By Sandy Drake – NNFP Website HELP Team Member

The New Website Versus The Old Website

The Living Forest Site wasn’t a bad site; it was loose like a blanket that was starting to unravel. The colors and layout were visually pleasing but filled with a lot of empty space that needed to be tightened up. The user would have to search and scroll to get to the information, because of the empty space. It wasn’t easy to navigate to get to all of the important information that Living Forest had to offer.

First we created a template to make maintaining and updating the site easier. Living Forest Cooperative (like many wood organizations) doesn’t have large amounts of time to spend learning how to maintain a website. With the template they can learn more specific and less time consuming actions to update their site, without having to worry that they might damage to outer structure. The outer structure, the template, gives them the opportunity to create and update pages, while the structural part of the page remains locked. This prevents headache causing accidents that might put a site down for a couple of hours or a couple of days. In the future, as they become more familiar with their web development skills, they will be able to go in and adjust the template to the needs of the site.

We moved a new slideshow up to the top of the home page so that it was an immediate attraction visible as soon as the viewer opened the page.

What we did was tighten up that space, so that information was right there in front of the viewer as soon as they would open a page. We had one page filled with four pages worth of information that we would have to scroll through to get to one piece of information. We took that page and spilt it up into the four pages that they could be accessed by links to each page directly, instead of having scroll through the other pages to get to the page they were looking for. We reorganized other groups of pages so that they were accessible this way and hopefully easier to find.

We fixed outside links so that they produce a new browser window and viewer doesn’t have to leave the Living Forest Website in order to view the information from links.

We added more images to better illustrate some of the Living Forest activities, interests and practices. We went through and organized the root level of the site so that information and images were in organized folder and easier to locate when it came time to update a page or fix a problem on a page. We also renamed the web images. The new small descriptive image names in CamelCase and size, allow for easier recognition when updating and fixing problems. It also adds a little search engine optimization as well as information for “readers” used by handicapped individuals that can’t necessarily see the images.

We are now improving the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) with Title tags, Meta description, key words, alt tags and Google Analytics so that Google searches will reach the Living Forest Site.

It was also decided that with the face lift, colors and layout might be changed for a different look. The nice thing was with way the template was built it was fairly easy (40 min.) to adjust. We chose gray colors with a green tint and a differently organized table within the structure that might be more versatile as far as the information, images and all around look that LFC might like to represent through their website.

Visit the Living Forest Cooperative Website

By Sandy Drake
NNFP Website HELP Team Member

Imagine you hired a company to build you a beautiful new home. From the outside your new home looks lovely, but you realize on opening the front door that none of the interior doors are installed but leaning against the wall in the main living room. Instead of moving into your new home, you’re stuck finishing the task that the construction company neglected to finish. Unfortunately, too many people are faced with the same sort of frustration when they take a look at the back end of their new websites.

From the start of my very first web development course and throughout my web education, the instructors could not emphasize more the importance of good file structure and organization. They explained that most but not all new websites start out small, with just a few pages, a handful of images and probably one style sheet. As the business grows and time passes, new needs bring on more pages. Images and pages become outdated and updated. The site owner may bring in a programmer; add a database or PayPal and shopping cart options. With a database, newsletters can be sent out and member or client information can be stored and accessed in order to make the business run more smoothly. The root level is now overloaded and cluttered with current information, information to be used in the future and outdated information too important to discard. Original images, alternately sized images for different purposes and outdated images, along with informational documents, pdfs and programming criteria, mix together with no apparent order and fill the root level of the site. Your website is a mess, and it happens much faster than you would expect.

Now you bring in a web developer or find time in your busy schedule to update your site, fix broken links or to try to access past information to be reintroduced on the site. Where do you begin to look? The whole process seems overwhelming.

It is the web developer’s job, in the beginning, to set up a file structure and organize the information for the current and future needs of your site. It is a simple process to initiate and can cause the biggest problems if not implemented. Even a simple file structure can prevent confusion and sometimes large costly mistakes.

