When it comes to website domain and hosting, sometimes it's good to be a control freak

Why it’s sometimes good to be a control freak – website domain and hosting issues

Who has control over your website?

I’ve come across this scenario many times with clients:

You have a website for your business and you haven’t made many changes over the past few months/years. Now you’re ready to make some updates and upgrades, so you contact your “web person” and wait for their response. And wait. And wait. And wait some more. And then you realise that you’ve got a problem. So you try to log in to the backend of your website and realise, “hey, I don’t know how to make any changes myself”. So then you and I chat for a while and I do some sleuthing (yes, I also moonlight as a website detective!) and we discover that you actually have very little control over your site.

So what do you do now?

[Please note: there are many top-notch web designers out there who will host your website, make all of the changes that you require, and respond to your calls and emails in a timely manner. This post is not directed at them!]

There are a few different scenarios here.

First scenario: you own your domain name (you pay a company such as GoDaddy for your web address, such as www.yourcompany.com) and also pay a hosting company yourself (such as HostGator) but you can’t get into the backend of your website and your web designer is unresponsive. In this case, you can change the passwords for your domain and host, and also do a password reset for your website, so that you can make future changes. Pain level: minor.

Second scenario: you own your domain name but you pay your web designer to host the site for you. In this situation, I would recommend doing everything you can to contact the designer. If you really can’t get hold of them, you can always sign up for hosting with another company, point your domain name to the new host, and rebuild your website from scratch. Pain level: major.

Third scenario: you only pay bills to the web designer. They have full control over your domain name, hosting, and website. This is a worst-case-scenario. You have absolutely no control here. In this case, you really need to do everything in your power to contact your web designer. You may also need to get a lawyer involved (please note: I cannot provide any legal advice). Pain level: acute.

Just starting your website? Make sure you access your inner control freak while making decisions. At the very least, make sure you have control over your domain name. Also recommended: pay a hosting company to host your website (not the web designer); make sure you are an administrator for all Google accounts (email, admin console, Google business) and all social media networks.

Already in the thick of things? Evaluate the relationship you have with the person who does your work and decide if having control over your accounts is worth rocking the boat.

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Need help with your website? Please fill out the form on my “Contact” page and we can get started on harnessing your inner control freak 🙂

~ Jen Hames-Beliveau

Why You Should Stop Using Google Image Results

Blog, Facebook, Images, Social Media, Websites

We all know that images are a great way to catch people’s eye. And it can be tempting to do a Google search to find the perfect image to match your words. After all, it’s quick, easy, and the pictures that you see in the Google results look so amazingly wonderful that you just can’t wait to slap them on your own Facebook page / Twitter update / blog post!!

But hold on a second. The reason the pictures that show up in Google images look so gosh darn brilliant is that a lot of them are copyrighted. Applications and websites such as tineye.com (a reverse image search tool) make it very easy for image owners to find out who is using their pictures without permission. You might get away with using someone else’s image and no one will be the wiser. Or you could end up with an angry email from someone asking you to take the image down, or even threaten to sue you for copyright image infringement.

So what (legal) options are available for a non-graphic designer like yourself?

Here’s a few suggestions:

1. Use your own photos. Today’s smartphones feature some pretty great cameras, and I’m sure you’re already taking oodles of photos. Simply scroll through your own pictures and upload an image to suit your content.

2. Enhance your own photos. Use an app like Instagram to add a filter, put a box around your image, or enhance the picture. There are also apps such as Frametastic, Mosaic, and YourMoments (and many other apps as well) that let you make photo collages, add text, fun borders, and much more. Have fun, create an awesome graphic, and then email it to yourself so that you can access it from your computer (or post right away using your phone).

3. Use non-copyrighted images. There are many websites that feature free, non-copyrighted images that are uploaded from users around the world. My go-to site is free-images.com It requires a (free) registration to download images, but the pictures are free and you can use them without worrying about copyright violations. Other suggestions are rgbstock, Dollar Photo Club and morgueFile. You can also check out this blog post by Jacob Gube titled “Where to Find the Best Free Stock Photos” and “53+ Free Image Sources For Your Blog and Social Media Posts” on the buffersocial blog.

4. PicMonkey. Although I’ve only used PicMonkey a few times (I usually use Photoshop instead), it’s a great online tool to edit and modify your images. You can easily add text, your company logo, filters, frames, and much more. It’s free to use, although there are premium features that require a paid subscription to unlock. Definitely worth checking out if you are interested in creating custom images for your online content.

Finally, if I can’t convince you to stop using other people’s images, at the very least include credit to the image creator and a link to the original source.

Any suggestions for places to find great images? Let me know in the comments!
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Why is it important to Google yourself?

Blog, Branding, How-To, Websites

Everyone has a personal brand, which in my opinion is actually just a catchy buzzword for “reputation”. It’s displayed in the clothes you wear, the way you answer the phone, interact with friends and family, order your meal at a restaurant, and whether you shake someone’s hand or give them a kiss on each cheek. But your personal brand is also on display online, whether you’re aware of it or not.

