Photo by Florian Boyd

One of the most important, if minor, web innovations of the past decade is the widespread adoption of RSS or, as it’s popularly called, Really Simple Syndication by bloggers and other regular producers of online content. By itself, though, RSS was only of interest to coders. The real benefit came with the RSS Reader.

While early RSS readers were desktop-based, and a bit clunky, Google’s entry into the field in 2005 made it easier than ever to keep up with your favorite news outlets and blogs. Google Reader was web-based, so you didn’t need to install special software. With Google Reader it was easy to share posts, so you could rely on friends and colleagues to keep you updated with the most interesting articles on the web. And Google Reader’s mobile interface was excellent, making it easy to keep up to date with the news no matter where you were.

Even though there were many RSS readers out there, Google Reader quickly became ubiquitous among those who read blogs daily. But, earlier this year, Google announced that they were closing down the Reader on July 1, leaving its loyal users to find a replacement service.

Whether you’re a reader or producer of RSS content, the end of Google Reader has consequences for how you spend your time online. In this series, we’ll focus on the impact of the end of Google Reader, and what to do about it. We’ll start by focusing on the obvious question: what’s the alternative to Google Reader? In recent months, a number of companies have jumped feet-first into the RSS reader game, so your options are better than ever. Here’s what we like:

Feedly

Of all the Google Reader alternatives, Feedly has made the strongest play for Google’s customers. It automatically imports your old Google account, and its clean, easy to use interface is, in some ways, even better than Google. For example, if you need to clear out unread articles from your feed, you can just click an “X” next to the headline and move on to the next one. Feedly offers extensions that allow you to read it on Chrome or Firefox, and there are apps for iOS and Android.

Newsvibe

If you hate, hate, hate app bloat, Newsvibe is the super-simple, web-based RSS reader for you. There are no extra features, but it does have a clean interface and is perfect for someone who wants to catch up on their RSS feed without installing an extra extension or application.

Newsblur

If you miss Google Reader’s social sharing features, Newsblur might be right for you. It integrates your RSS feeds with your Twitter and Facebook accounts, so you can keep track of all of your news outlets from a single interface. Like many apps, Newsblur is free for moderate users, but if you use a RSS reader daily you’ll have to pay extra.

Feedbin

Explicitly designed as an replacement for Google Reader, Feedbin offers many of the same features, like automatically locating RSS feeds from a URL, in a clean, simple interface. A robust set of keyboard shortcuts make this a worthy replacement for Google Reader. While you’ll have to pay for this web-based reader, it’s less expensive than the alternatives.

FlowReader

Like Newsblur, Flowreader gives all your news sources, from Facebook to Twitter to RSS, a home, and helps your organize your news so your paranoid aunt’s warnings about genetically modified food don’t disrupt your work reading. Even better, Flowreader is free, so it’s a great place to experiment with integrating your news sources.

Although we’ll all miss Google Reader when it goes, there are a healthy range of alternatives out there, from the simple to the social, and, with time, there will be a solution that works for you. For now, at least, you can keep your RSS habit.

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Here’s part three in our “Starting A Website On A Budget” Series.
Read the introduction here. Check out part 1 here, and part 2 here.

Your online commerce operations are terrible. If you have an online store, it’s clunky and breaks so often that you get customers who contact you directly instead of entering the credit card information six times. If you run a PayPal-only operation, you have all the trouble of entering all the data you capture on your computer, and you still have to pay the extra processing fees.

When you’re revamping your web site, or starting a new one, you’re probably thinking about improving your e-commerce store. Should you use a readymade solution, or should you customize? Is it better to focus on security and efficiency, or is your time better spent building out an attractive online store that makes customers interested in purchasing your goods or services? Here are some options to consider when you’re on a budget. Remember, these budget figures are for your entire web site launch, not just your online store.

Under $500

If you’re starting a new website or revising an old one, but aren’t quite ready to make a big investment in an online store, you’ll probably want to set up an online store through WordPress or another free, open-source content management system. For WordPress, we like WP e-Commerce, which is one of the most popular e-commerce plug-ins out there, providing features such as catalog management, shipping calculators, and support for many payment services. If your store grows, you can add inexpensive add-ons that will make it easy to integrate with Amazon, expand your payment options, or improve your shopping carts.

