s updateContent utility. Like I showed yesterday this is fairly simple. I use the “onblur” handler again for their zip code, and place the zip code as the second input box to give it some time to load. Here is the “checkShipping” function that is called:
var checkShipping = function () {
//get their zip from the ship_zip box
var zip = document.shipping.ship_zip.value;
document.getElementById("Rates").innerHTML="Loading shipping options for Zip: ” + zip + ” …“;
//only check the zip if it’s more than 4 characters
if(zip.length > 4) {
window.Spry.Utils.updateContent(’Rates’, ‘getUps.php?zip=’ + zip);
}
}
It’s pretty simple. Basically I get the value of their zip, and then display some temporary data into my loading div, to alert the user that something is coming. Then I check that their zip is more than 4 characters, and then I use my getUps.php script to retrieve the info. I pass that same zip variable that is being used to show the customer I am retrieving info for that zip, into the php script and then into the function to be used in calculating shipments.
As always, I am sure you are already thinking of ways to extend this further. Better validation maybe? Using sessions to remember their selection and display it if they have to come back and edit the page again? Maybe putting an awesome animated gif of a flying eagle above the form? Hopefully this will help you on your journey, and you won’t be forced to use OS Commerce or Zen Cart just because they have a plugin that does this same thing.
Stay tuned tomorrow as I discuss how Spry can be used to display very nice alert messages. I might even wrap it up into a PHP class.
I have committed many times to be more active in being a more active “blogger”. Some of my posts have been very successful, like “Fighting Spam With CSS” and “Tweak that Gamma“. Also, with being featured on Elance.com recently about wordpress blogs, I have decided to recommit. My new approach, and hopefully this works, is choosing a topic to cover each week. Each day (M-F) I will demonstrate a small example within that topic, that will hopefully be beneficial to you.
This week is Spry.
You can follow the link to learn more about it, but basically it’s another javascript library created by Adobe. Some things I like about it, is 1. It’s completely free (no donations requested from a large company like Adobe); 2. It’s easy to impliment and use; 3. Their examples are really good and cover a wide variety of topics.
Recently, with a large project I have been working on, Spry has been very important in helping me use AJAX to enhance functionality and user-interaction. Recently, I created the registration pages for this same project. I wanted to make it as simple as possible. So for today, I am going to cover how to use Spry’s updateContent utility, to help me out with user login id’s.
The problem:
Like many sites where a login id is required, it can be frustrating once thousands of users are populating the database, to find a unique login id that hasn’t been taken. I am sure you can share my frustration with trying to create a unique account in Xbox live or yahoo chat. On many websites, the user types in their desire username, selects and confirms their password, and then clicks submit. The form then passes the information to a server-side script which checks the database to see if it’s unique, and then either sends back the form with a very disappointing error, or sends a very gratifying page that says “sexyMomma2007″ is available. When the user id is not unique, it can be frustrating. However, when a user has to continually try new ones and resubmit the form, then wait for a response from the server, that only builds on the frustration… until finally the user snaps and chooses a login that makes no sense and forever will be dissapointing.
The solution:
With this in mind, I thought to myself “Is there anything that can be done. Is there any hope”. Then I remembered the new buzzword “Ajax”, and realized, yes… There is a solution. Why don’t you take a look (I hate it when tutorials only put the finished link at the bottom… if you know enough about how it works just by looking at the code, then copy and paste the freaking code and use it in your own site. If you need more love, keep reading).
The instructions are there, but basically put in a username in the “Create login” box, and then click on the password box. You will then see a response of whether it’s ok or not. Also, you will notice if the username is taken, the “register” button becomes disabled, as another reminder they should try another name to continue. You will be happy to know that only 3 usernames are taken on this example: admin (me), modernblue (me), ferris-bueller (me, I wish). So, get some gratification by typing in your favorite user names and obtaining the best response you’ve had in weeks.
Where does spry come in?
First off, I include the spry script (spryData.js) between the <head> tags. Then, I call sprys “updateContent” function using only one line of code. Let’s look at my full function — read the comments:
var checkLogin = function () {
//get the value of their login name
var login = document.user.login.value;
//check the db to see if its available
window.Spry.Utils.updateContent('response', 'checkLogin.php?login=' + login);
}
The “checkLogin” function is the function I call with the “onblur” handler on my input text field. “onblur” is triggered when your cursor first enters the field, and then is clicked somewhere else (focus->blur). So simply, I get their awesome login name, then via spry, I load my “checkLogin.php” script (which you can see below the example) to see if a username is taken. I then pass the variable into my php script, in this case check an array of usernames (I know many of you are rolling your eyes bc I am using an array, rather than a MySQL “SELECT” statement), and then display the response based on it’s availability. I then call the valid login function, which then checks to see whether the response was available, or taken. Let’s take a look at this function:
//check to see if the username is unique
var validLogin = function () {
//get the class of the response span
var answer = document.getElementById('response').className;
if(answer != "success") {
//change the background of the text box to red
document.getElementById('login').className = 'sorryBg';
//disable the register button
document.user.register.disabled=true;
} else {
//change the background of the text box to green
document.getElementById('login').className = 'successBg';
//enable the register button
document.user.register.disabled=false;
}
}
Simply, this login checks the class name of the returned span I sent from my “checkLogin.php” script. If the class is not “success”, I assign the input box the class of “sorryBg”, which makes the background color of the input box red (international error color), and I also disable the register button for people who don’t notice the obvious red box and red error letters. If the class is “success”, then I assign the input box the class of “successBg”, which makes the background green, as well as enable the register button.
