Casual Articles - 5 Mistakes to Avoid When Hiring a Web Designer

1. Not Protecting Your Domain Name
   There are still web designers out there who will steal your domain name and try to sell it back to you. I personally know several small business owners that this has happened to and they can’t afford the legal costs of a resolution. Make sure you are the “Owner” and/or “Registrant” of your domain name. The best way to ensure this is to go to a domain registrar website and register it yourself -- even if you’ve been promised a “free” domain name from your web designer. You can get “.com”, “.net” or “.org” name for less than $10 these days. If you do register the name yourself, don’t get seduced into buying additional domain-related products that you may not want or need (email accounts, hosting, SSL, privacy, etc.) and make SURE the registrar website allows easy access to a control panel that lets you modify your nameservers – sounds a little techie but that is crucial. And, don’t forget the name of the website where you registered the name!
2. Overpaying for Web Hosting
   A lot of web designers will offer to handle your web hosting as a convenience to you (or themselves). This is fine but beware, some of them will attempt to fatten their pockets here at your expense. Do you have a simple brochure website with no streaming audio/video, databases, e-commerce or other advanced applications? Then, you shouldn’t be paying over $25/month for web hosting – and that’s even throwing in an extra $10-15/month for your web designer's trouble! Be careful not to go too cheap on web hosting, though – price isn’t everything when it comes to web hosting - features and reliability are most important. But even with a solid, reputable hosting company, a 300-page brochure website complete with Flash, dynamic menus, PDF downloads, and web-to-email forms costs next to nothing to host – usually under $10.
3. Not Signing a Contract
   I’ve heard enough web designer horror stories to emphatically tell you to ALWAYS sign a web design contract. Verbal agreements are for suckers-in-the-making. I’m not a lawyer, so don’t take this as legal advice, but my web design contracts, at minimum, specify:
   • Estimated project cost (in terms of hours or dollars)
   • Payment terms
   • Estimated project completion date (or something related to timely progress towards project completion)
   • Cancellation policy
   • Who owns the completed design and related graphics (logo, stock photos, etc)
   Promotions
   The Direct and Indirect Purposes of Creating a Promotion1. Generating your company's "perfect" ad is a means of discovering an overall marketing guideline, i.e. clarify your thoughts about business through writing an ad, then working at conforming all aspects of business to be consistent with the guideline arrived upon.2. Writing the ad - as per instructions here and in the Workbook.3. Proof-read for consistency of grammar, voice style.4. ou are the “Owner” and/or “Registrant” of your domain name. The best way to ensure this is to go to a domain registrar website and register it yourself -- even if you’ve been promised a “free” domain name from your web designer. You can get “.com”, “.net” or “.org” name for less than $10 these days. If you do register the name yourself, don’t get seduced into buying additional domain-related products that you may not want or need (email accounts, hosting, SSL, privacy, etc.) and make SURE the registrar website allows easy access to a control panel that lets you modify your nameservers – sounds a little techie but that is crucial. And, don’t forget the name of the website where you registered the name!
   • Overpaying for Web Hosting
     A lot of web designers will offer to handle your web hosting as a convenience to you (or themselves). This is fine but beware, some of them will attempt to fatten their pockets here at your expense. Do you have a simple brochure website with no streaming audio/video, databases, e-commerce or other advanced applications? Then, you shouldn’t be paying over $25/month for web hosting – and that’s even throwing in an extra $10-15/month for your web designer's trouble! Be careful not to go too cheap on web hosting, though – price isn’t everything when it comes to web hosting - features and reliability are most important. But even with a solid, reputable hosting company, a 300-page brochure website complete with Flash, dynamic menus, PDF downloads, and web-to-email forms costs next to nothing to host – usually under $10.
   • Not Signing a Contract
     I’ve heard enough web designer horror stories to emphatically tell you to ALWAYS sign a web design contract. Verbal agreements are for suckers-in-the-making. I’m not a lawyer, so don’t take this as legal advice, but my web design contracts, at minimum, specify:
     • Estimated project cost (in terms of hours or dollars)
     • Payment terms
     • Estimated project completion date (or something related to timely progress towards project completion)
     • Cancellation policy
     • Who owns the completed design and related graphics (logo, stock photos, etc)
     Intermediate Ways to Make a Profit With Generating Traffic With Squidoo
     Squidoo is a web hosting site that has been designed in order to make it easy for anyone who wants to set up a single page on any topic on which he or she has a significant knowledge base. The goal is quick and easy sharing of relevant information. So how can you benefit from this and generate traffic fast with Squidoo? Simple, just set up pages!Why will setting up Squidoo pages be beneficial to you? Simply because you can quickly write about whatever you want and then link these pages back to your website. These pages, lets you modify your nameservers – sounds a little techie but that is crucial. And, don’t forget the name of the website where you registered the name!
