What you need to know to put your
business on the web
Owen Winkler
Owner/Architect Critical Hit, LLC
18 years of development experience
Emeritus WordPress core developer
Twitter: @ringmaster [email protected]
Who The Heck Are You People?
Business owners
Responsible employees
Ambitious developer/designer
WordCamp organizers looking to keep me honest
Today's Goals
Save me aggravation
Save you time and money
Make everyone happy!
Everything except WordPress!
We do this by talking about...
Topic Outline
Your Site Idea
Technical Services Required
Hiring Contractors
Making Your Site Run Smoothly
Technical warning!
Your Site IdeaI already think it sucks, but I won't tell you that
What you need to have in mind
Who will use your site?
What will your visitors expect to find there?
What do you want to tell your visitors?
What is the look you're going for?
What other sites are like yours?
Paper Prototypes & Wireframes
Here's where things break!
You hired a designer, didn't you?
Web Design Disciplines
User Interface
Information Architecture
User Experience
Graphic Design
Technical Services Required To Start
Click here to buy now!
Technical Services Required To Start
Domain Names
Web Hosting
Domain Registration
Your "dot com" and then some
Contact info
Costs $10-ish
Registration is not hosting
DNS Hosting
Domain Name Service
Root servers and caching
SPF records
Root Servers
Authoritative
ISP
Email sucks, dude.
Hosting
Spam
Opt-in lists
Web Hosting
Features/Stack
Storage
Speed
Bandwidth
Low-level access
Security
Reliability
Price
Support availability
Criteria to look for
Web Hosting
Generally Cheaper
Quick support
Shares resources
Overselling
Scales Well
Seamless relocation
Integrated VPN
Support?
Server Maintenance
Shared Cloud
Web Hosting
All yours -resources
All yours - software
All yours - hardware
Scales Well
Monitored/maintained
Higher price
Usually only file-level access
Dedicated Hosted WP
Beware!!
You get what you pay for
Separate responsibility if possible
Ask for recommendations!
Hiring ContractorsHaharder sites are hard!
Contractors
On-demand, one and done
High expertise, short contract
Hard to assess ability
Contractor Rates
$60-$200 per hour
Fixed pricing per project
Contractor Caveats
Do not accept "canned" solutions
Best tool & coder for job
Contractor must ask good questions!
Should be honest about capabilities
May up-sell services
Contractor Caveats
You have the "business knowledge"
Commit to the solution for your budget
Set milestones, not deadlines
Be responsive; answer questions
Tons of other stuff...
Where do I find a decent contractor?
WordCamp attendees/presenters
PANMA
eLance
WordPress mailing lists
WordPress meetup
Hiring a Developer
Ask for code samples
Corporate culture fit
You must be out of your mind
Bootstrapping!
Making Your Site Run SmoothlyOh, you've only just begun...
Stuff you should have thought about while you were waiting to receive
your site mockup!
Content
SEO
Analytics
Backups
Maintenance
Spiral marketing
Spiral MarketingSay what now?
Build it and...
Search Engine Optimization
Analytics
Put that thang in reverse and...
Database
Files
Configuration
Maintenance
Owen WinklerTwitter: @ringmaster [email protected]
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