Like all things useful on the web, this FAQ will continue to grow and refine.

In the life of a professional, the basics become 2nd nature and we can take for granted that others already know these things. I look to my viewers to help me with what belongs in this FAQ — ask me.

Internet Coach?

More than the usual Internet professional George Fragos is an accomplished business leader, communicator, digital artist, writer and author with unending passion for every project he takes on — a one stop shop. As well as experience as a corporate officer he's been elected to two boards of directors. George Fragos is known as a natural leader, expert communicator and writer that loves challenge and change. There are very few business needs that he dosen't have experience with. Email George or call his cell, 559-325-4886. He'll show you how he can put the Internet to work for you. Working with you we design a Search Engine Optimized, SEO, living web entity that becomes the heart of a community that builds customer loyalty for your enterprise.

Internet site for local business?

Have you ever wondered where's the nearest Starbucks or drug store? With the advent of Google Local which merged into Google Maps the Internet and the local small business were brought together. Search ordered by proximity and supported with directions and maps. Local businesses have a place on the web. Your customers have changed how they do business — have you?

Back to Starbucks which has a corporate site and can direct customers to a particular store. True but your Starbucks gets lost in the corporate haze. Your Starbucks isn't differentiated. Corporate won't tell your customer you have plenty of free parking and are next to sandwich shop. Let's say you're located in a large strip mall with dozens of stores. A numeric address may not be all that helpful in locating you. A diagram of the strip mall or saying you're between Long's Drugs and Whole Foods is what's really needed. Corporate won't do that for you. There's more but this is enough to give you the idea. What I would call an electronic brochure site might well suffice.

Let's say you have a local service business. Here you may wish to do more on the Internet and dabble in customer support. You may want to list the services offered and their prices. Like Starbucks you have repeat customers but not with the same frequency. You may wish to notify customers when the next service is due. For a hair salon you might also want to publish the schedules of employees since customers have their favorites.

What does it cost?

The costs do depend on how many functions and how much content you want on the site. An Internet brochure site would normally cost $600 to $1,000 to create and host for a year. Yearly hosting costs are about $100 per year after that. If you're lucky enough to have a lot of web traffic, hosting may be higher but so will your income from that traffic. A basic brochure site wouldn't change that often and maintenance costs would be minimal. Some site features like a blog can be maintained by the user.

Can FragosTech do the entire job?

In addition to coaching you and helping with Internet marketing I can provide all necessary services from hosting, site development, maintenance and even written content, photography and imagery. I can even help you to become as Internet self sufficient as you wish. As the subject matter expert for your business there's a lot you can do in the areas of writing content and electronically interacting with your customers. I'll adapt to your abilities and desire to participate in site development and operation. You are after all, my customer.

30 second elevator pitch?

When someone happens upon your site you don't have very much time to attract their attention so that they stick around. Imagine your in an elevator — you meet a potential client. You have 30 seconds to say what you do and how you're different and better than your competitors. Don't do a good job of it and you're forgotten when the elevator door closes between you and the client. Perhaps this very minute you're wondering what you'd say but, in that instant there's no time for a long silent pause.

Living site strategy?

Your site and business needs repeat customers. The 2nd or 3rd time you visit a site that hasn't changed — you stop coming back. A living site is in constant change. That takes effort and a plan to make it happen. Change can be anything from a notice of "special of the day" to a support blog that you add to every day or two. You might set up a forum in which your customers comment and ask each other questions. Take polls on customer opinions — people love those and have to come back to see the final outcome. Anything that generates activity keeps a site alive. The activity must be relevant to the site content.

HTML - Hyper Text Markup Language

An ordinary text editor can be used to work with HTML since it's not a binary format like an MSWORD .doc file. The formatting commands, markup, are at the beginning and end of a group of text to be formatted according to the style of the command pair. All HTML commands have a default syle. As in making bold <b>text</b>. If you asked your browser to "View Source" you'd see what the markup for the page you're viewing looks like. Markup commands can also identify an image file as in <img src="image/GF_200x200.jpg"> to be displayed or link/URL as in <a href="FAQ.html">FAQ</a> to another web page. The term Hyper Text refers to the linking we've all grown used to on the web. RTF, Rich Text Format, is an example of markup text that has been used in word processors. The following site has good HTML and CSS reference information Sitepoint.