     • Overpaying for Web Hosting
       A lot of web designers will offer to handle your web hosting as a convenience to you (or themselves). This is fine but beware, some of them will attempt to fatten their pockets here at your expense. Do you have a simple brochure website with no streaming audio/video, databases, e-commerce or other advanced applications? Then, you shouldn’t be paying over $25/month for web hosting – and that’s even throwing in an extra $10-15/month for your web designer's trouble! Be careful not to go too cheap on web hosting, though – price isn’t everything when it comes to web hosting - features and reliability are most important. But even with a solid, reputable hosting company, a 300-page brochure website complete with Flash, dynamic menus, PDF downloads, and web-to-email forms costs next to nothing to host – usually under $10.
     • Not Signing a Contract
       I’ve heard enough web designer horror stories to emphatically tell you to ALWAYS sign a web design contract. Verbal agreements are for suckers-in-the-making. I’m not a lawyer, so don’t take this as legal advice, but my web design contracts, at minimum, specify:
       • Estimated project cost (in terms of hours or dollars)
       • Payment terms
       • Estimated project completion date (or something related to timely progress towards project completion)
       • Cancellation policy
       • Who owns the completed design and related graphics (logo, stock photos, etc)
       The Ten Commandments To Creating Amazing Audio Products
       1.Thou shall create audio products as the fastest way to come out with a product.Forget about e-books. They take to long to create especially if you’re a slooooow typist. You can create an audio product in a day instead of weeks or months with an e-book. If you must create an e-book, do the audio first and have someone transcribe the audio into a word file. You than clean it up and add some chapter heads and an index and Bam! You have an instant e-book2.Thou shall use a headset microphone for your recordings.ver $25/month for web hosting – and that’s even throwing in an extra $10-15/month for your web designer's trouble! Be careful not to go too cheap on web hosting, though – price isn’t everything when it comes to web hosting - features and reliability are most important. But even with a solid, reputable hosting company, a 300-page brochure website complete with Flash, dynamic menus, PDF downloads, and web-to-email forms costs next to nothing to host – usually under $10.
       • Not Signing a Contract
         I’ve heard enough web designer horror stories to emphatically tell you to ALWAYS sign a web design contract. Verbal agreements are for suckers-in-the-making. I’m not a lawyer, so don’t take this as legal advice, but my web design contracts, at minimum, specify:
         • Estimated project cost (in terms of hours or dollars)
         • Payment terms
         • Estimated project completion date (or something related to timely progress towards project completion)
         • Cancellation policy
         • Who owns the completed design and related graphics (logo, stock photos, etc)
         How To Follow Up To Get That Special Job Interview
         Finding and applying for the right job is only half the battle. You may have spent weeks perfecting the cover letter and finding just the right resume style for your needs and wants. Once the resume and cover letter have been sent, it is time to play the waiting game. You may sit home for hours, days or even weeks before hearing word. Or you may never hear back. So what is the next step in getting a job interview?The follow up. Many jobseekers are tempted to just sit back and wait for a call, but the best thing to dr stories to emphatically tell you to ALWAYS sign a web design contract. Verbal agreements are for suckers-in-the-making. I’m not a lawyer, so don’t take this as legal advice, but my web design contracts, at minimum, specify:
         • Estimated project cost (in terms of hours or dollars)
         • Payment terms
         • Estimated project completion date (or something related to timely progress towards project completion)
         • Cancellation policy
         • Who owns the completed design and related graphics (logo, stock photos, etc)
         • Who owns the domain name (just as a backup to Mistake #1 above)
         • Non-disclosure terms (so your competitor down the block doesn’t see the final site before you do!)
         • Not Having a Project Schedule
           This ALWAYS helps a project along, even if you don’t stick to it 100%. Project schedules should show who’s doing what and when and include weekly progress checks. This way there are no surprises.
         • Not Getting a Copy of EVERYTHING Related to the Creation of your Website
           What happens when you need a change to your website and your web designer seems to have dropped off the face of the earth? Immediately following project completion be sure to request:
           • All website graphics including LAYERED (that’s important!) graphics files (Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.) and any stock photos the designer purchased on your behalf.
           • All access info (website, username, password) for your domain name, hosting company and email control panel, and the websites for any special software needed to maintain any portion of your site (like your menu or search application).

           When your business needs to make an urgent change to the website, you will NOT want to be wasting days, weeks or months trying to track down the above information from a web designer who is Missing in Action. And when you do get the information, remember to keep it in a safe place.

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