Online Presence Advocacy and Your Responsibilty

Susan Finch Web Development, Susan Finch Web Solutions Provider; what these boil down to is that Susan Finch is an advocate for her clients.  Seems odd to speak of myself in the third person. I'll stop that now, but may slip into it during another post.

For the past year, a few things have become obvious:

1. People want more control over their web sites and web presence.
2. People have no clue how to gain control over their web sites and web presence.

This opens up opportunity for me to help.  Where I need to be firm with my clients is that my help, advice and research are billable.  I'm not your cousin. I'm not your girlfriend. I'm  a professional that's been configuring web servers, setting up email accounts in many settings, and setting up an online presence for my clients for 13 years.  This is in addition to the design and print projects.  Let's get started:

Questions you need to know the answers to before you contact a professional who will bill you, or who is kind enough to give you a free consultation.  Please don't waste their time or your money. You need to be a grown up and get these answers:

1. With whom is your domain registered?
   This may be a company like GoDaddy, Network Solutions, Yahoo, Google, Register.com, DotManiac - there are endless possibilities
    
2. Who is hosting your domain (may be same company)?
   Most of the time, the same company that your domain is registered with also hosts your domain records. 
    
   Go to your domain registration company and use their "whois" look up tool.  Type in your domain and see what information comes back. 
    
   This will answer a lot of questions such as:  Who the domain owner is, technical and administrative contacts and the name servers for the domain record.
    
3. Who is hosting your website?
   It may be the same company again, or it may have the domain (@) and www records pointing to another location. If your site is an ecommerce site, blog or content management solution (CMS), your site and all related files may sit somewhere else. Some sites have pieces on several servers. You need to know what pieces are hosted where:
   
   • blog
   • cart
   • forums
   • basic site
   • multi-media
   • hosted content management site (Joomla, dotNetNuke, Droopl, etc.)
4. Who is your ISP (Internet Service Provider)?
   Who do you pay each month for your internet access?  Do you know your username/password for that account?  Most offer free mail or even web hosting (although I don't recommend hosting your website with your ISP as they do change from time to time).
   
5. Who is hosting your email?
   This is for your ISP AND related to your professional domain.  You should only be using your @mydomain.com email for all branding/business related.  That's another topic.  You need to know if you have an exchange server and how to access the admin.
    
6. How do you receive your email?
   Do you use Outlook? Do you prefer webmail?  Do all of your email accounts filter into one inbox or are you logging in several times to check all accounts?
    
7. Who designed your website?
   Do they still help you?  Are you in good-standing with them?  Can you get your raw graphic files from themto be able to have freedom to use them in other ways?
    
8. Who maintains your website?
   When you need something updated on your website, who do you call?  Are you happy with them?  Can they help you get some of these answers?  Have you lost control of your site and have no resources to make changes?  Do you want to learn how to make changes yourself?
    
9. Who adds or modifies new email accounts as you need them?
   Do you have more than one employee?  How frequently do they change?  If so, how do you go about adding new employees into the email system and then creating new business cards for them, adding them to your website in the contacts or team area?

If you don't know these answers, ask around in your company to find them.  Keep this information all together so you can put your hands on it when you call a professional for the next steps.

Comments

[cms solutions]

very gud steps for Online Presence Advocacy and Your Responsibilty.Thanks for sharing.