In this post, we’ll outline a few ways to feel confident about choosing a web host.

First Things First: What Exactly is Web Hosting?

Your host is the “computer” where your website is stored. Your host provides the server from which your website files are delivered to your website visitors.

Questions to Start Your Search For the Best Web Host

The first thing you need to do is determine your needs and the hosting features that are the most important to you.

Here are questions to ask as you start your search for the best web hosting company:

• Do you have any specific needs? Do you have several different sites that need hosting? Lots of URL redirects? Do you have e-commerce needs? Do you want email? All of these specific needs impact hosting choices.
• What happens if your site goes down?  Do you just lose visitors or do you lose income too?
  You need to know what the consequences will be if you have downtime on your site.  How much is a little extra piece of mind worth to you? Your answer should influence your level of hosting investment.
• What’s your site’s traffic level? Evaluate your site’s current level of traffic and make a realistic projection for future traffic levels.
• How much control do you need?
• Are you an average user, meaning you don’t need much control?  Or will you be testing different configurations or making advanced installations?
• What is your “need for speed?” If your site runs slowly, is that going to be a major problem for you?  Or just a minor inconvenience?
• What’s your preferred way of getting help?
• Are you okay with a host that only provides help via support tickets or online chat?  Or do you prefer to get support over the phone?
• How much storage does your site require?
• What kind of content do you have on your site?  For instance, if you have media-rich content like photos and videos, storage space is an important consideration.

Are You Using WordPress?

Another important consideration when searching for the best web hosting company is the fact that you are using WordPress to create your site.

To take advantage of all the features of WordPress, you’ll need to purchase a hosting plan and install the WordPress software on your server.

There are a few basic requirements specific to hosting a WordPress site, things you need to consider when picking a host, but there are also some more specific things to consider.

• HTTP Loopbacks – Loopbacks are a must-have when hosting a WordPress site.  WordPress and some plugins (like BackupBuddy) run scripts (bits of code) in the background. This makes sites run more smoothly and reduces wait time. They’re called loopbacks because the server is connecting or looping back to itself to run something else.
• Command Line Zip – Servers can run all sorts of programs, just like your computer. The command line is a simple way to run those programs in Linux. ZIP is a program that compresses files, creating .zip files (for example, most WordPress themes and plugins come as .zip files). Some plugins, including BackupBuddy, require command line ZIP. Sometimes a host will turn this off by default, but they’ll be willing to turn it on if you ask
• Numbers – Hosts will offer a whole set of numbers when bragging about speed and memory. It can be overwhelming, especially when hosts start boasting about unlimited memory, storage, etc. (just remember that nothing is unlimited — read the fine print).  These numbers would include things like storage Space, Data Transfer/Bandwidth, Maximum PHP Runtime & PHP Memory.

Check out this post for more on how to find the best WordPress host.

Other Things That Indicate a Good Web Host

Beyond the actual server requirements, there are other things to keep in mind when looking for your best web hosting company.

Customer Service

What do you do when the worst happens?  If your site crashes you’re going to want help and you’re going to want it quick; none of the other server requirements are going to matter at this point.

So when looking for your best web hosting options, be sure to find a customer service team with a quick response time.  Do they guarantee a response within a specific amount of time?  Depending on the severity of your issue, a wait time of around a few hours for a response should be reasonable, but you certainly don’t want to wait 24 hours for a response. That’s bad.

Make sure they’re actually helpful.  Customer service should actually resolve your issue. It’s no good if they’re evasive, give bad information or flat-out don’t care.

Make sure they offer help via your preferred method.  Do you prefer to receive your support by phone?  Or are you most comfortable receiving support online by ticket or chat?



Control

How much control do you need to have? Not all hosts will offer you the same level of control. Since you may have shared hosting and not a dedicated server, you may not be able to control everything. But a good host will give you the necessary access to do what you need to do.

Most hosts offer a control panel that includes a lot of backend functionality — more control than you probably need. But you want to have that kind of control. You never know when you’ll need it.

Not Overloading Resources

If your site is hosted on a shared hosting, you run the risk of your host cramming as many sites as possible onto one server in order to maximize their profits.  This can result in slower load times on your site or your site becoming unavailable due to other sites on the same server hogging resources and bandwidth.

