Information Regarding Registering Domain Names | Registration & Web Hosting

“Internet Business Myths” – The True Facts That You Need To Know!

2007-06-13T10:37:00.002-07:00

“Build it & They Will Come”
If you built a theme park in the middle of the Amazon jungle and didn't advertise it, do you think you would get many customers? Maybe a few guerilla's and snakes may visit but unfortunately their wallets maybe a little low.

This is exactly the same with your web site, getting people to your web site or marketing is the most important part. The trick to it if there is one, is doing it right from the beginning so you don't waist precious time and money.

“As I Can Get Everything for Free to Build a Successful and Profitable Online Business I Don't Want To Spend Any Money”
How many times have I heard this one! I understand that the internet is perceived as a place where successful business is born though little work and not a dime spent but this is just not the truth. Although you can run a successful, profitable business on the internet with a lot less costs than a traditional (off-line) business, you still need funds to start.

It never seizes to amaze me when people have to contemplate the money aspect of buying a simple book or software program for their online business, yet they wish to be making ten of thousands each month!

Just as example: Bob has just become a fully qualified carpenter and is going to start his own business. But Bob is not going to spend much money on setting up his business because he can do it on the cheap! Therefore Bob

Will not buy a power saw, but use his hand saw instead
Will always buy second-hand timber to reduce costs
Will not use a mobile phone
Will not use his car as it is costs to much to run. He will put all his tools on the back of his bike and ride to each job! He will put all his tools on the back of his bike and ride to each job!

Does this sound ridiculous, even laughable? I'm sure you get my point.

So yes, at the start you really need to set yourself up with some good books, knowledge and the right tools. Do this and your business will get of to a profitable start and I'm talking about a lot of money for these things either. Stay with everything free and you'll still be hoping for business success two years down the line.

“Information, Information & More Information”
Yes, if you decide to start an online business, the old "information overload bug" is sure to bite quickly, usually in the first few months. A few things can help you here.

1. Remember to take time out and relax, Rome wasn't built in a day and so it will be with your business. Also, while you're relaxing, ideas will come you that will help improve your business. If you're constantly working, this will not happen.

2. Keep focused on what's important for your business to be successful and don't deviate from that.

3. Don't give into “The temptation to re-invent the wheel” similar to number two above.

“The "One Big Secret to Online Success" Web Sites”
Let me clarify why there is such thinking about making money on the internet.

1. If you wanted to be a "plumber", you would do your apprenticeship and then work for someone or then start your own business. If you wanted to own a "milk bar" you get a business loan, buy the "milk bar" and start running the business. Why do we know this and why are there no so called "secrets" regarding being a plumber or running a milk bar? Because these businesses have been around for a long time, to start them is "common knowledge".

2. Therefore because the internet is new and evolving, how to start an internet business has yet to become "common knowledge" and there is still many unknown aspects regarding the subject unlike traditional business . Unfortunately, many now capitalize on this "unknown aspect" by selling so called "secret information" type products thus only increasing the myth regarding internet business.

3. Even if starting an internet business was "common knowledge", there is simply too much information to decipher. Unlike going to the local library, finding the business section and picking one or two of the five books on "starting your own business", your are now on the internet. You have a world library, the business section is as big as a football stadium and books on "starting your own business online" are in the thousands (including are the misleading ones).

4. This final point is the most important one. People want to believe there is an easy way to make a fortune without doing much work, they just have to find it! This is just human nature.
“I Will Get Rich Quickly with My Internet Business”
Yes you can make good money online and quicker than an "offline business" but it still requires, perseverance and a good work ethic (being proactive).

“Its Easy to Make Money On the Internet”
You'll soon find out if this one is true!

“Marketing That Doesn't Work”
Poor Ad Copy
90% of books or products with the word "secret" included in the title.
Banners
Safelists
FFA sites
Spam
Link farms
Start page programs (most)
Exit page programs

Unfortunately there are many websites offering the above tools in a package and promoting them as "successful marketing tools". You have to pay a monthly fee to use there tools, all of which you can get for free and don't work.

“How Many Search Engines?”
The ten big search engines account for between 85 to 99% of search traffic, there may be 100 other very small search engines if that. You then have about 10 well known pay per click (ppc's) engines, the biggest one of these being "Overture". Search engines in total hold only 38% of all the current websites registered with a domain name.

Choosing Domain Names for Your Business

2007-06-13T10:33:00.001-07:00

Let's say that you're creating a website for Barb's Specialty Pet Products. Should the domain name be barbsspecialtypetproducts.com?

Perhaps -- but don't stop there. Having the right domain name, or domain names, can bring more traffic to your site.

Why more than one domain name?

One domain is all you need to set up a website. But with more domains directing to your site, you can have these additional benefits:

- Bring site visitors who type variations of your domain name

- Acquire traffic that might otherwise go to your competition

- Harness the marketing power of keyword domains

Your primary domain name

If it's feasible, use your business or brand name in your primary domain. People will remember it and associate it with your business. Also consider the following factors when choosing your primary domain.

Domain name extensions

Should your primary domain end with .com, .net, or .biz, or with a country-specific extension such as .ca or .co.uk?

If your website is aimed at people in a specific country, having a country-specific domain can help:

- Site visitors will recognize right away that the business has a presence in the country of the extension. They may therefore be more comfortable buying from you.

- Some country-specific search results include sites with the relevant country-specific domain extension even if the site isn't hosted in that country.

On the other hand, if you're targeting an international audience, a country-specific domain could work against you. People from outside the country of the extension may be less inclined to buy if the business looks foreign to them.

If you want to attract both people within your country and those in other countries, have both. Each domain could direct to the same site, with each audience seeing the domain intended for them. For country-specific search results, the primary domain should be the country-specific one.

Chances are that the .com domain you want is already taken. If you use the .net or .biz version, you risk having potential site visitors go to your .com competition instead. Be sure to use the full domain name on all promotional material to reduce this risk.

Domain name length

A short domain is easier to remember, it has less risk of being mistyped, and it'll fit easily on your business cards and correspondence.

Conversely, if a short name doesn't represent your business, it's more difficult for people to remember. The short names you like may already be taken anyway.

If your business name is up to three easy-to-spell words, it'll probably work as a domain name. For a longer business name, the initials or just one or two words may be easier than remembering a combination of words.

Secondary domain names

Secondary domains directing to your site are for online use:

- For people who type your primary domain name incorrectly

- For people who search for your products or services online

Typing and spelling variations

How many ways can people spell and type your business name?

barbsspecialtypetproducts.com

barbs-specialty-pet-products.com

barbspecialtypetproducts.com

barbsspecialitypetproducts.com

barbsspecialitypetproducts.com

barbspecialtyproducts.com

barbspecialtyproduct.com

Hyphens aren't recommended for your primary domain. When people tell others about your site, they're likely to omit the hyphens. They may also forget to type them.

For secondary domains, hyphens make long domains easier to read. Each word stands out when people see your domain. However, domains such as buy-keyword-product-now.com make some people view hyphenated domains, especially those with more than one hyphen, as spam-like.

Having the words in domains separated may help some search engines recognize keywords. With Google, though, hyphens don't make any difference.

Consider all of these variations for secondary domain names:

- With and without hyphens

- Different ways of spelling some words

- Singular and plural versions of nouns

- Extensions with .com and .net as well as a country-specific extension if relevant

What people search for

If you want to find the website for Time magazine, you might do a search for it, or you might try typing in time.com. If you do the latter, you'll find yourself at the Time site.

This type of search behavior extends to generic words too. Searching for dog collars? Try dogcollar.com, for example, and you'll be redirected to dogidcollar.com. Do you want life insurance? Lifeinsurance.com redirects to nmfn.com (and so does northwesternmutualfinancialnetwork.com).

While having keyword domain names may not draw a lot of site visitors, using them is a technique to consider.

How to use more than one domain

Set up your website with your primary domain, and use that domain on your correspondence and with your customers.

Point secondary domains to your site using URL forwarding (also called domain forwarding, domain redirect, or URL redirect). To have the secondary domain appear in the browser, use domain masking. You can set up these features when you log in to your account with your domain registrar (if your registrar offers these services).

With domains that are simply variations of your primary domain, you can expect additional traffic just from having set up these domains. With domains that contain keywords, you can get more from them by using them to list your site in online directories. When these domains appear in search results, searchers will see the keywords.

The next step

Once you decide on the available domains that you want, register them immediately. They might not be available tomorrow.

If you don't already have a business name, you'll find it easier to market your business online if you choose a primary domain and a business name together. If your first choice for a business name doesn't work well with any available domains, consider a business name that you can easily market with an available domain. Once you've registered that domain name and your business name, register secondary domains and put them to use.

Is it worth registering multiple domains for one site? That depends on your site, but any variations that you don't register will be available for competitors to register and use. If a domain is valuable to a competitor, it's valuable to you.

Links From Articles

2007-06-13T10:31:00.000-07:00

Links building is a primary job for developing link popularity. Link popularity is one of the vital measures taken in consideration by the search engines to rank your web pages. The number and the quality of links on your website would also play an important role for raising your page ranking. You can use various strategies such as article writing, software and tools to raise your link popularity.

But before you use any of these strategies for link building, it is a must for you to know your existing status. So you should, first of all, find out the link popularity of your website. And it is really a simple process. You can go to any search engine and type “Links: domain name of the website”. Complete information regarding the links of the website will be presented to you by the search engines.

Now you can work to build up your links’ popularity. A number of people are making persistent efforts for building links from various resources. Articles are a good source of displaying the quality of information on your website. Indeed links from articles are greatly helpful in finding a better place in the search engine ranking.

Articles are actually the real attention grabbers on the web. They provide knowledge and information to the users and thus the users keep seeking for these articles regularly.

Unless you have a really good content on your website, you are not going to get the desired links. The basic rule for getting links from articles is to write them on a particular theme. Your articles must be focused and give relevant information to a subject related to your website. Keywords also play a significant role in generating links for you.

You can generate inbound or one way links as well as reciprocal links via these articles. Always make a thorough research of the most used keywords on the internet. The keywords suggest you a topic that people usually seek for information, on the internet. The articles you write must be rich in the keywords. You have to produce the relevant information keeping the good keyword density in your articles. For, this will make your article search engine friendly.

Every one is not skillful to develop such articles. Get some professional writers to do it for you. You can have your own team of writers or can get the articles written by freelance writers as well. Articles written by professional writers will help you in getting the targeted links. You can also keep these articles in a separate section in your website.

One more way to get links from articles is to get them published on the other sites, i.e., other than your site. Internet is full of flourishing websites that offer to publish your articles for free. These sites are a good platform to get noticed in the cyber world. The ezines, ebooks and online news sources are there to help you popularize your website as well.

You can also find some forums to publish your articles for free. Generally the forums do not allow you to put a link at the end of your articles. But the regular members can post their links under their articles. And this turns out to be really profitable for link building.

The primary advantage of getting your articles published is that the internet traffic you get from the article links is targeted. The articles of a particular theme will be only read by the people having interest in that particular subject. This surely, is going to improve your search engine ratings.

Installing A Link Directory

2007-06-13T10:30:00.000-07:00

If you have a website and want more people to link to you, installing a link directory is the right means for you to generate targeted Internet traffic. Indeed installing a link directory is a great way to get the trade links noticed on the Internet

For a basic rendezvous with the concept of link directory and its installation, read on the article till the end. I am sure, once you finish reading this web page you would not ask any questions as you would be busy installing a link directory. So read on.

What is a Link Directory?
Link Directory is a platform on the Internet where various webmasters submit their links for free. The other webmasters can also exchange or trade links between them on a link directory. It is an effective and easy way to increase your search engine rankings. And that too for free!