This simple file structure can comprise of as little as seven folders, labeled with easily understandable names. I would suggest a CSS folder, an Images folder, a CompanyInformation folder, an ImagesInProcess folder, a Templates folder, a Docs folder and an Archive folder to hold backup copies of current pages as well as outdated images and outdated pages of information. The only loose pages on the root level should be the index page and sometimes some programming information.

Next, a good web developer should educate the client on how to manage, maintain and update their file structure as the website matures.

I am still shocked to see how many websites, constructed by intelligent individuals, have been released as complete, even though one of the most basic and important areas in the infrastructure of the website has been neglected.

We would hope that a construction company, after finishing a building, would clean up loose and discarded nails, pieces of wood, sawdust and any other left over trash before presenting the building as complete. The web developer has the same responsibility. The backend area of the website should be clean and organized, free of miscellaneous pages, word documents and images, before the developer’s job is considered finished.

The correctly completed website should be user friendly on the inside as well as the outside.

NNFP Director of Web Services

There is no doubt that adding a shopping cart to your web site can greatly increase your sales! I shop online often. In fact, I just bought two books, from Amazon.com, to take the mystery out of the men’s clothing department. This is very important as I have one husband, two sons, four step-sons, and a son-in-law to buy clothes for (birthdays, Christmas, Easter, weddings, graduations, prom, …) I have also made other purchases online, such as licorice and ginger Altoids, which the grocery stores stopped carrying, and some fantastic Coffee flower body lotion. I even ordered flowers for a relative from a shop in the Seattle area.

So, what’s the point? Well there are a few:

1) Amazon.com got my loyalty a long time ago by finding the books and CDs I wanted and delivering them to my mailbox.

2) I want what I want now – without having to drive 30 minutes to the store, if I can. However, I’m more likely to buy it, if I already know what it is. This is the case of the Altoids and the lotion – I’m a repeat buyer, and I couldn’t find these items at the places I normally shop.

3) I’m willing to take a chance, if I have enough information. This applies to the books. I’m hesitant to buy them without looking at them, but the previous customer comments sold me.

4) Sometimes, my options are limited, which makes it more likely that I will take a chance, but no less uncomfortable. This applies to the flowers. Neither the web sites, nor the staff response when I mentioned that I found them on the web encouraged me to buy. Only the time factor and the fact that I needed the flowers delivered from WA, prompted the purchase. I now use this experience as a case study in my web development classes.

5) People that know your business are more likely to use your website to buy.

Let’s apply this to making $$$ by having a shopping cart to supplement your brick-and-mortar business:
1) Most of your online business will be with people who are pleased with their “live” experience with you, at least to start with. These are folks who identify with your facilities; so, be sure to feature what they like best about it!
Example: The Good Food Store

2) Before you build your shopping cart, figure out how your online business will integrate with your physical process.
Bad Example: when I called the florist in WA and asked for a specific bouquet from their website, the person on the phone hadn’t even seen what they had online!
Good Example: At BodyCoffee.com, I had an email reply within 24 hours, and followup after I placed my order to be sure I got it.

3) Make sure that your staff is very familiar with your website, right from the planning stages. Assume that your web site is the only way that a caller (or email contact) knows about you. What did they see? What do they know about you?

4) Get customer comments and add them to your site. Keep your site alive!

PLANNING YOUR E-COMMERCE SITE

1) Just plan on spending a whole lot of time on this! You didn’t put your brick-and-mortar business together overnight. This one won’t work that way either. It’s not uncommon for companies to call me with the expectation of having their site ready within a month. If you have a PLAN in place in 6 months, you are doing very well indeed!

2) Write a business plan for your online function! If you need some help, organizations like NNFP are available to help you!

3) Place online orders with 10+ companies you normally do business with (companies of various sizes and types.) Write down everything you like and dislike about finding a product and ordering the product as you shop. This step will be very enlightening! And, remember, what you don’t like on other sites – people won’t like on yours either!

