Information on Domain Names: Multiple domain hosting, Domain parking, Sub domains, WhoIs Record, Domain Renewal It’s been two years since John started his online business. He is very much satisfied with his current web host whose services he acquired one year ago. Today John is relaxing in his chair and thinking about the initial days when he spent many hours on the Internet collecting information related to web hosting. Like him there are many John’s out there who are in search of information everyday, visiting this and that website hoping to find the most illuminating advice. The problem is that common topics of interest can be found on most of the websites whereas other relevant issues are not dealt with everywhere. This article is going to touch on one of those areas: various concerns related with domain names. What is multiple domain hosting? Many times you will see that a web host offers multiple domain hosting. In simpler words it means that on buying an account you will have the ability to get multiple websites. For instance, if the plan provides you with five domain names, you can use one domain for your website and you will still have four domain names leftover to use. The advantage of this scenario is that you can resell these four domain names to your clients. What is Domain Parking? If you are planning to build up a website and have decided on a name for it you then must purchase that domain name from a domain registrar: i.e. your domain name gets placed on a name server so that you can use it later on. This is known as domain parking. Even if your website content is not ready, it’s better to park your desired domain name. Otherwise, it might be possible that in future somebody else acquires that particular domain name. What are sub domains? Sub domains are ‘third level’ domains in the sense that they are used solely to organize your website content. They are simply folders under your root directory, but to access them a special URL is used. For instance, http://www.m6.net is a regular URL without a sub domain. For how long does a domain name belong to you? Generally when you register a domain name it is registered for a minimum of one year. However, you can register it for more years, as there is no hard and fast rule as such. What is Domain Renewal? After one year you need to renew your domain name so that your website doesn’t get lost. Generally when your domain is about to expire your domain registrar will send you a reminder mail regarding the domain renewal. What happens when your domain name expires? When your domain name expires you can renew it within one month. If you don’t renew it in this period it goes into a redemption phase. It stays in this redemption phase for 15 to 30 days before it is then available for purchase again at a normal price. Getting a domain name out of redemption phase is like buying fifty domains as it can cost around $200! How to find out the owner of a domain name? To find out the owner of a domain name, use the WhoIs search tool on the Internet .For E.g. Go to http://centralops.net/co/ and type the domain name under Domain Dossier. It will show you the name of the registrant/domain’s owner/web host. What is WhoIs record? WhoIS record is a domain name search engine/Internet program where users can enter an Internet entity (e.g. a domain, a network, some hosts) and it will give detailed information on the domain registrar, the owner of the domain, and respective DNS records. About The Author Priyanka Agarwal 9 Hot Tips for Linking with other Sites
If you have a website the chances are you receive e-mails from Webmasters asking you to make a link exchange with them. But how do you know whether you should link to their website or not? Well here are 9 rules of thumb, to help guide you through the linking maze. 1. Is their site relevant to yours? This is key, and more and more important these days. If the answer is YES then it’s worth thinking about. If it’s off topic then you may want to think twice before swapping links. A link from a relevant website to your site is the preferred choice as it can help reinforce your website theme and potentially send some useful traffic your way. 2. How many links is too many on a links page? When your link is being placed on another website, you ideally want that page to contain as few outbound links as possible. 15 or less outbound links is good, 150 outbound links is not so good. If there are a high number of links on a page [such as 150] then the value of each link out is weakened. Whilst we can only make assumptions about ‘link weight’ some Webmasters will use a cut off point of 50, 75 or even 100 links on a page as a top end maximum. Anything over 50 outbound links on an average resources page is certainly quite high. However if your link will appear on the page of a good quality site or ‘authority website’ an exchange can still be worthwhile. 3. What is the Page Rank of the site on Google? Some webmasters focus a lot on Google’s page rank as a measure of a website. If you download and install the Google toolbar you will see a measure of 1 to 10 shown via a horizontal bar for each site you are on. Typically the higher the page rank, the more important a site is perceived to be. A link from a Pr 5 page is often seen as a more powerful link than one from a Pr1 page. However, Google’s Page Rank is only meant to be a rough guide and should not be taken too seriously. Tip one should always preside - a relevant link is always what you want. 4. Should the links page be categorized? Personally I prefer a well organised links page. If your citing a resource in context of an article you would link from the paragraph, but for the purposes of resource links it is a good idea to organise your pages into relevant themes relating to your website and business. If the site containing the link you are being offered is placed on a page with 200 links all mixed up and covering every topic under the sun, then it’s not ideal. If you’re an online shop selling Art Prints should you really be on the same links page as Hosting Companies and Travel Agents? Make the effort to organise your resource pages, even if some link partners don't. 5. Is the links page being read by search engines? It is important that the page your link is on can be found and read by search engines. The page should be no more than 2-3 clicks away from the homepage. You can even test if the web page is in the Google index by visiting www.google.com and typing into the search bar cache: with the full domain and page name extension after it. So your query in the Google search bar could read: cache:www.mywebsite.com/thelinkspage.html. The page should then show in the Google index. If it does not then there are a couple of possibilities. 