In other words, you can also say that a link directory is a systematic record of resource links on a website. The links on a website are categorized according to their purpose. A website may support hundreds of links on its link page.

Why do people install a link directory?
Every webmaster wishes to get the target audience on their websites. installing a link directory is appropriate way to get the desired traffic and attention to the link sites. A number of people make use of web directories to find out the related links for their websites. This makes the job of online searching quite easy for them. Each and every link directory has categories and sub categories links.

How to go about installing a link directory?
You need to meet certain requirements for installing a link directory.

First of all you have to categorize your link directory. Your computer should have the definite script to run your link directory on a web server. The PHP scripting language is the best one to run your script on the Windows operating system. Other scripts like CGI are also used extensively for installing a link directory. The script can be purchased from any software store. The right script will make your installation easier. Some PHP scripts in the market are very powerful. They allow you to add as many categories in the link directory as possible. For installing such a link directory you must have a Linux operating system.

Also there are some scripts in the market that allow you to install the link directory on any of the operating system like Windows, UNIX and Linux. For installing any link directory, you should have a free space on your computer system. You may require 250 MB or more free space to install link directory software. Also you need to have a particular type of IP address for installation. If you do not have the right IP address, the Domain Name Server registrations may be lost and may result in the failure of the installation process.

Make one thing absolutely sure that the installation of your directory may be interrupted if the network is not properly connected. If you receive the connection errors such as “the link directory installation failed” or “error in installation”, check the network cable connection.

The domain name is the most important part of your link directory. Your link directory is installed with a particular domain name. Remember that the domain name should not be single. Create a domain name that suggests that the directory is a part of your organization. If your website domain name is “xyz.com”, the domain name of your directory must be some what like “ab.xyz.com”.

Keeping these things in your mind, installing a link directory would not have remained a task for you. Isn’t?

To, easy your work, this is the software which can improve your ranking.

This isn't semi-automated software that takes you from directory to directory and fills out some of the fields. This is 100% fully automated software. You just enter your site information (domain, site name, site description, your name and your email on that domain) and the topics of your site (up to six). Then you click the button and the software does the rest of the work.

There are over 5,000 sites in the Hermusa database. We won't tell you which ones because we are tired of the copycat off-shore software developers stealing our list. However, you have a full 8 weeks to check out the software and see the results before deciding if this software is for you.

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Why E-bay Is A Seller's Bliss

2007-06-13T10:29:00.000-07:00

Today, more and more people are gradually opting for eBay as an alternative market site for their items. And the more people try on selling their products on eBay, the more they conclude that eBay is the best market site to sell products online.

So, for people who want to know why eBay had fast become one of the best website for selling items, here are some reasons online shoppers need to know:

1. It is not just a marketing website, it acts like a "virtual" garage sale as well.

Usually, a marketing website caters to people who need to sell their products. But most of these marketing websites only allows people who are really into business and that the products they offer should be of high quality.

However, eBay does it differently. It acts like a virtual garage sale, in which, a seller can still sell items that are already old. And so, ordinary people who wanted to make profit out of some old item that still has value or those who want to simply get rid of it, eBay is the only site that can provide such service.

2. E-Bay builds the seller's character.

There are features on eBay that serves as ways for sellers to build integrity at the same time establish rapport.

The "seller's feedback" section and the "ask a seller question" tab create a solid foundation based on trust among the eBay members. In this way, the buyer gets the feeling of security while doing transactions with the seller. Just the same, the seller's reputation is solidly established.

3. It offers a low investment.

For those who really want to make a business out of selling on eBay, they are guaranteed of a low investment capital. Actually, there is no capital that has to be paid. It's the selling fees that only need to be accomplished by the seller. If compared to charges of other marketing websites, eBay's selling fees are relatively lower.

4. The selling process on eBay is a lot simpler.

E-Bay does not require sellers' additional requirements like trade name, domain name, or any other pertinent documents being asked by other marketing websites. The only thing eBay requires a seller to do before posting an item is to create an account, after which, he or she can already start the posting the items to be sold.

5. It has an "autoresponder" system.

This means that the seller do not have to stay online most of the times just to get hold of any response from the buyers. E-Bay eliminates the hard-selling type of sale.

How To Protect Your Website Content

2007-06-13T10:27:00.000-07:00

Most of the webmasters put in a great deal of energy and time in developing quality content for their web site. But they are not aware of thousands of other webmasters who are using content from their web sites without permission.

The problem of online copyright infringement is a growing phenomenon. The ease and extent of infringement is greatly facilitated by the nature of web.

Webmasters can use the major search engines to check whether someone has stolen content from their site. For each search, they should carefully review the first two results pages. Here, we discuss some of the measures to safeguard your web content:

1. Place a Copyright Remark

You must demonstrate your copyright notice on each page of your web site. This notice should have the year of publication and also the name of your firm. This information could also be displayed in a graphic pasted in the footer of the page, eg.

© 2000-2004, Active Venture Pte Ltd. All rights reserved.

2. Register with the U.S. Copyright Office

You may also register your web site with the U.S. Copyright Office. Even if you don’t register, still you will get protection, but in that case you will have to collect evidence against the content thief.

You have to register your site with the U.S. Copyright Office within three months of its launch.

3. Action to be taken against online thieves

You should send them a strong mail telling them to stop their copyright infringement activities.

If they continue to violate copyright, send a mail to their ISP, credit card company, webhosting company, and the domain name registrar.

If nothing happens even after you have taken these steps, contact your lawyer for further advice to take legal action against the culprits.

Apart from the above mentioned measures, there are some simple tricks to prevent online thieves from lifting content from your web site:

1. Disable right click

You can use JavaScript to disable the right click of your mouse. But this method can be annoying for the sincere visitors to your site.

2. Software security

There are several softwares to prevent users from seeing your source code. These softwares invoke a JavaScript function 'unescape' which 'encodes' the HTML coding into a long series of characters. However, it can still be easily decoded to HTML using another function of JavaScript.

3. Use PDF files.

More usage of password-protected PDF files would prevent people from blatant copy and paste of your web content. Although the more experienced thieves could make use of several password recovery softwares available to break through the protected PDFs and copy the content.

4. Conversion of text to images

This solution takes a lot of time and the size of pages also get increased but is a fool-proof solution for copy-paste problem. But if someone is determined on lifting content from your site, then no one can stop him from re-typing the content.

5. Using Java/Flash

If your images are embedded in Java Applets or Flash, it is very difficult for online thieves to copy them.

Here again, the more experienced thieves will take a ‘print screen’ of your image, open it in paint and get way with it.

So, you could see that all these tricks would only prevent the new thieves from copying content. The more experienced ones could always come up with counter-measures for all these tricks.

To conclude, I would say that you should adopt one or more these tricks/measures to reduce copyright violation and for the more experienced thieves, you have to seek help of U.S. Copyright Office in taking legal action against them.

Free or paid webhosting for blogging service

2007-06-13T10:20:00.002-07:00

Blogging is an abbreviation of "web-logging". The simplest definition of a blog is that it is an online log that is organized in reverse chronological order. It comprises of comments, declarations, links, or anything else of interest to the blog writer.

There are two basic requirements of starting your own blog. You need a software to run a blog and a place on the Internet to host your blog.

Taking into consideration the above mentioned two factors, there can be four categories of blogs:

1. Free Software + Free Webhosting
2. Free Software + Paid Webhosting
3. Paid Software including Price of Webhosting
4. Paid Software + Paid Webhosting

We have given descriptions of all these four options alongwith their pros and cons.

We have also given recommendations regarding the suitability of these options.

1. Free Software + Free Webhosting

This is a completely free way of blogging. Here you pay neither for the software nor for the virtual hosting.

But there are some drawbacks of this system. It offers very few features as compared to the paid services. You cannot post pictures online or design your preferred look for your site.

The companies that provide free software and free domain hosting frequently place a banner immediately above your site. This detracts the visitors from the look of your site. You also have no discretion over the content of the advertisements.

The key advantage of this system is that it is absolutely free. This option is extremely useful for a newcomer since he/she can try this method to find if they are really interested in blogging.

This option is recommended for those people who would not like to pay anything or for the newcomers.

2. Free Software + Paid Webhosting

This option provides you free software but you will have to pay for the domain hosting.

There is a cost factor involved in this option. Minimum cost of domain hosting would be $5 per month but a realistic budget would be slightly higher, around $7-8. The annual registration fee for domain name would be about $10-30.

This system will let you do certain things that you were unable to do with the free one. Here, you can modify the look of your site and you can also post pictures. But free softwares have fewer features than paid ones.

This option is highly recommended because by just paying the cost of virtual hosting and domain registration, you can avail great features and flexibility.

3. Paid Software including Price of Webhosting

This is a subscription-based option. There are ongoing costs involved in this option.

You have to pay at least $6 per month for basic services and for advanced features the fee would be around $15 per month.

The cumulative cost for a year would reach up to $200. That makes this option a very expensive one.

Apart from customizing the look of your site and posting photographs online, you will be able to use a software that provides more features than a free one.

This option is recommended for people who do not want to be troubled with virtual hosting and software installation issues. This is the easiest possible solution. It offers great features but at a reasonably high price.

4. Paid Software + Paid Webhosting

This option provides you paid software and paid domain hosting.

The cost of the domain hosting ranges from $5 to $10 per month while the cost of the software would be at least $45 (one-time cost).

This option gives you great amount of flexibility. You can select your own domain name and have a feature-rich blogging software.

This option is highly recommended for businesses since the cost is not a major consideration.

Effective SEO Comes Cheap

2007-06-13T10:20:00.000-07:00

Search engine optimization or SEO is the hottest way to drive targeted traffic to your website. Maximizing the benefits of a well optimized website will yield lots of earnings for the marketer. However, optimizing your site might cost you thousands of dollars if you are not skilled in this area.

But to tell you the truth, you can essentially get information on low cost SEO anywhere in the Internet. But only several really show you how to work out an affordable search engine optimization endeavor. And those few that really inform include this article.

1. Link exchanges

One cheap SEO method that can get you best results is through link exchanges or linking to and from other web sites. Depending on the websites that you would like to exchange links with, this tool could even cost you nothing at all. Contact the author or owner of the web site you want to have a link exchange with. You will be surprised with the eventual spiking up of your page ranking using this means of getting your website optimized.

2. Write or acquire key word rich articles

Writing truly informative and keyword-rich articles is one surefire way to make your Internet business more visible than ever. It's either you write your own articles or you get them from article directories that allow you to post these articles on your website as long as you keep the resource box or the author's byline in tact. Just don't stuff your articles with keywords that even idiots would get bore of reading them. The readability and freshness of your articles will still be the basis of whether your writers will keep on coming back to your website or not.

3. Catchy Domain Name

What better will make your target visitors remember your website but with a very easy-to-recall domain name. Something sweet and short will prove to be very invaluable. Registering your domain name is not for free. But creativity is.

4. Organize your site navigation

Providing easy steps in navigating your site is one way to make your visitors become at ease with your site. This, in turn, will improve the flow of traffic to your website.

Low cost SEO is always evolving like any other approach in information technology. There are many methods that can very well land you on the top ten rankings of Google or on any other search engines. Some may cost a lot but there are methods that can give you the same results at a low price or you can even do on your own such as those mentioned above.

Reverse Engineering Googles Business Strategies

2007-06-11T09:26:00.000-07:00

What’s in a name? That’s a good question. Some feel that the name that you are given at birth provides and accurate description of who you will turn out to be.

So I began to wonder, does a domain name say as much about a future site as your name says about you? I decided to take a look at some of the domain names registered by Google to see if I could get an idea of what the company may be up to in the future and came up with some interesting ideas which I will share with you here.