4) After you have found your likes and dislikes, do some transactions where you make a list with a) each page you go to, what you did there.
Example: ordering from Amazon:
- go to home page: do a search for “men’s clothing styles”
- go to list of books: click on AskMen.com: The Style Bible. Very disappointed that there is no way to read a few pages.
- go to Customer Comments at bottom of page. The specific information given about good and bad points was very helpful.
- go to 2nd book recommended in Customer Comment. This book has pages to read available.
- add 2nd book to One-click.
- login with password. Don’t have to remember user name.
- go to page with order, which tells me that I need $6.00+ to get free shipping.
- add 1st book to One-click to get free shipping!
- etc!

5) Now that you have a list and and understanding of the specific process of online ordering, put together a software plan that will help you describe the specifics of your shopping cart. 6) Research various shopping cart products to find the one that matches your needs.

That’s just the planning part! More on the development phase coming!

NNFP Director of Web Services

Purely online business sounds great! You can run your business in your pajamas – your customers can’t see you. No more getting up at 4:00 am and doing hard physical work. You can make $$$$$millions! Well, maybe! Think of it like gold prospectors. Many of them became wealthy, but you can be sure that the folks that became wealthy were the folks who sold them supplies.

Not to discourage you from your enterprise, but if you don’t have a brick-and-mortar business to back up your new enterprise, you have an extra hurdle to jump: trust and exposure. OK, that’s two hurdles. Every quarter before my new classes at Dickinson Lifelong Learning Center begin, I receive calls from folks who are going to make it big by setting up a web site. Some of them do very well, but in the mix are the folks expecting that building a web business takes less work than building a brick-and-mortar business. The funny think is that many of these calls come from folks who want to skip the Web Marketing and Design course and jump right into the Development course. If anything, they need the first course the most.

Down to brass tacks. Yes, you can create a successful wood product marketing site without a physical location where people can visit. Let’s say that you are a coop that represents the woodworkers in your area. You don’t have a facility; can you market mostly through the web? YES!!! If you are willing to put in the long term commitment and work, you can have a great marketing site. Here are some things you should expect to do:

1) Work with a professional designer who will create a site that is fun and useable.

2) Have images of YOUR people doing their work. Not stock photography, but very high quality photos of real people and products. Why should I buy from you instead of IKEA where they specialize in making it easy for me?

3) Make sure that visitors see a clear call to buy the product immediately on your site. How easy is it for me to order that chair in the middle of the night, when I have time to shop online? You are competing with Ebay. Give me a great reason to buy from your members instead (even if I have to wait more than 5 days for my order.)

4) Update your site frequently – daily would be best. You are competing with every product site out there.

5) Market your site like you mean business. Do you have listings on every free directory possible? Do you have listings on paid sites? Do you have paid ads on online and print magazines? In other words, are you a brand?

6) Follow up on every response promptly and with local personality! The part-time person who answers responses once every week won’t do. If your person answering responses is personally connected to your people, so much the better! I’d so much rather order from your local enthusiastic person who knows your members, than from an international call center.

7) Write press releases and stories to post on every relevant site you can find – regularly – even if you have to hire a local writer to do it. Make me feel good about supporting green, or local business, or artisans, or multiple generation business or whatever your cool factor is.

Work non-stop! This isn’t something that you can give to the administrative assistant to do occasionally. If you are serious about running an online business, be serious about the work.

I haven’t mentioned Search Engine Optimization. Avoid the tricks. Have a great web site. Do the items above. After they are an integral part of your work life, let’s discuss optimization!

NNFP Director of Web Services

Following the idea that you need a realistic timeline for building your site before you can make a profit, today we will discuss the time and work it takes for the second model, a: “Very small, static, informational site with some programming (feedback form, newsletter signup, calendar, etc) to market a brick and mortar business.”

