Frequently Asked Questions

Google Analytics is the enterprise-class web analytics solution that gives you rich insights into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness. Powerful, flexible and easy-to-use features let you see and analyze your traffic data. With Google Analytics, you're more prepared to write better-targeted ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives and create higher converting websites.

Google Analytics is completely free to use, and integration into your new website is included in your package.

To sign up, please visit the Google Analytics website at http://www.google.com/analytics/. You will be asked to set up an account (if you don't already have one), then you'll proceed to set up a profile for your new website. You'll need to know the domain name for your new site so if you haven't yet settled on and purchased a domain, come back to this step later.

Once you've set up a profile for your new site, Google will present you with  code to embed into your new site. All we actually need is the unique UA number that Google has assigned to your domain. Once we have that, we will activate and set up the Google Analytics module within your site and from that moment on, you'll be able to log into your Google Analytics account to view your traffic reports.

There are a variety of third-party blogging websites like Wordpress or Blogger that individuals and businesses can use for their blog. They're free to use and come with many great plug-ins, so why shouldn't a business use them?

First, the point of any business blog should be to communicate to clients and potential customers and bring them to your professional website to review your products and services and take an action of some kind. Each of your new blog entries should use one or more of your targeted keywords so that when search engines like Google index the post, your ranking for those keywords improves. If the blog is physically hosted on a completely different site, then the improved ranking does nothing for your main website.

An additional concern is the fact that with your blog posts residing on a separate platform, you may not have complete control over them. The top platforms like Wordpress will allow you to export your entries so that if you choose to integrate your blog into your main website later on, you can save your posts. However, not all platforms offer this feature and you may end up having to sacrifice those old posts or manually transfer them to your new website.

Instead, businesses should build their new website on a fully-functional Content Management System like Drupal and have their blog integrated into their professional business website from the beginning.

If you want your posts to appear automatically, you need to log into Facebook and install the RSS Graffiti application onto your Facebook account and then provide the link to your RSS feed (i.e. http://www.stadiastudio.com/rss.xml).

If you want more control over when posts appear or how they appear, you'll want to manually paste in the URL to each new blog post.

Certainly, the more often you can post new blog entries, the better. However, more important considerations are quality and consistency. Your new content should be interesting and well thought out. Your blog should also have a fairly regular schedule, whether it's once a month or twice a week or daily. Write entries ahead of time and schedule publishing so that you stay on track.

Over time, new versions of Drupal and contributed modules will be released. Basic Drupal implementations can safely ignore most updates, but eCommerce and other compelx sites should pay close attention to available updates and security releases and ensure that their installation is kept current.

Because updating Drupal modules requires some technical expertise, software, and understanding of the current implementation, it is not recommended that non-technical clients update their own installations. Instead, they should call Stadia Studio and schedule updates as needed. Most updates can be handled by your professional developer within an hour or two. If, however, you prefer to update your own site, this is the process to follow:

1. Log into your hosting account and initiate a Full Backup of your site. Never attempt to make significant changes to your live website without first making sure you have a good backup available.
2. Log into your site as the Super Admin (first user) and go to Reports -> Available Updates -> List to see all available updates.
3. If there are updates available, click and download the new versions of each module on the report.
4. For each update, click the link for Release Notes and review what changes were made. Make note of any changes which might impact your site's current functionality, interfere or force incompatibility with another installed module. If you are unsure what impact an update of a specific module may have, consult your developer or skip that update.
5. Using the FTP (File Transfer Protocol) software of your choice, open a connection to your website. Your website host is either the IP Address provided by your hosting vendor or ftp.yourdomainname.com, with the username and password provided by your hosting account. Contact your hosting vendor for additional information and assistance as needed.
6. Your module folders should be within the /sites/all/modules subfolder.
7. For each update, unzip your downloaded module folder and then upload it via FTP to overwrite the existing module folder. For example, if the module "Ubercart" has an update, you will find an ubercart folder within /sites/all/modules and when you unzip the new ubercart folder, you will upload it to /sites/all/modules and thus replace your existing ubercart files.
8. Once you have completed your uploads, click on Run Updates to run the update script. Follow the prompts through the update wizard and the site will scan for new modules and update the database automatically. Once completed, you will see a report of the updates that were made and if there are no errors, you can proceed to view the Available Updates report again to ensure that all modules are now up to date.

Log into your Drupal CMS provided by Stadia Studio. Once you have logged in, you should see the Administrative Toolbar across the top of your screen.

Go to Reports, then Available Updates, then List.

This will give you a report of all core and contributed modules, their current version, and what versions are available. Modules listed with a green background are up to date. Those with a yellow background have an update available, while those with a red background have a security release available and should be updated immediately.