Etymology is the study of the history of words. And through etymology you can find out just what your name means. I looked my name up and it means “bright fame.” I guess that’s not too far from the truth :)

In any case, I took some time one day to see if I could track down some of the other domain names Google owns.

It was actually pretty easy when you consider that Google tends to favor one bulk registrar service. So I went to my local WHOIS lookup site that offers domain exploring and did a search for Google surrounded by wildcards to see all the domains that have “google” in them. I came up with almost 8000 results.

So then I started scanning them, looking for the common registrar that I mentioned, and I captured those domains into a text file for later review.
I may have missed a few, but I came up with 22 domains. In this article, I’ll look at a few of the more interesting ones:

google-corp.com

No surprise here – many companies set up a corporate site or portal. Whether Google will use it or not is up for discussion.

google-bank.com

This one was a surprise when I first found it a few weeks ago, but then I heard that Google was looking to hire someone with banking experience. In fact, at Yahoo!s Hotjobs site, there are a couple dozen finance related Google job postings. Speculation is that Google is going after Paypal. I agree, although I think there will be more to it, such as an e-commerce system online businesses can build into their sites. In other words, Google becomes the financial transaction processor for e-tailers.

google-secure.com

I think this one works with the “google-bank” domain – after all they need a secure server to handle the transaction processing.

google-movies.com
google-showtime.com
google-showtimes.com

These three could work together, or separately. The showtimes domains are pretty obvious – Google could index local theaters and offer a centralized place to offer movie listings and times. This would be a direct competitor to AOL’s “moviefone” site which also offers showtimes, reviews and so on.

Google-movies on the other hand could offer much more, including distribution of titles online, either first run releases, or other services such as online rentals. If this were the case, this domain would likely also use google-bank and google-secure for transaction processing.

google-travel.com

Yet another vertical Google could enter which would likely directly compete with the likes of Expedia and Travelocity. A full service travel portal offering airline, hotel, and car rental price comparisons and bookings. Again some form of transaction processing would be required.

google-voip.com
google-wifi.com
google-vpn.com
These domains can support my theory on Google’s purchase of a wireless phone provider, which I recently speculated on in this article. We already know that Google recently launched Google Talk, and they have also launched a beta test of a secure wi-fi service, but as I mentioned in my previous article, I think this is only the beginning. Imagine a secure wi-fi/wireless network spanning the continent which is actually a hybrid system switching to and from a fibre/broadband connection when the wi-fi/wireless is unsecured or non-existent.

google-webanalytics.com
googleanalytic.com
googleanalytics.com

These ones should come as no surprise. Google recently bought Urchin web analytics. My question is when are they going to give Urchin away for free like they do with everything else?

google-domains.com

Again, with Google’s recent domain registrar status this shouldn’t be a surprise. I don’ t know that I see Google getting into the domain registration business, however by registering the domain they are at least protecting their brand in case they do go that route.

And finally, the Ebay killer:

googleauction.com

This makes sense. The company should be able to see the money making potential here. There is nobody else in the online auction market to speak of.

In fact this could be a very lucrative market for Google, after all Ebay said that it earned $291.6 million, for the three months ended in June, a 53 percent increase from $190.4 million at the same time last year. I would think Google would want a share of that billion dollar per year earnings that Ebay now has.

Of course there are many many other Google domains however I thought these were the most interesting.

If you have your own ideas of how Google could or should use these domains, please post your comments below, I’m very interested to hear what others have to say on this subject.

The Domain Name Game

2007-06-11T09:24:00.001-07:00

You probably know that a domain name is a name given to a website or email account. Because IP addresses mark individual computers, the domain name is usually much easier to remember as it can be a catchy phrase or an on target description of what the website has to offer. In this day and age, the game of domain name selection is heated and often times a demanding field.

What does an effective domain name get you, anyway?

You may ask yourself why is it so very important to have a good domain name for your website. Besides being the best way to attract your customers, it is one of the best ways to have customers remember you. The returning customer is after all the best one to have. Yet, many websites fail at this point simply because there are so many other, just as good if not better, websites out there. Having a good, on target domain name is necessary for name recognition.

Finding Your Domain Name

Just like writing a jingle for a commercial, having an effective domain name should be something that people will remember. Catchy phrases or very targeted phrases can be the best way to get the attention of the user. More than likely, the first time they find you will be through advertisements or through a web search. But, once they are there, getting that domain name into their heads for next time is necessary.

But, its not really that easy. There is huge competition of domain names and many times you will find that the ‘good ones’ are already taken. But, when you get creative and think outside of the box you can really find the right niche and make your domain name the next one to be remembered.

There are also many information portals now devoted to the subject and we recommend reading about it at one of these. Try googling for “domain names” and you will be surprised by the abundance of information on the subject. Alternatively you may try looking on Yahoo, MSN or even a decent directory site; all are good sources of this information.

Do It Yourself Website

2007-06-11T09:24:00.000-07:00

If you are just starting out in your new business and you decide that a website could be a valuable addition to this business how do you go about getting one up and running? You have two basic options really. Do it yourself or employ an individual or company to do it for you. Which option you take depends upon your own confidence in acquiring the skills necessary and the amount of funds you can divert to hiring in a company. If you have sufficient funds then hire in a company as this will enable you to devout all your time to developing your core business. If you don’t then you will have to do it yourself. So how do you go about it?

You will require no or little knowledge of HTML as you can purchase a whole package from a web hosting company which should include some form of website developing software and your domain name plus the hosting of your website. Give some thought to your domain name. It should be easy for people to type in and remember. Not too long, succinct and preferably no hyphens. So you have chosen your domain name and your hosting service now you must develop your site. Again give some thought to this. How many pages you are likely to produce, how many links you will need. What sort of information is going on each page. If you are completely new to this then I would suggest that using your site editor software you produce a first draft and publish it. You can always modify everything later as you go along. This will give you your first website which you can then submit to the search engines albeit not exactly what you want or one that is going to attract visitors.

Now you need to do quite a lot of research on the internet as to how to make your site visitor friendly and search engine friendly. Here you will discover the importance of good content, changing content, appropriate keywords, backward links, article writing and good copy on the website. Taking this information on board will enable you to restructure and rewrite your site over a period of time, probably many times. However all the time this learning process is going on your site is actually published on the Web so is likely to start being trawled by search engines and getting indexed even if it doesn’t sky rocket through the rankings. The most important thing to do from the outset is to write good content that will be of interest to your visitors. If it holds the attention of your visitors and gets them to contact you then it will likely be of equal interest to the search engines. Do not produce a site that is written with the search engines in mind. It is your visitors who are important and by following a few simple rules that are published all over the Web your site can become very attractive to visitors and to search engines also. Keep the site textually based, there is no point in having very flashy graphics as these are not noticed by the search engines and often annoy visitors who want to get at the information they are after as quickly as possible and not have to wait for some animated introduction to finish before they can enter the actual site.

Having put into practice all the advice that is out there you should have put together a pleasing and appealing website that visitors and search engines like. Each day or week you add more content and develop more links and you will gradually climb up the rankings. The last piece of advice I would give is start writing and submitting articles. One or two a week would be excellent over a year or two. Once your articles start being published you will see an immediate leap in the number of links back to your site and a subsequent rise in the rankings if your content is also good. Aim to produce over time several hundred articles if possible. The more you write the more links back to your site you will develop and the more visitors you will get as well as boost your rankings in the search engines.

Create A Free Web Page Online Today!

2007-06-11T09:23:00.000-07:00

So you're interested in getting your own free website, excellent!

Funny enough, this is how I started out on the internet and look what has happened! Anyway, a free website is good because you can use it for many things. These include

a personal web page
trial business purposes
information for your club or group
discuss topics of interest (forum)
trial a new product
a family web page
plus many more!

The great thing about starting out with a free website is that their are many very good services online that you can get up and running with and which have excellent learning tools.

For instance, www.bravenet.com which is probably the largest and most well known supplier of free websites and hosting gives you 1.5 gig bandwidth, 50 meg of space and also many of the following features:

Absolutely No Setup Fees!
Unsurpassed Customer Support
Free Domain Names
Marketing Tools and Tips
Free Instant Content
Easy Website Builders
Clip Art, Audio Clips and Fonts
Over 500 Website Templates
Outstanding Industry Reputation

These types of sites are wonderful as the tools are all housed in one place thus allowing for a very quick learning curve.

For those who are really quick learners (the young and quick) unlike us old folk, there is plenty of other software solutions and free "html" editors available if you want to go more advanced.

Websites like:

http://www.chami.com/html-kit/
http://www.homeworlds.com/freesoft/editors.htm
http://www.htmlgoodies.com/

all offer great html, information, resources and advice.

What ever your taste, online is the place to be for learning, creating and keeping in contact with family and friends.

Have a great time and just remember, when starting out on the web most items and information can be sourced for free, it just a matter of looking around.

Dot com or dot net, which is the best domain name to settle for?

2007-06-11T09:21:00.000-07:00

When seeking domain names most people get confused over whether to settle for a dot com address or a dot net one. More so in recent times when dot net addresses have risen in popularity and usage on the net.

There are a few important facts that one needs to realize before they opt for a dot net address. Quite often when people need to commit the address of a website to memory, they will not remember the dot net and the first place they will check is the given address with a dot com ending. Many times when they do not find it there, they will hardly ever think of using dot net to repeat the search. That is a lost visitor and maybe even potential client.

What is even more worrying is that there is increasing evidence to suggest that an increasing number of people end up at a website after hearing about it either from a friend or acquaintance, or by seeing an advertisement on Television or hearing about it on radio or reading something about the site. When committing the website address to memory very few will distinctly remember the dot net address if that is the domain name that you have chosen.

Having said that, let us also appreciate the fact it is becoming increasingly difficult for anybody to land a decent dot com address. After years of use, there is hardly any short catchy name that you can think of that will not have been already taken up. Do not even mention search-engine key word friendly domain names which will be virtually impossible to get. This is the reason why folks often settle for a dot net address. Others do not even bother to start their search with dot com domains. This is a big mistake despite the unavailability of good dot com domains, which we have already acknowledged.

Exhaustive efforts should be made to try and secure a dot com domain before you give up and move to dot net. For example you can try and search for abandoned domain names. In fact by making an effort to be really creative and not hurrying the process, it is quite possible to secure a reasonably good dot com domain. You can be sure that it will be well worth the extra effort and time you put into it which will result in better success when you begin to seek traffic. Of course if you just cannot get a dot com domain, a dot net one is a good second choice.

Choosing Your Web Hosting Reseller Software

2007-06-11T09:16:00.000-07:00

As a web host reseller, one of your most important business decisions is your choice of web hosting control panel software. The web hosting software you use will save or cost you time, money, and frustration.

What reseller control panel features will reduce your workload? What hosting software programs are integrated with the reseller control panel or work with it? What website control panel features will your clients like?

In this article, we’ve compared four quality web hosting reseller software programs:

• Alabanza
• cPanel
• H-Sphere
• Plesk

All of these reseller control panels come with control panels for your clients. They all have numerous features — advanced email management, web statistics, pre-installed scripts, multi-language support, and more. They all work on Linux platforms, while H-Sphere and Plesk also work with Windows. According to the cPanel website, a Windows version of cPanel is in development.

Other features that set these control panels apart are their degree of automation, the number of features and ease of use for the end user, and the features and ease of use for you, the reseller.
Alabanza

When you become an Alabanza reseller, you don’t just have a reseller account — you lease a dedicated server from Alabanza. Alabanza owns the control panel the server, and you resell directly for Alabanza. If you lease a dedicated Alabanza server, you can create your own reseller accounts. However, only you can set up hosting plans; resellers below you will be limited to hosting plans that you create.