1/ The page is very new and hasn’t been crawled yet or 2/ The site has a problem being crawled by search engines due to poor internal linking. 6. What if a Webmaster asks me to link to one site, but links back to me from a different site? This process is sometimes referred to as '3-way linking' or a 'linking triangle'. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with 3-way linking as it can sometimes be done for convenience. However the first thing you need to do is 1/ Evaluate the site you are linking to and 2/ Evaluate the site and page you are getting the link from. So is the outbound link destination relevant to your site, and is the inbound link you are going to receive also coming from a quality related website? 7. Do I want to associate my business with this particular site? It is a simple question to answer and this should form part of your decision making process. If you think you have been approached by a good website then the chances are others will feel the same and possibly the search engines too. 8. How do I know if my link partners are still linking to me? You can do this manually by keeping the information for each link partner in an Excel spreadsheet or similar and then periodically check the exact URLs your link should appear on. However if you get to the stage of having hundreds of link partners this may become rather impractical. At this stage a reciprocal link checker might be advisable. www.linksmanger.com offers a link management system that includes periodic checking of link partners as well as a link exchange system for around $20 a month. 9. So what are the best links? One answer could be “the ones that deliver lots of relevant traffic”. However links can mean different things to different people. Natural linking [when people link to you without you asking] are a great reward, but it is also wise to ensure you have some links from quality sites in your industry. Teoma can be a good place to find such sites as it focuses more on human edited results than say Google for example. Simply make a search with a good key phrase on www.teoma.com and you will quickly see which websites are the ‘authority’ sites. Set about trying to get listed on as many of the best ones as you can. About The Author Gareth Davies is a web design consultant at GSINC Ltd based in London UK. GSINC deliver practical web design solutions and effective online marketing strategies for business. For more information visit http://www.garethsketty.com or if you have any questions you can contact Gareth at garethsketty AT yahoo.co.uk. Copyright Gareth Davies 2005. Top 10 Tips for Blogging Tips for creating a blog. There are no hard and fast rules on how to blog. Having said that, bloggers will likely increase their exposure by following some simple blog guidelines. 1.) Stay on topic. Opinions are generally accepted but the content of the items in the blog should all relate to a general theme. Unless you have an uncanny knack for wit, humor or cynicism, the majority of your readers will be interested in the content that relates to a specific defined theme or loosely defined area of interest. Most readers won't care that you eat Cheerios for breakfast. They may, however, be interested in the fact that vinegar takes out stains and that toilet paper rolls make great wreaths. Define a topic and stick to it. This will ensure that you create a loyal following of interested readers. 2.) Stay informative. If you are attempting to create the impression that you are knowledgeable about a specific industry or sector, be sure that you stay current on news. If you are endorsing a product or voicing an opinion, be sure to check your facts; your reputation is at stake. If you are offering an opinion, be sure to qualify your post, making it clear that the content is intended as an editorial. 3.) Old news is not news. While blogging every day can be a drain, it is important that the information presented is current and accurate, writing an article or blurb about something that happened 6 months ago, will not be of interest to many. Telling your audience that Martha Stewart was convicted and will be going to prison, after her sentence is completed will make people question the value of your columns. 4.) Adhere to a schedule. Create a schedule and stick to it. Realizing that blogging requires time and effort, don't create unrealistic expectations and be unable to deliver. An occasional lapse or holiday is generally understood but readers returning to find stale, out-dated content are going to find another blog with similar content. New blogs and RSS feeds are popping up on a daily basis. If you have worked hard to develop an audience and a community you don't want to lose them due to lack of communication. 5.) Clarity and simplicity. Keep your posts and blog entries clear and easy to understand. Remember, the web is global and expressions, idioms and acronyms don't always translate. Sometimes a little explanation goes a long way. 6.) Keyword-rich. If the goal of your blog is to increase your visibility, include related keywords in the title of the blog. Use the title as a headline to attract interest. Each item post should have a title that will attract attention but still be relevant to the post. The title should be no longer than 10-12 words. 7.) Quantity matters. In order to attract the attention of search engines, you will need to develop content and substance. A headline or simple sentence is not going to generate the interest of readers or help with search engine ranking. Be sure to archive old blog posts to develop a large portal of similarly-themed content. 8.) Frequency. If your blog content is updated frequently, search engines will tend to spider the pages at regular intervals. 