If it’s a web server or application, consider putting it behind a CDN like Cloudflare’s free CDN tier
We’ve not tried all of these, so be sure you read their terms of service and privacy policy, as well keep a keen eye out for “upsell” options that add to the cost, and make sure you have tools in place to detect when things like storage or network access is close to hitting the limits.
In order by price, starting with the lowest first:
Here are a few services that offer free tiers (watch for usage/time limits when you move to paid tier!):
Here are a few aggregators worth checking out as well for more options:
We recommend these VPS’ over a service like Wix or Squarespace hosting, as you get a lot more control and power, and these two hosting services are known for embedding privacy trackers on the “free” websites they offer. If you want to ensure you’re on a fast back bone however, as Google punishes website’s SEO if a website takes longer than 3 seconds to load, have us help us get you on a fast host and optimize your websites or applications.
]]>One night I got a call from my friend, on a Friday night, from a friend asking me if I could build her a website for an event related to Canadian documentaries she was working on. As I was telling her I didn’t really offer that, I was asking her what she needed and why, when she explained she already had a word document with the content for the website including page layout, pictures, and copy (text content).
I told her she could spin this up quite quickly with Wordpress, but she was unfamiliar. As she already had the content, which is the hard part, I told her I would help her out. I simply registered her chosen domain name for her, pointed to a shared web host I already used, installed and configured Wordpress, and then added her content. The next day I called her and told her to go the URL in her browser to check it out. She was amazed how I could have this all setup for her in a day, and asked how much I would charge her. I had no idea on pricing at the time, I was happy to help her out, so I quickly just said a number where I was more asking than telling, “$399? I’ll include hosting for the next year”. She gasped and I laugh that to this day I didn’t know at that moment if I was underpriced or overpriced.
She told me that the quote she got from the other website development businesses here in Victoria had quoted her $5000-8000 and told her it would take 3 months to build such a website. I couldn’t believe web development shops would charge someone so much, but she was impressed. “Can you provide me the same website but in French?” I replied, “For another $399? If you have the content, I’ll do it in one day!” and that’s how One Day Website was born. I registered the French version of her domain name and had her French website up the next day. Over the next month or two I had over 6 people call me, all referrals from her, “Are you the guy that can build a website in one day for $399?” “If you have the content, yup!”
From my condo here on Vancouver island, I was starting to get calls from all over Canada to the same effect. Always the entrepreneur, I registered OneDayWebsite.ca, and it’s been running since. I haven’t paid a dime in advertising, we operate solely off word of month. That will be 10 years ago this June, back in the spring of 2011!
We still offer websites in one day, we register the domain name for you, setup Wordpress, configure SSL/TLS so it’s secure, and offering one year of hosting all for a year, we’ve since dropped the price down to $299 in our little market niche. It’s cheaper to do it yourself, but we’re cheaper and faster than the other hosting providers or web development companies here on the island in terms of doing all of the tech stuff for you, so you can stay focused on the content and copy for your website. We’ve since expanded to Vancouver and have most of our clients here in British Colombia, we’ve got customers across Canada and around the world, but I’ll save the story of our expansion for another day.
Thanks for reading! It will be fun to read and reflect on our origin story in another decade from now!
]]>Before I jump in with the technical questions you should ask, I’ll start with a few definitions that should be of help:
The main questions aside from cost of hosting are:
If you’re looking for a cheap host that does most of these things for you, you’ve likely been recommended GoDaddy, Wix, SquareSpace, or Siteground or similar services, but chances are with these ones they will not meet the speed test as they’re often on shared hosting plans which means your website is on the same computer as hundreds to thousands of other websites, they often secret embed privacy trackers into your website, and several of them jack the prices up on year two, so do your homework here.
It’s also worth exploring a content delivery network (CDN) like Cloudflare, this not only improves the security of your website, but a CDN will have servers all of the world setup to host your website as fast as possible to your users based on their location.
