My dear sweet website,

September 26, 2011 By

I made you some new clothes, see?

Actually, I had quite a lot of help with that. From people who are way better at design-type stuff than me.

I know there are still broken links to fix, and widgets to spiff up, and maybe a few buttons to sew on…and that’s OK. There will always be things to play with, and I feel really happy about that. Don’t you?

There were some parts of you that were weighing us both down, so I trimmed a little too. On the web, there’s always room for more new and wonderful things, and I have so many new and wonderful things planned for both of us.

F’rinstance, the process I went through to make these clothes and get ready to show them to everyone? I’m going to teach that in a new ebook and teleclass, which is coming out on October 4. I’ll talk more about that tomorrow.

And I have more things planned for the next few months. More playing. More exploring.

Who wants to come with us, me and my website and I?

 

 

Filed Under: Announcements Tagged With: , ,

Help! My site is down!

November 29, 2010 By

Has this website downtime scenario happened to you?

You swing by your own website, and your browser seems to be taking forever to connect. With a growing sense of horror, you begin to contemplate the possibility that something is wrong. Moments later, you get a timeout error message saying that the site “timed out” or “took too long to respond.”

Timeout error? Let’s not panic…yet

There are several causes for a timeout error, and it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve been hit by website downtime. Plus, many of them are easily fixable. Try these basic tips before calling your web host in a panic:

  1. Try another site. Can you type in google.com or apple.com or any other site? If you can’t access any sites, the problem is likely your own internet connection, and not something specific to your site. If other sites work and yours doesn’t, keep reading.
  2. See if it really is just you. DownForEveryoneOrJustMe.com lets you type in any URL and see if it’s “just you” or if the site is “really down.” This has saved me from several panic attacks, because if it’s just me, I know that others can still see my site. If it’s really down, it’s time to check with your web host. If not, try a few more tricks:
  3. Toss your cookies. I’m not speaking metaphorically of panic-induced fit of vomiting, but rather of removing the little bits of code that various sites leave in your browser. They are often helpful, but sometimes pesky. Here’s a complete list of how to clear cookies in any browser.
  4. Clear your cache. Your browser stores copies of recently accessed pages so they will load quicker. Again, usually a helpful thing, but occasionally causes problems. Here’s how to clear your cache in any browser.
  5. Restart your browser. Sometimes (depending on your settings) this will auto-clear your cache, history, and cookies.
  6. Have a backup browser. It would sure be nice if all browsers were equal…but they aren’t. Sometimes one displays things weirdly or gets buggy.
  7. Try a different device. If there’s another computer (or a smartphone or an iPad or whatever) handy, see if you can connect using it. You could call a friend and ask if they can connect, but that’s essentially just a one-data-point version of #2.
  8. Reboot and try again. Sometimes the simple things really do work. You might also restart your router (if you’re on a home network, say) and see if that has any effect.
  9. Check with your robot spy corps. Pingdom is a website downtime monitoring service based in Sweden. You can sign up for a free account that includes one “check” (that means testing one website in one specific way, like via HTTP). You’ll automatically get an email when your site is down longer than a time you specify (you can get SMS messages, too, but I don’t use this option — the free account only comes with 20 SMS notifications per month, but unlimited email notifications). I have Pingdom check my site every minute (yes, no kidding, and it’s still free). It doesn’t *fix* website downtime or timeout errors, but knowing what’s going on helps enormously (plus I can accurately report facts to DreamHost if I need to). I just ignore the gentle pressure to upgrade to a paid account.

Pingdom's website uptime percentage graph

Same data expressed as website downtime in minutes

Now, if you need to contact your web host, you’ll be armed with specific information about your timeout error, and you won’t have to waste time trying the basics because you’ve already tried them.

Also, note that if your site is showing something different from a timeout error, like “500 Internal Server Error,” that’s an indication that the problem isn’t on your end (your browser, your computer, or your internet connection). That’s a signal to check with your hosting company.

Here’s hoping that your website downtime is both rare and short!

