Black Friday 2011: Hosting Deals Too Great to Resist!

If you don’t sleep late from over-consumption of turkey, you have to check out these incredible Black Friday deals on website hosting! These companies have gone all-out to make you their next new client. So log onto your computer and steal yourself some great deals!

FatCow Holiday Hosting Special!

• Begins: after Thanksgiving
  
• Ends: 11/27/11
  
• Deals: The promotion is for 65% OFF their Basic Hosting plan. No promo code required.

FatCow is 100% wind generated electricity, so a 100% green choice for hosting! They are considered one of the best hosting options for Joomla. Sign up for FatCow hosting >

Hostgator Black Friday 2011 Deals!

• Begins: 12 am CST on Friday, November 25, 2011
• Ends: 11:59 pm CST on Friday, November, 2011
• Deal: 50% off EVERYTHING the entire day!

This includes ALL accounts. You could get hosting for $.99 per month! We’re very happy with Hostgator for our Joomla accounts, and we’re certain you will be too! Buy hosting with Hostgator >

Interactive Online Black Friday Special!

• Begins: 11/25/11
  
• Ends: 11/27/10
  
• Deals: The promotion is for 1 year of hosting for $9.95 on our Shared Hosting Service.

If you’re wondering which host to choose for Joomla, read our blog post What is the Best Hosting for Joomla to make your choice.

Finding a Great Referral for A Web Developer

Choosing a web developer can be very challenging if you don’t understand how things work at a basic level. Just like cars, everyone admires a good website, but it is hard to know which salesman to believe.

So many people look to a friend or business associate for a referral  to a web developer. This makes sense as long as you ask the right questions of that person. Most people don’t understand their website needs from a technical aspect. This makes it difficult to know whether your friend or associates website is a good measuring stick for yours.

In my opinion, the best source of information on web development comes from someone in a similar line of business. For the most part, you will want similar functionality on the site and perhaps have a similar marketing approach.

Here are questions to ask when getting a web developer referral:

1. How well did the client define their project ahead of time?
Often people will have an idea of what they want in a website but will not have the true scope or details identified. Taking time to answer some basic questions and you will have an easier time managing the project. Specific details to ask about include:

• Did they have your information architecture (IA) set? IA is the design for the information flow. Did the developer help them refine it?
• How complex is the content on their website? Is some of the content inter-related? Was the website built in a static fashion or in a relational fashion? Did they need special programming, such as Joomla, to accomplish what they want?
• Did they have a project plan with milestones? Was it reasonable technically or simply “what they wanted”.
• How often will they make changes? Are they simple text changes or design changes? Did they allow for this in your design and vendor agreement? Who makes the changes, client or do they pay the developer?

If the responses are not all positive, the client and developer may share the blame.

Developer issues that can cause delays:

• Lack of key technical knowledge
• Poor project management skill
• Shabby ethics

Client issues that can cause delays:

• “Two many cooks (stakeholders) in the kitchen” may create a confusing project scope and priorities. This could also delay critical decisions.
• Poor conception of development costs: If you have a comparable website that you are going by, it’s important to know how much it cost to build so you have an idea of the costs involved. If you want super technical by don’t have the budget for it, this can cause disappointments and delays as the client tries to get the developer to create what they don’t have the budget to pay for.
• Taking too long to develop content. This is the number one reason we see delays on sites we build. Putting content together is the hardest part of a project, so ask your friend to honestly answer how prompt were they about delivering content to the developer?

2. Did they need to adjust their expectations during the contracting process?
If a project has any complexity at all, the developer will need to explore how to implement the client’s design best to meet their needs. This may involve some changes to the client’s vision because of budget, technology limitations, or the desired timeline of the project. This may mean implementing the project in stages or developing custom functionality provided the budget allows for it.

It is common to work with clients who don’t have all their content done. In the course of creating their content and IA, they discover that their original design is poor. In looking at the IA, they often discover better ways of doing business or a better marketing approach, and this changes the scope of the project.

3. How clear was the agreement with the developer?
Some problems in development are easy to avoid by having clear contracting language. If you want results that meet your expectations, you need to ask enough questions to clarify how the site will work. You can express the results you want in an agreement without knowing how a developer will implement this technically. When this is done, it is easy to hold a developer accountable.

4. Was it difficult to communicate with the developer?
Many developers are good at coding but have a hard time understanding the client’s needs. It is important for developers to have a sense of the user’s experience as well as the business purpose of the website. If a client finds a developer does not show an understanding of this part of the project, it will make the project more stressful.

