Ask CWS: Hosting Plan Limits

Question: Other hosting companies offer unlimited hard drive space, unlimited emails, and 100 terabytes of data transfer per month. Why don't you offer this much?

Anwser: Simple, we don't oversell our servers.

When a company oversells hosting they are selling more resources than they currently have, just like an airline that sells more seats than the plane can hold because they expect a few to reschedule. For example, if you have a server with a 300 GB hard drive, and you sell hosting packages with 10GB of storage to 50 customers, you have sold 500 GB of server space. Since you only have a 300 GB hard drive, you've oversold the server by 200 GB.

Why do hosting companies do this? Because they know that the typical website only takes up around 50 MB of space and uses 1 GB of bandwidth per month, so on average, these 50 customers shouldn't use up all of the resources on the server.

If a typical website only takes up 50 MB, imagine how many of them you could fit on a 300 GB server -- over 6,000! The potential profits from this type of arrangement, and thus the temptation to do so, are huge. But it doesn't seem very ethical to promise what you can't deliver, simply trusting that your customers won't ask you to fulfill your promise, does it?

We don't think so.

We believe that companies who offer "unlimited" emails or "unlimited" hard drive space are doing exactly that -- promising something they can't possibly deliver. These types of offers also tend to attract a few customers who do try to take advantage of the provider and steal precious resources from quality customers (like you). We want your business website to perform at an optimal level at all times and not be affected by some kid who is streaming a video to five thousand college buddies.

If we promise more than we can deliver, we can't guarantee reliability 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. That's our promise to you and the reason we don't offer hosting plans with ridiculous limits on hard drive space, bandwidth or email accounts. Thanks for asking!

Have a question for us?
Got a question about design, business, marketing, etc? We would be honored to provide some insight into how we'd tackle the issue. Send an email to support [at] cws dot net with the subject "Ask CWS".

Cafe CWS?

Here at CWS we like to build relationships with our customers. When you come for a meeting at our office, we hope that meeting is relaxing, educational, and productive. But ultimately, we hope that you enjoy your time here and have a memorable experience. Therefore, we have implemented some new procedures here at CWS and it starts with an expanded list of coffee choices.

That's right, when you visit CWS you can now be served a wide variety of coffee from around the world (including Paris, Milano, Columbia, Kona, and much more), a delicious cappuccino (French Vanilla or White Cholocate Caramel), or a creamy cup of hot chocolate.

Here's the complete list of beverage choices we're serving right now (we're bouncing off the walls trying them all):


So, stop on in and say hi (and grab a cup of coffee). We'll be waiting for you. No, really, Ryan forgot to go home last night after his 12th cup of Kona Coffee.

5 New Year's Resolutions (for your website)

It seems like just yesterday that I was working on a Top 10 List of New Year's Resolutions (for 2007). Since another year has come and gone, we now must look to 2008 for the opportunity to complete our aspirations.

"This year," we say, "I'm going to lose 10 pounds" or "I'm going to exercise twice per week." While these goals are fine and dandy, I personally think it's time to set a few resolutions for your website. Yes, it's true, you've been neglecting that website since 2004 and it's time to give it some love in 2008.

Without further ado, here is the list of the Top 5 New Year's Resolutions (for your website):

1. Install Google Analytics


This year, it's time to learn more about who is visting your website and what they are doing when they arrive. The easiest way to do this is to install tracking code from Google Analytics. Don't worry, it's free to use and it will provide you with a wealth of information about your users. Once you sign up for a free account, they will provide you with a few lines of code to place on each page of your website. This will keep track of users as they navigate your website and tell you helpful information such as:

• How many visitors came to your site


• Average time they spent on your site


• % that were new visitors


• # of pages they viewed


• Average # of pages viewed per visitor


• Bounce rate (# who left immediately)

This information is essential to knowing how well your website is performing. For example, if your bounce rate is a whopping 85%, that tells you that the majority of your traffic feels that your website is irrelevant to what they were looking for. They bailed on you before you even had a chance to show them page 2. Maybe it's time to think about modifying that homepage?

2. Track Conversion Rates

Every website has a purpose. You want your customer to pick up the phone and call you, you want them to request a quote, to fill out your contact form, or request a free report.

But do they?