Filed Under: General How-To's Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

I could get used to this

April 26, 2010 By

A good piece of business advice, that I’ve heard from several places and I can’t remember which was first, is to start hanging out with people at the level you want to reach. So instead of just frequenting the new-to-business forums and meetups and clubs, start reading and emailing the people you admire and want to emulate.

I’ve found this to be enormously helpful. I’ve also made good friends this way. And I recently had a real-life metaphorical experience that backs it up…in a backwards kind of way. Well, maybe. Bear with me while I tell a little story…

Necessity is the mother of experimentation

I needed a pickup truck.

Just for a day or two. See, one of the 4,032 things on my list of stuff to do before I head off to SOBCon was to pick up some furniture my brother was getting rid of. His old couch is going into my office, and his old loveseat is going into Genius Daughter’s room.

This furniture influx also required a corresponding outflux: We gave away our old couch, a dresser, and a rocking chair to a friend who’d recently moved into the area from across the country. Everybody wins!

So I called up my local car-rental place and reserved myself a Dodge Ram 1500.

The rigidity of self-description

To understand how ludicrous this seemed to me at first, you have to consider that I am really not a pickup-truck kind of person. In fact, I am annoyingly smug about my small, nimble, fuel-efficient, low-emission Honda Fit (her name is Bridget. As in Bridget Fonda the Honda. Ask nicely and I’ll tell you about my previous cars’ names…). It costs me about $30 to fill her tank, she can fit into squeezy parking spaces, and I don’t really care where she was made as long as she’s safe and reliable. Which she certainly has been so far.

So this beast of a truck is the opposite of my regular car in many ways. I didn’t go so far as to name him, as we were only acquainted for 48 hours, but he was definitely male. Climbing up into the driver’s seat was like scaling a ladder. He felt like he was twice as long as my little Bridget, and he was quite a bit wider as well (there was room for an entire pizza box on the seat between the driver and passenger! Astonishing!).

I was actually a bit concerned about driving something so large — would I underestimate my size and end up smashing into things? Would I be able to parallel park? What if I made some novice-pickup-driver error and, I don’t know, killed someone??

But I had to scramble up into that sky-high driver’s seat in order to get the furniture delivered. So, after adjusting the mirrors, reminding myself not to grope for the clutch whenever I slowed down (because this was an automatic transmission and I’m used to my stick-shift), and making sure I didn’t accidentally turn on the windshield wipers whenever I wanted to flick the turn signal, I shifted into D and we were off, my rental Dodge and I.

And you know what? I was fine.

I mean, at some level, driving is driving. And although I quintuple-checked before changing lanes, and I proceeded pretty gingerly when edging into a parking space or backing up, my supposedly non-pickup-person self managed to drive around in one for two days without any problems whatsoever.

A hatchback blog trying on a pickup-sized business

So naturally I was blown away by the metaphor I was living.

Here I was, actually enjoying being at the wheel of a behemoth I’d probably never consider buying (my 5-year-old son asked, with wide eyes, “Mom, is this a monster truck?” and wanted to ride with me all weekend). This was a vehicle that would not even fit into my garage.

Here I was, eye-to-eye with all the SUV- and pickup-driving environment-destroyers I’d previously zipped around in my earth-friendly hatchback. I was having fun looking down on all the little cars from my my gas-guzzling Ram.

I could get used to this, I thought.

This new perspective. This power. This having-room-to-carry-almost-anything. Yep, I could see myself someday owning, maybe not this particular truck, but maybe a midsized, good-safety-rating SUV. Huh. How about that.

And I thought, is my business acting like a low-horsepower hatchback when it wants to be a monster truck? Or even the reverse — what if my blog is trying to be a Hummer when really it’s got the heart of a Smart Car?

What if I tried something new on for awhile, like renting a car that you’re considering buying? What if I hung out with the pickup-driving crowd for a bit, or got friendly with my local Smart Car dealer, just to see what it was like?

What if?

Filed Under: Small-Business Tree Tagged With: , , , ,

Restaurant menu follies

January 6, 2010 By

The Professor and I recently got takeout Thai food from our favorite local restaurant, Sky Thai. And it turned into a case study in “what were they thinking?” that I just had to write about.