Alabanza offers resellers a high degree of automation with its Domain System Manager (DSM), which can significantly reduce overhead and time spent on routine tasks:

• Account creation
• Billing and invoice management
• Credit card processing
• Domain registration
• Email notifications
• Ordering fraud protection

Even novices can sell hosting with this level of automation.

DSM also integrates with bulkregister.com for domain name registration. It does not easily integrate with other domain registrars, though.

A key Alabanza feature that resellers can offer their clients is the Xpress Product Suite, which provides web development and email management tools. The Xpress Product Suite includes SiteXpress, a website-building program that features over 300 templates and requires no web design skills.

cPanel

For resellers and end users, cPanel is known for its ease of use and range of features. cPanel’s collection of over 50 pre-installed scripts and Fantastico auto installer help clients set up their sites with little web development knowledge.

A basic cPanel reseller account comes with two separate programs for resellers to manage their business:

• WHM (Web Host Manager) is used to create accounts and packages, add and suspend sites, modify passwords, view bandwidth usage, park domains, install SSL certificates, and perform other administrative functions.
• From the reseller’s cPanel control panel, a drop-down menu takes the reseller to the control panels for each of the sites on the reseller account, including the reseller’s site.

With the addition of an optional program, WHM AutoPilot, you can automate account creation and suspension, email notifications, and other tasks. WHM AutoPilot also integrates with common payment gateways and has a helpdesk, an invoice module, and other tools.
H-Sphere

H-Sphere is designed for both Linux and Windows platforms. Moreover, resellers can set up plans for both Linux and Windows and administer sites on different servers from the same control panel. The control panel, actually a separate server, also provides administrative access to the integrated helpdesk.

The H-Sphere control panel server automates account configuration, credit card processing, domain registration, and email notifications. It also includes a built-in billing module and supports over 20 payment gateways.

From the reseller’s point of view, H-Sphere has a higher learning curve than most other control panels because of its numerous features. For example, when setting up a new plan, the administrator has two pages of features to choose from, including setup and monthly pricing for optional services.

Beginning webmasters may find H-Sphere too complicated for their needs. More advanced users, however, appreciate the features and control that H-Sphere offers the end user. A key feature is the ability to have control over separate domains with multi-domain hosting.

H-Sphere comes with the website builder SiteStudio, which guides users through a variety of style choices and stores content separately from the layout. No HTML or FTP knowledge is required.
Plesk

Plesk is known for its stability and security. Resellers and end users like its simple navigation, its clean interface, and its professional appearance. It comes in versions for both Linux and Windows platforms.

With Plesk, all users use the same control panel but with different levels of control:

• Server administrator
• Client / reseller
• Domain owner
• Mail user

Each level of the control panel gives the user control of that level and the level(s) below it. Email users, for example, can log into their mail user control panel to change their password, add autoresponders, and change other personal settings without having access to the domain owner control panel.

Plesk handles SpamAssassin at the mailbox level rather than at the domain level.
This feature enables users to whitelist or blacklist email for each email address, allowing each email user to have individual settings.

SWsoft, the company behind Plesk, also offers SiteBuilder, a five-step website builder using pre-built templates. SiteBuilder has over 300 templates in different categories to choose from, and users can publish their sites without any HTML or FTP knowledge.

If your Plesk reseller account is with a web host that offers HSPcomplete, you will have some automation available with your account, such as credit card charges and email notification.

The Money Keyword List - Superchrage Your Website’s Earning Power! - Part 1 Of 2

2007-06-11T09:13:00.000-07:00

Many webmaster are making money or want to make money with Google AdSense. The problem is that some of them don’t know the keywords to use in their websites. It’s become necessary that those of us in the know share this key information with them to cut down their frustration. It should also help those webmasters boost their income.

Below are the keyword list I use when I build my AdSense websites. I call it “My Money Keyword List”. They pay from $1.00 to $100.00 per click. Can you feel the power in this list?

The list is in alphabetical order. A few keywords may drop in and out of the list from time to time, but 99.9f them stay on the list.

In the interest of saving space and not make this a very long document, I’m presenting this list in 2 parts. This is part 1 of 2 of the list.

Drum roll please-----:-)

1. Acne
2. Adult Diaper
3. Adult Education
4. Alcohol Treatment
5. Annuity
6. Anti Spam Software
7. Anti Virus Protection
8. Asbestos
9. Bachelor Degree
10. Bankruptcy
11. Bextra
12. Blue Cross
13. Bonds
14. Borrow Money
15. Business Credit
16. Calling Cards
17. Canadian Pharmacy
18. Cancer
19. Car Insurance
20. Cash Advance
21. Casino Online Game
22. Casinos Online
23. Cell Phone Plans
24. Cellular Phone Rental
25. Cheap Hosting
26. Consolidate
27. Consumer credit
28. Credit Cards
29. Credit Counseling
30. Credit Score
31. Death Insurance
32. Debt Consolidation
33. Dedicated Hosting
34. Dental Plans
35. Depression
36. Distance Learning
37. Doctorate Degree
38. Domain Name
39. Drug Rehab
40. Eloan
41. Email Hosting
42. Equity Line Credit
43. Equity Loans
44. Extra Money
45. Facelift
46. FHA Mortgage
47. Fioricet
48. Free Credit Report
49. Gambling
50. Gambling UK
51. Gambling Online
52. Helpdesk Software
53. Home Equity
54. Home Equity Loan
55. Home Insurance
56. Homeowners Insurance
57. Internet Broker
58. Internet Poker
59. Investing
60. IRA Rollover
61. Jet Charter
62. Laptop Computer
63. Lasik
64. Legal Advice
65. Lenox China
66. Lexington law
67. Life Insurance
68. Loans
69. Low Interest Credit Card
70. Malpractice Lawyer
71. Master Degree
72. Mesothelioma
73. Mortgages
74. Need Money
75. Online Banking
76. Online Casino
77. Online Casino Gambling
78. Online Gambling
79. Online Marketing
80. Online Poker

Internet Marketing Strategy:44 Link Popularity Secrets

2007-06-11T09:06:00.000-07:00

Enjoy These BENEFITS:

-Quality targeted traffic from backlink & reciprocal link partners

-Sustained long-term free search engine traffic

-Recognition as an authority in your specific field

There are enormous benefits to be had if you master and use these link popularity secrets. These 44 linking strategies and tactics are organized into three sections:

Link Popularity Resources, Tools, & Techniques
(1-11)

Backlinks (Incoming Links)
(12-37)

Reciprocal Links
(38-44)

(1-11) Link Popularity Resources, Tools, & Techniques

(1) (1) (1) (1)

You will need a comprehensive script to manage the many tasks of a complete link popularity strategy.

First step:

Download and install Duncan Carver's Link Management Assistant (LMA):

http://www.onlinemarketingtoday.com/software/link-management/
The best link popularity software.

Other leading link building products are:

Arelis4
http://www.axandra.com/

Reciprocal Manager
http://reciprocalmanager.com/

Zeus
http://www.cyber-robotics.com/

...but all have significant price tags attached.

LMA is the Rolls Royce of link popularity software.

In a class by itself!

Oh yes, did I mention that it is free!

This link building software is the best option for building a niche directory for a mini site or niche site.

Even if you currently use other link popularity software, you should add LMA to your Internet marketing arsenal.

Download now or bookmark this page:

http://www.onlinemarketingtoday.com/software/link-management/

For an example of a link directory established with LMA see the "Work At Home Website Directory" that I have started to develop on this website:

http://100FreeWorkAtHomeTools.com/lma/directory

(2) (2) (2) (2)

Read this important article:

Keyword Phrases In Linking text:
http://linkingmatters.com/linkingtext.html

Linking text, sometimes called anchor text is the clickable text that takes people to another page or resource.

Mastering the skill of using keyword phrases in your linking text is one of the critical secrets to understand in developing an effective link building strategy.

Take special notice of the importance of using this technique in your INTERNAL links within your website!

(3) (3) (3) (3)

You should be aware of the penalties search engines can inflict.

Vary keywords in linking text:

http://www.articlecity.com/articles/marketing/article_1287.shtml

In your linking strategy you should offer multiple anchor text options for other webmasters to choose in linking to your website.

Change these options AT LEAST ONCE PER MONTH.

(4) (4) (4) (4)

Subscribe to these link popularity newsletters:

http://linkingmatters.com/Newsletter_Subscription.html
Linking Matters Newsletter

http://www.linking101.com/newsletter.htm
LinkingNews Newsletter

The dynamics of what's effective on the Internet can change at a frightening pace. Subscribe to these ezines and keep current.

(5) (5) (5) (5)

Bookmark this website:

http://www.ericward.com/articles/index.html

Free articles on strategic link building, linking strategies and tactics, and link popularity.

Eric Ward is one of the most knowledgeable individuals in terms of link popularity on the entire Internet.

Visit this site on a REGULAR BASIS.

(6) (6) (6) (6)

Use keywords in your domain name.

The links that you are sowing all over the Internet will show up more often in search engine results, if you are using important keywords in your domain name.

Use the knowledge you gained from SECRET #2 concerning "keyword phrases in linking text".

(7) (7) (7) (7)

Download this ebook which contains a collection of link building tactics:

http://www.searchengineworkshops.com/131LinkPop.html

An array of link popularity strategies that you won't find anywhere else.

The strategies are not numbered so make a page notation for link building tactics that fit your situation.

(8) (8) (8) (8)

Download and install the Alexa Toolbar.

http://download.alexa.com/index.cgi?p=Dest_W_b_40_T1/

Important toolbar to improve your link popularity.

Use of the toolbar positively affects your Alexa ranking. Since some webmasters take into account your website's Alexa ranking the better your ranking the higher your success rate in getting reciprocal links.

(9) (9) (9) (9)

Install a robots.txt file in root directory of your website (server).

Google's robots (and other SE robots) need to track your links (both internal and external). Give them help and proper guidance with the robot.txt file.

For a valuable tutorial on this technique visit:

http://www.searchengineworld.com/robots/robots_tutorial.htm
Robots.txt Tutorial

For other helpful robots.text info visit:

http://www.searchengineworld.com/cgi-bin/robotcheck.cgi/
Robots.txt Validator

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum93/
Robots.txt Forum

Search engine spiders particularly need help indexing pages that are MORE THAN TWO LEVELS removed from the home page.

(10) (10) (10) (10)

Use this Text-to-Hyperlink Conversion Tool

http://thephantomwriters.com/link-builder.pl

If you have an HTML ezine or publish articles online, you should MAKE SURE ALL OF THE URLS IN THE ARTICLE ARE HYPERLINKED. Hyperlinking only the url in the resource box is not enough.

If your articles are online, and you have referenced your own website in the article, check to make sure the links are live.

You will find some article banks where the urls within articles are not hyperlinked. Whenever you encounter this state, alert the editor to the above easy-to-use tool.

Also, express your strong preference for articles with live links.

By the way, you can edit your own articles with some article banks to include live hyperlinks. Where appropriate use the above tool to make your article links live and improve your link popularity.

(11) (11) (11) (11)

Download this powerful free ebook on time management.

http://www.howtomanageyourtime.com/

This is a talking ebook, plus a written transcript of the audio.

You will learn the powerful concept of the TIME QUADRANT, plus 12 critical time management rules.

No one can take advantage of all 44 link popularity secrets in a couple of days or weeks. There are a tremendous amount of productive steps you can take overall.

Therefore, you should SET GOALS of completing a certain step or number of steps by a SPECIFIC DATE.

Once you have put all of these link popularity secrets in place, your website will become a powerful force on the Internet!

http://www.howtomanageyourtime.com/

(12-37) Backlinks (Incoming Links)

(12) (12) (12) (12)

Write and publish articles online.

Informed opinion has it that BACKLINKS, that is, one-way, incoming links are MORE VALUABLE than reciprocal links.