]]>One of the important topics of branding with your website is the colour scheme. It helps to have a basic understanding of colour theory. This includes knowing if you’re going to use a colour scheme such as analagous or complementary colours, warm vs cool and colour harmony. The colours you use will elicit a conscious or sub-conscious reaction, so make sure you choose your colours with strategic intention.
If you’re not using just one colour, you should pick and stick to a specific colour palette which should be used on all branding materials for your organization, including the website.
Canva has a comprehensive article on colour schemes if you want to do a deeper dive. I recommend a palette of no more than 5 colours, and use those colours in all of your company’s interactions including email/newsletter and social media so as to start to build it out as a branding exercise.
You can start to define your colour scheme with a site like coolers.co.
]]>If you’re transitioning from Wordpress to Jekyll, use this plugin.
You’ll need to have ruby, gem, and bundle installed.
$ ruby -v
$ gem -v
$ bundle --version
If either of these don’t return a version number, get them installed.
You likely want to install a theme, so look through the various theme websites and download the one you like the best.
I chose the jekyll-rtd-theme for votekris.com so I did:
$ git clone https://github.com/rundocs/jekyll-rtd-theme.git
$ cd jekyll-rtd-theme
$ sudo gem update
$ sudo bundle update
$ bundle exec jekyll serve
You should now be able to go to http://127.0.0.1:4000/ in your browser and see the basic theme website! You can hit ctrl+c to stop it, and then edit _config.yml for the settings of that theme. After that, you should follow the documentation for that theme to edit the other files and directories. For markup, refer to the kramdown reference manual.
Once you think you’ve got everything edited as appropriate, you can run $ bundle exec jeykll serve in a terminal, and now every time you edit a page or post and save it, this command will automagically integrate the changes, and you can reload the page in your browser to see your changes in real time just a website user would see them.
Introducing, broken link checker or blc
To install, type this at the command line:
sudo npm install broken-link-checker -g
After that, check out the help for available options:
blc --help
A typical site-wide check might look like:
blc http://yoursite.com -ro
What I’m looking for is someone to help with the social media engagement side, someone who’s passionate about offering website packages, consultations, audits, and SEO help. I don’t care about accumulating followers, I’m looking to help those who aren’t in a place to help themselves currently, and that winning one of these packages can give them the leg up to get to the next stage along their journey.
Do you think you have what it takes to engage people on social media channels like Facebook and Instagram? If you’ve always wanted to prove you have what it takes, reach out to me, kris@onedaywebsite.ca. Tell me two things: 1) What you think you can do to help One Day Website achieve this vision, and what type of commitment you’re willing to offer and 2) What One Day Website could do for you? Help you setup your dream website? Help with auditing or search engine optimisation over your competitors on your website?
If I can successfully find a team to manage offering all of these packages for free, I intend on giving away over $15,000 CAD worth of products and services over the next year.
]]>This client has a lot of content, which was accumulated over years, and would be hard for anyone to duplicate. It is unique, valuable, interesting, and drives traffic to their website. However, no where on the site does it mention that the individual running the website is willing or able to speak professionally.
As speaking engagement opportunities aren’t mentioned on the website, it goes without saying that there are no details about what the client is good at speaking about, or why. The entire exercise would be left up to the website visitor to simply imagine that the client was available for hire.
One of the first things I ask all potential clients, is to clearly define what their conversion goal is. From there, we can start to being discuss strategies to optimize the website for conversions. But before that, we need to ensure we have a clearly defined value for the customer.
Many people make the mistake of stating what their product or service is, but I have more success with using the narrative of what the customer’s value is.
One Day Website optimizes your online business strategy.
Notice that I did not say we do websites, we do analytics, we do business strategy, and a host of technical solutions. When you read the above sentence, you immediately know if what One Day Website is offering aligns with your business pains, or if it would provide you a business gain.
You likely have some perceived notions as to what the value is you provide, now you need to validate it with potential and existing customers. Once your value has been validated, make sure your messaging along these lines is clear.
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