Site Building and Maintenance Question

<p>Hi. I've been using the same designer to update and maintain my site for around 10 years. She's extremely expensive, she's gotten more and more popular, and it's become difficult to get her to do timely updates. When prospective clients enter my site from the home page, they are routed directly to the pricing page without even seeing images first. I asked her to change that over a year ago. Site templates have become so nice, I've actually become very disappointed with the "custom" job I've had up for the past couple of years versus some of the templates I've seen on sites like FreshFolios.com and LiveBooks.com. My domain name is secured for the next few years. I used Hostway to purchase it and pay $15.95 per month for their hosting services. I am unable to manipulate my site in any way. I have friends who are site savvy, and I have asked them to try to get into it to update photos, etc., but no one has been able to do it. So my question is this; if I build a site using one of the templates available online, can I "take down" my current site to allow the new site to link to my domain name, and if so, how? Thanks so much for any advice.</p>

<p>When you own a domain name, that's little more than a pointer, really, that tells the rest of the world which Domain Name Servers ("DNS") is <em>authoritative</em> for your domain. Those name servers, in turn, tell the world where to look (by numeric IP address) for your actual web site, which lives as a collection of files on an actual internet-connected computer someplace (in your case, at Hostway). <br /><br />If your web designer is able to get to those files, <em>you're</em> able to get to those files. Are you paying her for the hosting, or are you a direct customer of Hostway? If it's the latter, they should have you listed as a contact person, and should have your e-mail address as a matter of record. Ask them to simply e-mail you the credentials for your web site, and information about authorship access. This would be the exact same information they'd normally e-mail out when you first set up your hosting account.<br /><br />It's very likely that your site's content is accessed via FTP (the File Transfer Protocol), and that all you need is the FTP address, your user ID, and your password. After that, modifications to the web site itself will depend on how the content was actually built. Withoug seeing the web site, it's hard to say more ... is it all built in Flash, for example? Simple HTML with static files? Is there a database behind the scenes? We could probably infer a lot of that information simply by knowing the address to your web site ... but you don't have a link to it from your profile here.<br /><br />To answer your question: you can keep your domain name registered wherever it is (that would be at a "registrar" like GoDaddy or Network Solutions, etc), while still changing web hosting shops, and when you're ready, simply point that domain name over to a newly built site elsewhere. Or, you can give the site a makeover in-place. Whether a particular template would work will depend on how your hosting is set up (like, is it currently running under the Apache web server, or Microsoft's IIS, etc), and whether there are any "smart" pages running scripts or database connections involved. If it's all simple static stuff, you should be able to have any designer build you a scratch copy of it almost anywhere, so you can decide what you like before switching the live site around.</p>

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<p>If you are paying Hostway to host your site, then you should have a password that you can use to access your site's files on their servers. You can also delete your web page's files that on their servers. </p>

<p>If you make your own site from a template, the page that always shows up as the home page is the page that ends with /index.html. So for example, your home page could be RaeWells.com/index.html</p>

<p>So make your site from the template, then name the home page whatever your domain name is, plus the extension "/index.html". Then you'll have to delete the pages your designer put up and replace them with your new site's files. You'll need a ftp program to upload the new files. You can find ftp programs cheap or free. Hostway may even offer an ftp client. I use RBrowser (RBrowser.com) for my mac, but it may be mac only. Google "ftp client" to see your choices.</p>

<p>Peter</p>

 

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<p>Thank you Matt and Peter. I'm a direct customer of Hostway, so I can access my account, but apparently she's using some type of design software that's not typical to many people with design knowledge. I hope I'll be able to delete her pages, Peter. My site is www.raewells.com. I've decided to go ahead and build a site with one of these templates and contact Hostway to see if they can walk me through it when I'm done. Now I'm excited about getting a new site up that I can control, but I'm shooting all weekend and will be working on those images most of next week. Grrr! Maybe I'll pull a couple of all-nighters so I can get the site up more quickly. <br>

I've found another template site, creativemotiondesign.com, with a flat $95 fee and several templates that I like that also contain music. A huge part of my issue is that I'd like to put some of my more recent work on my site, as I'm currently getting a "smack down" from a young, new photographer whose pricing is lower (she lives with her parents, i.e. no bills!) and who has a more contemporary web site. I'm enjoying using new software and getting some great results on my images, but none of my recent work is online because of my issue with having to wait for and pay the designer. Retention of my established clientele isn't an issue, but when prospective clients compare sites, I have no doubt that I'm losing business. Time to do something about it!</p>

<p>Don't forget that you can always set up a blog on the side for free or cheap, and use it for some on-the-fly showing of what you've just been up to. Them younger folks seem to like that sort of thing, actually.</p>

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<p >Buying a template may be not the best solution. What you really need is a web based application that will let you design and update your site anytime you like. No HTML or other skills needed. This way you can match a look and feel of your presentation to whatever the current trend is. Make sure it can be viewed on iPhone, iPad and some other mobile devices.</p>

<p >There are a few applications like that so keep looking a little longer before investing money and time into Flash template.</p>

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