The terms web designer and web developer are often used to describe someone who creates websites.  While for many people the terms may mean the same thing, there are differences that you should be aware of, particularly if you plan to have a new website built. First, let’s look at what the different elements of a website are:

• look and feel: graphics and layout of a website including colors, fonts, images, animation and so on
• content: text and images intended for the website visitor to look at
• functionality: includes form processing, navigation bar behavior, e-commerce and many other things that require some sort of programming
• useability: refers to the “user friendliness” of the site from a visitors perspective. This is very important and usually involves the 3 items mentioned above.

So what does this have to do with web designer versus web development? Read on…

Website Designer

A website designer tends to specialize in the “look and feel” part of a website creation. They typically have expertise in graphic design and are proficient with tools such as Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator. This part of a website design is important because it goes a long way in conveying a first impression as well as providing a sense of your branding. A good web designer will understand what your product or service is and what you want to convey to your target audience. A lawyer may wish to provide a sense of professionalism whereas a business providing party entertainment will want a theme that conveys more fun.

The website designer will also have an interest in the content of the site. A good web designer can provide a lot of insight into how best to display content including the use of bullet points, images, font types and so on.

Website Developer

A website developer on the other hand, focuses more on the programming parts of a website such as form processing or e-commerce functions. Website programmers typically use languages such as PHP, Javascript, Jquery, MySQL and more. Much of the functionality a web developer provides may not be visible to a site visitor such as form checking, log in verification and so on but these are often very critical functions. Site security is usually a website developer responsibility and should not be overlooked.

The responsibility of site useability is usually shared between the website designer and website developer. There are elements from both areas that go into the user experience.

OK, So Who Should I Hire?

For most websites, the answer to this question is both. Most modern websites have some programming or database requirements and all need a great look and feel to make a good impression on visitors. The objective of most websites is to convey your message effectively and have visitors come back to the site often. Some individuals are expert website designers but may lack programming experience. Some website developers may have awesome programming skills but may not have a good understanding of how best to convey your theme through color and layout.

To get the best results, you want to find someone who can provide both. Either an individual who is strong in both areas, or a website design company that has experts in both areas. Before hiring a contractor or web design company, make sure they have the necessary expertise in both areas.

Flash has been used for years to add slick animations to websites. Some websites have been built entirely using Flash with all sorts of fancy animations and sounds. These websites now have a big problem in the form of an Apple. Iphones and Ipads to be specific – these platforms don’t support Flash – nor will they. So if you have a Flash animation on your site, it won’t render on an Iphone or Ipad. If your site was designed entirely using Flash, you’re looking at a site re-design. There’s no way around it, as these platforms become more and more prevalent, the Flash becomes more of a liability with more and more website visitors not getting the full experience from your website or worse – no experience at all, casting a bad light on your brand reputation.

We strongly recommend to all of our existing clients to replace their Flash animations with either a static graphic or a Javascript based animation. We won’t add Flash on any new sites at all anymore. RIP Flash…

Internet based credit card fraud has been on the rise for years. We’ve all heard horror stories about someone having there credit card information stolen and misused to buy things on the internet. Generally speaking, it is the credit card companies who absorb most of the fraudulent charges and that has added up – a lot! So the credit card companies got together and developed a standard for credit card security. It is known as PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) and if you do business on the internet, you need to know what it is about.

The standards are available online at https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/security_standards. There is a lot of information to digest, but it can be summarized as follows: if you store credit card data on your site, you must take extreme measures to protect that data. These measures are usually too expensive or cumbersome to implement for most website owners.

So unless you are a huge corporation with a massive IT budget, the solution is to not store credit card data on your site. Most e-commerce sites can achieve this by having a site visitor fill out the payment form on site and submitting the data via an encrypted connection (SSL) to a Payment Gateway that is PCI compliant. This avoids all the rigors of credit card data storage because you are not storing the data on your site. Once the transaction is complete, there is no trace of the users credit card data on your site. However, you’re not quite off the hook. Your site must be secure enough to keep hackers out since a hacker could get on your site and modify how and where credit card data is sent. A good hacker could modify your payment form to send the data directly to them. There are services that will analyze your site for security flaws and it is money well spent. Penalties for non-compliance in the case of a security breach can be steep. Plus it’s bad for your business reputation.

To completely wash your hands of the PCI DSS concerns, you can use a hosted payment service. In this scenario, a site visitor browses your site and when they are ready to make a purchase, they are taken to the hosted payment site where they enter their credit card data and complete the purchase. When the transaction is complete, they are returned to your site, usually to a “Thank You” page or the like. The down side to this approach is that it tends to cost more and often the hosted pages don’t fit well with your website’s look and feel. Paypal is great example of this – you know when you are on a Paypal payment page. Still, as consumers learn about these security issues, they may come to appreciate being on a secure site when submitting their payment information.

Whatever your situation, the one thing you can’t do is ignore the PCI Standards. It’s bad for business and could cost you thousands of dollars if your site is breached.

Hosting providers generally offer three types of hosting service: shared, virtual dedicated hosting and dedicated hosting.

A shared server means your website competes with other websites loaded on your server for bandwidth and processor time. Virtual dedicated servers also have many websites on a single server, but each user is guaranteed a certain amount of bandwidth and processor time.

Dedicated hosting refers to a hosting service where the customer leases a server, “dedicated” to their needs. There are no other users on the server so your website (or multiple websites) get full access to all the bandwidth and processor time.

Here are some reasons to consider a dedicated hosting solution:

High Traffic Volume
Although there are many shared hosting offerings that offer unlimited monthly bandwidth, you are still limited by the connection to the server and the number of websites sharing it. A dedicated server gives your site access to all the bandwidth available to that server.

Performance
If your website has high performance requirements, having a dedicated processor for your site might be the way to go.

Remote Storage
In addition to the performance advantages, you get full access to a remote server that can be used as a file server and/or mail server. You can store backup data on the server and run any applications you like.

If you need more than a clunky old shared server solution, consider upgrading to a Dedicated Hosting solution.