Whenever you add programming to your site, you add a new convenience to your viewer (if it works well, and they use it) and you add a new level of complexity to your work. In the long run, well chosen programming will increase the profitability of your web site by 1) giving the viewer a reason to stick around, 2) by reducing some manual tasks, such as building a new web page for events for each month of the year! However, the process of chosing, setting up and maintaining the software needs to be added to your time budget.

The first thing you need to do before chosing a specific software package for your web site, is to decide and document what it should do – in detail! Let’s take an online calendar as an example.

The Benefits of an online Calendar
- They don’t have to call you to find out the particulars of an event.
- You can update the information in minutes through an online form that takes care of formatting and linking the event.
- The event can be picked up by Google and other web sites, and, thereby, reach people you don’t even know about.
- People know where to go to find information, when they can’t remember,without having to find “that piece of paper” where they wrote it down.
- Fewer people will take your phone time aksing about the event!
- People looking for one event can see other events you have.

Step 1: What do you want the software to do anyway?
- Should the software show a calendar page, a calendar with just days, a list of events, or both.
- How many months should people be able to see at one time, or how should they go from month to month?
- What should your staff have to do to enter a new event, change an event or delete an event?
- A calendar is a relatively small piece of software. For something bigger, such as an ecommerce solution, you should work on a software plan, which is much more detailed.
ACTION: Usually, when we use software on a web site, we really don’t think about how it’s working. Take a closer look at existing calendars. Search for online calendars in your area. What features do you like and dislike about the way each calendar works. WRITE THESE DOWN!

Step 2: Search for software that matches your list.
- Do a search for online calendar software. Your search will lead you to both sites that list software for download and sites that use the software.
- On the sites that list the software, see if they have a demo of how their software works. If they don’t have a demo, go somewhere else.
- On the sites that use the software, if you find two or three you really like, call them and see if they really like it too! Sometimes there is really nice software that is so badly supported by the software company, it is a real chore for staff to use.
- Some of the pages you find may list comments and reviews of the software. These will give you an idea of other people’s experiences with the software in question. Nora’s reviews.

Step 3: What technologies are available on your web host for your software?
- You can by-pass the server technology issue by using an online service, like the Google calendar. That means that all the programming you use is actually on a Google server – not yours. Often, you can actually make it look like the calendar is on your site, but the information is coming from another server. The downside is that you don’t necessarily get the search engine credit for the calendar!

- If you choose to install programming on your own web server, you will need to get a list of the programming language, the version, and other server requirements, such as whether it needs to have a database set up too. Then you need to contact your web host and find out whether they have those services available.

CASE STUDIES:
1. This Ning site has great programming! There are so many cool features for everyone to use, including this blog! But the domain nnfp.org doesn’t benefit at all from the traffic for their web site stats because it’s hosted on Ning.com!

2. I have a client, which has software on their site to add articles through an online form. In other words, the staff person just copies and pastes the article into a form and doesn’t have to create a link a new web page – the programming takes care of all of that. However, the form system is very clunky to use, and the programming is a mish-mash of stuff.

The software company said that they have this great new upgrade that will solve all the clunkiness. It appeared that the programming language and version matches what the web host has; so, I installed it, only to find out that I hadn’t checked the version numbers quite carefully enough. The web hosts version was just before the one needed for the software! The result: no upgrade!

Note that it takes longer to make a profit off this model. In fact, it’s not even as simple as installing the software and raking in the $$$!

NNFP Director of Web Services

The million dollar question! Of course, the dream is that I put up a web site and within 6 months I’m living in a condo in Southern Spain, rolling high on the profits. I’ve been in web development since 1997, and I haven’t even had a two week vacation in Southern Spain. Either I’ve been cheated or there is something wrong with that model!

The problem with the dream perception is a lack of understanding of web models in 1) how long it takes to build a web site, 2) how long it takes to make a profit from a web site, and 3) how much work it takes to keep both the web site and the profits rolling. I worked for one non-profit with a very viable web site model, but totally unrealistic expectations. One particular board member started asking me, “How are sales?” from the first few weeks after the site “went live.” I always wanted to tell him, “You are asking the wrong question,” but it wasn’t my place to say that to him. One of the questions he should have been asking is, “Now that the web site is up and running, what do we need to do to make a profit?”

