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One point that I stress to clients and colleagues is the importance of periodically reviewing your website. By periodically, I don’t mean once every 5 years. About the only constant in business is change: technology, your own products and services, perhaps even your contact information. If something has changed and your website is still displaying the old information, you are providing misinformation which is worse than no information at all.

I experienced this myself recently when our family pet became ill on a Sunday. No veterninarians in this town are currently open on Sunday. A quick check of our vet’s website listed a pager number as an emergency contact. I was dubious about the outcome of this, afterall, it is 2012, but I called anyway and was greeted by a recording stating that the number was no longer in use. Big surprise.

Our vet’s website also listed the name and phone number for an emergency vet clinic in town. I called the number several times and constantly got a busy signal. Assuming the phone was off the hook, I found the name and address of the emergency clinic (gotta love Google!) and my wife and I loaded our dog into the car and headed to the location listed on the website. It was closed. Closed as in, not ever opening again.

We ended up having to drive to a neighboring town an hour away where we were able to obtain effective care for our pet. But we wasted over an hour because of outdated information, both on the website of our veterinarian and the defunct emergency clinic. What a frustrating and potentially devastating situation.

Remember, one of the awesome things about the internet and your website is they are “on” 24/7. If your website contains outdated or incorrect information, then your website is wrong 24/7. More than 58% of Americans look online FIRST when researching a product or service. What do they find when they visit your site?

Please, review your site frequently.

In all likelihood you’ve heard of social media in one form or another. If not Facebook, then Twitter, Foursquare, Google+, LinkedIn or the myriad of other social media networks that have popped up in recent years. Although you may consider these services to be irrelevant, statistics would say otherwise.

• As of December 26, 2011 there was an estimated 1.2 billion social media users world-wide.
• 57% of U.S. adults have joined a social network.
• If Facebook were a country, it would be the world’s 3rd largest and 2x the size of the U.S. population
• Half of all current adult social networkers say that they access their profiles at least every other day.

As you can see people are spending a good deal of their time using social media, and if you’re not involved, you’re missing out on reaching potential customers. As a matter of fact, social media isn’t just about reaching new customers, it’s just as much about nurturing your relationships with current clientele. A chief complaint in today’s technological world is that business has lost its personal touch. Well, now is your chance to make your business human again. Facebook and Google+ allow you to communicate on a daily basis with your patrons. Twitter is a lightning fast way for you to respond to negative and positive feedback. People appreciate it when you respond to what they say. You can even use social media as a recruiting tool to find qualified applicants to fill much needed positions.

Using social media allows you the opportunity to interact with your potential market, discovering what people want and responding. It allows you to advertise, promote deals and events and stay on people’s radar for almost no cost. It also provides the opportunity for you to show off your expertise through a blog or forum. Here at Rock Creek Internet Services we understand social media and can help you get up and running in no time. We even offer posting and blogging services. Feel free to contact us to find out more information about how we can help your business grow.

My brother once asked if I was worried about the proliferation of companies offering business owners the opportunity to build their own website and host it for just a few dollars a month. He was surprised when I explained to him that a good percentage of our clients had tried the do it yourself approach and were now ready to get serious.

Myth 1 – Building a do it yourself website is quick.
The Rock Creek Internet Services development team has a combined 18 years’ experience building websites. We recently committed the combined efforts of the entire team to build a rush website in 12 days. How much experience does the average business owner have in web development? Business owners wear many hats. While the business owner is busy building her website, what’s NOT getting done? Didn’t someone once say, “time is money?”

Myth 2 – Building a website is easy – I’ll just buy a how-to book.
Whether or not you can do it yourself depends on the type of site you want and your own experience and skills. For example, will you require shopping cart functionality or database programming? Building a website is deceptively complex and requires a variety of skills, from HTML savvy to how to create an effective layout.

Myth 3 – Websites should be slick, with lots of bells and whistles.
On the Internet, functionality is king. High-tech gimmicks may look great, but they often load slowly. Too much gadgetry can create visual distraction. It’s important to get a good balance between form and function.

Myth 4 – Once my website is built, I’m all set.
The Internet today has thousands of new technologies that didn’t exist 4 or 5 years ago. YouTube, for example, was created in 2005. And some technologies fall by the wayside. Flash websites, featuring highly interactive animations, are invisible on iPhones and iPads. How will a do it yourself website keep up?

A website consists of a number of files that are linked together. For larger websites, the number of files can be quite vast. These files are stored on a web server, a computer built specifically for the task of serving up website files. Web hosting is the service that makes your website accessible on the Internet by providing space on a web server.

