So how do you save money and get a website you love that makes you money?

Easy.

1. Go Buy Your Domain and Hosting by Yourself

You need both a domain and hosting before your web guy can start. Come up with a short, memorable domain like:

yinyangpilates.com
atlantacars.com

Then you will need to buy what is called hosting. This is just a place for your web guy to put the files that are your website.

You can get a Free Domain & Web Hosting for $6.95 Per Month with Bluehost. Great Deal.

You just saved yourself minimum $90 and your web guy can start right away.

2. You Update Your Website. Not the Web Guy. Use CushyCMS!

I will charge minimum $60 an hour to upkeep your website once it’s done. And if you need one small piece of text updated, yep, minimum increment is 1 hour and you will be charged $60.

So in order for you to avoid paying so much tell your web person FROM THE START that you want to be able to update your own website. Tell them to use CushyCMS.

Cushy is just a cute word but CMS stands for Content Management System. It is just a way to enable you to edit text on your own website by logging in, typing like you are in Microsoft Word, and hitting Save. Magic.

It requires barely any work for your web guy to set up. They may not even charge you for it!

How much does using CushyCMS save me?

Let’s say you have a website that has news or events on the homepage and you have a couple a month. So you need to have your web guy update it 3 times a month. Minimum $180. Just for one month! This will save you a lot over the year.

3. Hire a Web person that is good at Design & Copywriting.

If you are going to spend $2000 or more on something for you business you better hope you at least get that money back through new customers or orders.

Two things will get you that money back.

Good Web Design / Development and good Copywriting that sells.

You can find these good web people on Sortfolio (just select your city, or any city and go virtual, and select a budget).

You will save with the cheap web designer but you will also never earn your money back. You will make it back with the good Web Designer.

Think about it. You try to give the best return for people buying from you. Same with web people.

Let me know if you have any questions in the comments.

Google released this spot during the Super Bowl titled “Parisian Love” which has been on Youtube for quite sometime. I think it’s amazing and every girl in the room stopped what they were during for the whole commercial and just sighed and said “Awwww” at the end.

Great job showing a ton of emotion with something we simply do every day.

Some people said it was the headphone jack was stuck or something, but all I had to do was (don’t have any headphones plugged in) hold the black button on the top of the ipod to turn it off. Then you hold it again to turn it on and if you go to your music you will see the internal speaker volume is all the way down.

Turn it up!!!

If you need an ipod touch case you can find some cool ones on Amazon: iPod touch cases

1. Open a New Tab in Terminal
2. In Terminal, At the root of you rails project type: tail -f log/development.log
3. Leave this running and reload your page in the browser. You should now see the log output running in the Terminal tab

Have Fun.

Google just released their best practices for speeding up website loading and responsiveness. Check it out, no doubt you will learn something new.

Make your Website Faster - Google

As a front-end guy I am for sure looking at:

• Optimizing Images
• Optimizing Javascript Code
• Improving Website Performance with Page Speed
• User Experience and Website Performance
• Don’t Make Me Click - UI Design Presentation (YouTube)

Rails Guides
Ruby on Rails Guides - Official
• Hands down best resource. Everything basic to get you into Rails is covered.

Ruby on Rails Screencasts
I can’t recommend Peepcode enough and I highly recommend (both so cheap):
• Rails from Scratch Part 1
• Rails from Scratch Part 2

After you watch those there are a TON of Free Screencasts done at Railscasts that are all super short with real world examples of most things beginners strive to do in Rails:
• 5 View Tips
• Rails Forms Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
• Model Name in URL
• Nested Resources
• Subdomains and Routing
• Named Routes
• Custom Routes
• Caching
• Paperclip - attaching photos to models
• Integrating with Active Merchant
• Polymorphic Associations
• YAML Configuration Files
• Cron in Ruby

Function lookup and API
There are two good ways to use the api to learn what functions and classes you have to work with. I like the first way best cause it’s a little more searchable even though it takes a little longer to load:

• Ruby on Rails API Easy Search and Example Interface - Make sure you use Rails 2
• RailsBrain API Search Interface
• Official Ruby on Rails API - Harder to navigate

Ruby Cheat Sheet to answer very basic syntax question

Sending Email
How to send an email in Rails - Who doesn’t need to know this? Nobody.