One of the results of not understanding the web model timeline was that there were not enough resources allocated to make the site profitable. And, the lack of a plan with specific steps to get there made it very frustrating. The only goal was to make a profit; there were no acknowledged intermediate goals to show steps toward success.

Let’s look at some web site models and what it takes to get them to profitability.

7 Basic Web Models

1. Very small, static, informational site to market a brick and mortar business.
2. Very small, static, informational site with some programming (feedback form, newsletter signup, calendar, etc) to market a brick and mortar business.
3. Small site to market a business without a brick and mortar business.
4. Web site with shopping functions to expand a brick and mortar business.
5. Web site with shopping functions without a brick and mortar business.
6. Web site to generate advertising revenue.
7. Web services web site (online stock broker, online conference registration, online sales management, …)

Very small, static, informational site to market a brick and mortar business

The benefit for this site is that your business is already known. People have walked into your facility and made purchases. Your web site is another way for them to interact with you. You can start web traffic as soon as your site is up, just by making sure your existing customers know about your web site. This is a case where the timeline from beginning to profitability can be relatively short (months).

For many businesses, this is a great place to start. A small site allows you to gather your ideas and try them out without the time and expense of a large site. A larger site can be part of your long term planning.

Planning Steps

• look at your competitors sites to see what they are doing
• ask your staff and customers what would be helpful for them on your web site
• decide what pages you want and what photos and content they should have
• gather photos and write text
• learn about the technologies available for you to use for development
• learn about how the technologies you choose will affect your search engine optimization
• decide what you would like your web site to look like, a rough sketch on paper will do (notice this is last!)
• Don’t be surprised if this takes several months!!!

Building

• find out what human web resources you have available (the people who can build your site or classes for you to do the development)
• learn the up and down sides to your possibilities and make a choice – remember, you will have to live with this one for a while!
• start the development process
• TEST EVERYTHING
• This could take from an afternoon (if all your photos and text are ready) to several months, depending on schedules and how many changes you want.

Marketing

• while your web site is in development, write your title and alt tags
• make a schedule for weekly (preferable) or monthly updates to your web site – forever
• get at least one new link back to your site from another site each week – forever
• get good feedback on what your viewers think about your web site – forever
• People have to find your site before it becomes an asset to your business. Even if you do Planning and Building

perfectly, if no one finds your web site, there are no profits from it. This one is a forever process.

Success Points! (have a little toast at the end of each one of these)

• Plan with list of pages and rough draft of “look and feel” is finished.
• All materials are gathered
• First iteration of the site is up and running online
• Staff and selected user tests have resulted in good feedback (is. changes that need to be done)
• Feedback changes are finished.
• 1000 visits in a month
• 5000 visits in a month
• 1st sale that can be directly attributed to the web site.
• etc!

NNFP Director of Web Services

The owner of a popular local restaurant came up to me this week, put his arm around me and said,”"I’ve lost my website!” At first I thought he was making a joke, but that wasn’t the case. His restaurant is a multi-generation, family restaurant that supports the community with more than just good food. They donate and participate in many causes that keep our downtown vibrant. I also happen to like going there for an afternoon snack between teaching web development classes. The fact that I can tap into a wireless connection at a certain table, also means that I can check email and put out fires while having that snack!

How do you lose a web site, anyway? Actually, I hear this type of story quite frequently in my classes. In the first class of the first course of the series, I find out how many of the group has no idea where their web site is. The difference between these students and the restaurant owner, though, is that they can usually go to their browser and see their web site.

HOW TO LOSE A WEB SITE IN 5 EASY STEPS

1. Don’t pay the bill for your domain name.
Your domain name is how the web site system finds your web site. It’s also a branding tool for your business.