For selling digital products online, WP Secure Downloads, is a good low-cost service to use, as it allows you to securely sell digital downloads without having to fork over a percentage of your sales to one of the major retailers. If e-commerce is going to be a key function of your new website, you’ll likely want to upgrade to a paid service as soon as your sales pick up. By choosing a free, versatile store with paid upgrade options, you’ll cover your bases without spending a lot of money upfront.

Under $2,500

With a bigger budget, you can afford to make a significant investment in your online store. While you still might want to use WordPress for your content management system, a paid plug-in will give you advanced features that will make it easier to start and run your online store. For example, MarketPress has a clean interface, importing options that allow you to upgrade from your old free e-commerce plug-in, and has great tools that enable you to make an attractive online store. Another alternative to consider is Shopperpress, an easy out-of-the-box e-commerce theme that will allow to set up your store almost instantly.

While these online stores aren’t expensive—a few hundred dollars at most—you will also need to budget for producing the images, product descriptions, and other details necessary to make your online store a success. You might want to hire a professional photographer to create attractive, detail-rich pictures of your goods, and a writer could help make your product descriptions sparkle.

Under $10,000

If you’re spending several thousand dollars on your new website or upgrade, you will probably work with a web developer to help create your online store. While you still might use one of the free or inexpensive readymade applications to get your online store up and running, your developer can help you customize your shopping cart, catalog, and payment operations to match your specific needs.

For example, if you have international clients, you might want to focus on payment and security options. Or, if you have a large and complex line of products, you might consider ways to categorize and display your products.

And, of course, you should ask your web designer to integrate your online store design with the design of the rest of the web site. You might also consider improving your online store’s look on mobile devices, either by commissioning an inexpensive app or, even better, just employing responsive design technique when creating your online store.

Whether you’re spending a few dollars, or a few thousand dollars, creating an online store is one of the best ways to make your web site investment pay off. While there are some really nice free options out there, spending a little money gives you customization options that will show your customers the value of your goods and services.

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Photo by Mike Fleming

Click here to read the introductory post in this series.

If you’re making a substantial investment in your website for the first time, you’re probably thinking that you should hire some professional help. After all, you hire professionals to do almost everything else your business needs, whether it’s your taxes, legal services, or upgrading your Internet access.

But while it’s easy to find and hire an accountant, a lawyer, or an Internet installer, figuring out who to ask for help with your web site is a bit trickier. Not only do you not know who to ask for help, you don’t even know what you should expect them to do for you. Here is our quick guide to who’s out there in the world of web site builders. While we won’t recommend specific companies here, you can consult our service directory for a list of people who can help you get started.

Web Designers

When you’re making a new web site, looks matter, and web designers help make your site is attractive to your customers. From designing logos and buttons to choosing color palettes and column formats, web designers help give your site the distinctive look that will be visually appealing and memorable. Some web designers also consider factors like user experience and search engine optimization when they’re making your website, so you’ll have more than just a pretty site when their finished. Many web design firms also offer web development, as certain design decisions—like using custom themes and content management systems—require special code in order to work properly.

Web Developers

Web developers are the programmers who build the code that drives the web. If you’re creating a custom website, or even adding a custom feature, like an online store, you’ll want to hire someone who can do the behind the scenes work necessary to keep your site secure and stable. While not everyone needs a web developer, their services are critical for any advanced web work.

Some web developers produce free, open-service applications, such as the content-management system WordPress. While you’re not directly paying for these applications, they’re available because developers are willing to work on them for free.

Social Media Management

Whether you’re making a website for your cupcake business or your law firm, you’re probably going to spend some time thinking about social media. While one might be tempted to think of social media as something that a web firm is responsible for, you’ll probably want to divide the work in two. Use the design firm to integrate your social media channels into your website, and then hire a copywriter or social media manager to produce the content, maintain relations with your customers, and keep track of your online reputation. While many people end up doing this work in house—read “by yourself”—you’ll want to budget your time, or one of your employee’s time, accordingly, as maintaining social media accounts can easily eat up five hours a week if you do it right.