5. If changes were needed along the way, did the developer explain things well?
Did the developer provide options for challenges? If a project has any complexity at all, it is not uncommon for both the developer and the client to learn in the course of the project. As a result, changes in the scope or implementation may be needed. If a developer is not flexible or diligent enough to be a partner, this part of the project will be a challenge.

What is the Best Hosting for Joomla?

This is a question we are often asked. What is the best hosting company for Joomla websites? We have tried at least half a dozen, and what we have found is there are certain criteria that you must consider when making a decision. Unfortunately we cannot say we have found one company that is aces at everything, but we have found several that have come really close.

We do not have a server where we provide hosting for our customers. Instead we have them set up their own hosting accounts with a service. In this way our customers have dominion over their website. Since we aren’t the hosts, we have tried many companies to find the best fit for Joomla optimization, Joomla security as well as customer service.

When choosing a host for Joomla, you cannot just choose anybody. Hosting requires a certain set of parameters in order for the site to run properly and to ensure Joomla security. This is why it is important to choose a company that specializes in optimizing their servers to host Joomla websites.

What do we think?

Here is our assessment of companies the we have used. This assessment is based on actual experience with these companies. Please don’t be upset if we’ve left your company off the list. If you’re not on the list, it’s because we haven’t tried you yet. Email us, and we’ll be happy to give it a go. In the chart below we’ve graded some of the services provided to give you an idea of how well they perform for us. In cases where there really isn’t a measure of service (i.e. unlimited bandwidth), we just wrote yes/no.

What host do we use?

If you’re wondering what host this blog is on, it’s hosted on Interactive Online. Our company website, Landau Design, is hosted on Hostgator.

What host do you use for your Joomla site, and how do you like them?

Browser Friendly Fonts Make Viewing Universal

We often get requests from clients to use particular fonts on their website. Recently the following email came into our inbox:

The answer to this question relies on the need for universal fonts. Fonts on a web page are not stored within your code. Instead, they are called on by the code, but they must be present on the computer in order to display properly.

What fonts are universal on the web?
There are only so many fonts found in the world that typically exist on every computer platform. If you want your site to display consistently, you must choose your fonts from this list:

You’ll notice that there is no script font on this list. That doesn’t mean you cannot specify a script font when laying out your pages. It simply means if you do specify a script font, there is a good chance other people’s computers won’t have the font, in which case the browser will substitute Arial for any missing fonts.

Using a graphic instead of text
If it’s really necessary to use a specific font, you might consider displaying it as an image rather than as text. If the image is too large this may slow the download speed of your web page, so take this into consideration. If you do use an image, be sure to use an ALT tag to let search engines know the description of the text in the image.

More on universal web fonts:

• Core Fonts for the Web
• Common fonts to all versions of Windows & Mac equivalents
• 16 Gorgeous Web Safe Fonts to Use With CSS  
• Web Safe Fonts Preview

Why Shouldn’t I Build My Site in Flash?

The simple answer to this question is: because the search engines won’t index it properly. Flash looks cool, and it’s fun, and yeah the menus can bounce around, wave and do some back flips for you, but you really have to ask yourself “does this add to my business message?”

What is Flash?
Flash is a programming language that allows the designer/developer to create really beautiful animations. They can create sites that respond to your movements, and involve some really cool morphs of menus and content. You can see some examples from Landau Design at Ralph White and Lapolla Inc websites. The opening animation of photographs and words are created in Flash.

Why can’t the search engines index Flash files?
The code required to build a flash animation is held in an SWF (Shockwave Flash) file format. The search engines cannot see into these files, so they cannot review and record the text information contained within them. Recently Google announced a change in Flash indexing. Unfortunately this change only relates to the auxilliary files that make the Flash file run, they still cannot index the Flash file itself.

Does that mean I should never use Flash?
No, flash files can add some dynamism to your site. You shouldn’t build your entire site in flash, but embedding a flash file within your site is fine. You can compensate for the lack of indexing in your title and metatags, as well as any content you add to the page. The animations I shared above are inset into a frame of HTML code. The search engines cannot index the flash animation, but it can index everything around it.

How do I decide when to use Flash?
You need to consider whether the flash animation adds to your business message. So many companies today build all-Flash sites because they look cool. But they’re not in the entertainment industry, and while it’s fun, a fully animated site does not add to their business message on their site. And the trade-off is that the search engines will not index the content on your site. Only you can decide if the WOW factor adds to your business message, or it’s more important to employ SEO tools.