Also, just as good is the ActionMailer Cheat Sheet

Date Handling and Displaying the View
Great Resource for displaying Rails dates in the view or form selectors

Handling Sub-folders RESTfully
Getting started with RESTful Rails

Rails and MacOSX
Good read. Starting about halfway through is where it gets useful really: Developing Rails Apps on a Mac

Using YAML Files
I should use more YAML Configuration files for sure. As should you.

1. Call them on the phone ASAP. Don’t Wait.

If someone has supplied their phone number call them immediately. Surprise them with how fast you can respond. I have seen too many small businesses handle their leads so leisurely and call them when they have down time during the week. Down time for a small business owner? Please. There is a large amount of people that will convert on your website out of momentary emotion and REALLY want your product or service at a specific point in time. Don’t wait and give them an opportunity to talk themselves out of it.

2. Always Respond with an Email

Respond with an email as fast as a phone call. Even if you talk to them on the phone still send them an email acknowledging you talked to them. Check your email all day or set-up your email so that it alerts you when there is a new message.

3. Have a Kickass Welcome

When someone comes to your business welcome them in a way that will make them talk and/or want to come back for more. Warning: Do not overwhelm the customer. Just do it in a way that is comfortable and memorable.

4. Ask and Listen

If you offer a service take a survey of your current customers of what they were looking for and what they wanted when they first came. You could also just ask every new person that comes in your door “What are you looking for today?” Just ask your customers the questions you want answers to and you will find out very quickly what you need to do.

5. Move Towards Making Money

I am not advocating the hard sell but always keep in mind you are running a business. Making money to keep doing what you love is what you want. Get someone to come in your door with a Free offer or a discount. Get them to buy something even if it is small. If you can get one sale and that person ends up happy they may have 10 more friends waiting or post online with how awesome you are. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

6. Do Not Overload Them with Information

You know your business back to front. The person contacting you usually doesn’t care about the fifth coolest thing about you and your business. They usually have one or very few concerns. If they ask you a question try to only answer that question. Do not try and anticipate 10 questions and try to answer them all. If you have to, include a little more if people always have the same questions relating to what they are already asking. Do not overload them with information they do not care about.

Bonus: Work on Marketing Daily

Too many small business owners do marketing pushes when business gets slow, or try to have a huge brainstorm to get a ton of people in the door. If you do a little marketing everyday it will add up to an unstoppable small business marketing machine later. Here are some things you can do everyday:

• Write a blog post relating to your business
• Post an ad on Craigslist
• Partner with another local store
• Send a Marketing Email out to Past and Present clients
• Write a Newsletter
• etc…

If you do these 7 things you will be in good Small Business Marketing Shape.

I was a senior at Purdue doing my senior project which was making www.HelpRoberto.com. Senior projects at Purdue must involve a new concept or new technology or the project gets a failing grade. Since no one at Purdue had any idea about online marketing I thought it would be awesome to make that the focus of the project (as well as analytical analysis of course - Google Analytics in particular). 

I signed up for my first Webinar EVER and it was from the Conversion Doctor. His webinars are awesome, so if you ever get a chance you should watch them or watch them the day after. He takes them down after a bit. But you can catch it if you sign up at his Website Conversion Blog.

After this webinar I was pumped. His webinar was awesome. I could use a lot of stuff he said immediately in my project to help out Roberto. I went straight for his blog. Looked around and must have been disappointed, older Max now sees this is for no reason, and left a comment about how I want some more goodies. Young Max.

Here is his response: The Conversion Doctor’s Blog is not “Helpful?”