Your domain name is registered through a registrar for a certain number of years. 30 days before your registration is up, you should receive a bill by email. If you have changed emails, of course, you won’t receive that bill! If you don’t pay that bill by the due date, your web site disappears from the public view. If you wait 30 days longer, it’s no longer your domain name.

I have a client who has almost lost her domain name twice. Each time, she has sent me work to do on her site, and I found out that the site was no longer available. I called her and let her know that she had no site and would lose her domain name if she didn’t pay her registrar. Each time, she took care of it, but those are close calls! I had another short-term client who lost 6 domain names because he didn’t pay the bill. In his case, it had been so long that someone else got them. Somehow he just figured I could strong-arm those folks into giving them back. In his case, the pattern of not paying his bills wasn’t a one-time slip – I should have seen that and and run! He didn’t pay mine either!

If you have someone else, like a hosting company or your web person, take care of your registration, whether you continue to have a domain name depends on their staying on top of the bills! However, even if you lose your domain name, you should still have the files of your web site on a local computer, which means that you can register a different domain name and still have your site.

Do you know who your registrar is? Do you have the information to get into your account? My friend above couldn’t even tell me what the domain name of his restaurant was. That makes it pretty difficult for me to track down!

2. Don’t pay your hosting bill.
Your web site lives on a web server. The web server makes your web site available to the public. If you don’t pay them, they shut your site down. Fair enough!

You probably receive a monthly bill from your web hosting company. Or, you may pay yearly. You may have the bill paid automatically every month and not really see it. But, your web host is under no obligation to continue services you don’t pay for. They probably have a policy that says if you don’t pay within X days, your site gets shut down. That’s bad for your business, but you should still have your domain name and the files of your web site on a local computer, which means that you can start a new account with your web host – or another web host.

Do you know who your web host is? Do you have the information to get into your account? My friend above couldn’t tell me where his site was hosted. That makes it pretty difficult for me to track down!

3. Use an online template system
There are many high quality template systems where you choose a look and type your information in a form. You can have a web site in an afternoon. That’s a great system when you need something right away. However, not all of them are high quality. See the blog on the Storefront Rip-Off. Also, if you use those fantastic images from the template site, those aren’t your images. You don’t get to take them with you somewhere else!

Either way, if you want to move your web site somewhere else, or if you don’t pay your bill, or if your company goes out of business, you don’t have a web site. You don’t have the files on your computer because you just filled out an online form. The only thing you have is your domain name – if you paid for it personally – not the template company.

Whether my restaurant friend used a template system, I couldn’t say. He didn’t know, and he couldn’t give me any information about the above items to track it down. Do you know whether you have a site built in an online template?

4. Don’t get a copy of your web site from your web designer.
Your web site is a set of files. If you don’t use an online template, you should be able to get a copy of all the files that make your web site from your web developer. I have had a number of students and clients whose web developer had moved or otherwise disappeared from their world. They didn’t have a copy of their web sites. However, if they have information about their web host, it is possible to get a complete copy from the server.

I had a short term client who had a local web hosting company build her site. The person who built the site left the company, and the company wasn’t good enough at business to back up all the original files. Before you begin work with a web developer, tell him/her how often you want a copy of all the original files of the web site. If they don’t want to give them to you, maybe you want to work with someone else.

Do you know who built your web site? Do you know where that person is? My restaurant friend has no idea who built his site.

5. Don’t keep any records about your web site.
From the first four items, you can see that there are a lot of different functions and companies involved in having a web site. It’s important that you know who they are, what they do, and what your account information is for each one.

I took a marketing class about 9 years ago. The instructor owned a bed-and-breakfast and had a web site. She came to class with a fist-full of papers and said, “I pay all these bills for my web site. My web site doesn’t work, and they all say it’s the fault of the other companies.” For someone who expounded on the benefits of marketing research, she needed to do some web research. If she wasn’t getting good answers, she was working with the wrong companies!!!

At least she had some paperwork. My restaurant friend lost all his paperwork down to the records of the bills he paid. Not much for me to go on! The only thing he can do is start over.