Unfortunately, there’s really no way to check if your host is overloading resources. Check out the speed of other sites using the host or even check out the host’s own site to see how fast it’s running. The best you can really do is ask around, read some reviews and get a general feel for the resource quality they offer.

Additional Features

Uptime Guarantees

What kind of uptime guarantees does the host offer? 99.9% sounds great, but that still allows for eight hours of downtime per year. Can your business handle that? For many small businesses that’s an annoyance, but for other businesses, that can be a deal breaker.



You should also ask what happens if your host can’t live up to their guarantee. If they screw up and their server crashes, can you get a refund? If you’re really concerned about downtime, you should also ask about their disaster planning. Things like earthquakes, tsunamis and even thunderstorms happen and they’ve been known to take down websites. Your host should be prepared for the worst. It happens.

One-Click Installs

Many hosts offer one-click installs of WordPress, saving you time as you, literally, can install WordPress with one click.

Keep in mind with one-click installs, however, that this isn’t always the most secure way to install WordPress.

Backups

If the worst should happen and your site crashes, it’s vital to have a backup of your site to restore it from. Many host companies create backups of your site for you. You should check with the host to see if they do create backups for you, how often these backups are created and what the charge would be to restore your site from that backup as many hosts charge you for this service.

For WordPress sites, it’s a good idea to use a WordPress backup plugin like BackupBuddy.

In Summary

When creating your website, it’s important to find the best web hosting company for your needs.There are so many things to contemplate when you start your search. For more suggestions and advice on how to find the best web hosting company for you, check out our free ebook, How To Pick Web Hosting Without a Computer Science Degree.

Download the Ebook Now

The post How To Determine the Best Web Hosting Company For Your Website appeared first on iThemes.

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But are blog comments still as important today?

The wider world quickly picked up on the power of comments and added a comment field to every bit of content. Now newspapers and YouTube are infamous for regularly featuring the depths of human depravity in their comments.

Does Your Blog Need Comments?

Comments have been an assumed part of blogging since the beginning. That inherent nature of comments means that shutting them off is a bold step.

And so people have been debating since the beginning whether or not blog comments are required. The debate has existed for years, but it’s flared up again lately.

The No Blog Comments Camp

Recently marketing guru Chris Brogan turned off blog comments. He complained that comments are inundated with spam and self-promotion, but also pointed out that commenting is happening everywhere:

“Comments have scattered to the winds.”

You have to turn to social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to see what people think about your blog post. But people also have their own platforms to respond with:

“Many people’s comments have become blog posts or social network posts in their own right.”

Copyblogger likewise shut down comments earlier this year, pointing to social media and other blog posts as a better venue for conversation. They also emphasize the value of creating your own content:

“I want to challenge you to take that great thinking and writing and use it to build your audience rather than ours.”

It’s an old debate.

Back in 2006 Seth Godin defended his lack of blog comments: They’re a distraction. He felt they were too time consuming and ultimately would change how he wrote. Godin later justified turning off comments by saying:

“You don’t need more criticism, you need more writing.”

In 2010 John Gruber explained his decision not to have comments on Daring Fireball by emphasizing his desire to avoid extra noise:

“My goal is for not a single wasted word to appear anywhere on any page of the site.”

And if you want even more anti-comments opinion, Matt Gemmell offered his reasons for shutting them off, then offered a follow-up a month later and then created a collection of comments commentary. Whew.

The Pro Blog Comments Crowd

But let’s not pretend everybody is anti-comment.

WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg is decidedly pro comment. In 2008 he said this when Automattic acquired Intense Debate:

“Long-term, I think that comments are the most crucial interaction point for blogs, and an area that deserves a lot of investment and innovation. Comments really haven’t changed in a decade, and it’s time to spice things up a little.”

Then again, blog comments haven’t changed much in the six years since Mullenweg made that comment.

More recently Mullenweg said comments were his favorite part of blogging:

“My favorite thing about blogging is the comments or even people responding on Facebook or Twitter. The interaction sometimes corrects me if I’m wrong and it’s a nice way to connect with people I wouldn’t otherwise meet.”