If a module has been customized and its coding modified in any way, it should not be updated as such an udpate would likely overwrite such customization. While such customizations are rare, they are needed in certain special instances. In that case, an additional module can be installed which will allow you to turn off monitoring for those modified modules and avoid accidentally updating them in the future.

We often publish announcements that one module or another has an available update or security release, but how do you know whether or not that update applies to you?

Log into your website and go to Site building -> Modules. This will present you with a complete list, grouped into sections, of every module that has been uploaded to your Drupal implementation. Only those modules which are "checked" are actually installed. It's common to have additional modules which have been uploaded but not installed, typically because they were bundled with other modules which were needed. Since installed modules consume resources, we only install those modules which we actually need.

if you see that you are in fact using a module for which we've announced an update, or if you have any other questions about your modules, please contact us.

The Drupal CMS includes the ability to set up "Roles" and "Permissions." With this system, we can set up a very comprehensive back-end for your content management system so that you can easy control what users do and do not have access to do.

Permissions give us fine-grained control over what a user can and cannot do. For instance, we might allow someone to post blog entries, but forbid them to be able to change your website's menu items. We might give some users the ability to moderate forums or comments or other community aspects, while preventing them from being able to view store reports and order histories.

Roles are simply sets of permissions. Roles give us the ability to set permissions for a group of users once, and then add users to that group whenever necessary. We do this by assigning a specific role to a specific user.

For example, every new site that we implement has an Administrator role that includes all permissions by default, and the site owner is always granted that role. By doing this, we ensure that site owners have full access and complete control over their site. We also include a customization that ensure that even new modules and permissions that may be added are automatically granted to the Administrator role (Drupal, by default, only gives the Super Admin account full access to new modules and permissions).

Sites can have as many roles as they need. Users can also be granted multiple roles. Role logic dictates that if permission is granted with one role, then that user will receive that permission even if other roles assigned to them do not grant it. Therefore, roles can be stacked on users and successive permissions granted easily.

Please contact us if you need help understanding how roles and permissions work with your Drupal CMS website, or if you think you need additional roles set up.

Go to your website and attempt to log in. Click on the Request new password link and the site will automatically email you a temporary log in link, and you will then be prompted to create a new password.

Simply open your website in your browser and add /user to the end of the URL in the address bar. If you aren't already logged in, that will take you to the User Login screen. If you are logged in, you'll see your account info.

Our Drupal implementations include a Content Management System with NO LIMITS on the number of pages that you can have. We believe that a successful business needs to be able to regularly add more content to their site, so we give our clients an unlimited number of pages and other forms of content.

Absolutely. Our Drupal implementations are very secure.

First, Drupal itself is an extremely safe and secure platform. If a visitor attempts to access a file or folder within your installation directly, Drupal will not allow it, and instead will present them with a custom Drupal page or search.

Drupal data is stored in a secure MySQL database that we set up with strong passwords, and verify that the hosting account you're using is also secure.

Finally, steps are taken during development to further secure the site. For instance, visitors to your site will never have access to place HTML or PHP or other code into a form field or other input area. Any input areas for visitors are stricly plain text, which means they can enter comments and information, but that's it.

Our clients are also advised to notify us when new releases and security patches are available for their installation (based on messages received from their site), or to sign up for a monthly maintenance program in which we would take care of any releases automatically.

Absolutely! Every Drupal implementation includes social media integration. This includes:

• Site-wide connect buttons to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flckr, LinkedIn, MySpace, iTunes, and others.
• Content-specific buttons for your visitors to share your content with their network including sites like DiGG, StumbleUpon, Google and others.
• Automatic RSS feeds from your site can automatically update your Facebook and Twitter accounts with links to new content.
• Other options available, including Facebook Connect, Like and Tweet widgets, and more.

The following Search Engine Optimization services are included with every Drupal CMS implementation:

• Keyword Analysis
• Targeted Keyword Consulting
• Complete Sitewide Meta Tags
• Customizable per-page Meta Tags
• Customizable ALT and TITLE tags for all images
• Automatic cross-linking of content with tags/taxonomy
• Automatic XML Sitemap that self-updates and notifiies Google and Bing of new content
• Search Engine-friendly automatic URLs
• Search Engine-friendly HTML and CSS markup
• Submission to over 100 search engines and directories.
• Manual submission to Google, Yahoo, Bing and DMOZ

Of course. Not only do we provide our clients with complete administrative access to their new site, but all normal tasks are fully documented.

We have standard online documentation here, which covers the basics for all of our Drupal CMS implementations. That is then supplemented via email with additional documentation specific to your unique site. Instant Message and Phone training is available upon request.

The short answer: Absolutely!

Every CMS that we build supports embedding of images using an advanced Image Management system that gives you the ability to resize, add borders, white space, and even set up mouseover effects.