Any other ideas?
Of course with this example I am only touching the surface of using spry within forms. I would suggest using a javascript function to make sure the username is the required length, and has the required characters of for your application. Also, don’t forget everything you do user-side, should be re-validated server-side. I am sure some are rolling their eyes, but when you are doing a site for a client whose users are un-trusting (won’t have javascript enabled) you need to accommodate to them. For that same reason you should also accommodate to users who would always have javascript enabled, and especially want to have a quick and easy process. I would recommend looking at this page as well, to learn about Sprys very cool form validation methods.
What’s up for tomorrow?
I am going to share another example of using Spry.Utils.updateContent to show your users shipping rates based on their zip. I am guessing some of you are already starting to think of how this could be handled. I am also going to include a really simple function for connecting to the UPS api, to get immediate quotes.
If any of you need a little more help explanation, let me know via comments. I will try and help the best I can. And please, remember I left out a lot of things for brevity sake, so please keep comments about validation, compliance, security and politics to yourself.
Elance recently asked me to write an article about creating a successful Wordpress blog. Read my Wordpress Tips article.
A few months ago I was lucky to meet Bryan Johnson, CEO of Braintree Payment Solutions. He approached me with an interest of having me redesign their web site. I was happy to take on the project, as it was an industry in which I had no clients. Although it was a lot of work, I had a good time helping them find their look and feel on the web. As I began to integrate the website copy, and see their client backend, I realized that it was time to switch payment processors, again.
I was using Paypal’s virtual terminal at the time. I briefly spoke with Bryan about it, and he was happy to show me how their rates would compare. Needless to say, I made the switch, and am saving around $40 every month. Besides the savings I was very impressed with the ease of integration. In about 1 hour, I set up a simple PHP script that allows my clients to pay invoices online. Paypal for the same thing took about 3 hours… to read through their complex documentation, decide which API method I wanted to use, and even a call into Customer Support for a common error you will find across Paypals customer support forums. Braintree gave me a PHP class that was ready to go. I only had to define my merchant info and get the values from my form and it was working great. In fact they are just launching a community site dedicated to the developer community to make integration easy, help with best practices and provide a collaborative environment. It’s a great idea and badly needed in this space.
I am a developer that always likes to keep things simple. Through working closely with Braintree and using their product first hand, I have realized they are the same. They don’t let complex fees, or difficult documentation, or stubborn API’s to get in the way of their customer satisfaction. Also, their solutions are the best that I’ve seen to help merchants become PCI DSS Compliant. I am thus sticking with Braintree for all of my credit card processing needs, and recommend them to all of my clients.It’s nice to find other companies as passionate about their industry as I am about mine.
The demand for websites has never been higher. It seems like the internet boom of the late ninety’s is back, but more stable. People are lining up to have websites built by the masses, and thus design firms are increasingly finding ways to produce websites cheaper and faster. The true purpose of web design is being lost to myths and misrepresented claims. The weight web design once had is being lost to other terms such as SEO. Although there are more, I want to discuss a few myths that cause these problems, and my own experienced-based rebuttals.
Myth 1: As long as I have a lot of traffic, my design doesn’t matter
With the magic word “SEO” becoming the new internet gold rush, companies and individuals are increasingly believing that design doesn’t matter. As long as the herds of consumers are coming to their site, there is no need to worry about design research, color schemes, navigational structure, or usability. Before I am misunderstood, I am not bagging on SEO’s at all. My brother is a well-respected owner of 97thfloor, an SEO firm. Even he has told me that some of his clients would be better off having their website rebuilt or redesigned, to increase website conversion, before starting such a large marketing campaign. Every company, whether a mom and pop shop or Wal-Mart can benefit on a design that is created around conversion and the user experience. With that said, it is often that companies come to me and say “We have put a lot of money toward advertising, we rank high on Google, but we are not seeing the sales or conversion we had hoped for.” My reply, “Your design and user interface scream lack of money, lack of research, lack of care.” Web design isn’t a slipshod process. It isn’t just a matter of “getting something up”. It is much more than that.
Myth 2: Since web design involves programming, any firm can do the work I need.