If you want to justify spending extra money on social media, consider it as part of your advertising budget, an ongoing expense that you need in order to keep your site viable rather than something you set up and quickly forget.

Web Hosting Companies

Once you’ve hired a web designer and developer, you’ll need to choose a web hosting plan.

With A Small Orange, you have a spectrum of plans to consider, from inexpensive shared hosting plans to high-end dedicated server plans. The choices you make when you design and develop your website will likely determine which hosting plan you need, but, fortunately, your hosting costs will be just a fraction of what you spend to create a high quality website.

Click here to read Part 2, which discusses design.

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Take a look at all of our hosting plans here.

Here’s part 2 in our “Starting A Website” series.
Check out part 1 here, and learn about the role of the developer.
Read the introductory post in the series here. 

We live in a world that is increasingly governed by design. It’s no longer enough for our cars and clothes to look stylish. We want our silverware, our coffee cups, even our computers to look good enough for the movies, or at least television. Instead of being something that’s incidental or invisible, design is now an essential service, one that we ignore at our peril.

Whether you’re starting a new web site, or starting from scratch on an old one, you need think about how your site looks. Here are your design options if you’re working on a budget. Note: these figures assume that this is your total budget, not just your budget for site design.

Under $500

If you’re working on a tight budget, you probably don’t have the money to hire a professional website designer. Which means you’ll need to put together a quality website from free and cheap sources. For logos, color schemes, and other design elements, you’ll want to borrow from your existing material. If you don’t have ready made material, you might try your luck on sites like Fiverr, where five bucks will buy you a logo.

If you’re working on a tight budget, you’re probably using a free content management system, like WordPress, so you’ll want to take advantage of their free themes, which include most of the design elements you’ll need for your site. Websites like Theme Lab offer a range of free themes, organized by the most recently made, while WordPress’s own site offers free themes for all. If you want to personalize your site a bit, it’s fairly easy to change the colors and even a few graphics on a theme. Use Creative Commons-licensed material to protect yourself from taking someone’s work without permission.

Under $2,500

With a bigger budget, you have real options when it comes to site design. But before you decide you need custom logos and WordPress themes, you want to consider your design budget in context. If, for example, you’re designing a web site because you need to set up an online store, you’ll want to skimp on everything else until the store is functioning the way you want it.

On the other hand, if your site is primarily used to showcase your company—a “business card” web site, as some call it—you might want to invest most of your budget on site design. For a quality logo, you’ll pay several hundred dollars on sites like Brand Crowd, and you can try to find an inexpensive designer on eLance. If you’re working with a web designer, make your budget clear at the outset, and ask for services, like choosing color palettes and formatting your home page, that will give you the templates you need to make more pages in the future.

If you’re using WordPress, you can pay for a theme that will set your site apart from those that use the popular free themes that show up on thousands of web sites. You can find paid themes on WordPress’s own site, or on sites like Studio Press.

Under $10,000

Unless you’re spending your entire budget on an e-commerce store that rivals Amazon, or a social media site that gives your users all the features of Tumblr or Facebook, you likely have the budget to hire a web designer. Once again, though, spend your money wisely, paying attention to what you’re getting for your money. You want design elements that can be re-used and re-purposed in the future, not something that is perfect for your site launch but useless or annoying after a few months. If you’re looking for a web designer, we recommend that you start with our service directory.

Web design is the most important, and, for most of us, the most interesting part of setting up a web site. While we don’t know, or necessarily care, how the web works, we all know what designs we like. Choosing a good design will serve as an advertisement for your company, and make it easy for your customers to find and appreciate your services.

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Take a look at all of our hosting plans here.

Photo by Brett Jordan

On social media, it’s far too easy to be long-winded. Facebook allows us to upload entire photo albums and filter them later. Pinterest encourages our propensity to curate, but if we can’t decide, it’s okay to “pin” everything. Instagram allows us to create filtered photos to our heart’s content.

