Completed Web Site "Follow-up Informational Letter"

The other day I wrote here about sending a client a "Completed Web Site" letter. I mentioned that I don't do this with every single client, for various reasons; at least, I don't always send a letter requiring them to "sign off". So I wanted to mention that when I don't send that type of letter, I usually still send a "Follow-up Informational Letter" shortly after the site is completed.

This letter might be by U.S. Mail or fax (because they simply gets more attention than emails) or by email, and serves mainly as a way to provide all of their domain name registration and hosting information in one place. If there are logins and passwords, I include those as well.

I admonish them politely to please save this letter somewhere where it can easily be found. Most of my clients control their own domain registrations, and I want them to be clear about that fact. Some also control their own hosting, so for the same reason, I want to be sure they don't get confused and think that I'm handling those payments. If I am handling the hosting, I want to remind them that they will be billed once a year, and that if they don't pay, the site goes down! (But I have a much more diplomatic way of saying that: "If for some reason you cannot pay this amount BY THE INVOICE DUE DATE but want your site to remain live on the web, please contact us so that the account doesn't lapse. We will have to allow to lapse any hosting account which is not paid on time.")

Of course I also thank them again for a great project and remind them how they can reach me for additions or updates to the site.

Making it clear to a client when a contract is completed

A couple of years back, I became aware of the need to make it clear to a client exactly when my work on a contract was completed. Normally, my contracts are for the production of a complete web site, and after all the weeks or months of work, I consider that there finally comes a definite point in time when the site, and the contract, is finished. Because it's only fair to me, and because it's just good business, it's important to draw a line at that point: the contract has now been fulfilled.

Clients sometimes are in a big hurry to see their new site up on the Web, but like the idea of being able to do the final tweaking after that time, and I don't think that's a good idea at all! I can see no reason for it; they can see and consider their site just as well in its draft location. I don't rush them through the final processes of tweaking and re-tweaking, but I do expect them to finish this process before the site goes live. This contributes to my being able to make definite closure.

Of course, this doesn't prevent me from accommodating a few stray requests for edits after the site goes live, if the client does request them anyway - but it gives me a choice, and it allows me to be Ms. Nice Guy and do it voluntarily, rather than the client expecting me to do it because he only has a vague sense that the contract is finished.

In addition to telling the client that "ready to go live" is equal to "I'm done tweaking the site", another strategy I came up with is sending the client a "Completed Web Site" document. This is a Word document that I fax to the client for his signature, the day he says that he's ready to go live. By signing it, he's stating that the site is ready and that he understands that the contract is completed. The document also includes domain name and hosting information and logins where appropriate, and I suggest strongly that it be kept in a place where it can easily be found later.

I'll admit that I haven't used this document with every client. Sometimes I just feel in my gut that it isn't necessary and might be more of an irritation to the client than its worth. With other clients, however, I have the sense that it might be really important to be sure that he understands that he isn't going to be allowed to take advantage of an unclear situation by asking for many edits and changes after the site is officially completed.

Writing Business Emails

If you are an independent/freelance or small-company web developer, most likely you use email as one of the main avenues of communication with your clients. Here are my suggestions for using email in such a way as to keep your clients happy and your business thriving.

• Never write an email to a client when you are in a dead rush. I don't know where the idea came from that emails are for busy, busy people to fire off thoughtlessly, a bit like teenagers firing off text messages, but it's dead wrong when it comes to business email. The business world hasn't changed so much that it's okay for courtesy and clarity to go out the window. Take the time to think, compose your message and re-read it once before you send it, even if it's only a brief one.
  
• Use an opening salutation, at the very least, the client's name. Don't fire off emails that contain only body text. It doesn't hurt you to include at least "Mr. Lopez," or "Hello Nancy - " (for example) at the top of your email, if nothing more formal than that. Some clients will be old-fashioned and expect this; some will be easily confused by emails, especially when forwards and CCs are involved, and this will help make your communication clear. Others have no manners themselves, and your courtesy might possibly rub off on them! It only takes a second, and can make a difference.
  
• Always "sign" your emails, by which I mean, your name should be at the bottom of your message. Too many people leave this out, and again, I think that this is a terrible mixing-up of teenage-style Internet communication with business communication. If you don't use an automatic signature, make sure to at least take the 1/2 second to type your name. Personally, in business emails, I literally always use a closing salutation (I like simply "Best,") my name, and my company name or initials. This might seem a bit formal at times, but again, it only takes a second, especially if you use an automatic signature. For me, I feel that this clarifies that this is an official business email, and gives a sense of continuity and professionalism.
  