9.) Spell checking and proof-reading. It only takes a few extra moments and can save you from having to make embarrassing explanations. Remember that whatever you publish on the Internet can be found and archived. Think carefully about what you post before doing so. 10.) RSS. RSS will increase your blog's reach. It is important that you include your blog's content in an RSS feed to increase readership and distribution. Most weblog audiences are small, but with time and regular updates audiences grow. Bloggers may never have more than a few hundred readers, but the people who return to regularly are generally interested in what you have to say. About The Author Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing and publishing RSS feeds and NotePage http://www.notepage.net a wireless text messaging software. What Is Affiliate Marketing? Affiliate marketing is a new twist on an old concept – commission-based sales. At its simplest, it is a partnership between a merchant and a salesperson where the merchant rewards the salesperson, or affiliate, based on some measure of performance – usually a sale, but in some cases for leads or website traffic. The first mainstream affiliate marketing system on the internet was launched by Amazon.com, offering Amazon "associates" the opportunity to receive a commission for each book they sold for the company. Since then, many thousands of companies have created their own affiliate programs, encouraging online publishers and salespeople to earn commissions through their partnerships. There are many publishing and sales professionals who are successful affiliate marketers, but they are certainly not the only people participating in the industry. There are also many "amateur" affiliates – people who build a website, or create an online newsletter, or in some cases simply email their friends and recommend a product or service. In many instances, it's no different to recommending a particular brand or store – except that if somebody follows the affiliate's advice, they're rewarded for it. Affiliate marketing may involve a number of different strategies and techniques, from building entire online storefronts offering the affiliate merchant's products, adding some form of advertisement to an existing website, to something as simple as making recommendations in an email and including a special affiliate link that ensures that the merchant credits them for the sale. The growth of affiliate marketing is constantly increasing, as new merchants discover the value of increasing the size of their sales force by creating partnerships with online publishers. This is especially true of merchants whose products or services may appeal to a particular niche market. How better to become established within that niche than by working with companies and individuals who already know the market because they're part of it? About The Author Paul Colligan, the Affiliate Guy, can be found online at http://www.theaffiliateguy.com. He affiliate marketing megasite at http://www.affiliatemarketingworld.com is a popular destination to many. Ten Fatal Mistakes That Make Web Sites Stink Since you’ll spend lots of time and money to create your web site, don’t you want to make sure you’re not making mistakes that at best irritate users, and at worst make you lose customers? After all, when you alienate users, you lose potential revenue. Who can afford that? Dr. Jakob Nielsen, Principal of the Nielsen Norman Group, says that the top 10 website mistakes include: 1. Not listing prices. Pricing in the most specific piece of information users need to understand the nature of offers. By not providing pricing, people feel lost and it reduces their understanding of a product line. Prices let users differentiate among products. 2. Inflexible search engines. Overly literal search engines reduce user ability because they’re unable to handle typos, plurals, hyphens, etc. It’s also bad when search engines prioritize on the basis of how many query terms they contain, rather than on each document’s importance. 3. Horizontal scrolling. Users hate scrolling left to right. Pages that require horizontal scrolling in standard-sized windows (800x600 pixels) are terrible. 4. Fixed font size. About 95 percent of the time, this fixed font size is tiny, reducing readability significantly. Users need to be able to resize text as needed. 5. Blocks of text. These are boring and can lose users quickly. 6. JavaScript in links. When links don’t behave as expected, users feel lost. They also hate unwarranted pop-up windows. 7. Infrequently asked questions in FAQs. Don’t list questions you wish users would ask. 8. Collecting email addresses without a privacy policy. When websites ask for email addresses, users react negatively. In the age of spam, no one wants to give away this information without some guarantee. 9. URLs over 75 characters, which make it virtually impossible to email a friend a website address. If it’s too long to show in the browser’s address field, users won’t know how to select it. If the link is broken, users may not know how to paste it back together. 10. Mailto links in unexpected locations. Don’t place mailto links on names, instead make it clear that mailto address are just that - addresses. There are many companies that will help you avoid these website mistakes, including Web Builder Express (www.WebBuilderExpress.com). Avoid Nielsen’s top 10 website mistakes when you create your web site. Your users will have a more enjoyable experience on your web site, which is a very good thing. About The Author Herb Leibacher Create a professional web site for your business or non-profit organization with Web Builder Express. At www.WebBuilderExpress.com, you can request your free Quick Start Guide that tells you how to create a great web site. Top 5 Reasons To Start a Web Site Many of us have dream about starting a web site. In my experience I recall being in high school and day dreaming about how great it would be to have my own chatting service. I dreamed of a site with that ever popular space wallpaper, you know it’s black with the little stars on it. 1. Keep in touch with distant family and friends. You can create a very simple site where you can up load pictures of holiday parties and family gatherings. A