With all this content, measuring it can be difficult. How do you decide whether it’s better for your photo to “pinned” a hundred times, or “liked” a thousand times? Do you want to have more “friends” or “fans?” Maintaining a successful social media isn’t easy, and without good metrics it’s even more difficult.

If you’re getting started with social media metrics, Twitter is the best place the start. Tweets are famously short, less than 160 characters, and the Twitter API allows you to track data with ease. While we featured a number of Twitter tracking tools last year, here are some other tools you might find helpful as you begin tracking your Twitter account.

SocialBro

One of the most important, if obvious, things that distinguishes Twitter from other social media is its emphasis on user interaction. Tweeting and re-tweeting takes just a few seconds, so people who might be observers on other platforms are active almost by default on Twitter. SocialBro takes advantage of Twitter’s active user base to give you insight into how your followers are using Twitter.

With real-time analytics, SocialBro lets you know when your tweets are most likely to be read by your followers so you can optimize your social media strategy. You can also identify the “influencers” among your followers, so you can cultivate your relationship with them. SocialBro also allows you to analyze the Twitter profiles of your competitors, so you can stay on top of your field. Plans start at $6.95/month, and can be scaled up for a business of any size.

TweetStats

If you’re just getting started with Twitter analytics, and want some quick stats to show to your boss, TweetStats is a great free service to use. By demonstrating when you tweet and how often, you can show your activity online. And, by graphing out who interacts with you on Twitter, you can demonstrate the platform’s value for future investment.

Tweet Archivist

If you’re preparing an annual report or just want to keep track of how you use Twitter over time, Tweet Archivist is an inexpensive, but robust tool that gives complete reports on your Twitter account. From tracking hashtags to following tweets made during a conference or event, Tweet Archivist gives you the information you need to know about your Twitter account and makes it easy to archive your work.

Tweet Reach

If you’re not using a major analytics tool, but have the sudden need to find out just who’s retweeting information about you or your company, Tweet Reach is the perfect temporary solution. For professionals, Tweet Reach’s trackers can keep up with tweeting as it happens, so if something goes incredibly right—or wrong—on Twitter you can respond quickly before everything gets out of control.

Foller Me

When you get a new follower, sometimes you want to know as much about them as possible. Foller Me is a great tool for learning about your new users, and also provides a quick profile of your own account, just in case you want to see how others see you. For a more judgmental version of the same service, try Tweet Grader, which attaches a score to any account.

Twenty Feet

If you want a free analytic service that still offers a full and robust feature set, Twenty Feet is a great service to use, particularly its ability to track “influencers” who are easily your most valuable followers.

For someone who’s just starting out with social media, Twitter is a great tool to perfect, as its simple interface and active user base gives you the opportunity to test out techniques for engaging your users. By using metrics you can turn your use of Twitter into a science. Once you’ve mastered tweeting, the rest of the social media world seems easy.

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Photo by Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources

Sometimes you need a bigger boat, and sometimes you need to make the boat you have better. While this isn’t exactly the take-away lesson from Jaws, it’s good advice for someone who wants to get the most out of their web hosting services. If you have a Cloud VPS plan or dedicated server with A Small Orange, we can help you get the most out of your server.

When you optimize a server, you generally want to maximize your use of your server’s faster components such as memory versus slower components such as hard drives. Here’s a brief guide to two of the most popular ways to maximize your server’s potential.

Use nginx (pronounced “engine-x”) to move static files into memory

The open source web server software nginx helps you optimize server performance by taking commonly-requested static files like images, static html, js, and css, and putting them into memory to serve them more quickly.

By incorporating nginx into your server software, you can reduce the need to access your server’s file system, taking a load off your disk I/O as well as saving CPU resources.
In this configuration, the risk of running into problems is relatively low and is usually related to DNS issues where a domain isn’t resolving properly. If your domain isn’t pointed to the server, such as a pre-production setup where you’re using a local hosts file modification to preview the site, nginx will break everything, so wait until your site is live before setting it up.
Additionally, nginx can be used to cache dynamic content. The risk of issues caused by such a configuration—which is not the default setting—increase dramatically, so if you’re considering such a setup proceed with caution.