Which leads me to the question, [blockquote]”When’s the last time you Googled yourself?”[/blockquote]

Last year? Never? Then think of this as your friendly reminder to head over to Google and have a quick peek at the results. Start by typing in your name, followed by your town or city. Sometimes, putting your name in quotation marks can help. Have a nickname? Or use both your maiden and married name? Try all of the combinations you can think of.

The first few pages of results will be the most relevant. I wouldn’t recommend going much past three pages, as you’ll just be inundated with irrelevant results. While you’re at it, click on “Images” at the top of your search results page to see what pictures show up for your search query.

As well, be aware that the results you’re seeing are highly skewed and are based on all of your previous searches. Two ways around this:

1. Open an incognito window in your browser and perform the search there
2. Go to adwords.google.com/d/AdPreview/ and change the location to suit your search

There. That wasn’t so bad. But now what?

Well, now that you know what’s hiding out there on the Wild, Wild Web about yourself, here’s some suggestions about how to proceed:

Reputation monitoring:
Make a quarterly reminder in your calendar to Google yourself. Also, set up a Google alert for your name and location; that way, you’ll receive an email alert if anything new is published about yourself online (https://www.google.ca/alerts).

Reputation management:
If there’s some content online that you really don’t like, there’s a few options:

Contact the author of the website or blog and ask them to remove the content. This might not work, but it never hurts to ask.
If the content is slanderous/libel and is hosted on a free site such as Blogger (Google) or WordPress, you can try contacting the company who owns the site. Since the author hasn’t paid for their own domain name, you might have some luck with this option.
Stop worrying about the negative things that you found about yourself online and take control of your Google footprint. Get to work filling the first few pages of search results with positive content. After all, most people don’t click past the first few pages of results.

How to take control of your Google footprint:
Even if you think you don’t have a Google footprint, it is out there. Whether you’re trying to mitigate unfavourable search results or just beef up your online presence, here are some suggestions:

Claim your vanity URL’s on Facebook and LinkedIn
Make a page on about.me with your info
Start a personal website and include an “About” page with your name and location
Write blog posts for your company’s website and include your name and location in the bio section
If you have a WordPress site, install the “WordPress SEO” plugin and make sure your name and location are in the page title and meta description for all applicable pages
Write guest blog posts for other websites and sign off with your info, as well as a link to the “About” page on your website
Comment on interesting articles that are related to your business and industry; often, these comments are indexed by search engines
Use your real name when signing up for accounts such as Pinterest, Instagram and Twitter
Sign up for Google+ and start posting; this is one of the best ways to take control of your search results!

Have any other suggestions? Please let me know in the comments!

A bio written in the first person

Blog, How-To, Websites, Writing

I’ve been slowly making my way through Danielle LaPorte’s “The Fire Starter Sessions: A Soulful + Practical Guide to Creating Success on Your Own Terms“. It’s a really thought-provoking book that begs to be read more than once, and it will definitely help kick your butt into action if you happen to need that sort of impetus, which a lot of us do. But there was one short nugget of advice, tucked away in the lower left-hand section of a page, that kept sticking with me.

It read: [blockquote cite=”Danielle LaPorte”]”For the love of God and the information highway, please write your bio in first person — we all know you wrote it anyway. One of the most highly trafficked pages on small business websites is the ‘About’ page. People are hiring you, paying attention to you, coming to see you. So they want to hear from. . . you.[/blockquote]

The idea kept eating away at me. It went against much of what I had learned in business school and throughout my career about presenting myself in a professional way, learning how to give a good handshake, wear a nice suit, and write a kick-ass bio that sounded like I had been interviewed by Canadian Business.

At first I thought, ‘no way could I ever write in the first person’. People would know that I am working on my own, that I don’t have a ‘team’ here in my home-based office, and they would be turned off by my utter lack of business decorum. But then I took a look at the About page of my website and realised that it was boring. Painstakingly boring, stuffy, and unoriginal.

Reading LaPort’e advice was liberating. It’s as if someone was suggesting, maybe even giving me permission, to drop the stuffy pretentiousness and just be me. What a refreshing concept. And also a bit scary. Because writing in the first person can be personal and open, but it can also feel vulnerable to put yourself out there.

I have always avoided the use of first-person pronouns such as “I” and “Me” in every piece of somewhat professional writing I had ever done. This includes everything from my website to my LinkedIn profile to my blog posts. But I was curious. I put my expert Googling skills to use, took a peak at what other people were doing… And you know what? There are lots of people out there who write in the first person. People who I respect, admire, and also would kind of like to emulate. So I took a deep breath, deleted all of the copy on my About page, and started typing.

It’s still a work-in-progress, but I’m proud of my website’s About page (https://jenuinemarketing.com/about/jen-hames/). I think that if you read it, you get a sense of who I am, what I’ve done, and where I’m going. After all, if you are interested in working with me, you should have an idea of how I operate, how I communicate, and what exactly you’re getting yourself into. You should know that I will send you emails full of exclamation points, use fun words like ‘awesome’, and tell you that you are amazing. And if that doesn’t work for you, that’s okay. You’re still amazing 🙂

[divider_advanced color=”#BC0070″ paddingTop=”6″ paddingBottom=”16″ thickness=”1″ width=”100%”] Interested in liberating your website’s “About” page? Please fill out the form on my “Contact” page and we can get started on sharing your own wonderful self with the world.