Audio and Video support can be added upon request as well. Typically, Video is supported via YouTube. YouTube provides transcoding and streaming for you, and all you have to do is paste a link to the YouTube video into your content. The CMS will automatically convert that link into an embedded player.

If hosting of the video is required, advanced transcoding and streaming technology can be added to your site.

For more information on how your new site might use multimedia, please contact us!

We build current sites using the Drupal 6.x platform, currently at 6.26.

We do not build any sites using 5.x, but do support legacy sites built on that version of Drupal, and can also upgrade those sites to 6.x.

We are not yet building new sites using 7.x, but we are constantly monitoring the status of our required contributed modules. In order to provide all of the features of our standard installations, and in order to ensure that most feature requests will be possible, all of the necessary contributed modules must be 7.x compatible. We expect that at some point in 2012, we will be able to successfully transition to utilzation of the 7.x platform on all new production sites.

Clients wishing to proceed with a 7.x installation, or upgrade to 7.x from 6.x, can discuss their specific project and details with us and arrangements may be possible if the modules we'll need are available and fully tested.

Open Messages

Go to Manage Accounts – Choose an existing Account or choose “Add an Account"

Go to General Accounts

Enter Account Name & Real name as desired
Enter E-mail address

Hit OK

Go to Incoming Server

Select POP Mail server from drop down
Server: <your server name>
Port: 110
Username: <your user name>
Password: (case sensitive)
Do not check boxes ‘Use secure connection” or “Verify Certificate”
Press “OK”

Go to Outgoing Server

SMTP Server: host.stadiastudio.com
Port: 465
Username: <your user name>
Password: enter (case sensitive)

CHECK BOTH boxes ‘Use secure connection” or “Verify Certificate”

Press “OK”

If your website is hosted by Stadia Studio, then you will be provided access to a control panel for your hosting account. We use cPanel to run our website accounts because it is one of the best options available. If you host with someone else, but your account also uses cPanel, then these directions will likely apply.

First, log into your cPanel account using the address and credentials provided.

Once you're logged in, look for the Mail section like this:

Click on Email Accounts to create or manage your full email accounts. You can also choose to use Forwarders to redirect messages from one email account to another.

When you select Email Accounts, you are immediately presented with a form to create a new account. You can type in whatever name you want, but only use letters and numbers and a period if you want to separate first and last names. No special characters.

To the right of the name field is your domain. If you have subdomains set up you will need to specify which domain or subdomain the email is for.

You can enter a password or use the Password Generator to automatically create a strong, random password.

Finally, you can specify a quota for the email account. We strongly recommend the use of some quota to ensure that a single mailbox doesn't take up too much space.

Click Create Account and you will see the account listed below.

When setting up a new email account, users are given the choice of using POP3 or IMAP. Which one you use depends on how you'd like to use your email account.

POP3 stands for Post Office Protocol. With a POP3 account, users have standard download and delete ability. That means that your email software will download email messages from your server and, typically, delete them from the server.

IMAP stands for Internet Message Access Protocol. With an IMAP account, users will log into their email account and read and respond to messages on the server.

Stadia Studio hosting services provide email accounts which can be used with either POP3 or IMAP protocols. We recommend that most users employ the POP3 setting when using a program like Outlook, and set the account to delete messages from the server after 7 days. You can then use IMAP on a smart phone or iPad to log into the server real-time and see messages up to 7 days old.

If you use only IMAP for checking email, then you must make sure that you regularly delete messages from your server to prevent your mailbox from becoming full.

1. Add email account on iPhone.

If this is the first account you are setting up on this iPhone, tap Mail and then select Other.

If you already have another email account set up, go to the home screen and navigate to Settings, Mail, Accounts, Add Account then Other.

2. Enter account information.

Select POP and then add the following information:

Name: The user’s Display Name.
Address: The user’s email address.
Description: How you want to identify the specific email account. For example: "work email".

Incoming Mail Server

Host Name: Enter your Incoming Mail Server. You can use mail.yourdomainname.com.
Username: The user's username in the format user+yourdomainname.com
Password: The user's mailbox password.

Outgoing Mail Server

Host Name: host.stadiastudio.com
Username: The user's username
Password: The user's mailbox password.

NOTE: The iPhone will attempt to detect port settings.

Incoming Settings

Use SSL: OFF
Authentication: Password
Server Port: 110

Outgoing Settings

Use SSL: ON
Authentication: Password
Server Port: 485

3. Complete the setup process.

Click SAVE and wait for the iPhone to test your incoming and outgoing mail settings and connect to your mailbox.

First, you must have a POP3 email account that has already been created for you. If you do not have a valid username and password, please go to your Control Panel and create an account, or ask for assistance.

