Category: Website Development

What to Do When You See Your Website has “Bandwidth Limit Exceeded.”

Website Development • Posted on July 21, 2015

What to do when you see your website has "Bandwidth Limit Exceeded."

When we talk about web hosting services, there is no shortage of bandwidth out there. But it’s always hard to predict how much you’ll need for your website. When someone gets a message that says, “Bandwidth Limit Exceeded” they usually call their web development company in a panic — “Help! I’m not sure what’s going on with my website. All I’m seeing is a message saying Exceeded Bandwidth! Can you help me?” We can always help, but read on to be prepared for the future.

How Does Bandwidth Work?

Bandwidth gets consumed by the amount of traffic your website gets from your online visitors. In other words, bandwidth is the amount of data that can be transferred from your site to the users computer. A high traffic website will require lots of bandwidth. In many cases, and depending on your hosting plan, the hosting company will provide unlimited bandwidth. In other cases, hosting accounts may have a limited amount of bandwidth.

How Does Your Website Exceed Bandwidth?

The only reason that you will receive a white screen Bandwidth Limit Exceeded message is because your bandwidth capacity has reached its limit.

Exceeded Bandwidth on cPanel

You have been setup with a hosting account that has been assigned a limited amount of bandwidth for a month. This limited amount of bandwidth resets once the current month is over.

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How to Fix This

As I mentioned earlier, there is no shortage in bandwidth. Your bandwidth should be increased without any hesitation. The process takes seconds and the website should be back on the air immediately.

If you have access to your cPanel, the left side bar will display how much disk space your website is using and just below that you should see a bandwidth meter displaying how much bandwidth has been consumed so far.

cPanel Dashboard Example

If you have been setup with a limited bandwidth hosting account, your bandwidth capacity should be setup, at least, with double the amount of your website disk storage.

How much bandwidth should i have

If not, make sure to contact your hosting company or website development company that is supplying you hosting services and have them upgrade it. In the case your hosting provider does not upgrade your bandwidth, your website will not display until the month is over.

I hope this article saves you time and stress. No one likes an embarrassing surprise like a Bandwidth Limit Exceeded message on a website. Especially if you have an important event going on or a recent product launch. So keep a close eye on it if you can, or make sure you have someone who can help you just a phone call away.

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What to Research Before a Website Rebuild

Website Design, Website Development • Posted on July 15, 2015

What to research before a website rebuild

Rebuilding a website is exciting, but it can also be quite stressful. It’s important to start off the process on the right foot so you can avoid headaches down the road. Here are a few things you should research before a website rebuild.

Get the technical stuff out of the way

You’ll be surprised how many companies do not know their domain or web hosting username and password. Make sure you have these credentials handy as you’ll need them to update your website. If you have an IT department or have someone who does your IT work, he or she would have this information for you. IT can also fill you in on what your email hosting situation looks like. Is the email hosted on a local server or is it a third party service. Emails can get messy and sometimes lost so these are great conversations to have before hand.
 
Also, let your new web development company know if you’re looking for a new hosting company. Most likely they can supply that service for you as well. I would suggest to ask about the security of the hosting service as spam and malware is a nightmare these days.
 

Review Your Online Traffic

If you are keeping in track of your website traffic with Google Analytics, take a look at it. Try to find out your top visited website pages and look for pages where visitors spend the most time. This can give you an idea what your online visitors are interested in. You can dig in quite a bit to your online data, but at the very least try to get a high level understanding of what your online visitors are interested in on your website today.
 
If you are not keeping in track of your website traffic, start tracking immediately. It’s better to have some traffic data than no data.
 

Ask For Input

Depending on the size of your company, you may need to have a talk with your sales department and ask them what they would like to see as an improvement in the new website. Reach out to the administrative department and ask them a few questions as well. Most importantly, listen to your audience and find out if your clients are struggling with the current website in any place, shape or form.
 