• Maybe most important of all: never, ever, ever, ever send a business email when you are significantly uptight or upset about something going on between you and the recipient. If things have reached that point, it's time to use the telephone or a face-to-face meeting. Email is a dangerous medium in this respect: it's quickly written and sent, but it's in writing, permanent - and, it lacks almost all of the human touch which can be conveyed through phone or face-to-face. Many business relationships are harmed seriously by discussing matters which have become tense or emotionally charged by email; it simply is a terrible medium for such communication.
• Be careful when forwarding! I have been amazed, embarrassed and annoyed several times in my business experience by people forwarding emails of mine - sometimes as parts of long chains of messages - to people I absolutely did not want to see my email. I suspect that some people think that forwarding long-chain emails is a clever way to keep many people "in the loop", but it's most definitely not clever, and is actually foolish and destructive, if it's not done very consciously and carefully.
  

Most of these pieces of advice fall into the category of not using email as a super-quick, don't-have-to-think method of communication. Although email is wonderfully fast and convenient compared with typing a letter or making a phone call, this is no reason to use it thoughtlessly, or worse still, childishly. Business is still business, and courtesy and civility are still important.

Commenting Code

There's a simple practice that you can begin using today which is guaranteed to make your web site work more organized and more professional: commenting your code.

I'm sure you're familiar with the HTML comment, which looks like this:

<!-- This is an HTML comment. -->

There are also comment tags specifically for use in CSS files, and in .asp, .cfm, .php, and .js files.

Any characters which are placed between those opening and closing tags will be completely ignored by all browsers. So they can be used for notes written in plain English which explain the reason why something is coded the way it is, where you got the code you used, or on what date you added it.

I've found that, when I take the time to do this, and come upon my comments months or years later, I'm always appreciative of the extra information.

I try to comment my code in such a way that someone else could benefit from my comments as well. A true professional will always think in terms of his work potentially becoming the responsibility of another web developer at some point, and do whatever he can to make that person's work easier.

Making written notes of client logins

This "tip" might seem pretty obvious, but it has saved me so many times that it seems worth repeating. Whenever I deal with a client's domain email addresses, or any functional related to his web site which requires a login, I always make written notes on it and save them. I usually just use Notepad for this, quickly typing out the information, dating it, and printing it. It then goes into the client's paper file. I also save the the little .txt file to a logical location in the client's digital file, but the paper copy is important to me, since I still like to work with paper for this type of thing.

I have one client who has so many logins for so many different 3rd-party software connected with her web site that I finally wrote up a master list of all of her username/passwords. This kind of task is admittedly tedious, but that having that information quickly and easily accessible can make the difference between me coming off as a professional, or not.

Keeping track of work requested by clients

A couple of years back, when I began having work with numerous different clients in a single month, I created a simple system for keeping track of work currently needing to be done. I'm sure there are lots of different ways of doing this, and you need to find what works for you. But here's mine.

Usually, I use client emails as my "work order", since the majority of work orders or requests come to me by email. As soon as I receive the email, before it leaves my in-box, I print it, and stamp it with a special stamp I had made at Staples. (It was cheap and easy to have a custom stamp made, and I've been using it for some six years now.) My stamp looks something like this:

WORK ORDER
Date Requested _____________________
Date Completed _____________________

I fill in the Date Requested; this helps me keep these tasks in order. Sometimes I need some help deciding what to do first on a given day, and if all other things are equal, I'll always do the work that was requested first.

If the work has a deadline attached to it, I make a note of that as well.

If the work request/work order came in by telephone, of course I write it down myself, and then stamp that slip of paper. The occasional faxed work order gets printed and stamped.

I have a bulletin board on the wall which faces my desk. For every current client, I have posted a bright-yellow slip of paper with his or her name (or business name). Underneath the client's name, I post the stamped piece of paper (or stapled bunch of paper), usually folded in three.

This way, I can see at a glance what work needs to be done, for who, and when it was given to me. This has been a huge help in keeping my business in order. There have been times when I've done work for as many as fifteen different clients in a month, and I can't think of single complaint I've ever received about taking too long or not finishing work when it was expected.

Be creative and conscious with your use of time

If (1) you work for yourself and set your own hours, and (2) you have pretty good self-discipline about time and work, I encourage you to learn to "ride your energy", and flex your strictly-work-time to get your errands and non-work stuff done to your best advantage.