There is a great deal of variability among web hosting services. The one you should choose is based on your needs and your knowledge of hosting activities.

In addition to different server configurations, different hosting services will require more or less knowledge on your part. Full service web hosting will take care of things like maintenance, security and file transfer, while a lower cost option requires you to do these things yourself.

Not all web design companies offer hosting and, conversely, not all web hosting companies offer web design. Rock Creek Internet Services is a full service hosting company, meaning we manage every aspect of your website, from domain registration to maintenance and troubleshooting. The benefit to hosting with the same company that built your site is that if a problem should arise, we can take care of it, regardless of if it is related to the server or coding. With a full service company, one call does it all.

If you would like further information or if you’re interested in hosting with us, feel free to contact us.

So, you want to maintain your website content yourself. Or you want to add a blog to your website. No problem. We recommend WordPress. Well, what’s WordPress and what’s the big deal? Why does Rock Creek Internet Services build on the WordPress platform?

WordPress is the most widely used blogging and content management platform on the planet, and powers almost a quarter of all new websites. The WordPress software is free so there are no upgrades to buy, and no big investment to make to build it into a new website or blog. WordPress is “open source” which means it is supported by hundreds of people around the world and is not owned by a big corporation.

Because of its popularity and is open source, as web technology evolves WordPress evolves with it. If some new web technology arrives on the scene tomorow it will just be a matter of days before it is incorporated into WordPress (free) or available as a plugin (often free). So your WordPress website or blog can keep up with the ever-changing Internet.

WordPress has a familiar, user-friendly interface and is easy to use. If you google WordPress you’ll find a tremendous list of results and lots of good information about this awesome multipurpose tool.

There are many services offered out there to allow you to build and maintain your own website. They’re generally offered at a very low cost and for good reason: you don’t get much in return. The same reasons that you wouldn’t allow an amateur to run the wiring in your home or repair your car apply to designing, developing and maintaining a website. When you decide to get your business online you need to have a goal in mind, and the only way to achieve that goal is by hiring professionals.

There are a number of aspects to the production of a website that are not apparent to a person unfamiliar with the industry. These include design, coding and search engine optimization.

The design of your website goes far beyond just appearance. The design will identify the site with your business and brand, determines ease of navigation and even the color scheme can have an effect on your visitors. These are all elements learned through years of experience, which only a seasoned web designer will have. If you want to avoid frustrated consumers leaving your site because they can’t find what they’re looking for then a professional design is a must.

As with nearly every other industry the web development community has developed standards, which are put forth by the World Wide Web Consortium. If your code is not compliant with these standards then you can expect your web site to experience problems, especially as the languages and technologies continue to develop. Professional developers validate their code to ensure compliance so that you don’t experience these glitches.

Search engine optimization refers to the likelihood of your website being returned in the top results of a web search.  This is determined by a number of factors to include keywords and inbound links. Search providers update their algorithms frequently and without expert guidance it is unlikely that your site will be returned in a query. Professional web shops will offer this service as a part of their package.

As you can see there is more to a web site than just picking a template and throwing together a few paragraphs and images. Your site is an entire package which must be a cohesive whole, something you’re unlikely to accomplish with a do it yourself approach.

It doesn’t seem like all that long ago. The year was 2004 and it seemed like a great time to jump on the Internet band wagon. By that point it was obviously not a passing fad. So you jumped. You hired a web design shop, or your next door neighbor’s son, or you did it yourself. You were ONLINE!

 

In Internet terms, 2004 was eons ago. Facebook was just getting started. Google was not publicly traded until August. YouTube had not been invented. Internet Explorer was at version 6. The iPhone and iPad had not yet been released so web browsing was restricted to computers. And speaking of computers, displays were still giant CRTs and screen resolution (how much is displayed per inch of monitor) was lower (less stuff fit on the screen).
 

So, a website built in 2004 and not updated since then will still show up and still represent your company. But what will it say about your company? Because monitors were smaller, the site is probably too narrow by today’s standards. Because it was designed for IE 6, a version no longer supported by Microsoft and no longer considered by web developers, it may not display as intended. And what about traffic? How are visitors finding your site? Without YouTube or a blog to drive traffic, and with SEO (if you have SEO) techniques that are 7 years old, your site is probably invisible. Did I mention Google updates their search algorithm 500 times a year?

 

But forget all the techie stuff. Your 7 year old website is as fresh looking as a 7 year old car. Not just in your eyes, but in the eyes of your potential customers. What does that say to them?