So now that I am older and actually only do Landing Page Design, Optimization and Web Production everyday for Fortune 500 companies I can now read his blog and understand that it is full of great info (Great Links Below).

I hope the Conversion Doctor forgives me and I thank him for getting me started in the Online Marketing arena.

Does the Hacker Safe Logo Help or Hurt Conversion Rates?

Taking the Hacker Safe Conversion Boost to the Next Level

Submit Button Split Test Results: Size Does Matter

The Ultimate Submit Button Revealed

Usability Split Tests: Link Appearance Matters

Checkout Page Split Tests: Product Descriptions Matter

Secondary Link Feedback Matters, But What is it?

Do Pictures of Women or Men Convert Better?

Pictures that Point to your Form Convert Higher

It’s pretty easy and I will go through it step-by-step.

1. If you don’t have Capistrano installed go ahead and install it. Using Terminal, copy and paste:

gem install capistrano

2. Tell Capistrano You will Deploy with it in Terminal

$ cd your_apps_folder

$ capify .

[add] writing ‘./Capfile’

[add] writing ‘./config/deploy.rb’

[done] capified!

3. Configure deploy.rb

Just copy and paste this special deploy.rb that just uses your local folder on your computer, no need for Subversion (SVN) or Git:

# Your Applications “Name”
set :application, “Application Name”

# The URL to your applications repository
set :repository,  “.”
set :scm, :none
set :deploy_via, :copy

# Require subversion to do an export instead of a checkout.
set :checkout, ‘export’

# The user you are using to deploy with (This user should have SSH access to your server)
set :user, “Your SSH User”

# We want to deploy everything under your user, and we don’t want to use sudo
set :use_sudo, false

# Where to deploy your application to.
set :deploy_to, “/domains/Your Domain/”

# ——————————– Server Definitions ——————————–
# Define the hostname of your server. If you have multiple servers for multiple purposes, we can define those below as well.
set :server_name, “sh01.blueboxgrid.com”

# We’re assuming you’re using a single server for your site, but if you have a seperate asset server or database server, you can specify that here.
role :app, server_name
role :web, server_name
role :db, server_name, :primary => true

# ——————————– Final Config ——————————–
# This configuration option is helpful when using svn+ssh but doesn’t hurt anything to leave it enabled always.
default_run_options[:pty] = true

namespace :deploy do
task :restart do
run “touch #{deploy_to}current/tmp/restart.txt”
end

task :start do
run “cd #{deploy_to} && ln -s current/public public_html”
run “touch #{deploy_to}current/tmp/restart.txt”
end

task :symlink do
run “cd #{deploy_to} && rm current ; ln -s releases/#{release_name} current”
run <<-CMD
rm -rf #{latest_release}/log /home/#{user}/#{latest_release}/public/system #{latest_release}/tmp/pids &&
ln -s /home/#{user}#{shared_path}/log /home/#{user}#{latest_release}/log &&
ln -s /home/#{user}#{shared_path}/system /home/#{user}#{latest_release}/public/system &&
ln -s /home/#{user}#{shared_path}/pids /home/#{user}#{latest_release}/tmp/pids
CMD
end

task :stop do
run “rm #{deploy_to}public_html”
end

namespace :web do
task :disable do
run “cd #{deploy_to} && rm public_html && ln -s static_site public_html”
end

task :enable do
run “cd #{deploy_to} && rm public_html && ln -s current/public public_html”
end
end

end

task :after_setup do
run “rm -rf #{deploy_to}public_html”
run “mkdir #{deploy_to}static_site”
end

4. Setup the Server

$ cap deploy:setup

5. Do your Deploy

$cap deploy:cold

6 (optional). If this was your first deploy you may have to setup a symlink to public_html if using Blue Box Group Shared Hosting, all you have you have to do is the following after a successful deploy in step 5:

$ cap deploy:web:enable

Theoretically after that you should be able to just deploy with:

$ cap deploy:migrations