calendar would be a great feature to have. Posting birthdays and anniversaries is a great way to have people coming back to your site. 2. Having an online resume is a great idea. Especially if you are an artistic technical person. I know plenty of artist that take advantage of this by creating beautiful resume. Now keep in mind you want to have a nice mix of style and usability, this is your resume. I would not suggest using a wild color scheme or pop ups. 3. Web presence for your local business. I love restaurants that have a copy of the menu. You can also do a history of how your company came together. You can also sell your goods and services. Paypal has a free shopping cart that you can use. 4. Meet people from all over the world with the same interest. Just about any hobby that you may have will have a website dedicated to it, why not start your own? You can have a website about your favorite artist, music, books, TV shows, famous personality; the list can go on and on. If you join a webring on your particular subject you will have tons of visitors that are looking for websites on your particular interest. 5. Learn something new. A few weeks ago my mom surprised me; she was building her own website. She has not been using the internet for too long but she already loves it. She is building a family tree. She has tons of pictures from weddings, birthdays, and family parties. She even has a message board where family members have dropped by and left little notes. So in retrospect building a website can be a very satisfying experience. Nothing in the history of the world has joined so many people together from all different parts of the world. Enjoy yourself and try to find as many tutorials that you can find on building a website. You don’t need to invest a lot of time to learn the basic of building a website. With a few hours of work you can have a simple website. And remember that you website’s content is much more important that a website that is only flashy with outdated information. About The Author Wilson Davalos is the founder of http://laplounge.com "the best search on the net" Domain name secrets revealed If internet is about interactivity between websites, domain name is the door for that interactivity. It is your online identity, very much like the name of your best friend, what is his very own personal identity. From a user’s point of view, a domain name is what he types in the address bar of his web browser to get a certain web site. For example, domain name of our website is www.kigoobe.com and one can get access to this site using the domain name www.kigoobe.com. However, the scene behind the screen is not exactly the same. Though we see that computers use domain names to communicate over the internet, the basic things that they use to communicate is something called Internet Protocol Address (also called IP address). It is something numerical and a simple IP address can be like 10100011.00011011.00010101.10010011 This kind of combination of zeros and ones is called binary number system. To make things easier for people IP addresses are translated from binary to decimal numbers and the result becomes something like: 189.01.23.255 This looks simpler, but when thousands and millions of websites are in question, this kind of number system, though better than the first one, was still posing problem and then at last in 1983, the University of Wisconsin came forward with a solution to it, and that was to replace these numeric values with suitable text formats. So here starts the story of www.kigoobe.com or www.yahoo.com or www.microsoft.com. Of course you will agree, that this is much easier to remember than all these 1 2 3 4 etc. Another term important in this context and what you may come across quite often is URL. An URL (Uniform Resource Locator) can be said as the exact address that holds your domain name. For example, URL of the domain name www.kigoobe.com will be http://www.kigoobe.com. To see that in action, open another window and type in www.kigoobe.com in its address bar. If you press the enter key after that, you will see that kigoobe.com has been changed to http://www.kigoobe.com as the page loads. That's the URL. The browser changes it itself. If we break this in different parts, we will find http, www, kigoobe, and com. http: Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. Protocol stands for a set of rules for these kinds of communications. Transfer we all know. Hyper text stands for texts that contain links to other texts, and which is not constrained to be linear only. It can thus hold text, graphics, images, sound, video, and other multimedia files, etc. Now if we take all together, http or hyper text transfer protocol stands as a set of rules that come into being during transfer of those kinds of hyper text files over the internet. www: World Wide Web. It refers to all the publicly accessible websites of the world. Besides it also includes ftp (file transfer protocol) files, usenet newsgroups, etc. kigoobe: It can be anything, something that you choose yourself. We have chosen Kigoobe, somebody else chose one day yahoo, you can choose yourname, or yourbusiness, whatever. com: The most commonly used first level domain name. Other first level domain names include .org, .net, .edu, .gov, .us, .fr, etc. Got more questions? Why don’t you simply write to us and we will try to reply to your question! You will get our contact details at www.kigoobe.com. Happy surfing. Cheers. About The Author The author, Sourav Choudhury is a Master of Science in Biological Anthropology and by profession, a web designer and owner of kigoobe.com, a Paris based web designing firm. Everybody is welcome to add this article to their site, we just request you to let us know about that and put a link towards our website www.kigoobe.com. How To Get Targeted Search Engine Traffic Quickly Here’s the “How-To-Do-It Guide” for driving search engine traffic right to your website. I only speak about methods I have used and that worked well for my business. There are a lot of people out there who will steer you in the wrong direction because they are just regurgitating old information that might have worked years ago. I’ll help you discover what’s happening right here, right