Informal consultation

Informal consultation refers to “talk time.” Unlike a lawyer, I will not be punching the clock every time we speak or meet. I am happy to discuss your needs and give you free advice. I want you to succeed with your web site, because if you do, you can become a long-term low-maintenance client. I want lots of successful long-term low-maintenance clients.

That being said, we also have to be reasonable about how much time we take with informal consultation. I fully expect to spend more time in the beginning of our relationship, but over time, as you learn more, you will need less consultation. That is a good thing.

If I feel that we are taking too much time with our talks, I reserve the right to put a limit on our informal consultations.

Technical support

Technical support refers to time spent “hands-on” your web site. It’s time spent adding pages, modifying code, or otherwise doing something that changes your web site. Technical support is when my expertise is most utilized, essentially doing something that you cannot do yourself.

Your monthly fee is mostly for technical support (my time and expertise) which is why it is much higher than a simple hosting fee.

Over time, it is my goal to reduce your need for technical support and enable you to become self-sufficient in the operation of your web site. As your needs for technical support changes, we can also change your monthly fee.

Technical support does not include “talk-time.” The time we spend talking about your needs falls under the category of informal consultation.

Two kinds of hosting: website and domain

Sometimes it can be a little confusing when techies talk about hosting. The term simply refers to the location (on what computer) files can be found. It gets confusing because when we are talking about hosting with regard to websites, we could be talking about one of two things: website hosting or domain hosting.

Website site hosting refers to where the files for a website are being hosted. The domain, which is your URL (e.g. www.yourdomain.com) points to your website, but it may not be hosted at the same location as your website. For example, the domain WestLAonline.com is hosted by GoDaddy, but points to the website files that are hosted by Dreamhost.

So if you are every talking to a techie about hosting, you might need to clarify which hosting you are talking about: website hosting or domain hosting.