Transcripts
1. How to handle hosting for clients - What mistakes to avoid: In this short class, we're going to dive into the topic how to handle hosting and domains where you're working for clients. So who pays the bills, for example, do you pay all the bills or do you let them pay the bills on who's hosting account is the actual website. Do you put all of your client's website on what account? There are so many options here that is very confusing and that's why I made this class. So in this class I'm going to show you what I suggest you do for your own web design business. And I'm also going to show you what hosting provider will fit your business the best. So I hope that I will see you in video number two.
2. What are your options?: So let's first cover the basics of the basics for every website you need two things. One is a domain, which is the name of your website, and this costs around $2 a month on average, or ten to $15 per year. Hosting, on the other hand, is the space that you rent on a server to make sure that your website is life discussed around five to $10 amounts, depending on a lot of different things like speed, support and features. And with most of those hosting packages, you will also get your own professional email address. So my website is Marina Borda count. So I can create info Adruino board.com, so you can create any email that you want in front of your domain. Now, a domain is something that you need to buy for every website individually. So that's easy. When you need a new website, you always buy a new domain. So your company.com or your company.org for hosting, it's a little different. The first step then I want to give is always buy the domain and hosting from the same company. It doesn't matter from which company you buy the domain, but it makes things a lot easier. Otherwise you have to connect those two things makes it complicated, and that's extra work for nothing. So make sure you buy the domain and hosting from the same company. The only thing you have to look out for when buying and domain is the availability. Because if a domain is bought by one person, nobody else can buy it. And sometimes it happens that you have a client which has a company name that more companies have. And then if you want to buy the dot-com domain name is not possible. So then you can do two things. One is you can change the extension. So for example, change.com dot org or just changed the name in front of the dot-com. Maybe use a dash when that's possible, or maybe at a word to it. So that's all you need to know about domain, where it becomes complicated is we didn't the hosting, because hosting, you can buy that for every single website individually, but you can also buy hosting for unlimited websites. And this is where it becomes complicated because when you have a web design business, that seems like a very good deal because then you can use this for all of your client websites, right? Well, that's not a very good idea in my opinion. But let's just first cover what other people are doing with their hosting. Some people buy an unlimited hosting plan for all of their websites. Then they charged a client's a small amount per month for the hosting. This is possible with some hosting companies, but with other hosting companies does not even allow some people sign up for a reseller accounts, which is made for web design businesses, and allows you to manage all of your client websites in one dashboard for a higher price per month than most of the Unlimited website hosting packages. So this sounds pretty nice in theory, but in my experience, this is not very practical. So this is also, but I do not recommend some people by a single site license with their own credit card for every new client website. So then they will also build a client every month with an invoice for the hosting. And in that way you have a different hosting account for every client. And then the fourth group, which is people that let the client by their own hosting and domain for their own website. And then they just tell the client to share the login details so that you can install WordPress and started working on the website.
3. Why you should pick option 4: The first free options sounds really nice, but in my perspective, You should only pick number four. Let me give you a few reasons why. Sometimes it happens that you don't want to work with the client anymore at some point, but the client still want to work with you. This happens sometimes. So then since you pay for the account and it's your hosting account, you need to open that awkward conversation. And then if they finally understand that you want to leave, you have to do the extra work to make the migration happen simply because they can't do it even if they know how, because it's part of your account, maybe they want to work with somebody else or a new employee starts working on the website and then you also have to put in that work to maintain migration happened because you still pay the bills and maybe they want to pay the bills at some point, I believe that they should be able to get rid of you without your involvement and it saves you work. And as their website at the end of the day, number tree, tree, sometimes clients go bankrupt. This already happened two times with two of my clients, and then they simply don't have the money to pay the invoices. A1 is a cold them all the time and be like, hey, can you pay the invoices? But since it's just a small amount, you can really make a big issue out of it because people that go bankrupt have way bigger money problems. Paying for the hosting a few dollars per month invoice that you send them. So that's also a mess up situation where you don't want to be in prison number for a lot of clients already have their hosting or their domain at another hosting company. And then you can say like, yeah, well I can do the migration will migrations are not really easy