Your email address will be in the format yourname@yourdomain.com.

Your username will then be yourname+yourdomain.com.

Your password is case-sensitive.

Incoming Mail Server: mail.yourdomain.com

Outgoing Mail Server: (SSL) host.stadiastudio.com (server requires authentication) port 465

To set up Outlook, follow these steps:

1. Go to Tools and click on Email Accounts
2. Select 'Add a new email account' and click Next.
3. Select 'POP3' and click Next.
4. Under User Information
   1. Type in your full name
   2. Type in your email address
5. Under Logon Information
   1. Type in your user name (remember the +)
   2. Type in your password
   3. Check 'Remember password'
6. Under Server Information
   1. Type in the incoming mail server for your domain
   2. Type in host.stadiastudio.com as your outgoing mail server
7. Click on More Settings
8. Within the General tab
   1. Type in a name for the account (can be anything)
   2. Type in your business or organization name
   3. Type in your email address for the Reply E-mail
9. Within the Outgoing Server tab
   1. Check "My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication
   2. Select "Use same settings as my incoming mail server
10. Within the Connection tab
    1. Select "Connect using my local area network (LAN)" unless using a dial-up internet connection
11. Within the Advanced tab
    1. Incoming server (POP3) should be set to 110
    2. Outgoing server (SMTP) should be set to 465
    3. Check that the outgoing server requires an encrypted connection (SSL)
    4. Set Server Timeouts to 1 minute.
    5. Do not check to leave a copy of messages on the server unless you intend to use Webmail to occassionaly check for mail. Be sure to set a time limit then, or else you risk allowing email messages to build up on the server and use up your quota.
12. Click on OK
13. Click on Test Account Settings
    1. If everything checks out OK, proceed to step 14.
    2. If there are failures in any step, go back to Step 5 and double-check that all settings have been entered exactly.
14. Click on Next
15. Click on Finish

You are now ready to send and receive messages from your new Email account! We strongly recommend that you create a professional-looking signature for your account so that every message you send will have your company and contact information.

You can set up multiple email accounts. When sending a message, there will be a button in your toolbar where can choose to send the message from an account other than your default email.

Social Media Integration is an intregral component of our professional websites and Content Management System implementations. Customers often ask what "Social Media Integration" means. Initially, it means that we make sure your new website provides visitors with a means to find you on social networking platforms like Facebook or Twitter. It also means that visitors are provided easy methods to share your content on their own networks with their friends and followers.

For a more detailed explanation, please refer to our page on Social Media Integration and how it is applied to our Drupal websites.

Sometimes it's necessary to provide a link to a specific tweet, like: https://twitter.com/#!/StadiaStudio/status/144434246038196225. The most common scenario is when you would like someone else to retweet your tweet, so you want to send them to that specific Twitter post.

1. Log into your Twitter account.
2. Locate the Tweet you want to share, either in your timeline or in your list of previous teets.
3. Look for the timestamp (i.e. 1 hour ago) and click it.
4. Your tweet will open in a new window with a unique URL that you can copy and paste as needed.

Now you can direct people to any specific tweet that you want.

If you read a tweet in someone else's Twitter stream and like what that person says, you can retweet it (abbreviated as RT) and share it on your own Twitter stream. To do so, simply add RT and the original poster's Twitter username within your tweet (for example, "RT @susangunelius" would indicate you're retweeting, or republishing, something that I already published on my Twitter stream).

The retweet tag is an unofficial way to provide attribution to the original publisher.

Google has stated that they will soon release a Business feature for their new social network. Expectations are that it will be a brand initiative like Facebook Pages. Businesses should hold off on creating a Google+ account until this new feature is released. However, individuals are strongly encouraged to open their own accounts so that they can begin to become familiar with the new platform.

ReTweeting is a great way to share great posts and articles that you think your followers might be interested in. They will typically start with RT as well as the name of the original poster, like, RT @stadiastudio.

Like your regular posts, you'll want to avoid spamming and not overwhelm your followers with retweets. We recommend a nice mix of original comments, links to articles, and retweets.

Every business is different, so your target audience, and their networks, may vary. That said, it seems like most blog posts should have Facebook, Twitter and Google+ links as of today.

You can use buttons, but widgets that allow your visitor to Like, Tweet or +1 with a single click are generally preferred.

If you're using a Drupal CMS that we implemented for you, ask us to upgrade your Service Links module to take advantage of the latest widgets and links.

There are a variety of tools available, but the one that we've found the most success with so far is HootSuite (http://hootsuite.com). It's free to use unless you need to connect more than 5 social networks, or need to allow multiple users access to be able to post to your accounts.