Chris Lema weighed in with a simple explanation based on a visit to Amazon:

“I found that the comments were more useful and valuable to me than the page content itself.”

And if you haven’t noticed, we’ve still got blog comments here at iThemes. Our theme for 2014 is “Go Far Together,” and for us comments are an important part of ‘together.’

Comment Pros & Cons

So now what? You can side with Chris Brogan and Seth Godin and go no comments. Or join Matt Mullenweg and Chris Lema and keep the comments coming. But really, it’s your site. You need to make your own decision.

Here are some simple blog comment pros and cons:

Pro Blog Comments:

• Welcome interaction. Part of what made blogs popular was that they allowed for conversation. Yes, conversation has moved to social media, but by having comments on your site you’re encouraging that conversation. That comment field is a welcome mat: C’mon in!
• Gut check. Comments can often serve as a double check of what you’re saying. By keeping that comment field open, you give people a chance to call out your B.S., correct your wayward facts or confirm what you thought. Making that public and putting it directly below your post, that keeps you honest.
• Add value. Part of that gut check is added value. Commenters can correct any errors or point to helpful resources. They might add an additional thought or a recommendation you never would have thought of. And now your post is better because of it.
• Community is fun. Let’s face it—it feels great to see someone post a comment on your blog. You feel validated. Your site is clearly being read by other people. It develops a sense of community among your readers, and that’s cool. People like to be where the action is.

No Blog Comments:

• Better methods. The conversation has moved because there are better ways to have that conversation. So move with it. Instead of engaging on your blog, engage in social media.
• Get some confidence. Relying on comments as a fact-check or to validate what you’re saying is a crutch. Check your own facts and stop relying on the ego boost of strangers. And it’s OK to go back and update a post.
• Lost in the weeds. Sometimes comments add value, yes. But only if people can find them. Wading through the weeds of self-promotional comments, spam, and useless platitudes is a lot of work. Is it worth putting your readers through all that?
• Community is overrated. People can be jerks. And online, they will be. The trolls come out, the filters disappear and people say some horrible things. Who has time to moderate all of that and keep it civil?

Blog Comments Are Your Choice

You can turn the comments off. As Chris Brogan says, “We will all be OK.” Or keep them going. It’s up to you.

And really that’s how you should decide. What fits for your site? If you’re all about community engagement and interaction, blog comments are probably a no-brainer. But if you’re a slick, straight-to-business site, you probably don’t have time for the distraction of comments.

Is it important to build community and engagement on your site? Can you handle the unruly trolls, the spam, the transparency? Or would another medium be a better fit for interaction? These are the questions you need to answer when you’re considering comments for your blog.

The post Blog Comments: Pros & Cons in the Ongoing Debate appeared first on iThemes.

If your ecommerce site uses Stripe or PayPal you already know that they use SSL on their end, when processing payments on your ecommerce site. That doesn’t mean that your site is fully protected. SSL certificates are needed because they encrypt communication between the server and the customer purchasing from your site.

How do you know you need an SSL certificate?

Ask yourself these questions:

• Does my site sell ANYTHING?
• Does a user have to log into my site?
• Does my site interact with credit card numbers: collecting, processing or storing?
• Golden rule: do you like your payment information to be kept confidential?

If you answered ‘yes’ to any of the questions above, you definitely need an SSL certificate.

What type of SSL certificate do you need?

Here’s a quick break down of the types of SSL certificates:

• Extended Validation (EV) – The Certificate Authority (CA) does an extensive background check of the company/individual applying, so there is human intervention. Using third parties, the CA verifies the applicant owns the domain where the SSL will sit, verify applicant’s physical existence and check government records. Benefits: encryption, secure site seal, geolocation and other pertinent information on the business will be displayed when a user clicks the seal. This builds trust from your customers.
• Organization Validation (OV) – Acquiring this type of SSL requires less of the background check portion. But the authority still checks to make sure the applicant is the rightful owner of the domain. Benefits: encryption of credit card data, secure site seal and some information about the company displayed. Again, having the extra information builds trust from your customers.
• Domain Authenticated Validation (DV) – No extensive background check but the applicant must be the owner of the domain in application. This is typically automated. Benefits of this certificate are the encryption and the display of country code where the business operates.