for average designers because it's a really technical thing. Actually, more than half of my clients already have a hosting somewhere. So then I just installed WordPress on their hosting. Or if they already have WordPress, I just changed the website on developers installed. We're not going to do some extra work that is not paid. So that's why all of those methods where you use one account for all of your clients are in not practical and also not really realistic. Another con for your client is that you own the hosting account. So in that way, you're even in-charge of their email accounts. You can delete the email accounts, you can change the passwords. And for most businesses, their email is very confidential information. They don't want the web designer to just have that power over their emails. You can even delete the personal email of the CEO, for example. And the last gone that I wanted to share is that if you own their hosting account for them, it's much easier to ask those simple questions like, hey, reno, can you create an email for our new employee or intern? Can you change my password? I lasted and of course you can say no. But those things like take one minute and for tasks like that, you don't also wanted to send an invoice of like a few dollars. And again, you can say no, but but you also want to keep your relationship with your client. Good. So that's also less of an issue when they have signed up for their own hosting because then it feels that is more part of their business instead of your business. So what it comes down to is that their website, their domain, their emails, is part of their business, not your business. So this is my perspective on the situation. All ways. Lead them sign up for their own hosting, let them pay for their own hosting. Make it simple because you can go away whenever you want and desc and go away whenever they want. And if they don't have hosting yet, just tell them the monthly costs that are involved by having a website. So say something like, hey, it's around $10 a month and then just give them instructions on how they can sign up for their hosting account. Just tell them that it's as easy as buying a product in a webshop. Because it is they just pick a plan, type in their domain name that they want, fill in their info, and then they click on order. And then the only thing that they have to do is share the login details with you. And then you can do your thing, and then you can install WordPress and move on from there. And if they didn't want to throw you out, they just changed the password. Pretty easy. Nobody is attached to nobody. And if you are worried that your client does not understand how to sign up for hosting, just hop on Skype, get on the phone, just tell them where to click and make them sign up for the hosting. And what I've experienced is that most of the clients actually loved this simply because it makes them feel smart, because now they can do something that they couldn't do before.
4. What you need for yourself: So now that, that's out of the way, let's talk about your own website. What kind of hosting plan do you need for your own portfolio website? So before you jump into Google and be like cheapest hosting plan possible, you need to think about what you actually need. And one of the things that you actually need to host and plan when you have your own web design business is sub-domain functionality. So sub-domain functionality is essentially a feature that allows you to set up different websites under your main domain name. So my domain name, for example, is Arena newborn.com. My sub-domain could look something like this. Blog.config board are gone or shop dot oriented aboard.com. So the domain you paid for is always visible in a link. That's why it's not an option for your clients websites. So that's why you have to buy a new domain name for every client that doesn't have a domain in yet. But for your own web design businesses is perfect because you can use this as portfolio items. Because on a sub-domain, you can run a separate fully WordPress install weed in your domain. You can link to that link in your portfolio without having to pay for extra hosting. So I've already done this with my health block that I built for my portfolio. So if you go to healthy blog.js Lynda.com, I've built this whole block to show my potential clients that I can build a personal blog like this. So I don't pay anything for it is hosting because it's a sub-domain, right? But it's a full workers install that I can show my clients, I can send this link to them and I can be like, hey, I can do this for you. And if you are worried that clients don't like fake portfolio items, well, let me tell you it is clients don't really care that much because they only really care about if you can bring them the value that they're looking for. And of course, real project are always better. But this is ten times better than having no portfolio items, right? So use D subdomains for your portfolio items. Create a lot of different websites so you can show your potential clients what you can do. And it's also a great practice for yourself to build a few websites without having to risk losing a client's. Another reason why you want to hosting package that has sub-domain functionality because sometimes the clients are really slow. They don't have a domain name yet, they have not bought the hosting yet. You want to start because you are already done with the design and you want to start in WordPress. While now what a sub-domain, you can just install WordPress on a sub-domain of yours. Then start building the website already than when they have domain, you just download all of the content, but it's simple. Plug-in, for example, does plug-in, it makes it into a zip. You upload that zip on the client's hosting and then you can just move on from there. So in this way, subdomains don't slow you down when the client is slow.