Once you have your tracking code installed, you can set up "goals" to answer this question. If one of the goals for your website is to have users "request a quote", then you can use your Google Analytics account to tell you what percentage of visitors actually do that. If you're like most people, you'll be disappointed with the answer.

However, with this new information at your disposal, you can start to make changes to improve your conversion rates. For example, maybe your "request a quote" page is hard to find. Maybe you should have a big bold graphic on the homepage? Maybe the form is too long and you should try to make it easier and quicker to complete? All of these things are possible to remedy once you know there is a problem.

3. Determine Your Search Phrases

Once you are tracking your visitors and know that your website is converting those visitors into leads, it's time to work on getting more visitors. The first step in this process is to determine which search phrase(s) are relevant for your line of business.

The easiest way to do this is to pretend you are a customer sitting at Google.com. What phrases would you enter to find a company/service like yours? For example, if you are in need of an attorney to represent you for a dog bite, you might search for "dog bite attorney in rochester mn" or "personal injury attorney in rochester mn." What will people enter to search for you?

It's important to think about location when determining your search phrases. Very seldom will someone just search for "attorney" or "personal injury attorney", and if they do, they will usually end up trying again because they won't find someone who is local.

Determining your search phrases is all about knowing who your customers are and how to reach them. When you have highly targeted traffic to your website your bounce rate (see #1 above) will go down and you'll have higher conversion rates (see #2). This leads to more sales which will make your boss want to give you a big promotion in 2008. OK, maybe not.

4. Optimize Your Website

Now that you have determined which search phrases will bring you the most targeted visitors, it's time to optimize your website for them. You do this by putting these search phrases in the page title(s), text, and alt tags of your website. I know, this sounds complex, but stay with me for a moment and I'll show you how.

First, open up your homepage and look at the text in the very upper left of the browser window. For example, on our home page it says "Web Design Web Hosting SEO Video Production Graphic Design - Rochester MN". Wow, that looks an awful lot like the search phrases that someone might use when trying to find the services we provide. Coincidence? I think not.

Next up, you need to add your #1 search phrase to the text of your homepage. In order to tell the world that this is what you do, you want to make it big and bold. For example, at the top of our homepage, we've added all of the main search phrases again, and even added some links and bolding to them. This is something you'll want to do as well. You should also bold, italicize, OR underline maybe 1 or two instances of the keyword. Don't go crazy with this. Just provide natural emphasis to the words that best describe your business.


This is a very basic how-to for optimizing your website. If you'd like more details on how to optimize your website check out Brad Callen's SEO tutorial or drop me a line.

5. Update the Content

I know, you're probably thinking... "Please Stop!... You've already given me enough to do in 2008 and 2009." However, I have one more simple resolution for you to make in 2008.

Keep your website up-to-date.

If you have outdated photos on your website that include employees who left in 1999, it doesn't reflect well on your company image. Resolve right now to make someone in your organization accountable for maintaining your website in 2008 and keeping it up to date. Jon's end of year maintenance post gives you six areas of your website to watch out for when it comes to outdated content. Check these areas of your website once per month and make sure they are up to date.

So, there you have it! 5 resolutions for your website in 2008 that should not only educate you but also turn your website into a profitable marketing machine. You never know, with all this extra knowledge you might get that big promotion after all!

Here's Your Chance... Ask CWS

We receive emails all the time asking about various topics. Should I register a .com domain with a hyphen in it or should I go with a .net one? What is more important for SEO... on-page optimization or my PageRank? How many projects do you work on at a time? The list could go on and on.

In fact, we receive so many questions it was one of our reasons for joining the Post Bulletin's Ask An Expert program. We enjoy answering questions and educating users about the Internet and it's one of the ways we "give back" to the local community.

So, we've decided to promote this topic as part of our blog. Do you have a burning question about one of our designs? Are you wondering what we think about your website design? Here is your chance to ask... anything goes! We'll do our best to answer your question(s) and post them here on a regular basis.

Have a question for us?
Got a question about design, business, marketing, etc? We would be honored to provide some insight into how we'd tackle the issue. Send an email to support [at] cws dot net with the subject "Ask CWS".

CWS Holiday Hours

The CWS team would like to extend our warm wishes for the upcoming Christmas holiday.
Our office will be officially closed the following times during the holiday period:

* Tuesday, December 25th
* Tuesday, January 1st, 2008

Our support team will respond to an emergency if needed. If there is one, please call (888) 426-7793. If you have a non-emergency issue, let us know by sending us an email.