CSS - Cascading Style Sheets

HTML provides the content that will display on a web page, CSS defines it's appearance. CSS is a parallel to word processing styles. With CSS you define appearance using CSS markup language. With a word processor you'd fill in a style sheet form. With CSS, I can specify the font and colors for an entire web site in a single command. <body> is the HTML markup that surrounds all displayable content on a web page. In CSS we define the appearance of content for each HTML command using the command as a style name without the < > as in body. A pair of { } bound the CSS commands for the appearance of a particular HTML markup. The CSS for the body of this site is:

body {background:teal; font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; color:white;}

Within the content of most HTML markups, there will be other markup commands with their own CSS defined appearance. That is why for example the headers on this page, which are markups, have a different appearance.

Javascript

Javascript is a programing language that is used within an HTML page to provide dynamic content to display. It has no relationship to Java despite the name. Data entered into forms can be validated, browser cookies can be created or read, calculations can be performed and web pages can be loaded. Primarily it dynamically modifies the HTML that is displayed in a particular page. The code is in line with the HTML and executes in the client side — your browser. It can't read or write to or from disk.

PHP

PHP is also a programming language that is in line with the HTML. It however executes on the host or server side. Your browser doesn't run the PHP code but instead will react to HTML dynamically created by the PHP code. PHP is a more complete programming language that can accomplish much that Javascript does but PHP can also read and write to a data base on the host. The distinction of code running in the client or the host is a bit abstract but it's not necessary to fully understand client server architecture until you actually have an application that requires you to code for it.

Forum

A discussion Forum is in many ways similar to email. Assuming viewers are familiar with email, I'll define a Forum by it's differences to email.

A group of Forum users share a single account which like a web page is served by a host in the Internet. The part of email you interact with is a client that runs on your user PC. Forum posts are stored on the host and in most instances will only be viewable by your PC.
A message is called a post.
The real purpose of a forum is to organize relating posts from all forum members.
When you reply to a post the original message isn't placed in your reply. Reply posts are linked in a chain of messages called a thread. Threads can be very long so the ability to "quote" a post further up the chain is provided. Much like an email reply the quote is placed inside your reply post.
Here's a forum I frequently participate in where Ubuntu Linux users come together in a self supporting community Ubuntu Forums.
It's common for Forums to be monitored by the Forum leaders to remove SPAM, offensive content and off topic content. With the anonymous moron crowd that the Internet has provided a home for, no forum should be unmonitored. There is a degree of complaining that appears in forums but if you remove honest complaints the Internet crowd will see it and get even in ways you'll not be pleased with.

Blog

You're reading an FAQ, Frequently Asked Questions. FAQ content is controlled by the author and there's no direct facility for interaction with viewers. In some ways a Blog is like an FAQ with a single author.

Blogs are similar to an syndicated editorial page. Unfortunately, many blogers follow no accepted rules of journalism or ethics.
Blogs focus on opinions and information related to a particular theme or subject.
Many blogs support the ability for viewers to comment. Comments are saved as a thread attached to a particular Blog post and are similar in character to a Forum for that Blog post.
Blogs can be used to establish the author as a subject matter expert. Some sites are pure blog and depend on links from the likes of Digg to attract new viewers. Many blogs have loyal followers.
I have a blog hosted by Google at George's Blog. I modified the CSS theme for the Blog to make it more consistent with the visual appearance of this site. There is a tab for it in the Author section of this blog.

Wiki

The best example is Wikipedia which is the encyclopedia of the 21st century. It's the ultimate collaborative document. Rules for participation vary but any registered viewer can usually add or directly edit the content. A book written by the community of interested viewers. Control and verification of content are probably the biggest challenges of hosting a Wiki.