For PHP Scripts, use PHPAPC (Alternative PHP Cache / Opcode Cache)

While nginx helps you make your static files load faster, PHPAPC allows you to load and compile PHP scripts more quickly, which in turn will make your dynamic PHP-based web pages faster and more efficient.

Instead of loading the PHP script from disk and compiling it every time—thus demanding disk access and CPU cycles—it caches the compiled PHP opcodes to memory and executes them. This way, when you run the script, you’re only using CPU and other system resources for the execution, not to load and compile the script each time it is requested.

Additionally, PHP scripts which explicitly support PHPAPC can cache other objects into PHPAPC’s shared memory space, as well as things like database connections. For example, if you have a database-driven app which supports PHPAPC, you can keep one MySQL connection open and let PHPAPC “own” that connection. This way, every time the script runs it can use that MySQL connection instead of establishing a new one. Or, if you use the contents of a static file for something—like a configuration file—every time your script runs, you can cache those contents to PHPAPC and load it from memory via PHPAPC rather than having to load the file from disk.

In both cases, you’re spending memory to buy better page load times, less disk i/o, and less CPU usage. When installing PHPAPC on a Cloud VPS or dedicated server, you’ll need to fine tune it to get the maximum performance benefit. A Small Orange’s installer script rolls out a default config that is generally reasonable, but not always optimal, and errs on the side of keeping your web site up and running. Poor tuning of PHPAPC can cause the web server to start delivering errors instead of content, which is a big problem, so be careful when you customize your PHPAPC.

More Memory, Better Performance

With nginx and PHPAPC alike, you’re spending the memory that comes with your server package in order to purchase better performance such as improved page load times. If your server doesn’t have substantial free memory to work with, you’ll be doing more harm than good by implementing either or both of them, so please be aware of your available system resources to prevent overloading any component of your server. If you do decide you need a bigger boat—er, server—we’re happy to help you move up to the next level as well!

Keep in mind that our support team can help you install these on your VPS or Dedicated Server for no additional cost! Need to get in touch? Click here.

Photo By Brad Coy

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Special thanks to ASO team member M. Harris for the info contained in this post!

Photos by Crystal Bollinger

“I got started with the volunteering after a tornado thing last year,” said Crystal Bollinger, one of A Small Orange’s tech support ninjas who recently returned from feeding families who lost their homes after an EF5 tornado struck Moore, Oklahoma last month.

In April of 2012, a tornado hit Woodward, one of several towns in the Panhandle Bollinger lived in as a child. She wanted to help, but didn’t know how.

“By the time the tornado hit last April, my family had all moved out of the area, but I still felt connected to it,” she said. “I found this guy randomly on Facebook who was going down there to feed the volunteers, and went along.”

Bollinger went to Woodward with Jim Kirkland, who owns Duke’s BBQ and Catering in Texhoma, Oklahoma, the Panhandle town where she currently lives. Kirkland had previously traveled to Joplin, Missouri in 2011, to help feed people through a new non-profit called Operation BBQ Relief. OBR, as it’s commonly called, relies on volunteer efforts to cook and serve BBQ meals to people in need. As soon as the tornado struck Moore, Bollinger got in touch with Jim.

“I just wanted to be able to help like that again,” she said. “A sandwich can mean so much to someone who’s cleaning up what used to be their home. They don’t have money to go out to eat, and they don’t have a kitchen anymore.”

In Moore, they served 143,000 hot meals to people affected by the tornado, including 8,850 meals that were prepared, cooked, and delivered to hungry families by Bollinger and Kirkland.

“For the first day and a half we were cooking,” she said. “On the second day we got to go out to deliver. Local people were volunteering to drive out in the damaged zones with boxes of food, cases of water, and bags of chips.”

Although Bollinger had seen tornado damage before, she said she was taken aback by the extent of the devastation.