With HootSuite, you can set up a dashboard through their website that's accessible then from any web browser. There are also iPhone and iPad apps. Once you have an account and have connected your networks, you can monitor activity on your networks in "streams." You can compose new posts and select one or more networks to post the entry to. The best part though, is that you can schedule one or more posts for the future. You can even upload a spreadsheet of messages to be scheduled in advance, leaving you free to go about your business while HootSuite makes sure your social media networks are consistently updated with comments and posts.

If you have a Facebook Page for your small business (and if you don't, please read "Why Do I Need Facebook?"), here are some ideas on content you can post:

1. Company news and announcements
2. New services
3. Pictures of work / clients
4. Pictures of the business / staff
5. Helpful Tips
6. Answer questions
7. Ask questions
8. Links to articles of interest to your fans
9. Links to your blog/article posts
10. Compliments to your clients/fans or partners

You definitely do not have to follow everyone that follows you. However, you should try to follow most of your followers as way to engage with them. Follow them and send them a direct message thanking them for following you. If it turns out that they send out spam or junk tweets, simply unfollow at your convenience.

The answer, of course, is that it depends. Here are some considerations:

• Post Twitter updates regularly enough so that your followers see that you're active and engaging.
• Do not post so often that you might be considered spam.
• You can tweet the same post if you want to, but avoid doing it over and over again in rapid succession. It's better to space it out and also rephrase if you can.
• Try not to be sporadic in your posts. Be consistent in the number of tweets and space them out throughout the day.
• Definitely do not "shotgun" tweets and post a bunch of posts all at once.
• It can help to use a tool like HootSuite to create posts in advance and schedule them to be sent throughout the day/week. You can import posts via spreadsheet and use that to ensure that you're posting regularly and staying on topic.

The hashtag is a tool to link your statement to other similar tweets. As a business, it's a good idea to use hashtags to link new tweets with old tweets on the same topic, like #SocialMedia. Hashtag words are automatically linked as a keyword search in Twitter.

If you already used the phrase in your tweet, it's generally considered bad form to repeat the phrase with a hashtag. You could, however, add a hashtag in front of the phrase within your tweet. Hashtags do not have to always appear at the end.

If you have something to say on a trending topic, be sure to include the hashtag. However, avoid commenting simply because it's a trending topic.

Finally, don't hesitate to include hashtags on some of your other social platforms since savvy users may paste the tag into Twitter and look up your old tweets. #TwiiterTip

One of the interesting businesses that has evolved around Facebook and Twitter is the ability to actually pay for Friends and Followers and Likes. There are aspects to this concept that every business owner should be aware of.

First, be aware that many accounts used in such campaigns are not real. It is easy to create fake Facebook and Twitter accounts and even automatically post random messages to give them the appearance that they're real and active. They aren't, and so their following you provides no benefit whatsoever.

Second, it is not uncommon for these acounts to Like or Follow you, only to unlike or unfollow you some time later.

Third, the entire point of social media is supposed to be interaction and engagement with your friends and followers. If you're paying for Followers, you aren't going to achieve any level of interaction with them. The simple number of followers that you have does not matter to anyone but you.

However, from a marketing standpoint, there is a certain benefit to instantly adding hundreds, perhaps thousands, of potential customers who might hear your social messages. If you purchase Followers with all of the above in mind, and understand that you will gradually lose many that you purchased, and that many aren't real to begin with, then it may still make sense in some instances. It's possible that some of these followers may gain interest in your message or share your messages with their own followers and start to interact with you.

For businesses interested in exploring this avenue, we recommend starting with Twiends, a service that you can use for free. With Twiends, you simply follow others and earn credits (seeds) that are used when other users follow you. Click here for more information. Feel free to reach out to us for additional help or advice.

Google Analytics is the enterprise-class web analytics solution that gives you rich insights into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness. Powerful, flexible and easy-to-use features let you see and analyze your traffic data. With Google Analytics, you're more prepared to write better-targeted ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives and create higher converting websites.

Google Analytics is completely free to use, and integration into your new website is included in your package.

To sign up, please visit the Google Analytics website at http://www.google.com/analytics/. You will be asked to set up an account (if you don't already have one), then you'll proceed to set up a profile for your new website. You'll need to know the domain name for your new site so if you haven't yet settled on and purchased a domain, come back to this step later.

Once you've set up a profile for your new site, Google will present you with  code to embed into your new site. All we actually need is the unique UA number that Google has assigned to your domain. Once we have that, we will activate and set up the Google Analytics module within your site and from that moment on, you'll be able to log into your Google Analytics account to view your traffic reports.

We do offer our design clients a premium hosting package that costs just $100/year and features unlimited bandwidth, storage space, email addresses, statistics and all the scripts and libraries necessary to run your website.