If you're reasonably normal, there will always be times when you have more energy than others. Sometimes you may be barely able to contain your strength and enthusiasm; sometimes you may just feel "so-so"; other times you may not feel like doing a damn thing. And I assume that you have tasks to accomplish outside of running your business. With some planning,

I generally have always set for myself a "default schedule" of Monday through Friday, 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM, and it is important for me to keep somewhat regular office hours so that clients, and potential new clients, can reach me by phone without too much trouble. But I've learned to vary that so that it suits my energy-moods, as well as my needs to do non-business errands and tasks.

For instance, I like to do my "workout" (a long walk) in the middle of the day during the chillier half of the year, so it works well for me to take a long lunch. And if I do have errands to do, I much prefer to visit stores and other businesses in the middle of the day, rather than at 5:00 or 6:00 PM, for instance, when traffic is terrible and those businesses are full of people who have to visit them on the way home from work. So it's not uncommon for me to be out of the office for 2 or 3 hours in the afternoon. Then, of course, I usually need to spend a couple of hours in the office working right around dinner time and/or afterwards, but that can work really well for me; I often can concentrate better at that time anyway.

The point is, if you're the boss, it really pays off to be creative and conscious with your use of time.

Choosing a Name for a New Web Design Business

If you're starting a new business, the name you choose is important. For some reason, I find that many people are a little irrational and rushed when making this decision; I've been that way myself. I think it comes from the general feeling of excitement and creativity when in this phase, combined with a desire to make the new business feel concrete and real as soon as possible. Giving it a name feels good; it takes away some of the sense of uncertainty and puts the new business "on the map" psychologically.

There's also a funny kind of infatution that seems to often take over, particularly when people take their little creation's name and begin to design a masthead or logo with it.

There is usually no need to rush the process, yet, that seems all too common. People choose business names without much thought, and without getting feedback from anyone else. This is just not wise. A decision this important should be weighed carefully, shouldn't be made alone, and shouldn't be done in a hurry.

There's one caution in particular I wanted to offer in regard to naming a web design/development business. Naturally, the web site which represents your business will be very important, and its domain name and URL will in turn be very important. Clearly, a simple, memorable URL will be an advantage. Whether they hear about your business through face-to-face networking, advertising, or any other means, if your potential customers can easily remember its web address, and easily spell and type it, they're much more likely to visit your web site. And obviously, having potential customers visit your web site is extremely important.

So, think before choosing that business name! First and foremost, make sure the business name is available in the ideal form as a domain name. Don't pick the business name first, and then go looking at its availability as a straightforward dot-com domain name later. Make the domain name a top priority, and reject any business name which is not available in the simplest, best form as a domain name.

What Not to Do. It constantly amazes me to see the hard-t0-spell domain names people come up with for their businesses, and for no good reason. Here's a story which is a case in point. In order to be sure I don't embarrass the very real person involved, I've changed the details just slightly.

This man's "internet marketing" business has this domain name: www.tuistudioe.com. On the phone with him, I asked for his email address, and he had to spell it out carefully, of course, since it contains no English words at all, and provides no reference point for the average person. To him, "tuistudioe.com" sounds lovely, like familiar music, I'm sure, but it meant nothing to me.

Out of curiousity, I asked him how he came up with that kind domain name. Here is his explanation, almost a textbook lesson in how to take a decent concept and turn it into a useless business name.

He wanted to focus on accessability and usability, so he decided to base his business name on the phrase "The Usable Internet". Okay, not too bad. "usableinternet.com" or even "theusableinternet.com" might be a pretty good domain name, if it was available. But he wanted to use the word "Studio", so it turned into "The Usable Internet Studio". But that seemed too long to him, and probably is. And likely he was under the familiar delusion that three-letter acronyms make good business names. After all, there are a lot of big successful companies with three-letter business names! That must be the reason they're successful, right? So he shortened "The Usable Internet" to "TUI". Now, if the domain had ended up as "TUIStudio.com", this would only be a slightly ridiculous story. But wait, there's more! When he checked for the dot-com domain name, "TUIStudio.com" wasn't available - so he added an "e" to the end of the word "studio", producing a spelling which doesn't exist anywhere in the English language and has no reference to anything in reality at all, and ended up with "TUIStudioe.com".

What can I say - this amazed me. I guess it could only have been sadder and more funny if he had thrown in a few hyphens, and chosen an obscure domain extension as well. And the point is: he could have chosen any business name he wanted - one with the perfect .com name available.