“It was unimaginable,” she said. “There were whole neighborhoods that used to be beautiful brick houses that were now nothing more than brick and rubble. Standing on what used to be someone’s driveway and seeing a pile of bricks and sticks is completely something else.

At the same time, Bollinger was most affected by how committed people were to staying in Moore and rebuilding their homes.

“It was absolutely amazing. People had so much hope still,” she said. “One person who lost the side of their house painted on the tarp ‘Hope still lives here.’”

While Bollinger didn’t talk to anyone who was injured in the storm, she did have conversations with people who wanted to share how much their homes meant to them.

“I talked to a lot of people who had lost half or all of their house, or just their roof,” she said. “What they wanted to tell me is that they got married in the backyard, or about how their father built their house. They talked about the memory of the things they lost.”

Bollinger was particularly grateful for the support from A Small Orange’s staff.

“I was expecting to get to go for a couple of days,” she said. “Jen [Lepp, director of customer service] told me that as long I as I could get people to cover my shifts I could go.”

When she sent out an email asking for help, she was amazed by the response.

“Nick Crew and James Healy both volunteered to covered all the days I would be gone,” she said. “That’s 16 hour days for them. It just blew my mind.”

A Small Orange’s CEO, Doug Hanna, also donated $250 to Operation BBQ, which, due to the company’s matching policy, meant that the non-profit received $500 to help it pay for expenses. Although no one wants a tornado to strike again, if one touches down again in Oklahoma or a neighboring state, Bollinger is ready to help.

“If it happens again, I’ll do it again,” she said. “I want to be there. I want to help in any way I can.”

If you have integrated social media into your web site, you’ve probably added your Twitter feed. Not only do a few short tweets add live, new, accessible content to your static web site, the Twitter API has famously been one of the most accessible APIs out there, making it easy for people to use it to meet their specific needs.

On June 11, version 1 of Twitter’s API—the only API we have ever known—will be retired and replaced with version 1.1. Many of the functions that you used in the old Twitter API will no longer work, and, depending on quickly your Twitter applications are updated, you may even receive HTTP 410 errors that notify you that the requested service is no longer available. Here are a few big changes to watch out for when the Twitter API version 1.1 goes live:

OAuth for All

In order for an application to access the API, you will need to use OAuth to confirm its identity. The days of accessing Twitter’s API anonymously are over. The new API also limits access to certain number of requests per hour, to stop spammers and other abuse of the system, though certain apps may be able to make more authenticated requests than was possible before.

Display Requirements, not Guidelines

Under the old API, one could take tweets and reformat them. With the new API, one has to adhere to Twitter’s display requirements, which includes linking Twitter user names to their profiles and displaying options for retweeting, replying, and favoriting. If one violates these requirements, and Twitter finds out, they might lose access to the API.

Developers Must Work With Twitter Directly for API-Intensive Apps

Most of the changes to the Twitter API are made with a single goal in mind—increasing Twitter’s control over how applications access user data. While the new API won’t break immediately for major apps—those that have more than 100,000 users—if they double their user base they will have to get Twitter’s permission to continue to access the API. If you’re using a third-party application to display Twitter on your website, or to access it for your social media work, you should be ready for major changes to come down the pike in the coming months.

Twitter’s new API marks a major shift for the social media platform, so it’s important to double-check how you use Twitter before their old API goes extinct on June 10. For even casual users, Twitter is an essential part of the daily media diet, and when the new API is here, you don’t want to miss a tweet.

Look at the official announcement from Twitter here.

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Photo by André P. Meyer-Vitali

Whether you’re a new business or an established one, you probably need a better web site. Perhaps your current site was made a decade ago by your summer intern, and you desperately need to get rid of that cheesy Flash animation. Or maybe you used one of those build-a-site generators, and are tired of having your website look like everyone else’s. Or you did the right thing five years ago and made a top-dollar web site, but now you need to integrate social media into your site design.

When you’re making a new web site, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Not only are there seemingly infinite options available to you—from deciding which CMS to us to figuring out how best to set up your e-commerce store—each choice seems to prompt a dozen new choices and close off a dozen other paths you might have considered. You want to make informed choices, but you don’t know how to get up to speed.