Our hosting service is only available to our design clients. This ensures that we never have any pornographic, spam, illegal or otherwise malevolent websites on the same server as your website. It also ensures that every site on the server is built using strict protocols. Furthermore, the server is configured to give our clients far more memory and access to server resources than is typically available in a shared hosting environment. Essentially, you receive all the benefits of a Virtual Private Server at a fraction of the cost.

Most clients though choose to host with us simply for the convenience of having a single point of contact for all website related questions or concerns. It is 100% optional though. You may host your site with any provider so long as they meet our performance and technical requirements.

If you're ready to set up an account, you can go to http://www.stadiastudio.com/products/website-hosting to get it started.

If you have not yet purchased a domain name, we recommend GoDaddy as they are inexpensive and it is very easy to manage multiple domains. You can go to http://x.co/Xh6U to get started, or visit http://www.stadiastudio.com/domain-search for additional information.

Stadia Studio does not require our clients to use us for hosting, it's simply an option. We do, however, have certain technical and performance requirements that must be met in order for the site that we're building for you to run and run well.

For instance, every site we build requires at least one available MySQL database.

If you would like to use an alternate hosting provider, we simply ask that you give us an opportunity to review their available plans before you purchase your hosting so that we can ensure complete compatibility. We'll also ensure that you do not overpay for hosting.

Typically, new websites are developed on Stadia Studio's development server. Once a client has approved their site and it is ready to Go Live, this is the process that is followed:

1. A complete copy of the site is downloaded and archived in the Stadia Studio offices. Archived copies of sites are usually retained for about 6 months.
2. The database is exported as a SQL data file.
3. A new database is created on the Live hosting account and the SQL data is imported.
4. All files and folders are uploaded to the new hosting account via FTP.
5. The database connection file is updated to use the new database name and location.
6. The website is audited for any changes that need to be made to accomodate the new hosting location. This generally includes updating images and links contained within page content.

This process usually takes just 20 - 30 minutes. If a hosting vendor other than Stadia Studio is used, additional time will likely be necessary. Stadia Studio's hosting server has already been configured and optimized for Drupal CMS implementations. Other hosting vendors may need to increase account resources, install additional scripts and libraries, or other adjustments. Extensive issues with third-party hosting vendors are not included in standard project scope. Because of the potential for complications, and the confusion that multiple vendors can cause clients, we always recommend that our design clients use our hosting service. Please read more about our service and always discuss your hosting options with us before ordering service. Some hosting vendors are simply not supported.

Any time a website needs to be moved to a new hosting company, once it's been uploaded to the new account, the domain name needs to be updated. The nameservers must be updated to use the new hosting server's nameservers.

Nameservers, at a basic level, store domain names and provide the corresponding IP Address for the actual site's hosted files. So, when you attempt to visit a website like StadiaStudio.com, your browser instantly looks at the domain name registration for StadiaStudio.com and contacts the registrar. The registrar provides nameservers of NS1.STADIASTUDIO.COM and NS2.STADIASTUDIO.COM. Your browser then connects with those nameservers and receives the physical location for the website's files and folders.

In order to save time and deliver websites faster, individual Internet Service Providers (ISP) store domain name information and skip the first couple steps of the above process. Since sites move around all the time, ISPs regularly update their domain name information, or cache, though the frequency of updates will vary from ISP to ISP.

So, when a domain name's nameservers are changed, the change process goes through two steps. First, the domain name registar must update it's records for your domain, which may take as long as 2 hours. Then, individual ISPs will gradually update their domain name information, which could take as long as 72 hours depending on the ISP.

When a site is moved and a domain name is changed, individual users will need to wait until their ISP updates their domain name information before they will be able to see the new site or the site at the new location. It's also possible for users to go back and forth for a short period between seeing the old location and the new location, as cache gets updated at the ISP level as well as the local network level. Most users though will see the new location within a couple of hours without issue.

Now that your new website is up and running, you'll want to make sure that you have a good backup and recovery plan in place.

First, your website hosting vendor should provide regular nightly backups. Check to make sure that they do. You should also verify what is being backed up - your website consists of files and folders, as well as one or more databases and your email accounts.

(Websites hosted by Stadia Studio are completely backed up nightly.)

Second, you should regularly (once a month) log into your hosting control panel and initiate a full backup that you'll save to your local computer. This is so you have a complete copy of your website, that isn't too old, in the event something should happen with your hosting vendor or your hosting account.

If your site is relatively static, there is no need for you to maintain multiple archived versions. However, if your site is regularly changing, it would be beneficial to save your backup files each month and keep older month's archived. If a change is made that is later found to have caused an issue come kind, it may be possible to revert your website to a version from before the change was implemented.

High-traffic ecommerce or corporate sites may want to invest in additional automated backup and archival services which we are happy to discuss and provde as needed.

With these processes in place, you will be able to restore your website quickly if needed.