How do you get an SSL certificate?

You can purchase SSL certificates from your hosting provider, in most cases. Beware of shared SSL certificates on some servers. This means you share a domain name with anyone else who wants to use SSL, and can get tricky. Shared SSL is not what you’re looking for.

In summary, your ecommerce site needs its own SSL certificate(s). Relying solely on your point-of-sale provider to be secure is not enough. You can never be too careful with sensitive credit card information.

I’d love to know your experience with SSLs on your own ecommerce site, or a client site. What tips can you share with us?

The post SSL for WordPress Ecommerce appeared first on iThemes.

I’ll be interviewing freelancer Curtis McHale, who recently started his own mastermind group with some fellow freelance web designers on Sept. 4 at 2 p.m. Central. We’ll talk about tips for starting your own and how to leverage the power of a mastermind group in your business and life.

Download the Audio Interview Here

By the way, Curtis is also releasing a book soon on how to run a viable freelance business that I did a video interview for recently.

The post Using Mastermind Groups to Build Your Freelance Web Design Business appeared first on iThemes.

Automatic Updates for Builder are Here

We’ve been hard at work to solve this problem and we’re proud to announce a new version of Builder is here that includes automatic updates. With the Builder 5.0 update, you’ll no longer have to manually update your Builder theme when version updates are released.  You’ll also receive WordPress dashboard notifications that a theme update has been released.

This has been a complicated process and it’s meant changing our approach to providing a parent theme (Builder Theme – Core) and totally separate child themes. Starting with Builder 5.0, the parent theme / child theme relationship (the combination of functionality, design and customizations) will be different to provide automatic updates, but we’re rolling out this update in two separate stages.

We’ll be redefining some of our Builder terminology from now on, but we’re confident that the new system will be simpler and, ultimately, save you time when it comes to installing, customizing and updating your Builder themes.

The Relationship of Functionality, Design and Customizations in iThemes Builder to Automatic Updates

To better understand this, we thought it would be helpful to explain the relationship of theme functionality, design and customizations. These three concepts have always been at the heart of the Builder’s use of child themes.

• Functionality – In iThemes Builder, this is functionality “behind the scenes”: the layout engine, layouts, views and extensions.
• Design – For Builder, these are the design elements or “front-facing” components of the site: fonts, colors, padding, navigation styling, etc.
• Customizations – Any custom modifications to the CSS of the existing design or changes to template files.

The Wrong Way: All-in-one Function, Design & Customizations

Combining functionality, design and customizations makes it difficult to provide updates to the functionality and design of themes. If you update the theme to access new features or make updates to the design, you would lose any customizations you had made. This is why we’ve always separated Builder into a parent theme and child theme.

The Old Way: Builder Theme Core + Child Theme Customizations

In order to allow updates to Builder while giving you the ability to customize your theme, we used child themes. With this parent theme / child theme relationship, you could update Builder Core to get new features, but your customizations occur in the child theme.

The New Way: Builder Themes – Functionality and Design Separate from Customizations

In the new version of Builder, we’ve combined the functionality of Builder in every Builder theme. After installation, Builder now creates a child theme for you, so there’s no separate installation process. With this new system, you can now get automatic updates to your theme (which now will include Builder functionality and theme design) without losing your customizations.

Builder Child Themes Will Have Builder Functionality Built-in

With this update to Builder, we’ll be referring to Builder child themes as Builder Themes since Builder is now “built-in.”

By combining Builder into child themes, we think you’ll appreciate:

• One installation process – No more uploading Builder Theme – Core then your child theme. For new Builder sites, all you have to do is upload your Builder Theme and go.
• Auto-Created Child Themes – After installation, Builder prompts you to create your own child theme to customize.  Again, this allows us to provide automatic updates to your theme (which now will include Builder functionality and theme design) without losing your customizations.
• Themes can now come with pre-packaged layouts to look like the demo sites – This new system allows us to package custom layouts with individual Builder themes so your sites can look like the demos.
• Automatic updates for Builder – As we mentioned this above, this new system allows us to push automatic updates to your Builder themes. After updating to Builder 5.0, just be sure to license your Builder site to start receiving automatic updates.