If the backlink is from a high PR, high traffic site, it should prove to be extremely valuable both in terms of traffic and link popularity.

The absolute best way to get backlinks from high quality sites is to write and publish articles online.

Therefore, I have included extensive data for you to utilize.

There are five main distribution channels for your articles that you should concentrate on:

(1)Article Banks or Directories

(2)Announcement Lists

(3)Ezines that have an online archive

(4)Ezine Editors

(5)Individual websites that publish articles

Article Banks or Directories

Here are a number of different sources:

http://www.coachmaria.com/articles/articlebanks.html

http://www.arcanaweb.com/resources/article-directories.html

Announcement Lists

http://www.homebiztools.com/article-lists.htm

http://1clickprofitst.com/article-directories.html

Yahoo Groups

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Free-Content/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/article_announce_list/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/articles4you2use4promotion/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/articlesubmission/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/free-reprint-articles

http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/Free_eContent/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freecontentarticles/

Ezines That Have An Online Archive

You should make it a top priority to start and build a file that lists ezines with an online archive.

SUBMIT TO THESE EZINES FIRST.

Use your judgement. How up to date is the archive? How many subscribers?? What's the Alexa rating?

By the way, if you ADVERTISE in ezines that have an online archive, any links in the ad that reference your own websites will add to your link popularity.

Ezine Editors

You will be using mainly ezine directories:

Some editors print their ezine online but do not have an online archive.

http://eclaunchsite.com/ECLezinedirectories.htm
Important list of ezine directories.

http://www.internetmarketing-success.com/email-marketing/ezine-directories.htm
Comprehensive list of ezine directories.

Copy and paste this list of urls in your email program and send it to yourself so you will have a hyperlinked list.

Here is a PAID alternative.

This list is selective so it should contain quality ezines with no out-of-date listings:

http://www.ezine-editors-list.com/

Individual Websites That Publish Articles

If you go to http://Google.com, type in:

"target keyword phrase + articles"

You will find websites where you can post articles for that keyword. As an example:

"link popularity + articles" yields this:

http://tinyurl.com/85z2j

Submit Articles To Web Rings

Here is an individual website that has integrated the online publishing of articles with submission to web rings:

http://www.e-syndicate.net/a17492.htm

Fee Based Article Distribution

Here are two paid article distribution services that I have used with good results:

http://thephantomwriters.com/x.pl/tpw/info/distribution/index.html

The service above was the first I used for the article below:

"Internet Marketing Strategy:The Advertising Co-op"

If you copy and paste the article title above, including quotes, at http://google.com, you will see the extent of this article's distribution.

Most of these links are BACKLINKS!

I manually submitted this article to about 10-15 websites, but it was very time consuming. After using Phantom Writers the distribution grew to about 250.

After six months I used isnare for further paid distribution.

http://isnare.com/distribution.php

This service has a very moderate cost.

Blog Posts Re: Articles

Look for June 20th post at:

http://wetrack.it/eza/af.cgi?aid=733&ent=28

Click on "Oh no... here come the critics:

http://www.joltinc.com/blog/?p=3

Then read comment #12.

Then read comment #19:

http://www.joltinc.com/blog/?p=1#comments

Powerful stuff!

Critical Secret Re Article Titles

Article Marketing & Copywriting Secret: How To Make Your Article TITLE Sell

http://100freeworkathometools.com/archives/volume6_issue10.php

After reading this article you should realize that you can get two gigantic benefits from your online articles:

improved link popularity

free website traffic from search engines when your article shows up

If Your Writing Skills Are Poor Or Insufficient

Writing and publishing articles online has such a tremendous benefit, but what if you can't write well, or worse, don't feel you have enough knowledge??

Pick a hot topic and get a ghost writer!

A ghost written article means the article is published with your name as the author.

http://guru.com/category.cfm/505

The benefits you receive will more than make up for the cost when your ghost written article becomes widely distributed.

(13) (13) (13) (13)

Submit your website to these directory sites:

http://www.dmoz.org

The single most important directory listing you can have. There may be long delays in getting your site listed. Be prepared to follow up. A free listing but very powerful.

https://ecom.yahoo.com/dir/submit/intro/

WARNING: Paying the fee does not guarantee inclusion in the directory.

http://joeant.com

You can avoid the listing fee by becoming an editor.

http://www.Business.com

An important widely used business directory. To submit your site click "Advertise With Us" at bottom of page.

http://www.directory-pages.com/

A comprehensive resource that is very valuable if fully utilized. Ranks directories by how "powerful" they are.

http://www.best-web-directories.com/

Great structure. Offers separate FREE and PAID directory listings.

(14) (14) (14) (14)

Here are some meta directories that list directory sites where you can submit your Web site:

http://www.beaucoup.com/

Beaucoup.com is a large directory which lists more than 2,500 search engines and directories.

http://www.search-engine-index.co.uk/

This directory lists more than 900 specialized search engines and directories.

(15) (15) (15) (15)

List your link or niche website directory with these directories:

http://www.incominglinks.com/
Extraordinary resource!

http://www.directoryarchives.com/

http://www.wmdirectory.com/

http://www.internet-search-engines-faq.com/submit-url-free-directory.shtml
Valuable resource! An annotated directory.

http://www.talkingcity.com/showthread.php?t=12
See multiple post re lists of directories by Megri

http://www.massivelinks.com/

http://www.incrawler.com/

Be sure to give your directory a name that includes important keywords.

Having a niche directory with a narrow focus can add tremendous value to your website since it can save an interested party a huge amount of time in locating valuable resources.

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If you have your own website or niche directory, PROMOTE IT!

Submit it to the directories of directories referenced above.

Advertise your link or niche directory using free advertising resources such as:

http://www.free-internet-advertising.co.uk/index.htm

http://freesoloads.100freeworkathometools.com

http://freeadvertisingforum.com

http://www.dailyclassifieds.co.uk

http://www.subscribeme.net

http://adlandpro.100freeworkathometools.com

The focus is not on promoting your overall website but on advertising your link or niche directory specifically.

Your intent is to promote and secure backlinks.

You hope that other websites, once they discover it, will want to link to a valuable resource, YOUR DIRECTORY.

So make your directory exceptional and link within it to high quality websites.

Your Promotion should be RELENTLESS.

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Submit your blog and RSS feeds to directories:

http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/

For details on setting up your syndicated feed, read this article by William Bontrager:

http://www.homebiztools.com/syndication.htm

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If you have the appropriate files, submit your site to directories for .pdf files, multimedia files and image files.

http://searchpdf.adobe.com

http://www.blinkx.tv/

http://search.singingfish.com/sfw/submit.html

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List your ezine in these ezine directories. Make sure you have a SEPARATE sign-up page for your newsletter or ezine.

Such listings will give you a permanent backlink to your website.

http://emailuniverse.com/bestezines

http://ezinelocater.com

http://www.topezineads.com/demo.html

This site has a comprehensive list of ezine directories:

http://internetmarketing-success.com/ezine_directories.htm/

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Post to forums, blogs, and newsgroups.

When your website has appropriate useful information, your responsive answers to forum members' requests can include a direct link to the appropriate page of your website.

Your post must be DIRECTLY RESPONSIVE to the topic, not just an attempt to gain a backlink.

In addition, many forums allow a signature file, where you can include a backlink to your website. Use the knowledge from SECRET #2 in your signature file.

Here is a link to a site with solid information on forums complete with a list of active and prominent forums to investigate.

http://www.imarketing-university.com/internet-marketing-forums.html/
Valuable resource for Internet Marketing forums.

An extremely valuable FREE ebook on posting at forums can be obtained at:

http://100FreeWorkAtHomeTools.com/forumsupertips.php
Link popularity and posting at forums

All of the powerful knowledge and wisdom in this ebook can be applied to posting at blogs and newsgroups.

Highly recommended!

*******

Google indexes the content of newsgroups.

An easy way to post messages in newsgroups is to create a Google account and to post via their Web interface:

http://groups.google.com

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Get free publicity, free traffic, and valuable backlinks through using free press release distribution services.

http://www.prweb.com/

http://www.prfree.com/

If you want a serious infusion of valuable publicity and public relations knowledge, an excellent place to start would be subscribing to George McKenzie's FREE Publicity Pro Newsletter.

Learn from a pro and master this knowledge, and your mastery should pay huge dividends, in terms of valuable backlinks, increased traffic and increased profitability.

http://www.publicitygoldmine.com/newsletter/

Key Paid Service

URLwire is one of the best fee based services available. URLwire is a web site announcement network started in 1994.

URLwire reaches the KEY ONLINE CONTACTS who specifically write about, review, and link to new web content.

An investment of your resources that rates to pay very big dividends.

http://www.urlwire.com/

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Post a helpful "comment" to Google Answers.

http://answers.google.com/answers

http://answers.google.com/answers/faq.html

http://answers.google.com/answers/faq.html#providecomments

Use your IMAGINATION!

You want questions that are relevant to valuable information and answers supplied by your website.

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Set up an affiliate program. Here is a source of affiliate scripts:

http://www.hotscripts.com/PHP/Scripts_and_Programs/Affiliate_Programs/

Make certain that the script you choose is reliable.

Under no circumstances should you start to use a script without asking on at least a couple of forums whether anyone has had experience with your script of choice.

You can also use affiliate management software such as easyClickMate. See the link below for a free ebook that explains in detail this strategy.

http://www.supertips.com/vm/

A successful affiliate strategy should result in thousands of backlinks from theme related websites.

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Develop a simple strategy to induce members of Furl.net to establish a public link to one or more of your website pages.

You want them to store your website page with the PUBLIC SAVE FUNCTION in their individual Furl.net accounts!

http://Furl.net

This free system is one of the absolute best information resource tools you can use to store valuable information in a format that you design and use with ease.

Highly recommended. Act now!

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Link to http://amazon.com

Have someone write a review of your website for Amazon.com, and you will be automatically included in the Alexa.com. data base.

http://alexa.com

The reviewer should first do a search with your complete url in the search box at the above link.

Then look for:

User Reviews for your website.com

Be the first person to write a review of this site on Amazon.com!

The reviewer clicks the hyperlink and writes the review for Amazon.com

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List your ebook for sale with http://amazon.com.

Click "Sell Your Stuff" from the top menu.

You will enjoy listings and links from other major retailers such as:

Target.com, CDnow.com, Borders.com, & Waldenbooks.com.

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Use testimonials as a linking strategy.

These are testimonials that you provide to webmasters of high traffic, high page rank websites.

Give genuine testimonials of appreciation for tools or resources of a particular website.

When you send the webmaster the testimonial, give permission to quote you using your FULL NAME and specific city, state, and country.

Politely, request that a hyperlink back to your website be included in the citation.

By the way, what Internet marketer has used this technique the most?

By a wide margin I'd say it's Joe Vitale!

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Write a review of a high traffic website.

Contact the webmaster and offer the free use of your review (in whole or in part) in return for a backlink.

Use keyword rich anchor text in your backlink.

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Develop niche website software where the user must leave intact a small notice that links to your website.

LMA uses this concept. Over time Duncan Carver, the originator of LMA, is likely to have hundreds of thousands of websites linking to his chosen website or sites through their use of LMA.

You must give this tactic some deep thought and try to come up with suitable software that would be installed on a user's website.

All you have to do is come up with the IDEA.

You can always go to an appropriate website and hire a programmer to develop the software for you such as:

http://www.guru.com/index.cfm

The return on investment could be huge!

Be sure to have a Confidentiality Agreement prepared, that interested parties have to sign and return to you before you reveal your software idea.

http://www.bitlaw.com/forms/nda.html

Make sense??

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Develop software that can be downloaded free from your website, and have download websites list it and link to it.

http://download.com

http://www.simtel.net/welcome.php

Also, post to forums, blogs, and newsgroups to alert them to your free software and state anyone can link to it.