May your travel be safe, and your good times plentiful.

Best Wishes,
The CWS Team

End of the year maintenance

It's the end of the year, and do you know where your web site is? Is some of your content outdated, or worse, not showing up at all? Making an annual assessment of your site is a great idea, and here are a few suggestions on what to look for.

1. Is your "About Us" page updated?
Have you been in business for 8 years for the last 3 years? Check on how current this page is. Update any time sensitive items and any services you may or may no longer provide.

2. Are your contact forms working properly?
Make sure that when a customer wants to contact you, messages get to the correct person. Be sure that a form, whose recipient may not always be obvious, is sending messages to your current sales person and not the one who left six months ago.

3. If you have other email addresses or contact information on your web site, are they correct?
Review all your published contact information. Nothing can turn a potential customer away faster than not being able to contact you.

4. Do all your links work -- both within your site and especially those that link off site?
When you're linking to content that you don't control, it's critical to review those links regularly to make sure they're still valid. Check all links, even the ones within your site, to make sure that your customers are getting to the correct place. There is a free online tool to check them here.

5. Check your WHOIS record.
This record is used by your registrar to contact you in case your domain (web site address) is about to expire, or for other important notices. Check yours at Network Solutions.

6. Do an overall review of your web site.
Check photos and see if they're still current and representative of your business. Are any graphics dated? Should you update any content? Do your pages load fast enough or are they slow?

This sort of review should be done yearly at a minimum. Some items can be checked quickly, and others may take some time, depending on the scale of your site. But in the long run, the advantages of a well-maintained website make it worth your time and effort.

New GroupLoop Feature: Additional Email Support

One of our most common feature requests for GroupLoop is tighter integration with email software. The application already offers several features for notification by email, like when you post a new message or document, or set a reminder for calendar events. But now GroupLoop can accept incoming email, too. You can send a message to your GroupLoop account and it will be automatically forwarded to other members while still maintaining the central archive that makes GroupLoop so useful.

Here's how it works. Each GroupLoop committee can now be assigned a "drop box" email address that allows it to process messages. To start using the feature, you'll need to assign a short name to the committee (no spaces or special characters) that will form the email address.



For example, say the account cws.grouploop.com has a committee called GroupLoop Developers. We might assign it a short name of "developers." The email address for that group would then become developers.cws@mail.grouploop.com.

Only people who belong to the committee can send messages to the address. When they do, the text of the email will be created as a new GroupLoop message, and a copy will be forwarded to everyone in the group. If a member replies to the email, their message will be added as a comment under the original posting. This helps keep email conversations centralized, permanently archived and collected by discussion, without requiring a login every time you want to add to the conversation.

To assign a short name to your committee (only account administrators can do this), click the "People" tab and then the committee name under "Manage Committees" in the right sidebar.

We hope this new feature saves you time and helps to make GroupLoop an even more useful part of your workflow!

Site Launch: autodatapubs.com

Autodata Publications has recently launched their new redesigned website and hosted by Corporate Web Services, Inc.

The new site offers an array of products and information for the professional auto technician who is looking for technical data for a large assortment of domestic, and imported vehicles.

The site also includes product photos, distributor contact information, and even a newsletter to keep you up to date on new product releases.

It was a pleasure working with Autodata, and we hope they enjoy their redesigned home on the web.

New Branding for Mayo Civic Center

CWS is pleased to announce a new identity system for Mayo Civic Center. In conjunction with an updated website framework (which will be released in the next few weeks), we were asked to develop a new logo and other collateral that, while maintaining a connection with the previous identity, would establish a new look for this first-rate facility.

With a bit of artistic flair, the bold colors and dynamic forms of the new trademark express the breadth of activity that takes place at the Civic Center. The facility's 120,000 square feet of space host a steady stream of concerts, sporting events, tradeshows, banquets, and other unique events. Mayo Civic Center is the major hub of activity for southern Minnesota.

Because it has the potential to be used in so many different contexts and applications, we developed a logo with several different variations in format and color. The typeface and forms were also designed to work well with the existing signage and architectural elements of the facility.

CWS is proud of the Rochester community, and it is always a pleasure to work on projects that support and promote our city. Be sure to check out Mayo Civic Center when you're planning an event or a night out on the town!