The Builder 5.0 Update Roll-Out Process

Today: Builder Theme – Core – 5.0 Available

Today you’ll find the Builder Theme – Core – 5.0 update now available for download from your iThemes Member Panel.

• What about your existing child theme? You don’t need to do anything to it. It will work with Builder 5.0.
• For more information on how to update your Builder Theme – Core file, please visit the Updating Builder section of the Codex.

Next Week: Individual Child Themes

Next week we’ll be rolling out the new versions of child themes with Builder functionality built-in. By providing the Builder Core – 5.0 update first, you can update your existing Builder sites to get automatic updates now and use the new child themes for new Builder installs.

Questions or Comments?

We anticipate you’ll have lots of questions about this update, so we’ll be outlining what this update means for both your existing Builder sites and new Builder sites in more detail in upcoming blog posts and tutorial videos. We want to make sure this transition is as simple as possible, so please let us know how we can help by asking questions below in the comments or tweeting us @iThemes.

The post Announcing Automatic Updates for iThemes Builder 5.0 appeared first on iThemes.

The response and comments were great and so I instantly went to work on fleshing the 10 keys out more with practical advice.

Today, I’m excited to share that I’ve made the first draft available, which is now around 4,000+ words long, for free via Google Docs. As I’ve done with my recent books, I’m asking for your help editing and shaping it to make it better, clearer and more helpful.

You can get the draft of my Essential Career Advice for Developers here.

The 10 keys are:

1. Build your portfolio of cool projects that work.
2. Get involved and contribute to an open source project.
3. Remember, always & forever: It’s all about people.
4. Good communication skills are almost as valuable and important as programming.
5. Ship.
6. Park your arrogance at the door.
7. Get out from behind a computer screen and meet people.
8. Make sure you power down regularly.
9. Always, always, always be learning and exploring.
10. Pass it on.

If you like what you read, I’d really appreciate it if you’d share it with others who can benefit from it (as well as help me tune it up even more).

By the way, I’ve also started a separate email updates list for those interested in knowing when I push out new content related to career advice for developers.

Signup for the Career Advice updates list here.

The post Essential Career Advice for Developers appeared first on iThemes.

***

I’m pretty fed up with the current playbook for entrepreneurs.

Somehow we’ve gotten into this rut of a jacked up mindset that the key to success is to bulldoze people to get what we really want. We put profits over people. We make decisions that help us get where we want, at the increasing expense of those who got us here.

This is business as usual for us, entrepreneurs, and I’m tired of it. It’s such a waste of what I believe is a noble occupation and a higher calling.

We use the “It’s not personal, just business.” quote way too often as justification for it all. (Business is always personal, by the way.)

It’s a self-centered, self-focused, self-obsessed, supremely disastrous way of doing business.

And it’s time all of that stopped.

We need to burn the current playbook. We need a reorientation to what entrepreneurship should be about. (Hint: It’s about people and purpose plus profit … making meaning while making money).

We need to return to (or maybe start) the value-based entrepreneurship … one that puts people first, that’s about character, empathy, service and integrity and most of all, focusing on making the world a better place.

So I’ve been working on a new playbook and new set of rules for entrepreneurs that I’m rolling out for the first time here. My purpose, mission and aim is to change the way we think and act as entrepreneurs. That we have a set of principles, finally, to guide us, to be measured by and to help correct us when we’ve went AWOL from them.

And I think it starts with these principles:

1. Do right
2. Do good
3. Care
4. Be genuine and authentic
5. Be open and honest
6. Serve others

In full disclosure: I’ve broken all of these principles at some point in my career. I’m not perfect and not suggesting I am. Far, far, far from it. But I’ve sought to live out my life as an entrepreneur and leader by these simple values each and every day and they’ve served me well.

My first draft of the playbook is already 2,800 words. But I need your help and perspective and feedback to shape it. Who knows where it goes from here, but I want to at least take a bold first step to see change I believe needs to happen.

My request is for you to help me edit it and make it better. Highlight the sections you see that need refinement or editing and make a comment. Make sure you put your name so I can thank you once it’s finalized and released. I’m certain I’ve missed things. Key things. The last time I did this I got some amazing comments and edits that made the project so much better and impactful. I know if anything it’ll give me the opportunity to clarify what I’m actually trying to say.