Do you have all your web site records somewhere you can easily retrieve them?

One more story. I had a student who had a photography web site with his name in the domain name and the business name. His wife did all the work and put her name on every account: domain, hosting, etc.. Well, actually, she was his ex-wife and had kept custody of his web site when he came to my classes. OUCH!

Don’t lose your web site!

NNFP Director of Web Services

How many passwords do you have associated with your website? If only your web developer knows, you may want to read “I’ve Lost my Website.” As a website owner, you want to have access to every technical part of your website, in case you lose your developer! You may find that you have passwords for a domain name registrar, a web hosting control panel, FTP, a database or two, and various others. But, why is that?

Just like you may go to many different services for your car, it takes many services to have a website. For your car, you go to one business to change the oil, another to work on your transmission and another to do body work. It is possible that one business could have people on staff to do all these tasks. It’s the same for your website. The following is an explanation of the different technical areas of your website that may have a username and password.

1. Your Domain Name

Your domain name is a group of characters that the internet, as a system, uses to locate your unique website on your web host. A person anywhere in the world can request your site, and find your site by following the directions associated with your domain name. You can move your website to a different web server, change the address associated with your domain name and know that people will still find your site.

Your domain name is not something that anyone but you should be able to access or change. So, you have an account with a domain registrar to keep other people from hijacking your domain name. If your domain name is registered through your web host, you may be able to make changes in your domain name account from the same place you make changes to your hosting account.

1 Password

2. Your Web Host Control Panel

Your web hosting company will most likely give you a place where you can go online to pay your bill, change your billing address, add new domain names, add a database to your account, add or change email addresses, and many other functions. This is your control panel or your account. Some web hosts give you one place to do everything. Other web hosts split it up and give you two sets of usernames and passwords. The reason they do that is that you might have an office person take care of the accounting issues and a technical person take care of emails and databases, etc. If one person is doing both functions, that person may find it cumbersome to have to log into two different places.

1 Password

3. FTP Access

FTP is a special connection to the files that make up your website on your server. Anyone can get your website to see it in their browser, but everyone shouldn’t be able to get to it to make changes. FTP is the connection that allows you to move files in and out of your site. So, it is very important that your FTP access be controlled through a username and password.

Some webhosting systems use the same username and password for both the control panel and your FTP access. Other webhosting systems allow you to set up many FTP usernames and passwords to give different people access to different parts of your website. That way you can control who gets to change what on your website. Also, if you need to take FTP access away from someone, if everyone has a different username and password, shutting an account down for one person doesn’t affect everyone’s access.

1. Password to X Passwords, depending on your hosting package.

4. Databases

Your website may have no database, one database, or many databases. You might have a database if you have an online catalog, or a forum, or a chat, calendar of events, or other types of lists. If you use a Content Management System for your website, your whole website may be run from a database. Again, it is very important to control who can add or delete information from the database; so, each database is controlled by a user name and password. In some web hosting systems, each database has the same password. In other web hosting systems, each database has its own password.

0 – X passwords

5. Web Services

Your website may be linked to payment services, such as PayPal; emailed newsletter software, such as MailerMailer; customer account software, such as SalesForce; event registration software, such as Regonline, and other systems. These systems are built and hosted by other companies. Each one of these systems will require it’s own username and password.

0 – X passwords

Protect your Passwords

No matter how many passwords you have, it can cause you a long struggle, if your passwords are compromised. Here are some things to be careful about:

1. Don’t use the same password for everything. If someone cracks one, they’ve cracked everything.
2. Don’t use a blank password, or the word “password,” or the word “secret.” These are the first things that an attacker will try because they are so common.
3. Don’t put your passwords on a sticky note – anywhere.
4. Don’t put your passwords in a file called Passwords, or even in a file that follows a pattern that is obviously for passwords. Clever attackers can search your whole computer.
5. Don’t send a username and password by email. Put them in separate emails. Or better yet, email one and text one.