So, my suggestion is: choose your web design business name based primarily upon whether the name, in a simple form without hyphens, is available as a dot-com domain name. And don't be in a rush!

Managing cookies and private data with Firefox

A couple of days ago in a post about Google Analytics and concerns about online privacy, I promised to post back after learning a little more about tracking cookies and how to manage them with your browser. Below is what I found out; it's not comprehensive at all, but if you want to know more, Wikipedia has a good article on cookies.

I use Firefox for almost all of my day-to-day Web browsing, and it provides some useful options for managing cookies. From the top menus in Firefox, click on Tools > Options, and then choose the Privacy tab. In the middle of the page, there's a "Show Cookies" button. If you click that, it shows you all of the cookies you currently have stored in Firefox on that computer. That was a bit of an eye-opener for me. I do like the convenience of having some sites "remember" me, but there were a lot of sites listed there who I don't think have any business saving little pieces of data about me.

The first thing I did was to just clear all my cookies, and then go back to working and using the browser as I normally do. I checked back in just a couple of hours and was amazed at how many cookies had already collected. Some were for sites like the weather site I like to use, and it's nice not to have to enter my location every time I check the weather, so I'll keep those. But there were many from random sites that I don't even remember visiting - probably news sites or places I'd been looking for information or shopping - and I see no need to keep them.

Some sites require that you accept cookies to work at all; many Google applications do, for instance. I'm willing to accept that for now.

A colleague on the Adobe Dreamweaver forums clued me in that "session cookies" are generally pretty useful and not anything to be feared. These are cookies which are only needed for that "session", that one visit to that one web site. It appears that most of the sites that I use which do require cookies, require only session cookies, and it's no problem to delete those often.

So, my first effort/experiment was to choose the option "Accept cookies from sites > Keep until I close Firefox". This allows me to accept those session cookies, to make it possible to use sites like Google applications, Rosetta Stone, and many news and shopping sites. But every time I close Firefox, all cookies are wiped out.

This means that, when I re-open the browser, I have to log in to some sites with my user name and password again. This can be kind of a pain, especially on sites where there's nothing particularly private, and I'd just as soon not have to. (On my financial sites, I always choose the option that doesn't save my login information; that's a risk not worth taking to save a few seconds of my time.)

But I realized that, using the password-saving feature of most browsers, it's easy to log into most of those non-critical sites. The only danger I see from this would be the possibility of someone using my laptop without my permission and logging into my sites. Since none of these sites have any really sensitive information about me, and since I don't anticipate anyone doing that anyway, that's not a big concern for me. The password-saving options in Firefox are not under the Privacy tab, but rather under the Security tab. And I found something fascinating there: you can view a list of all the sites and passwords Firefox has already saved, and manage them. I couldn't believe how many I had!

So those are my current settings in Firefox:

• Accept all cookies, but to delete them whenever I close Firefox
• In the other Privacy settings, I allow the browser to save "form information" and other private information, because none of these are all that private, for me. You might have different needs, so check out those options; you can delete any or all of that when you want, or every time Firefox closes
  
• Save password information, except for certain sites, which I have listed in under Exceptions. I believe they got on this list because, when the site asked me, I chose "Never save password information for this site".
  

In Firefox, I don't see any option to distinguish between session cookies and other cookies. I'm not dealing with Internet Explorer here, but IE7 does have that option, so in that browser I chose to save only session cookies. IE7 also allows me to choose to never save "third-party cookies". According to the explanation at the Wikipedia article linked above, I don't want any 3rd-party cookies ever, so I chose that option.

That's about all for now. I've been pretty verbose here, but all of this only took me a few minutes to check out and experiment with.

Design Inspirations

When I see a web page with a design I really like, whether it be the layout, the colors, the typography, the navigation, or something else, I make a point of bookmarking it. I have a little bookmark folder named "Design Inspirations", and I put it in there, and then give the bookmark a name like "I like these colors" or "I like the background graphic" or "Cool navbar", etc. It doesn't have to be brilliant, just enough words to remind me later what it was that impressed me at the time.

As time goes by, I end up with a little collection of pages which have something about them that inspires me. Then, when that day comes that I need to begin creating a page design from scratch, I go to that folder and check out those pages for some ideas.

This is much more helpful to me than going to "Cool Home Pages" or "Zen Garden" or whatever they're called, the sites that are routinely recommended for this purpose.