As an alternative you may have the software resource, exclusively to be used at your site (no download function).

By the way, do you think it would be a good idea to make the linking text keyword rich?? (lol)

Remember to vary the suggested anchor text as you post notices around the net. (SECRET #3)

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Be Interviewed!

Complete with backlinks to your site or sites, of course.

Use your imagination. Radio, TV, print media, ezines, even an email interview.

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Join associations or trade groups within your industry. Make sure their online sites have good page rank and have backlinks to their members websites.

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B2B websites should have contract language that specifically requires a backlink in pages that have already been indexed by search engines. This contract language should apply to all:

partners
subcontractors
suppliers or vendors
resellers or affiliates

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Host a Top Site

You will need a cgi program.

"Top Sites" are a ranking system. Websites that sign up with your "Top Site" are given a text link or button with their id, and they post this link to you on their site.

The more visitors the website sends to you, the higher it ranks. You know which sites send traffic due to the cgi script and the imbedded id.

A source for scripts:

http://return.to/topsite1

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Host a web ring.

All the links on every Web ring banner point to your site and redirect to member sites.

You will need a script to host your web ring, and a source is:

http://return.to/webring1

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Use paid link text advertising.

Placing paid text link ads on high traffic websites that have a theme directly related to your website is a powerful strategy when used in combination with the above link building strategies.

Below are two good sources that have two different processes for you to achieve this goal:

http://www.linkadage.com
Text link ads through an auction process.

http://www.linkworth.com
Direct placement of text link ads.

Trade One-Way Text Link Ads that are Relevant and Human Edited.

http://www.relevantadvertising.com/

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Get backlinks from these 100 top rated websites:

http://www.pubsub.com/linkcounts_top100_inlinks.php

As part of your link popularity strategy you should make it a goal to get an incoming link from at least several of the sites listed in the 100 top websites.

Devise a strategy so that something you produce, an article, press release, etc., is picked up and linked to by one of these highly rated sites.

You can always benefit from news or media backlinks, but otherwise seek backlinks from theme related websites.

Knowledge that you gain from an authoritative source such as Publicity Pro Newsletter (see SECRET #21) should help you get backlinks from these high profile sites.

http://www.pubsub.com/linkcounts_top100_inlinks.php

(38-44) Reciprocal Links

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Use existing link partners and online ezine archives as sources for reciprocal links.

Search the resource pages and link directories of sites that already link to you. Seek links with high quality websites that would offer significant value to your website visitors.

Do AD SWAPS with ezines that have an online archive of past issues. Naturally, in your ad you will have an url leading to your own site.

Of course your ad will include anchor text rich in appropriate keywords!

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Find quality websites with this reciprocal link exchange:

http://value-exchange.sitesell.com/tuition.html/

Take this step once you have installed LMA and are ready to request reciprocal links.

If you have other link management software in place, fine, but you should have a defined procedure for adding and maintaining links.

This exchange, originates from Ken Evoy of SiteSell.com, so you know it is a highly valuable asset. A good place for QUALITY reciprocal links.

Also, take advantage and download the free ebook, Make Your Links Work, while you are on this site.

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Sign up with these 4 additional link exchange programs:

First a point of clarification:

Your primary goal in using these exchanges is to find useful and valuable info and resources for your website visitors. A by-product of your listing valuable websites is increased link popularity.

SO LINK TO QUALITY WEBSITES.

http://linkpartners.com/
Valuable directory of quality websites that trade reciprocal links with other sites.

http://www.links-pal.com/how-it-works.html
Join this human-compiled directory that lists websites who actively swap links.

Your referring page will need to have a page rank of 5 since that is the minimum required by this exchange.

http://coopadnetwork.100freeworkathometools.com
This is a free-to-join coop advertising network.

You exchange text links within this network on regular web pages not inside link directories.

Highly recommended!

******

http://links-for-you.com/
This program emails willing reciprocal link partners to your inbox.

Taking advantage of these programs should be a very productive use of your time, because the other program members have joined with the specific intent of developing reciprocal links.

Be selective!

Approve links to quality sites that have a similar theme to yours or offer goods or services you know your website visitors would be interested in.

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I'll be the first to confess that I was on the Internet for five years before I knew that there was such a thing as The Google Directory?!?

You can use this directory to find websites with a high page rank and request reciprocal links with appropriate sites.

Check out the Google directory at:

http://directory.google.com/

If you locate the category or theme of the websites you want to target, they will be listed with the highest Page Rank (PR) websites at the top of the list.

Most of the sites near the top of the list will be PR4, PR5 or higher. These are the websites to target as priorities for reciprocal links.

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Obtain reciprocal links from websites that are linking to your competitors.

(A)Determine which websites are your main competitors. Make up a list.

(B)Sign up with Google alerts to determine who is linking to your competitors.

http://www.google.com/alerts (Due to technical difficulties you may have to "copy and paste" this url to bring the site up).

Enter link:www.yourcompetitorsurl.com in the "Search terms" box.

For "Type" choose web.

For "how often" choose once a day.

Be aware that you can use multiple queries and keep tabs on multiple competitors.

This is easily done by adding an "OR". For example:

link:www.xyz.com OR link:www.abc.com OR link:www.roi.com

(C)Request a reciprocal link from suitable sites that link to your competitors.

These requests should have a HIGH SUCCESS RATE since you know for sure the target sites are actively adding links.

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Find theme related websites that offer reciprocal links.

http://yahoo.com

Your search inquiry should look like this:

"Submit a link" + "Your keyword goes here"

So a request for websites based on the keyword phrase "link building" would look like this:

"Submit a link" + "link building"

Be sure to include the quotes.

You can use other phrases instead of "submit your link" including:

"add your site"
"submit a url"
"add a url"
"add a link"

This is a sound technique to use for niche or mini sites, because it can be very hard to get search engine traffic for a mini site.

Add the link to your site first, then invite the reciprocal link.

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Exchange teaser articles with other webmasters.

What's that??

A teaser article is one that has been cut short, and the reader has to go to another location, like your website, to finish reading the article.

If you get a few teaser articles on high traffic, high PR websites, you will get two huge benefits:

free targeted traffic

improved link popularity

I don't have to lecture you about how much more valuable TARGETED traffic is than random website traffic. Obviously, you want to tease an article of yours that is relevant to your website content.

You should tease both articles in the exchange.

By tease I mean deciding where the cut off point should be. In other words do all the work and present a completely done package to the other webmaster.

Of course, you will have keyword rich anchor texts for both links (yours and the other webmasters links) as part of the package. And you will explain the value of keyword rich anchor text to your reciprocal partner.

Lastly, make the links open in a new window.

Tease outstanding articles and you will definitely see positive results with this technique.

Final Thoughts

Implementing all these secrets will take a long time and considerable effort.

Therefore, break the overall task down into several small manageable steps (MINI-GOALS) that you can meet by a SERIES OF SPECIFIC DATES.

The time management resource detailed in SECRET #11 is a powerful force that you can apply to maximize the tremendous impact you should get from following these link building strategies.

Start RIGHT NOW!

Best of success!

Register now to avoid disappointment

2007-06-11T09:02:00.000-07:00

Any successfully business person will tell you that one of the keys to a successful business is to plan ahead. With all the work and planing that has to be done, it can be easy to overlook some of the smaller points. Registering domain names is not something that traditionally has a high priority when you're planning the future of your business. It has however become more important to reserve your on-line real estate as soon as you possibly can.

There are two good reasons to register domain names now even if you have no immediate plans to develop a website.

Every single day thousands of domain names are registered by people all around the world. The effect this has on you is an ever shrinking pool of suitable domain names to choose from. It is likely that several other companies around the world share your business name so even that is not safe.

The second less obvious reason relates to a recent change in the way search engines decide what order web pages should appear in their results. Search engines have started to look at the age of the domain name and if it was only registered recently (within a year) the site will be penalised. The result of this is your new website will fail to appear for any of the competitive search results for a considerable amount of time.

A simple solution to both these problems is to sit down and spend some time brain storming what your domain name requirements for the next year or two are likely to be then register the domains now. With the low cost of domain name registrations you only have to make a very small investment to secure the on-line future of your business. Most domain registrars also provide a free holding page service so there is no need to have a website.

Remember to register domains relating your business name and area of business. You should also look at registering domain names for your products. If you're going to be launching a new product or service then register a domain for it now.

Seven Frequently Asked Questions About Choosing A Domain Name

2007-06-11T09:01:00.000-07:00

One of the most common questions I'm asked by my clients is "What domain name should I use for my website?". In response, I would recommend considering several factors. In the following article, I will go through these factors in a question and answer format:

1. Should I choose a country code domain name (like .CO.UK or .CA), or a global top-level domain like .COM?

If your target market is specific to one country, I would recommend using a country code domain name, especially if you sell physical products that can only be delivered within that country. Many people I have spoken to tell me that they are often uncertain of where online stores are located, and it is not until they reach checkout and are asked to pay in a foreign currency that they are not able to order the products in their shopping basket due to the website not selling internationally. Having a country code domain name instantly lets your potential customers know that you are located in the same country as them, and that your service is designed specifically for that nation.

Alternatively, if you have a website developed for the purpose of sharing information, with little or no content which is only relevant in one part of the world, my advice would be to choose a global top-level domain such as .com.

2. Should I break up words within my domain name with hyphens? Is 'widget-shop.com' better than 'widgetshop.com'?

There seems to be a general consensus within the search engine optimisation industry that using hyphens helps search engines deduce what the actual words within an URL are, therefore leading to those pages being ranked higher in the search engine results. However, there is also speculation that using 2 or more hyphens within the domain name incurs a penalty. With this in mind, I would advise anyone who plans to receive most of their custom from organic search engine results to use one hyphen in their domain name to separate their targeted search keywords.

However, if your business model is not heavy on search engine optimisation, my recommendation would be to not have any hyphens in your domain name, as the vast majority of internet users intuitively enter domain names in their browser address bar without any hyphens. In domain name value appraisal circles, the non-hyphenated version of a domain name is usually considered to be of greater worth.

For search engine optimisation, studies show that one hyphen may give you an advantage, but on the whole I would recommend not using any hyphens in your domain name.

3. Is it better to have digits (2, 3 etc.) or words for numbers (two, three etc.) in my domain name?

Generally speaking, I would dissuade anyone using word of mouth advertising from having any numbers, either as digits or as words, in their domain name. The reason for this is that a domain name should be easy to remember and easy to spell correctly. Lets say for example you had the domain name 'widgets4u.com'. If you meet someone that is interested in your product, and tell them to visit your website, you are going to have tell them specifically that the 4 is numeric and the U is just one letter. Otherwise, they may input 'widgetsforyou.com', 'widgets4you.com', 'widgetsforu.com' and end up at the website of one of your competitors.

If however you are prepared to accept this risk, in my experience the layperson tends to instinctively put the numeric version of a number in a domain name. Therefore, use 'widgets2.com', not 'widgetstwo.com'.

4. How long should my domain name be?

As short as possible. Long domain names are harder for your customers to remember, take longer to type, longer to spell out (you may find yourself having to spell your domain name letter-by-letter to some clients) and also may be harder to actually fit onto your business cards, print advertisements and similar. I have one client whose business name consists of four words, two of which are tricky to spell. My advice to him was to use a domain name with the first letter of each word only, which has proved very easy to remember.

If you are targeting specific search keywords, I would recommend that your domain name consists of those keywords and as little else as possible. If you were targeting 'purple widgets', my advice would be to use the domain name 'purplewidgets.com'. If that domain name is not available, I would recommend adding one extra word to the end. For example, I personally have a web site which targets the search keyword 'weight loss'. As one would expect, 'weightloss.com' and 'weightloss.co.uk' were already registered - so I opted for the domain name 'weightlossweb.co.uk'. Choosing an added word that begins with the same letter as your first keyword helps your visitors remember your domain name. So, going back to the purple widgets example: Alternative domain names could include 'purplewidgetpro.com', 'purplewidgetpower.com' and 'purplewidgetparadise.com'.