now. Let’s get started with the plan. Your first step is to define your target market. The better you are able to define your niche, the better your future clients will be able to find you and your products or services. Next, you want to get very specific about what you’re going to market on your webpage and make sure that it’s congruent with our next step. When a person finds you on a search engine, you have a window of only 3 to 5 seconds to convince them that you are exactly what they were looking for. Make it crystal clear what you offer. If your meaning is unclear, the prospect will jump to the next site and you’ll lose that business. The following step is to brainstorm your keywords - keeping in mind your target audience. How would they search for me? What would they look for? Don’t focus on how you identify yourself. The closer you are to your target audience, the more hits you will get, which equates to more customer traffic. The more specifically you target, the better off you are. You’re not going to have success if you list yourself too generically, there is too much competition and you’ll be lost in the crowd. Once you have established your target market, define what specific categories you should be linking to and add them as part of your navigation page. A linking strategy is very important for building your link reputation. Links to your page will count towards link reputation and link popularity. There are a lot of different search engines - six in particular that give you about 90% of all web-traffic. Of those Google has the most web traffic so we’ll focus on it. Google has a link page rank feature which rates the importance of your page. You’ll want to download their toolbar http://toolbar.google.com. This will allow you to view the ranking of every site you visit and how important it is in the almighty eye of Google. This is a key ingredient in determining linking strategy. Google ranks itself as a 10 on their scale of 0 to 10 (the higher the ranking, the more important a page). This is determined essentially by who is endorsing and linking to you. You must map out how you’re going to get Google give to you a high page rank. For Google, the most important attribute is the title tag. You want to make sure you use your most targeted key word in the beginning of your title tag. Google will typically list the first 83 characters so the title is where you put your most valued key word(s) so it can be easily accessed. The next maneuver is to focus on your link relevancy. Link relevancy is how well the text on your pages relates to your title tag, also taking in consideration the content of neighboring web pages. The analysis of all of this data enables Google to return results that are relevant to user queries. You want to be sure you are listed in user queries so make your content match your title, match your links, and match your products and or services. Remaining consistent and obvious is your key to directing traffic to your site. About The Author Matt Bacak became "#1 Best Selling Author" in just a few short hours. Recent Entrepreneur Magazine’s e-Biz radio show host is turning Authors, Speakers, and Experts into Overnight Success Stories. Discover The Secrets To Unleash The Powerful Promoter In You! Sign up for Matt Bacak's Promoting Tips Ezine ($100 value) just visit his website at http://www.powerfulpromoter.com. 10 Seconds Is All It Takes… (How To Grab The Attention Of Your Audience With Your Web Site) FACT: 30 to 60% of visitors tend to drop off and click to another site when they are forced to click their mouse more often than necessary. FACT: People who use the internet are usually those who are always on-the-go and don’t want to spend time figuring out how to navigate any web site. FACT: It takes all of ten seconds for most first-time visitors to spend time on any web site before deciding if it's worth any attention. Yes, it only takes ten seconds for viewers to get interested and stay a little longer to know more about your site and get the information they're looking for. This is the main reason why the first page is the most important in any web site. Rule of thumb is to have a page that is direct to the point, doesn't waste time, and doesn't waste bandwidth. It's necessary that you get to the crux of your message and do it quick. Or else your audiences are outta here. Studies prove that human nature cause to lose focus on whatever it is that we are paying attention to after the initial ten seconds. The mind seem to think that after ten seconds, either the object of attention gets better and interesting, or the attraction just fades because of too many things. And ten seconds is important in any web designer's job. A designer has to remember that in ten seconds, the web page should be able to deliver something useful, if not everything. One designer relates that ten seconds is enough for an average person to read a length of 40 words. And 40 words can mean a great deal of a good opening paragraph. The opening paragraph according to the designer is your "contract" with your reader. With your "contract", you promise to deliver what your viewer needs, in every page of your web site. And in ten seconds, you should be able load your page and everything in it if possible. In addition, you should also take advantage of the text and its worth for your web site. Text is the first element that gets delivered upon connection. So make reading your text worthwhile. Deliver your promise, and deliver them good. This is the essence of usability in the wide world of the web. Utilizing those precious ten seconds to deliver what you promise, and provide what your viewer needs. Use those ten seconds wisely. Plan, design and execute in ten seconds. People go to your web site because of what they can get from it. Ten seconds is all it takes for viewers to know if you have what they need. So make your ten seconds count. About The Author Granny's Mettle is a 30-something, professional web content writer. She has created various web content on a diverse range of topics, which includes digital printing topics, medical news, as well as legal issues. Her articles are composed of reviews, suggestions, tips and more for the printing and designing industry. Her thoughts on writing: "Writing gives me pleasure… pleasure and excitement that you have created something to share with others. And with the wide world of the Internet, it gives me great satisfaction that my articles reach more people in the quickest time you could imagine." On her spare time, she loves to stay at home, reading books on just about any topic she fancies, cooking a great meal, and taking care of her husband and kids. For comments and inquiries about the article visit http://www.losangelesprintingservice.com Web Site Hosting For Your Business – Free or Paid? It’s time to choose! Should you spend some money to get a web hosting solution for your business or get one for free? Yes, the big moment has finally arrived. Your business is now on the verge of taking the next step forward. It will establish a web presence. This is an important step as from now on your business is able to reach more customers, is able to get more exposure, and hopefully enjoy online recognition. Space, bandwidth and domain name all come with a cost, but there is a possibility to get them all for free. Resource management principles will probably tell you to choose the free solution. Nowadays the cost for web hosting services has a very reasonable reason partially because of the technological progress, partially because of the stiff competition on the web hosting market. Still… why pay for it when you can get it for free? Free web hosting Dozens, even hundreds of free web hosting providers offer their services on the Internet. Could there be one that meets the needs for your business? Hardly, if any. Please let me state clearly that this article is not intended to attack or discredit hosts or advertisers. It’s only purpose is to assess and understand how can be best met the hosting needs of a business. Any business. And yes, in spite of everything stated here, even the author of this article has resorted at some point in time to the services of free web hosts! You probably learned too, and at a very small age, that in life everything comes with a price. However, there it is … allover the Internet: Free Web Hosting. Nothing in this world is free. So how comes there even is free web hosting? The definition of the term “free” according to The New Lexicon Webster's Dictionary, states gives the following definition for the term free: 1. adj. not subject to external restraints or domination; not captive, at liberty; not having to be paid for; unhampered; open to all without restrictions; etc. Therefore a literally free hosting service would mean no restraints, no expenses and no restrictions for the user. Webmasters would design with only limited by their imagination and skills. All the space and the bandwidth you would possibly ask for at no cost whatsoever. Real-life scenario? Could anyone really think so? Indeed nothing in this world comes without price. Even it is not apparent. And the price you must pay for free web hosting comes in many forms, as free web hosting providers must pay too for bandwidth, not to mention other costs. While some free web hosts require you to have one on their banners on your web site, others place pop up adds, or flashing advertising messages. So it’s free for you as long as you fulfill their set of requirements and meet their conditions. In addition to this, you should consider that host's service is free with let’s say 25 Megs of space; more space means different conditions and you could have to pay for it. Paid web hosting If you are billed, it means you own something. There is now a contractual bind between you and your web-hosting provider, which in turn must offer you his services. Ownership gives you more control of your online presence. Important as ownership is, it is neither the only nor the biggest advantage of paying for your hosting solution. The identity of your business would be clear from your URL down to your web content without banners confusing your customers. Imagine that you deal with What I would say, is ask yourself if you would deal with someone offering a similar service/ product as you are promoting, who was obviously using a free site. If you would, then fine, but if not, don't expect anyone else to deal with you! You will have usually sufficient e-mail addresses to accommodate the needs of your business. How serious would you take someone who hands you a business card with e-mail like john.doe@afreewebhostingprovider.com. And more important: would you do business with him? It’s almost a standard for paid web hosting providers to offer features like PHP and MySQL, features that allow your site to grow along with your business needs. With such features you can easily have an online store, offer your customers the possibility to track their orders etc. Often the web hosting provider offers guarantees for the uptime of the server, and this avoids unnecessary frustration for your customers. To complement this, support services of higher quality allow your business to overcome possible technical problems easier and faster. Let’s review the main points of each option. Free web hosting: (+) It's free. No money for space, bandwidth and domain name (-) Your URL will contain the mark of the free web-hosting provider and thus would not reflect the identity of your business. Changing providers might result in loosing some or all the traffic to your online business (-) Required advertising items such as banners, frames etc have a detrimental effect on your content in terms of accessibility and look, making it very unprofessional (-) If you plan to use banner exchange on your site read carefully their Terms and conditions. Some free hosts doesn't allow it (-) You will probably have lower bandwidth then a paid host provides and space could also be restricted (-) Features like PHP and MySQL are rather rare for a free web-hosting provider. Some don’t offer FTP access to your website (-) It’s common that free hosting providers change their Terms and conditions at some point in time. Consider that no adds today could mean a banner or a popup tomorrow. Such changes could mean that the free hosting service is canceled and only paid web hosting services are offered. At this moment either you pay, either you loose your web site Paid web hosting: (-) You will have to pay for