In addition, you need to figure out who to hire for which tasks. Should you go with a full-service firm who will do everything from designing your logo to handling your social media accounts? Or do you want to pick and choose firms based on their particular specialties? Given that you likely take a set-it-and-forget-it attitude to your website, you want to make the right decisions, but you’re only doing this once, and can’t afford to make a bad choice.

In this series, we’ll consider what it takes to start a web site using what might be the most important figure—the almighty dollar—to guide your decisions. Before we go any further, here’s what you should expect for your money.

Under $500

You’re ready to commit some real money to your website, but your business isn’t yet large enough to merit a substantial investment online. Even on this budget, you can still set up a web site that looks nice, but your customization options will be limited.

Under $2,500

Your business is growing, and you know that you’re missing out on customers because your online store is clunky and your web site looks B-grade. With a bit of capital expenditure, you can customize your site to suit your business needs and an almost certain payoff will follow.

Under $10,000

Your business has grown so rapidly that you’re now able to expand beyond your geographically limited market and go global. Or you’re creating the web site for your Internet-based business, and need custom design and development that will impress potential customers and investors alike. While revenues aren’t in line with your dreams yet—hence, the budget—you need to put everything you can into a good website.

While sometimes it makes sense to determine what you want out of your website before making a budget, if you start with the maximum you want to spend on a site you won’t waste time contemplating options that are out of your price range. With this series we’ll explore what you can expect from almost any budget, whether it’s a few handfuls of twenties or thousands of dollars. Here’s what to expect in the coming weeks.

1. Meet the Web Developers—There are a lot of people involved in making websites. Here’s a brief introduction to who they are and what they charge.
2. Design—From logos to templates, site design matters. What can do with a little money?
3. E-Commerce—Setting up an online store gives you the opportunity to reach customers everywhere. What’s the difference between an out-of-the-box and custom solution?
4. Content Management Systems—Setting up and specializing your CMS will make it easy for you to keep your site updated.
5. Social Media—Anyone can start a social media account, but using them well requires some help.
6. Analytics—If you want to grow your website, it’s critical to know who your customers are and what they do.
7. SEO- Simple, cost-effective search engine optimization tips to help you get your site ranking higher in search listings.
8. Web hosting—When you make a web site, you also need to choose a website. Here’s what you want to keep in mind when choosing your hosting plan.

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Photo by David Lytle

As the circus showman P.T. Barnum once reportedly said, “there’s a sucker born every minute.” While Barnum just wanted to get customers to pay for a ticket to the show, Internet scammers take advantage of our ignorance, gullibility, and apathy in order to make an easy dollar.

Even if you delete every email offering you the opportunity to share in princely riches, and decline to provide your bank information to the urgent requests that show up in your spam folder, you’re still vulnerable to wily and wicked scammers. For example, consider the oldie but goodie domain name scam, which has recently been revived by a company that goes by the name DNS Services.

A Simple Invoice, Or Is It?

Here’s how it works. When you register your domain name, your contact information—including your email address—is set by default to be public. DNS registry scammers use Whois, a directory for domain names, to look up people who might be good marks.

Once they’ve identified their targets, the company will send the unsuspecting users an “invoice,” that includes a bill for domain renewal for an inflated price. Although the fine print disclaimer notes that the invoice is actually, “a solicitation for the order of goods or services,” the company obviously hopes that you won’t notice and send in a payment for, effectively, nothing.

Preventing the Problem

In addition to being on the lookout for unsolicited invoices, you might consider setting up Whois privacy with A Small Orange (read more about it here). The cost is $7/year, and you’ll make it much harder for scam companies—and anyone else, for that matter—to get your contact information through Whois.

Internet scams have been around for a while now, and scammers tend to not be the most innovative bunch. Instead, they keep reviving the old tricks and hope that you weren’t paying attention the last time a warning went out. Just because there’s a sucker born every minute doesn’t mean that you have to be one of them.

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Photo via Robert Couse-Baker