This is an box for a short bio to be edited in the header.php file. Of course you can try to persuade people to Design Your Own Website »
We have had a few clients that came to us after signing up with one of the dozens of “design your website in minutes” web design companies out there.
Their experience was similar to the one that Miriam Ellis mentions in her post about Homestead.com. The were enticed by the promise of being up and running in minutes with all sorts of nifty features at their disposal. All for only $59 a month including hosting. Sounds great. Sign me up.
What they were not aware of was that the template company owned the actual site – not the client. If the client wanted to cancel their service with that template company in the future, they could do that with no problem, but since they did not own the actual site they were not allowed to transfer that site to another web host. Hmm.
“Unless the client was willing to use Homestead’s templates or Homestead’s ‘professional’ designers, they were not allowed to use the domain and hosting they had purchased.”
Miriam Ellis
They next learned that the domain name they registered was not their property either. It was registered by the template company. Cancel the account and you lose the domain name. Yikes.
There is usually nothing wrong with using services like this if you are aware of what you are getting into when you sign on the dotted line. When you use a ready-made web site template, you are saving the initial expense of hiring a professional to create the web site but don’t be fooled into thinking that you are getting a professional web design. In fact, Miriam has 12 really great tips to ask before you sign anything:
1. Do I own my domain name?
2. Can I host it elsewhere, or do I have to host it with you?
3. Can I bring in my own designer, or do I have to use your templates or your designers?
4. Is there a limit on the number of pages I can have on my website?
5. Is there a limit on the number of images I can have on a page?
6. Can I optimize my individual Title Tags, one at a time?
7. Can I write my own Meta Description Tags, one at a time?
8. Can I write as many words on my pages as I want, or is there a limit?
9. Is there a limit on the number of content pages (as opposed to product pages) I can have on my site?
10. Can I access the Robots txt. portion of my website?
11. Can I write my own search-engine-friendly URLs?
12. Can I access the CSS?
Great article, Miriam. Unfortunately, it came too late for some but, hopefully it will help prevent small businesses from getting duped by the lure of a low monthly payment.
Blog Section Introduction »
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Our new web design blog will have a few features that our tech blog did not have, so I am going to point out some of them from time-to-time.
The first one I will mention is the Things We Like section. It will be a section in the sidebar at the right that will feature something that we think is indispensable when it comes to web development, graphics design or SEO.
It might be a piece of software that we cannot do without. It might be a piece of hardware that helps us do our job better. It could even be another company we work with or an individual. Whatever it is, it is going to be something we use personally and most probably use it everyday.
We will announce the selection under the category of Web Design Toolbox. If you have one that you would like to recommend, leave a comment below with all the details so we can check it out.
Web Design Break-up »
In an attempt at getting a jump on 2008, we have made some changes to the Crystal Coast Technologies blog. Previously, we had Technology, Web Design, SEO and CAD all living under one roof. While they got along most of the time, in variably someone seemed to be out of place. This led to us having more of a “Blob” instead of a blog.
At the beginning of 2007, the Company’s primary focus was CAD and Architectural renderings with web design coming in at a very close second. As the year progressed, however, web design took a greater share of our time and become more of a focus for us with SEO becoming an even greater focus. Well, each of those topics is really important enough to have its own home. So, I decided to begin splitting them up and giving them each their own little piece of Internet real estate.
You have found the home for CCT Web Design, which will be the home for all things related to Internet web development and SEO. Our Technology blog will still live at its same address and will continue to have topics related to everyday technology (Internet, gadgets, etc.) and will also have things related to Architecture and CAD.
Anyway, hopefully this will be a good idea and will help us better concentrate on all the things that we do. Let us know what you think.
Faststone Screen Capture is an absolute "can't do without" piece of software. Capture screenshots in a fixed window or with the scrolling window feature. It even has a screen color-picker that will tell you the code for any color that is displayed on your screen. Love it. Oh, its free too! 
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