5. Are some domain name extensions better than others?

Yes. Generally speaking, the most desirable top-level domain is the .COM. Charitable websites may choose .ORG in order to declare that they are a charitable organisation, but there are currently no restrictions on who can register .ORG domain names or what they need be used for - and many commercial websites still use them.

My personal "league table" of favoured domain name extensions is as follows:

1 .COM
2 Country-code (.CO.UK, .CA, .IE etc.)
3 .NET
4 .ORG
5 .BIZ
6 .INFO
7 .NAME

I currently have in excess of 300 domain names registered, none of which are .INFO or .NAME. I would only recommend that one registers .BIZ, .INFO or .NAME domains if they have a large website with a brand name to protect. For example, my business trading name is 'Starsol.co.uk'. At the time of writing this article, 'Starsol.com' is currently registered by a domain name squatter, who is asking for an extortionate price. I have chosen to register 'Starsol.biz' to prevent a similar situation occurring in future. I feel it is very unlikely that anyone actually types the domain with the .BIZ extension into the address bar looking for my website - but if I didn't register the name myself - someone else might and go on to use it for purposes that may harm my brand.

6. What about .TV and .WS?

Although they may be marketed as such, .TV does not mean tele-vision and .WS does not mean web-site or world-site. .TV is the country code extension for Tuvalu and .WS is for Samoa. Tuvalu is small island country located in the Western Pacific Ocean with a population of approximately 11,000 in the Western Pacific Ocean that gained independence from the UK in 1978. Samoa, also in the Pacific, gained independence from New Zealand in 1962 and has a population of around 180,000. If these countries are not your target markets, I would personally dissuade you from using their country code domain names.

Other similar domain names include .FM (Federated States of Micronesia) which masquerades as the TLD for radio stations and .CC (Cocos Islands).

7. Why do some domain name registrars charge more than others? Are their domain names better?

Perhaps surprising, this is a question I have been asked on several occasions. Just like how some supermarkets which charge more than others for identical cans of fizzy drink than others, domain name registrars also charge differing domain name registration costs. Although some domain name registrars may provide extra tools with domain name registration, a domain name registered for $8.95 a year will work in exactly the same way and one registered for $35.00 a year. If I may give my own service a plug here, Starsol Domains at http://www.starsol.co.uk/domains/ offers .COM registration for what I believe are some of the fairest prices on the 'net.

I hope this article has helped you in your search for a perfect domain name. I would like to add however, that with domain name registrations being so cheap, that registering multiple domains and redirecting them all to your one "main domain" may prove to be a very good idea. If there is one domain that you will be heavily marketing, I would strongly advise you to at least also register the .COM version of that domain name too, and if you are outside the United States to also register the relevant country-code version of the domain name. Many of your customers may input the wrong extension when looking for your site, possibly leading to you losing their custom to a competitor of yours; or like my personal situation which I described earlier, may lead to a domain name squatter registering a domain similar to yours in the hope that you will spend many thousands buying it from them.

Multiple Website Hosting - Subdomains are the Answer!

2007-06-11T08:59:00.001-07:00

Many business owners find themselves in a quandary over the ways to make the most of their company's web site. This is especially true of those who have the need to maintain more than one web site but do not wish to pay for multiple hosting accounts. If this is you, a subdomain may be the answer.

Subdomains are sort of a site within a site. They are not, however, simply additional pages of an existing web site. The subdomain can have a web site all its own, completely separate from the site located at the main domain name.

To understand the use and purpose of subdomains, it may be necessary to first understand the concept of an internet domain name. Every web site that is active on the internet (and there are literally billions of them now - it was estimated as long ago as 1996 that there were more web pages in existence than there were people on Earth) has a unique domain name. There can be only one Ebay dot com, for example, on the entire internet. The domain name, however, is really just a way for humans to relate to the site. Internet servers see web site names as unique I.P. addresses. It is the domain name server that translates those numbers into names and back again.

A subdomain is simply an offshoot of your web site's domain. In terms of the way it appears on the server, the subdomain is simply a folder or a sub directory located within your domain's root directory. Any sub directory can serve as a sub domain. For example, if your web site is "www.mycompany.com" and you store the images for your site in a directory called "images," then you could, if you wished, create a subdomain at "images.mycompany.com". As long as you put an "index.html" page in the folder you should be able to pull it up in a web browser that way. In most cases you will create a new sub directory to be associated with a subdomain and some web hosts do not support subdomains on their servers or put a limit on the number of subdomains you may associate with your site.

The benefits of using subdomains as opposed to opening multiple hosting accounts are twofold. First, you get the obvious benefit of only having to pay for one hosting account. You also benefit from being able to have a completely separate web site, but one that your customers will easily recognize as being associated in some way with your business. Some companies will set up subdomains for various divisions (xyz.com may also have sales.xyz.com or support.xyz.com) and some will use subdomains for various businesses that are all offshoots of the same parent company.

That association could be a downside to using subdomains as well. If you want to keep the relationship between your companies under wraps (like Disney tried so hard to do with Touchstone Pictures so many years ago), you may want to use multiple accounts rather than subdomains. The web address clandestineproducts.megamall.com would clearly betray that there was some connection between Clandestine Products and Megamall, whether you wanted that information to be known or not.

Internet Domain Registration - Establishing and Transferring Your Domain Name

2007-06-11T08:59:00.000-07:00

If you're in business, one of the most important things to you may be your ability to establish an internet presence. Operating some type of functional web site for your business helps your customers find you, can present additional marketing opportunities through e-commerce, and offers advertising opportunities that you can not get elsewhere. Companies that do not have a web site lose business to companies that do all the time.

Of course the real key to your web site is the internet domain registration. Everybody wants mybusiness.com - the problem is that domain names are unique and can be taken by anyone. If you don't register your desired domain name right away, someone else could take it. The fact is that internet domain registration can turn into a sneaky competitive game. In many cases business owners have gone to register a domain name and found that it had been registered years before they every started the company by some group that is in the business of registering domains and then turning around and selling them for exorbitant rates.

A humorous story came from the 2005 municipal election in North Las Vegas, Nevada when one candidate realized that the incumbent mayor had not registered an internet domain name. The incumbent registered the mayor's name dot com and as many variants of it that he could come up with, literally stealing the Mayor's plans for a web site out from under him. The tactic didn't win him the election, but the candidate managed to annoy the mayor quite a bit and still owns the internet domain registration names to this day.

The key to avoiding these sorts of problems lies in early registration of your desired domain name. If you find the one that you want (or a close variant of it), register it immediately. Even if you're not prepared to set up a web site yet or won't be for several years, register the domain right away anyway.

Registering a domain name before being ready to set up its web site will require the domain name being transferred to the servers of your desired host when you are ready to establish the site. Transferring the domain name once you have selected a web host is a very simple process, but does require you to establish the change with both the registration company and the new host. The new host will provide you with the server information that you, in turn, will need to provide to the company with whom you originally registered the domain. There may be a short waiting period (typically 24 to 72 hours) while both servers get the information updated. Once that process is complete, you'll have your domain safely residing on your host's servers and your site (as long as it's been built) will be ready to go.

The internet domain registration and transfer for your business web site is a simple process and can be completed through automated online systems in most cases. Clearly the most important part of this process is the registration of the domain name and this should always be done as soon as possible, even if it is going to be years before you're ready to get the actual web site up and running.

How to get a Website Indexed Fast

2007-06-11T08:54:00.000-07:00

What does getting indexed mean?

The search engines keep a cache of every web page in their index.

In English, this means: The search engines make a copy of every web page they visit and put in their records… ummm, I think that’s what I mean.

When you use a search engine the results list relevant pages to your search, usually ten results per page.

Each result includes a live “link” to the page, and a “cache” or “snap-shot” of the page, recorded the last time the spider visited that page, at some time in the past.

If you wish to get a website indexed, first you must have a website… preferably a real one that you own, not a “free” website a’ la Geocities etc.

It only costs about $8 to register a domain name, and about $5 a month for cheap hosting, while $10 a month will get you very good quality hosting.

To get indexed fast, I recommend you start a blog on your site. This can be with any blog software, but I think that WordPress is the best…

If you get good quality hosting, it will include cPanel and Fantastico scripts. In fantastico scripts are about 50 scripts you can automatically install on your server with one click… and WordPress is one of them. The alternative is to manually install wordpress yourself.

Once you have built the basic barebones website (Main page, ½ a dozen content pages, and a sitemap linking them together, it’s time to get indexed in the search engines.

You can “submit” your site to the search engines if you wish, but that is too slow.

Here’s where the blog comes into play… post articles or messages to your blog on a daily basis, and don’t miss a day for the first few weeks at least. The posts must be interesting, and relevant to your site.

Configure your blog to automaticlly “ping” the blog directories every time you publish a new post.

Here’s what happens… Google, Yahoo, MSN and the other search engines are always looking for fresh content to serve up to their search visitors or clients, and one place they look for fresh content is in blogs. Search engines absolutely love blogs, because they are dynamic — updated on a regular basis by their owners – as apposed to normal website pages which largely remain static – unchanged for months on end.

If you update your blog every day by adding fresh articles or other content, the search engines will notice, and they will soon be visiting your blog every day like clockwork. I include a link to my regular website pages by adding a link to either my homepage or sitemap, in the sidebar (menu) of my blog.

The second best thing Search Engines love after fresh content is “links”… they will literally die for links, and if they find a link anywhere that they’ve not seen before, they make a record of it, then follow to to where ever it may lead… and if the link they find is on your blog, you better make sure it leads to the sitemap of your website. Double check that it does, by clicking on it after you make it.

Yahoo and MSN will list your website pages as soon as they visit them, and will usually index them within a few days. As soon as they are indexed, people can find them in search results.

And that’s how easy it is to get indexed fast.

Set up your Infoproduct as a download to sell off you website

2007-06-11T08:49:00.001-07:00

Almost everywhere you look on the Internet there is advice on what to sell off your website. One of the most common recommendations is “Information."

Yes, Information! Infoproducts: eBooks, eZines, Newsletters, etc, etc. “How to write a best selling eBook.” “Create your own Newsletter.” “Sell your own eBook off your website.” “People crave information.” Fantastic!

What no one ever explains is how you set up your Infoproduct as a download. As far as I am aware, you will probably struggle to find out how to do this anywhere on the web too.

The following information assumes you have a website up and running. If you are selling off your site you will need a “Merchant Account” which will take instantaneous payment, which of course, is necessary before your customer is allowed to download your product.

You will need to coordinate access from your website (the place where the customer decides and takes action to buy your download) to the download link you have created.

This is where your “Merchant Account” will help. For example; PayPal has excellent tools for setting up your pricing and shipping costs and creating “Buy Now” buttons, which buyers click on to take them to the Credit Card/PayPal account holders payment page.

You will be able to set up a link through PayPal’s “Merchant Tools” which brings the buyer to your download link once payment has been approved.

Creating a Download

One of the most efficient and cost effective ways to deliver your Infoproduct is by “Download.” The process is not complicated. All you are doing when you set up a download is directing the purchaser (after they have paid by electronic means) back to your web page with a download link on it.

They click this “Download Now” link and they are invited to save or open the download on their own computer. Your download product is stored in a predetermined file/folder on your own computer.

The best way to do this is to zip up the file to keep it from taking up as much room and then save the zipped file to your web server (your website on the internet).