Conduct a Website Survey

By putting together a survey with a series of questions can help you to decipher what’s needed. You can use a third party service like SurveyMonkey to put something together. Ask questions like, “Why do you visit our website?” and “How well does our website meet your needs?”.
 
Now if you have the resources, you can create an online form that could live on your current website. After completed and submitted, the form can then email you the client’s feedback. You can always ask your current web development company to help you put something like this together if things get a bit tricky.
 

Speak with the CEO

You’ll need to make sure that whoever is managing this project has a clear view of the company’s goals. Find out the goals first, then start thinking about how your new website can help make them happen. Make sure to have a discussion with your CEO and find out their point of view. Their opinion should have less to do with what the website looks like and the content that’s on there, and more to do with bigger picture company goals.
 

Find the Right Web Agency

To find the right web agency it is never easy. It helps if you have a budget in mind before you start looking. Putting out a generic RFP with no idea of budget can lead to trouble. We recently heard a story of a client getting quotes back that range from $5,000 to $75,000. Three months went by and they still had no idea who to work with.
 
There are many stories like this one but at the end of the day there needs to be the right fit. The right fit starts at the web company’s portfolio. There’s nothing written on taste but take a look at that portfolio and get a sense of the type of work the web firm has done. Take a look at the type of clients they’ve worked with. I would suggest to review their social media channels such as; Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. This can give you a sense of what their culture is like. You never find a bad client testimonial on a web company’s website but if you find recommendations on LinkedIn, I would look at those as brownie points. Last, look for success stories the web firm as shared from their existing clients.
 
I hope these research tips help you rebuild your website the right way, with the right web company, the first time around.
 
What research tactics have you used to help rebuild your website? Share your insight at the comments!



25 Tactics Great Websites Use



How Dynamic Online Patient Forms Can Save Your Medical Practice Time and Money

Website Development • Posted on July 9, 2015

How dynamic online patient forms can save your medical practice time and money

When you’re feeling sick, achy, or are in pain the last thing you want to do is fill out a long patient form while waiting to be attended. 15 to 30 minutes can go by and that person maybe still waiting in pain.
 
We have noticed that many medical practices aren’t taking full advantage of their website to improve their administrative process. A well built website can help your office with everything from scheduling appointments to completing new patient forms that integrate with your current system.
 
Here’s how we helped our client save time and money at their medical practice.

A Secure Online New Patient Form

Online patient forms can be long and extensive. We wanted to make sure the online experience went smooth for new patients, so we created an online new patient form that was dynamic. This means, depending on the new patient’s response to a question, he/she is prompted more options. For example, “Are you allergic to anything?”. If the answer was yes, it would display more options. If the new patient selects no, he/she could just move on to the next question.
 
For our client, hacking and spamming was a major concern. We wanted to make sure our new patient’s information was submitted safe and secure. Therefore we made sure the online form was secure and followed all guidelines. This created a peace of mind for everyone.

Administrators Notified By Email

Once an online new patient form was completed and securely submitted, all assigned staff members received a notification by email. With all the junk email going on these days, we wanted to make sure the email subject line was descriptive. By adding the new patient’s first name and last, the staff knew who the new patient was before opening the email.

Taking the Practice Productivity to the Next Level

With time we discovered our client receiving an email notification with patient information wasn’t doing all it could do to increase the practice’s productivity. The print out of the email notification became confusing for the doctor to review because it looked different from the forms their patients filled out in person. Therefore finding information for the doctor became challenging and was creating confusion.
 
Our solution was to include an attached PDF with the notified email. We then match the design of the new patient form print out used at the practice. Now, once a new patient form is securely submitted, the new patient’s information is dynamically laid out in an attached four page PDF matching the practice’s new patient form print outs including HIPAA compliance.
 
This website feature is now saving time in the administrative process and saving precious appointment time. At the end we have happy patients and an efficient medical practice.
 
How were you able to increase productivity at your practice? Please feel free to share your experience below.



25 Tactics Great Websites Use