You can read the really, really rough draft here now. (Keeping in mind it is an early draft of an unfinished project … so you’ll see plenty of loose ends, studs, exposed plumbing. You’ll also see it evolve throughout the process as I’m, even now, working on it.)

So I’m crowdsourcing the editorial process with you again … and I hope you’ll help me, help others, by establishing a new set of rules for entrepreneurs to live and operate and yes, be measured, evaluated and judged by.

The post Business as Usual is Over: We Need New Rules for Entrepreneurs appeared first on iThemes.

When we saw all the surveys related to this three areas, we nodded, humbly, in agreement.

We knew we could do better for you.

And I wanted to give you an update on what we’ve done with your input to create a better customer experience for you.

1. An All-New Plugin Licensing System

The original licensing system (which provides automatic updates for your products) was created a very long time ago and before we had so many different products and needs. It did the job for a while, but we knew it needed an overhaul as it became a big frustration for a number of our customers.

In April, we started rolling the new plugin licensing system out into our plugins. And to date, every plugin except BackupBuddy has the new licensing system.

But BackupBuddy will be getting it SOON. With the number of customers on BackupBuddy, we just wanted to be sure the rollout was as smooth as possible before rolling it into our biggest product which affects the most customers.

2. An All-New iThemes Member Panel

The next iteration to improve our customer experience is the latest one and very exciting for all of us — the all-new iThemes Member Panel.

We heard you — from the survey and what you tell us through our contact points with you — that know our membership experience needed to be drastically overhauled and improved.

The first major piece of that — the all-new iThemes Member Panel — is now in beta and available to all customers.

The new Dashboard includes several new enhancements, including:

• New design that is better organized and matches the iThemes site for a more seamless experience.
• Shortcut links to important resources like Documentation, Support and more.
• Product categories for easily sorting products you’ve bought. (This should be especially handy for our iThemes Toolkit customers who have access to everything we produce from themes, plugins and training)
• Version numbers next to products so you can see the latest versions of products that might need updating.
• A new Licensing tab, so now you can see what products you have licensed by each site and can manage and deactivate them from the panel. (This should be especially useful for our developer community.)
• The Stash tab, so you can see in one spot what sites and files you have backed up to our BackupBuddy off-site storage option.

And we’re not done yet. We have more in the works already that will help streamline and reduce friction and frustration for you!

3. New and Improving Documentation for Products

Another sore spot for you was our somewhat disorganized documentation for products.

With the rollout of iThemes Exchange documentation, we were able to start making some incremental tweaks to our vast documentation library, starting with a cleaner design and much better organization.

It’s a work in progress … but we should be done with the reorganization and cleanup of Builder documentation next week … and next up is BackupBuddy.

All of this is in an effort to continue to Make People’s Lives Awesome.

Help Us Make Your Experience Better

Take the Survey

The post Creating a Better Experience for You appeared first on iThemes.

What are your hopes, dreams and goals for 2013?

I’d love to know where you’re going (personally and professionally as much as it can relate to what we do — provide you with web design tools and training) … so we can help you get there.

It might sound weird for a company or a CEO to ask you this (I hope it does), but it’s part of our mission to Make People’s Lives Awesome.

Also … if you win, we win. And for 5 years you’ve enabled us to do what we love … and we want to take that up a notch to help you do what you love as well.

So if you would take a second to fill out this quick form below letting us know what you’re setting out to do on the web this year so we can help you win!

Need some help setting your goals?

Oh, and if you’re unsure of your goals and dreams and need some direction, I wanted to offer you a couple of resources:

1. Download out my free book titled Purposeful Paychecks: How to Find Lasting Career Success. It’s the principles, values and steps I’ve used to ensure I’m aligning my work and life.

2. Our business mentor, Michael Smith of iMentorLeaders.com, has graciously allowed us to share some resources he uses to help clients on establishing S.M.A.R.T. goals.

Download the worksheets and documents in PDF form here that he uses including a S.M.A.R.T. explanation, worksheet and setting really good goals.

Now, share your hopes, dreams & goals with us!

The post Share Your Dreams and Goals for 2013 appeared first on iThemes.