A smart business would never allow a cousin, friend, acquaintance etc… to make important business decisions with lack of experience. However, people allow these same people to create their companies websites all the time to save a buck or two. How often have I had to redesign a site, a matter of weeks after their first round, because their first designer didn’t create what was needed. In these cases, they loose time (which is money) having to start from scratch and redevelop something new. This time by someone who knows what they are doing. With how important the internet is these days, companies have to pick design firms that are experienced in designs that create customers out of site visitors.
Myth 3: If I tell a web company my budget for design, they will up their price to match it.
This one happens frequently. I ask every potential client that comes to me, “What budget have you set aside for this project?” As I wrote in a previous article, if they don’t have a budget this is usually a red flag for me. This means that 1. They really haven’t sat down and thought how much energy, time and resources they want to put into their project, and 2. The company may hiding it to try and narrow down design firms based on how cheap they are, not by how well they can take their budget and turn it into something fantastic. I like companies to have a budget for two main reasons: 1. It tells me they are organized and serious about their project, which gets me more excited to be a part of it, and 2. I can give them options of what is possible to deliver within that budget. It may make more sense to break a project into phases and work on them as sequentially. So companies, please let us know you are serious by figuring out your budget before you expect design firms to seriously look at your project.
Basically, we design firms need to find new ways to show our clients that we are different then the run-of-the-mill firm, or their neice. We need to show them that our design will increase profits, help to magnify their brand, and improve their business as a whole. If we can somehow put the value back in web design, businesses will be happier having received a design that accentuates their goals… and true designers will be happy taking on projects of value, while being compensated for their time.
Due to high demand, hosting companies are very prevalent. It can be tough to find a great hosting company. I use “Great ” meaning zero downtime, fantastic customer support, a simple admin UI, bandwidth to spare, proper CPU and RAM allocation to handle high traffic peaks (like front-page DIGG articles) etc… It’s sad to report that a company I thought was doing a good job in many of these aspects, is failing repeatedly.
A little secret of my design firm: We don’t host our clients sites. Why? The hassle isn’t worth the money. We stick to what we do best, and to be honest I don’t want to hire a guy to take calls from clients who’s internet is down (which means it’s the hosts fault…) when they could call their hosts’ customer support line. Anyways, I would have to charge them much more than what is available just to handle costs of having someone manage client’s hosting accounts.
Ok, now that the secret is out… for the last year or so we have sent most of our clients with low traffic and bandwidth demands to BlueHost. We always felt their customer support was very fast, their tools were easy to use, and they had great uptime. Unfortunately, it seems BlueHost has been growing too fast to keep up (aren’t they taking on 500 or so new clients per day!). Downtime is more frequent, traffic spikes shut the site down, small mySQL databases cause CPU overload warnings etc… BlueHost is dead.
Over the last few weeks I have noticed that their downtime has increased. One day in particular a few weeks ago, I noticed one of my sites was down. I went to another one of my BlueHost-hosted sites and it was down too. So I went to the BlueHost server status page… down. Then the BlueHost home page… down!!! Their entire system, even the server which they run their own site was down. This happened for about 5 minutes before one-by-one they started coming back.
A few months before that, I had a site holding a national windsurfing contest. People were accessing the site nation-wide to get real-time results. All of a sudden the site went down. I frantically called customer support. The problem? A server maintenance/upgrade. I asked why it was happening at 2 o’clock in the afternoon. Their reply: “Since our customers are international we do them sporadically”. (This is funny because the BlueHost office is about 10 minutes from my house). I asked why I wasn’t notified they were doing a server upgrade, and I can’t remember the answer because it definitely didn’t satisfy me.
More recently (3 days ago) I added a site to BlueHost. It was running PHP and mySQL (BlueHost runs LAMP) . There was a table of listings in the db with about 129,000 entries. Although a large number, it is very minimal when it comes to mySQL. The table was indexed properly, optimized and in the PHP code my query wasn’t doing anything fancy with SQL functions. I was simply using AJAX to create drop downs based on “Select … WHERE” statements. This is one of the most fundamental queries. Anyways, as I was testing this I received a CPU high-load message on BlueHost, meaning I was using too much of the server’s CPU for my processing. Puzzled and thinking it was an error, I continued in testing, only to have the message reappear again and again. More tests, even while connected remotely using SQLyog, gave me a the same CPU high-load message, even if I ran any large select statements or exported the database for backup.
So, needless to say in my opinion BlueHost is dead. With their huge affiliate kick-back and ever-increasing customer sign-ups they aren’t what they used to. So, I am moving on. Currently I have been pleased with Media Temple’s (gs) servers, and I like the option they have of running a separate mySQL box to cut down CPU usage. Last time I called Media Temple’s customer support, I was on hold for 37 minutes. Needless to say, I am still looking for the perfect hosting company… which with today’s demands may not exist.
Farewell BlueHost… we had some good times together and it’s hard to let go. But in the interest of my client’s needs, it’s best if we just stay friends. Maybe for fun, post your favorite hosting company below.