it. Usually you have to pay for hosting (space and bandwidth) and for the domain name (+) You can host your own domain. With your unique domain name changing web hosting providers don’t cause loosing your traffic (+) Support is offered by most paid web hosting providers. This usually means 24/7 support via email or live chat and, in some cases, toll-free phone support is available (+) The uptime of the server(s) hosting your web site is better then on free host and more and more frequently the web hosting provider offers uptime guarantee (+) The amount of enough disk space and bandwidth available is very likely to cover the needs of your business (+) Features like PHP and MySQL are almost standard for a paid hosting plan. Also you will have FTP access to your website. It could be tempting to embrace the idea that a free web hosting is good point to start from, but it’s not something you would want to consider if you are looking to establish your business as a serious web presence. In the end it all comes down to this one question: How big ambitions do you have with your website? If you look to make some savings while getting your business online, save time instead and register a domain name. The small amount of money saved on web hosting might cost your business customers, and a loss of image. The cost of a paid web hosting solution is small compared with freedom it gives to your online presence. Yes, freedom of your image, of the way you treat your online presence. If your online business is important to you, better make that if you care for it at all, when coming to the decision of opting over free or paid web hosing choose Keep in mind that the success of your online presence will play a significant role in the future growth of your business. About The Author Calin Indre is editor at HostPinPin (www.hostpinpin.com), a Cheap Web Hosting Directory. HostPinPin.com is a resource for webmasters and consumers looking to find a web hosting company. Providing web hosting articles, tips, web hosting reviews, compare web hosting plans and more. This article may be reprinted or published without the authors consent as long as the “About” and “weblinks” are kept intact. Why Your Organisation Needs A Website In this age of electronic communication, more and more consumers are turning to the internet to purchase products or services in the comfort and convenience of their own homes. Research suggests that there are well over 500 million people who access the internet world wide, and that 70% of consumers who browsed online in the UK alone, went on to make a purchase. As technology progresses, consumers feel more reassurance that online shopping is safe. Does your competitor have one? As markets are constantly changing, keeping an eye on your competitor gives you an incite into industry specific market trends and can show you any offers they may be promoting. If your competitor has a website, so should you. If you don’t, they could be taking potential business away from you. 24/7 Shopping Wouldn’t it be nice to have your shop open all the time without having to pay extra staff wages. Not all businesses can stay open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. An online presence means you can take orders and enquiries even when you sleep. Online credit card transactions mean you can get paid too. International Markets With your website up and running, your products or services can be accessed by anyone using an internet ready computer, from all over the globe, any time day or night. It’s like having a shop or office in every town, in every country, all over the world. Email – Fast and Efficient There is no need to wait for the postman for that important document you have been waiting for and no more lost mail. Email can often be delivered in less than 15 seconds anywhere in the world. Feedback Knowing what your customers really want or what they are thinking about your company is very important information. By including feedback forms and surveys on your website you can gather valuable information which in turn could improve your organisation. Interaction with your customers Keeping your customers up to date with company news, special offers, polls and forums can keep existing customers returning to your website and using your products. Company information online There is no need to be constantly repeating all the products or services that your company offers, and giving directions to your shop or office to people who call. Your website can hold all this information including mission statements, terms and conditions, office locations and phone numbers, maps, product prices and more, freeing up time to focus on your business affairs. Customers Expect Websites The internet is the fastest growing source of information, growing bigger and stronger everyday. Without a website your business runs the risk of never being found by potential customers. Also, a business without a website can seem to be less successful that a business that has an online presence. The internet is a form of media that attracts more and more people everyday. As competition between website designers and web hosting company’s increases and prices become more competitive, it makes sense to market your organisation online. Don’t loose out on all that potential business. Good luck Martin Bradley