Takeaway #1: A good domain name gives you a lot of Google juice

I knew I had a paper menu somewhere (in fact I found it the next day, under a pile on my desk — clearly it is time for another Inspired Home Office Spa Day), but figured it would be faster to look up the restaurant on the web.

And it was. I typed in “Sky Thai” (with the quotes) and guess what came up as result #1? Yep, www.SkyThai.com. The next 9 results were for some place in Massachusetts that wasn’t named Sky Thai but had some kind of dish on their menu with that name in it. But I didn’t care about results #2 through #9 if #1 was the one I wanted. And I was kind of surprised, because this is a tiny little restaurant that’s not exactly in a thriving metro area. Just goes to show what the right domain name can do for you.

So far our takeout plans were going awesomely. Their menu was online and their phone number was in the header, so it was easy-peasy to call them up and place an order.

Takeaway #2: Don’t let your website be wrong

Except when we called them and tried to order the Fried Baby Shrimp appetizer, they told us they didn’t have it anymore. Not “we’re out of it,” but “oh, that’s not on the menu anymore.”

Except that it is. Right on the Appetizer page of their website.

Hmm. So they’re willing to print up new paper versions of the menu when it changes (we got a paper menu in our take-out bag, of course, and it was the updated version) but they can’t spend 10 minutes to update the website? Or pay their web person for extremely minor updates?

Sure, most of the online menu was still right…but all it takes is one wrong item (or price!) to get visitors skeptical.

Why throw away that Google juice so carelessly?

Takeaway #3: There is such a thing as good enough… and that’s all your site has to be

Not every website in the world needs to be a Web 2.0, social media-utilizing, user-generated-content repository of multimedia and ecommerce.

This restaurant is a perfect example. Sky Thai doesn’t need bells, whistles, or a flaming logo. Heck, they don’t even need a blog. Although I could certainly come up with creative ways they could use a blog to get more business, they don’t need one. They don’t need the ability to let people place an online order if they just give us the phone number.

On the face of it, there are plenty of terrible things about this site. The header is cheesy and fuzzy. The image of the owner, which shows up on every page, is broken. On every page. It’s not centered and the copyright date is 2004.

But none of this matters if all I want is the menu and a phone number. This website is just fine for that. It’s laid out clearly, in sections that make sense, with legible prices and descriptions. All you need for that is plain old boring text.

Except that it has items on it that they don’t serve anymore. So now I can’t trust it. (See Takeaway #2.)

Which is a shame, since they are #1 on Google for searchers who know the name of the restaurant and are ready to place an order.

Takeaway #4: Don’t let your website be the bastard stepchild, especially for an offline business

I looked over the paper menu, picked up a business card, and checked out the info stenciled on the door of the place when we went to pick up the takeout food. There was also a delivery SUV parked outside with Sky Thai and its phone number emblazoned on its side and rear window.

None of these places referred to the Sky Thai website. Nary a URL to be found.

Why?!?

OK, sure, maybe you don’t need it on the door of your restaurant because when people see that, they’re already there (though there doesn’t seem to be a downside to adding it anyway), but a business card? Or that menu that they stuff in every takeout bag, and probably leave in the mailboxes of hundreds of houses within a few blocks?

Why not just add the URL to all their printed material? It’s like they don’t want actual customers to know that the restaurant also has a website.

I can’t figure out why you would bother to build a website and then not link it up with your other, existing, marketing materials.

Takeaway #5: Remember the nudists

If you type www.skythai.com into your web browser, you’ll get the website I’ve been ranting about. But if you type skythai.com (with no www, which is known as a naked domain), you’ll get…a blank page.

As I explained in my blog post about naked domains, you should always make sure that both versions of your domain are usable. There are multiple simple tweaks to get it to work right. You don’t want people to type in the naked version, get a blank page or an error page, and assume you have no site or that your site is broken.

Because then they will go away and never give you money in exchange for Fried Baby Shrimp. Or anything else.

Now I’m hungry for some spicy, creamy, fragrant Tom Kha Gai. If only I didn’t have to dig out my paper menu to figure out if they still have it.

Filed Under: Real-Life Marketing Tagged With: , , , , ,