5. Which hosting company should I pick?: Okay, so now let's talk about hosting companies. From my perspective, you have two different audiences that by hosting, which are people that just want the cheapest hosting possible, or which is the majority, just hosting, that's good, that's rated good, but still affordable. And I think this is true for yourself and true for your clients. Most companies charge around $10 a month for hosting. And I know what you're thinking right now. But Janet Reno, I saw all those hosting companies that advertised hosting for three or $4. Well, yes, that's true. But those are discounted prices that only lasts for the first few years. With a lot of websites that you are by those websites and especially the e-mails behind the hosting will be used for a lot more than one or two or three years. So what you need to look at is the renewal prices and not just the discounted prices that they advertise. So what I've done for you is I have listed the main big players in the market with their discounted prices and their renewable prices for single site licenses, which also offers sub-domain functionality. So these numbers are a good indication for the actual cost for your clients websites and for your own portfolio websites after a few years. So as you can see, they are around $10 a month. But of course you should take advantage of those first few discounted years, which I've also done for my own hosting. I host with site grounds and I've paid for three years already. So that makes it a lot cheaper in the first few years. The reason why I put cyclin at number one, because for one or $2 more per month compared to the other ones, you get hosting from the company that is rated number one for a lot of years in a lot of different Facebook groups. What you also need to know is that companies like host gator and blue host are actually owned by the same company that are known for putting too much people on one server, which is not what you want of course. So this is why I host my main websites at site ground, and I've made a few videos about them as well. And I myself am Andi grow big benefit grounds which has unlimited websites. But that's not for my clients of course, but simply because I have a website for my own portfolio and I have to live in with pixels websites and have another website for one of my businesses. So that's why I am on the grow big blend. So my main recommendation for most of your client websites and for your own portfolio website is psi ground because even on their cheapest blend, you will get unlimited subdomains, which is pretty nice. And again, it's only one or $2 a month more than the other ones which don't have the reputation of psi ground. So that's why I always recommend site Chrome. But I do understand that there are people who are on a budget. Maybe you're living in a country where the income is not as high as Europe or America. So what I've also done for the people that are really on a budget and that are willing to take a little bit of risk in terms of features, performance, and speed. I've looked at all the different hosting providers that they are. And I've added a new link on the liveness Pixels website. So if you go to living a pixel.com and you click on the page links, you will go to this page. And now underside grounds, I've changed the page a little bit. So I have looked at almost all the main hosting companies, and this is the cheapest I could find. So let's just see what they offer. If you click on this link, you will go to their WordPress hosting page. And there were Parse Hosting is optimized for WordPress. If you're billing verb plus websites, then this is the package that you should choose. And actually it's also the best package. And as you can see, they offer their baggage four to 15 and the renewable price is only $3.5 per month. And that is pretty amazing. Why I do not recommend that you pick their single site license. Because with our single site license, which you can find under here, they only offered to sub-domains, which is not really enough if you want to have a web design business to digitally cheapest package that I could find that offers subdomains and at a very, very affordable price, actually the cheapest on the market. So let's just add this to the car because this price, like I said before, that's not for one year. That's when you sign up for four years. So that's a commitment. So what I recommend, if you buy a hosting like this, which is really cheap, that I should pick d 12 month plan. Why? Well, the renewal prize is a little bit higher, so it's around $6, but that's still $4 cheaper than the other ones. But in this way, you don't take a lot of risk. Of course, you can also go for the four years, but then you will have to pay a little bit more right now because as you can see, if you buy this, you only pay $54. And if you click on this one, you will see that you will pay almost double of that. But of course it's the difference between one year and four year. What's also great about hosting her? That from their 12th month blend, they offer a free domain for the first year. So normally you would have to pay ten or $15 per year for your domain. So in this way you will save a little bit more money. So let's say that I want to buy arena the board to dot-com, I click on search. And as you can see that it doesn't add anything to the bill. It's still $54. And then I haven't dot com name. And then I can make it even a little bit cheaper because I don't know if you saw already, but there is a little line of text under here. If you use the discount code, live in with pixels, if you copy this and go to the shopping cart and then have a coupon, enter the coupon code. They even give you 10% more. So then it becomes only $50 for 12 months of hosting and a free domain for your first year. After that, you can of course change if you're not happy with them. But that's a little bit technical. So I would just choose like, do you fall into the audience that just wants the cheapest thing possible? Or do you just want something that's rated the number one for most people and it's still affordable. Dan, you should pick psych Ron. I think those are the two audiences that could watch this video. Again, i has all of my websites on site ground, but it's worth trying. A company like hosting or if you're really on a budget.
6. Thank you: Okay, so I think you have all the answers right now, too big a hosting blend and decide what option works for you. And now you know, but my recommendation is, but maybe you even use a different technique than the ones that I presented here. If so, leave them down in the discussions so we can learn from each other. For now. If you wanna see more videos of me, you can click on my skill share profile where you can see all the classes that I have. There are a lot of videos related on how to start your own web design business. So maybe I will see you in another class. Maybe not for now. Thank you for watching. And yeah, that's it. Bye.