The Power of Web Forms Web forms allow site owners to gather information about their site visitors. Web forms can be as simple as an email newsletter subscription box, or as complex as an advanced ecommerce checkout page. Here are some tips on making the most of your web forms. Not All Web Forms Are Created Equal Some web forms are extremely basic and only email forms to administrators. Others are integrated into databases and lead management software. Here is some thing to look for when choosing web form software. Targeted Lead Generation Web forms allow site owners to gather valuable information, including contact information, referral web site URLs, search engine keywords and visitor comments, and more. The results of these web forms can be posted to a database and emailed to administrators. Respondents to web forms could be buying a product or interested in receiving more information. The leads generated in this manner are highly targeted since the people filling out the request form will have seen your site and know the purpose of your company. Keyword and Referral Tracking If you use search engine marketing to promote your web site, tracking keywords from search to sale can greatly increase your ability to focus on the keywords that work. When a person navigates from one page to another, tracking software can carry certain data along. The carried data can include keywords and the referral web site URL. This data is then recorded on the order form or an information request form so that web site managers can determine which keywords and site are sending the most conversions. This allows marketing efforts to be directed to what's working. Self-Populating Database Instead of buying a database of leads, or having telemarketers working to create lead databases, web forms allow site owners to have the prospects themselves populate a business database. In this manner, an entire database can be filled with people specifically interested in the company hosting the web form. Email Marketing Email marketing allows site owners to keep their companies in front of targeted audiences. Email newsletters can add value to web sites, providing a precious resource to site visitors. Informative newsletters allow site owners to send advertisements to highly targeted recipients that have opted-into the list. Newsletters can be sent at any interval, including daily, weekly monthly or yearly. By providing informative articles and/or discounts and special offers, many visitors to your site will be happy to opt-in to your mailing list. Sending email to mass amounts of people that have not requested information from you is generally regarded as spam and should be avoided. Auto Responders Web forms can allow automated responses to be sent, taking some work out of lead follow up. For example, if a product is likely to be used in 30 days, an auto responder can be sent to send a discount or reminder to the purchaser of the product 25 days from initial delivery. Conclusion Web forms are powerful tools for almost any business web site. Before investing in a web form solution, check your options and find a solution with all the features you want. Using advanced web forms can dramatically increase your marketing feedback and sales.
Choosing an Effective Domain Name Effective Domain Names Choosing an effective domain name is just as important as choosing a company name or even the line of business itself. There are a number of guidelines that you must adhere to that we will look at, but apart from those, you have total control and artistic license to create whatever domain name you wish. But will it work for you, or against you. The Guidelines 1. Domain names must contain a minimum of two characters but no more than 67. Nobody in there right mind should want to use 67 characters in their name. The more memorable your domain name is the easier it will be to remember it. Not exactly rocket science is it? Also people don’t want to type long addresses, especially if they are hard to spell. There’s nothing worse than having to look at every character in a long, hard to spell address to make sure you have spelled it correctly, only to find its wrong and you have to type it in all over again. So in my opinion, short and easy to remember and spell domain names are the best to use. 2. Domain names are not case sensitive, so www.myname.com is the same as WWW.MYNAME.COM. This is true, but reading capitalised text is harder to read than lower case. Also the use of capitalised text on the internet is classed as shouting, and nobody likes to be shouted at. 3. Domain names can contain letters, numbers and hyphens, but no spaces. Also you can’t use hyphens as the first or last characters of your domain. This is personal preference. Let’s take three names as examples. As you can see this is quite hard to read. You can’t really tell where one word stops and another one starts. Don’t make your customer work too hard to find your website. B. www.bullbreed_web_design.com This is quite easy to read and hyphenating in this way is often used. The only problem I have with this is that you have to press the shift key to achieve the correct hyphen. You may think I’m being a little silly here but remember to cater for all users. Not everyone is computer or keyboard literate. Make things as easy as possible. C. www.bullbreed-web-design.com This is very easy to read. The hyphens separate the text very well, and you don’t have to use the shift key to achieve the desired hyphen, less work for the customer. Product Name or Company Name This isn’t an easy one to answer. If your organisation offers a multitude of products or services, your company name may be more effective. If you only have one product or service you may wish to use this as your domain. You could if you wanted too use two domains. ‘your-company-name.com’ could point to your index page and ‘your-product-name.com’ could point to your product description page. Domain name companies usually offer discounted rates for bulk domain orders so this may be the way for you. Keyword Domain Names Domain names containing keywords applicable to your industry will help the customer to identify what your line of business is. Also in search engines such as Yahoo, if your domain name contains keywords that you have in your title tag, you could achieve slightly higher rankings. Use of Numbers The use of numbers in your domain name can help your website when being included in directories. More often than not, directories list your website numerically and alphabetically. Also numbers can psychologically influence your customer into thinking you are the best. For example, ‘www.1st-website-design.com’ could possibly list you high within directories and can lead your customer into thinking you are number 1. On the other hand, ‘www.0downloads.com’ or www.0money-lenders.com doesn’t really instil confidence. OK, there you go. As you can see it’s well worth thinking hard about your domain name. It can either reflect professionalism, instil confidence and be used as part of an effective marketing campaign. Or make you look really crappy. The choice is yours. Good luck
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