If you suddenly find that you, and perhaps others in your home or office, cannot access email and are getting error messages, try to access your website. If you recieve an error there as well, try accessing the site from another computer or cell phone or different location. If you are able to get to your site through a cell phone (not on WiFi) or from a different location, that means that your IP Address for your location has been blocked.

IP Address blocking is a standard security feature of our server. If it detects too many attempts to login using an incorrect password, it will assume that someone is attempting a "brute force" hack and will block that IP Address from being able to access the server. With most home and office networks, you have a single IP Address for your entire location, meaning every computer and cell phone connected to your network have the same public IP Address and will all be blocked. If you use your cellular network to connect, or try from a different home or office, you should be able to get in just fine.

Stadia Studio's website and most of our clients are on the same server, so if you cannot access your own website, you will not be able to access any of the sites hosted on our server.

First, while at the location having trouble, please go to http://www.WhatIsMyIPAddress.com and note the IP Address that the site provides you. Then, contact us at 636.692.5668 or help@stadiastudio.com with that IP Address number and we will remove and whitelist the address for you, resolving the issue.

Second, make sure that neither you nor anyone else in your home or office is attempting to log into the server repeatedly using an incorrect password. The most common incidence is when someone attempts to set up an email client like Outlook and enters the wrong username or password. Outlook will continue to try to log in using the wrong information until the firewall's threshold is met and the computer is blocked.

If you have forgotten or need to change your cPanel account password, please contact our office for assistance at 636.692.5668 or send an email message to help@stadiastudio.com.

Note: Your cPanel account is different from your email username and password, or your Drupal CMS administrative access.

To log into your cPanel account, visit the home page of your website and type in /cpanel in the address bar after your domain name. You will immediately be prompted to enter the username and password you were given for your hosting account.

Stadia Studio website hosting clients all receive full access to their hosting accounts and complete usage of up-to-date cPanel software. cPanel is the top web hosting software package. Clients can use cPanel to manage email accounts, access statistics, and other hosting management tasks.

Definitely not. Our hosting server is a dedicated server located in a state-of-the-art data center in Michigan. The data center is maintained by one of the highest quality server companies in the country, LiquidWeb. Our server is monitored constantly by LiquidWeb's monitoring systems and staff. Their technicians are on call, ready to be of assistance at a moment's notice.

We currently have one dedicated server that is wholly controlled by Stadia Studio on lease from LiquidWeb. Additional servers will be added as capacity and performance requires, and we review our current configuration regularly.

If you'd like to know more about our data center, please watch this video:

If your project includes a Shopping Cart or some other eCommerce functionality, we wil be utilizing the Ubercart suite of modules. Ubercart is a complete eCommerce system designed specifically for Drupal. With Ubercart, your website and Drupal CMS can be set up to do the following:

• Online Catalog of purchaseable products
• Accept online payments using a variety of payment processors like PayPal, Authorize.net or Google Checkout
• Automatically calculate shipping costs for shippable products
• Automatically calculate taxes for taxable products
• Provide online subscriptions that grant access to content
• Allow the purchase of the ability to create content
• Purchase downloadable files

If you would like a complete list of features and benefits, please contact us.

Please note: if there is a specific functional requirement of your project that the Ubercart system simply cannot be configured or modify to provide, we will certainly consider alternative platforms for your website and eCommerce needs.

Once a professional website is completed by Stadia Studio and published to your web hosting account, you own it. You have complete control over your site and all files, folders and database structure is on your hosting account and can be downloaded to your local computer any time you wish. If you would like to have a copy of the design files used for your custom web design, you may request them. All other "source" code is included within the uploaded site files.

We are physically based out of St. Louis, MO. We have graphic designers and website programmers on staff who work remotely. Stadia Studio's owner serves as the Single Point of Contact (SPoC) for our clients and is available via phone, email, Skype, text message and instant message consistently. We work for clients throughout North America and beyond very effectively.

When we are working to complete a professional website for a client, we're often asked what our process is and how we can develop a website without face-to-face meetings. First, we use email as our primary communication tool. We send our clients a series of emails during the development process that outline what their next steps are, what questions we need answered, and discuss what we're working on. By using email, we can provide this information to a client in a way that they can deal with it when it's convenient for them. By receiving the responses via email, we can easily share them among team members and refer back the included information at any time during the course of the project. (We have also provided online instructions and additional information with regard to these initial emails here.)

Design drafts are emailed to clients as PDF files which can be shared and printed as needed.

The website in development is placed on a private Stadia Studio server and the URL is shared with the client. Again, this facilitates the client being able to review and share development progress as their convenience.

Conference calls, group instant messages and even Video conferencing is scheduled as needed to discuss complex topics, provide training, and review development progress. For our more complex projects, we may also utilize online task tools like BaseCamp to communicate site development progress. We have an internal project management system that we use, so such tools are only used when needed for the client's benefit.

With this development process and procedures in place, we can avoid some of the issues and delays that trying to schedule on site meetings can cause.

When offering a new, professional website design, Drupal is usually our first recommendation. Stadia Studio does support both Joomla and WordPress. Other platforms like Magento, Volusion, Shopify, Zen Cart, PHP Nuke, DotNetNuke, Expression Engine and so on may be supported depending on the circumances.

Regardless of the platform, Stadia Studio will provide a complete content management system that is professional and a great representation of your particular business or organization. All CMS implementations receive a custom design, social media integration, and complete search engine optimization and marketing services.

When offering a new, professional website design, Drupal is usually our first recommendation. Stadia Studio does support WordPress, however, and will occassionally build a site on the WordPress platform if it makes sense for the client to do so.

Regardless of the platform, Stadia Studio will provide a complete content management system that is professional and a great representation of your particular business or organization. All CMS implementations receive a custom design, social media integration, and complete search engine optimization and marketing services.

When offering a new, professional website design, Drupal is usually our first recommendation. Stadia Studio does support Joomla, however, and will occassionally build a site on the Joomla platform if it makes sense for the client to do so.

Regardless of the platform, Stadia Studio will provide a complete content management system that is professional and a great representation of your particular business or organization. All CMS implementations receive a custom design, social media integration, and complete search engine optimization and marketing services.

Our standard hourly rate is $50. Non-profits, family and friends receive a discounted rate.

Our Drupal implementations start at $1250. All new website projects are quoted a flat project rate, so our hourly rate only applies to maintenance and upgrades. New site projects are also discounted for non-profits, family and friends. Your actual project rate will be communicated as part of a complete proposal once your site requirements have been established.

Evening, weekend, holiday and emergency service may be charged at a higher rate, depending on the circumstances.

No. Every Stadia Studio website receives a custom design. Because each site is also a Drupal Content Management System implementation, the custom design is converted into a custom Drupal theme so that the CMS can display the site as intended.

A template is a design sold or downloaded online, usually as a PSD or collection of HTML and graphics files. Templates are used or sold over and over, so any site built using a template runs the risk of having multiple simiilar sites on the internet that look identical. Furthermore, it's unlikely that a template can truly reflect the style and nature of a unique business, or suit their website needs perfectly.

The design of your site refers to the overall look and feel. We employ a draft/revision process to ensure that the final result is a design that our clients are 100% happy with.

First, you are invited to give us any ideas or requirements you may have already for your site. These might include favorite colors, existing logos or branding, or links to other websites that you like. You may want to provide sketches or mockups if you have a clear idea in mind of how the site should look, but that is certainly not required. We'll take as much or as little information as you want to provide.

We then work up a draft of your new Home page and send it to you as a PDF file. You can open it, print it, share it with friends and family, and then send us your comments. If you love it and just want some changes or revisions, we'll take care of them and send you and updated draft. If you don't like it at all, you would simply indicate what you didn't like and where we went wrong and we'll start over and provide a new draft, repeating the process as needed. There is NO limit on the number of drafts or revisions.

Once the Home page has been finalized and approved, we may provide one or more secondary page draft designs, as needed.

As soon as all required layouts have been approved, the design draft is locked and turned over to our development department for coding. We take layered PhotoShop files and slice them up to produce the requisite graphics and write PHP and CSS code to develop a design engine that Drupal can use to display every page and aspect of your site exactly as it appears in the design drafts.

Here at Stadia Studio, we do things a little differently.

Our development process begins, not with the site design, but with the development of your CMS back end. First, because the Drupal CMS will use a custom theme to display all pages and aspects of the site, the design does not need to be created first. In traditional HTML-based sites, designers would create the design for the home page, then duplicate it for every other page. This is not necessary, and allows us to work on the content and functionality of the site first. This is extremely efficient and beneficial because both the client and the developer can see and test content and functionality before many of the design elements are even considered. We may find, for instance, that pages or features we though were going to work one way will actually work better differently. Therefore, when we get to the design phase, the designer should have a fully functional site available as a reference, rather than having to imagine what text and buttons and features will be needed.

So, we start by building your new CMS, including all pages and functions. The new site is built using one of the included basic themes.

Once all content and functionality is complete, a custom design is drafted for your new site. That draft is provided as a PDF for your review and eventual approval.

Once your draft is approved, we convert it into a custom theme for your new website and activate it.

During this process, we will ahve conversations with you regarding search engine optimization, targeted keywords, and other internet marketing topics. Before Go Live, your site will have complete Meta Tags set up along with automated Sitemap and XML Sitemap capability.