You can use WinZip (you may already have it) to accomplish this. First you need to download (if you haven't already) a copy of the free (evaluation) version of WinZip. www.winzip.com There are other zip programs but WinZip is probably the most popular.

Before you install, the program will ask you if you want the program to start with WinZip Wizard or WinZip Classic. Choose Classic.

After the programme has been successfully installed, follow these steps:

1. Start WinZip

2. From the menu, choose "File" and then select "New Archive".

3. A window of your hard drive, showing all the contents of your computer, will appear, and you are asked to give the zip file a name. Before you give it a name make sure you pay attention to where (what folder) you are getting ready to save this file in. You'll need to locate it later. I would use “Desktop,” but it could be anywhere on your hard drive. Just remember where.

This is the zipped file you are getting ready to create will contain all the files you want people to be able to download. So it will be the file that is saved to your web server(uploaded to the internet via your site).

So; now navigate to the folder (the place on your hard drive, for example; desktop) where you want the zip file to be saved and name it whatever you want.

Lets say, for example purposes, you have written an eBook so we can call the file ebook. WinZip will attach .zip into the filename automatically, so it will be called ebook.zip Click OK.

4. Next, the window of your hard drive will appear again. At this point you want to locate the file or files you want to zip up and be placed inside the file you just named in step 3.

This is where you choose the file/s you want people to download. Let’s say you have saved your eBook on your “Desktop” (but it could be anywhere on your hard drive). Once you find it, select it and click "Add". If you have more than one file to select, hold down the control key and select all the files and then click Add.

5. You will now be taken back to WinZip’s home window and you should see the file/s you want to zip up in the window.

6. Select the file/s. If you have more than one, just hold down control and click all the files, or, go to “File” and click “Select All.”

7. Once the file/s are selected, go to "Actions" and on the drop down menu click "Make .EXE file".

8. A pop-up menu will come up thanking you and reminding you to register. Just ignore registration request and click OK (you don't have to register).

9. Another pop-up window will appear and ask; "Create a self-extracting zip file from" You will see the name of the zip file that you created in Step 3.

10. Right below that you will see a blank that says "Default 'Unzip To' Folder". This is the name of the folder that the files will automatically extract (unzip) to when people download the files from your site. If that folder does not exist on the person's PC, WinZip will create it for them. Don’t leave it blank, or it will automatically go in their TEMP folder.

It is suggested that you list something here. Try to give it a name similar to the filename so the person will recognize it when they look for the folder on their PC at some stage in the future.

In the example we use here of eBook you could call it “eBook ; followed by whatever you are writing about. ”So if your book is about growing roses, you could call it “eBook Complete Rose Grower.” Click OK.

11. Now the program will ask you if you want to test the file which has just been zipped up. Click "Yes" and WinZip will run through the unzipping process. This is the same process the user that has just downloaded your file/s will see.

12. Next the pop-up box will tell you where the file is unzipping from. This will be the same location you selected in step 3.

13. Select "Unzip" and the program will say; "1 file unzipped successfully" or if you had more than one file it will tell you how many were successfully unzipped.

On your hard drive, there should have been a folder created called "Complete Rose Grower" (or whatever name you chose in Step 10) and the files should be sitting there unzipped.

14. Now you're ready to take the zipped file and upload it to your server so people can download.

15. Go to Windows Explorer and locate the zip file that you created in step 3. So if you named it ebook, you should see a file called ebook.zip. This is the file that contains all of your files inside that people will download. If you want to test it again, just double click on the zip file and WinZip should extract the files to the folder you specified in step 10.

16. Now you need to upload this zip file to the internet. Assuming you have a website from which to sell your eBook, you need to find an FTP program (File Transfer Protocol) to do this.

There are many to choose from. Just do an Internet search for “FTP Program.” When installed the program will help you upload the file/s in effect, onto your site and therefore, the internet.

17. For the purposes of these examples let’s call your domain www.betterebooks.com (Please Note: This is not a real URL; at least it wasn’t at the time of writing!). After you've uploaded the file, you're ready to point people to the link so they can download the zip file.

18. As an example, you uploaded ebook.zip to a folder called “ebooks” and your domain name is "www.betterebooks.com" then the link you will use to point to the download will be something like;
“http://www.betterebooks.com/ebooks/ebook.zip” The WinZip program creates this link automatically.

When buyers click on this link it will immediately start the download process.

19. After they download it the unzipping program will unzip the file to the folder that you specified in step 11 on their hard drive.

So there you have it. Easy! Good Luck and great success.

How To Verify And Monitor Your Search Engine Listing On Google.com?

2007-06-11T08:49:00.000-07:00

Being listed in search engines and ranked high on searches is the overall goal a webmaster is trying to achieve when dealing with search engines. Search engine optimization is probably one of the most commonly used words among webmasters. In the Internet market becoming much more critical to business success this is almost natural.

While the professionals know how to verify search engine rankings and listings, the normal user or startup webmaster might not know how to verify these things. The often just type their domain name into the search engine of choice and are happy if they get a result back that includes their domain name. But there is a little more these startup webmasters should know about.

Every page indexed by a search engine is a possible landing page for visitors to enter the website. As more pages get indexed the higher number of possible entry points to the website. But how can a webmaster verify how many pages are currently in the index of a search engine?

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=site=omainName.com
http://www.google.com/search?q=site=omainName.com

Replace "DomainName.com" with the actual domain name that needs to be verified. A webmaster should also run the following variation to get an impression of what is really out there.

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=site:www.DomainName.com
http://www.google.com/search?q=site:www.DomainName.com

The next thing a webmaster should check is to see how many other websites are linking to his/her website at all. As almost everyone knows nowadays - the higher the number of links pointing to a website (incoming links) as higher the possible search engine ranking on search can be (and we all want that number 1 spot, right?!). The problem is that Google will never show you all incoming links to a website. But even a ball park number can be helpful in finding out if the SEO work of the past paid off. So, how does a webmaster can get this ball park number of incoming links?

http://www.google.com/search?q=link:www.DomainName.com

This command will show the 'ball park' number mentioned above. It will give the webmaster a hint how successful the website is and how many people/websites are linking to it.

By researching the information of how many pages and how many links to/for a website are registered/indexed in a search engine a webmaster can gain important knowledge. This knowledge makes it easier to see what works and what does not work when it comes to search engine success for a website.

How Not To Get Web Design Work

2007-06-11T08:34:00.001-07:00

I get the occasional web design lead from my website. I wanted to find a company I could pass these onto. So I put an ad on a freelance site. It specified the programming qualifications needed, stated that the successful candidate should have good English, and was for companies only.

The replies I got were enlightening. So much so, I made a list of things applicants did wrong. Here it is.

I should point out I was initially prepared to give everyone a fair go. After the first twenty-odd emails, my attitude changed. I was looking for reasons to delete applicants. I only needed one successful one; with 100 replies it was getting to be a headache, so I decided a brutal approach was needed.

1. Failed to read the spec.

Many applicants couldn't write properly in the English language. Many were individuals only. Result: instant deletion.

2. Failed to address the spec's criteria.

Applicants bragged about how great they were. Many copy-and-pasted standard marketing guff about 'solutions' and 'partnerships' into their emails.

To engage anyone's interest about a proposal you need to talk less about yourself and more about the benefits to *them* of using you. One of the first things I learnt about applying for jobs is you need to show how you meet the criteria in the job description; see if you can find the employer's wavelength.

3. Lots of jargon.

You quickly tune this out. Anyone dealing with web companies probably gets a lot of this. Applicants should talk to the client about *the client's* site and *their* needs, and avoid techno-babble.

Write an application letter. Leave it for a while, then edit it. Brutally. Short punchy sentences, no guff. Talking convincingly about how you can make the client money would be an attention-getter.

4a. 'Coming soon' client-listing pages.

You say you've done work for lots of clients, then put up a 'coming soon' sign on the web page where your client list is supposed to be. Hmmmm.

4b. 'Under construction' pages on your company web site.

This looks bad; something you'd see on an amateur's site. Another reason to bin your application.

4c. Only put up pictures of sites you've done, rather than links to the actual sites.

I'd have liked to see some working example sites. Pictures can be faked, and they don't show background programming.

4e. No mention of your main web site URL.

Let us guess where your own site is (if you have one). It's more fun! I tried guessing from the email address. After a while I didn't bother.

4f. No hyperlinks at all.

Just a short email spiel saying "I am great designer, hire me". Next!

5. Using Yahoo.com or Hotmail.com for your email address.

A pro designer shouldn't use a freebie email address service. Basic web hosting costs $5 a month these days.

I can conceive that a web designer might use a freebie account for some special purpose, but your own domain name is a basic advert that goes out in each email you send.

6. Bad spelling and grammar.

Western civilisation is doomed, if using SMS jargon becomes the standard way to write to people. It doesn't impress old frts lik me, fr strtrs :( Especially if you're looking for work where good spelling and grammar are important.

7. Front-loading Flash designs.

I admit it, I don't like Flash. I especially don't like it when it loads slowly on my broadband connection. I suppose it might impress an ignorant client, who doesn't know the economic consequences of having a Flash-heavy site.

8. Don't phone the employer up.

Unless they say 'canvassing will disqualify', 'phoning the employer is a good idea. Why? Because geeks are famously introverted and tongue-tied, supposedly. So if a web site designer can communicate clearly over the telephone, that, coupled with a good application, puts you streets ahead of the email-only applicant.

No need to jabber. A polite enquiry to establish contact will do. "Just checking you've got my CV", that sort of thing.

9. Keep yourself mysterious.

Emails are impersonal. Anything that can establish you as a human being, a person, a potential ally and friend, is good. It'll make you more memorable. No need to jump out of a giant cake, 'though!

However, you have to fulfil all the other criteria as well. However great a guy you are, if you're a Unix man and they want Windows, forget it.

10. Leaving unclear phone messages.

One chap left a phone message, in which he mentioned his site, twice, but not his 'phone number. His pronunciation was bad, so I guess I'll never know how good he was.

11. Too far away.

Most replies were from India, Ukraine, Romania etc. Anyone who was closer to home (the UK) stood out. I mention it simply as a winnowing criterion.

Also, I needed someone who could land contracts from UK residents; good English, written and oral, was important.

12. Give your rates per hour.

Forget that. You're not a lawyer. Web design jobs can be clearly defined, in terms of time, work and software required. A definite price can be agreed on in advance. It's called a contract. Otherwise, you leave the client open to escalating bills, and yourself to mission-creep.

13. Delay applying.

The first few applications were more scrutinised. After that, fatigue set in. After one hundred, only an applicant who seems a real prospect would be given more than five seconds' scrutiny.

Domain Registration: How Many Extension Should You Register

2007-06-11T08:34:00.000-07:00

When it comes to selection of a domain name, people are often inundated with several questions. One of the most important of them is which extension should I choose - dot-com or dot-net or dot-biz?

There are circumstances when you will think it is fit to register more than one extension. This article is aimed at helping you to make the right decision.

A common problem is that people usually type in .com all the time on net and land up on various other sites. This could be troublesome both for the business and the customer.

When you select a domain name, you are always given a list of different extensions to choose from. These extensions can help specify the type of products or services you are offering online or your geographical location.

To begin this article, I am giving some basic definitions of the extensions you can choose from:

* .com signifies "commercial". It is the most well-known extension and preferred by all commercial enterprises. The acute scarcity of unforgettable .com domain names has led to creation of several other extensions.

* .net signifies “network". It is generally used by internet service providers, web hosting companies, or other firms related to network or internet services.

* .org signifies "organization". It is commonly used by non-commercial web sites. But, at present, many businesses register their matching .org extension to their .com domain names.

* .biz signifies “business”. It is used for business web sites. There are more chances of you getting this extension because of its low current penetration.

* .info signifies “information”. It is generally used for information sharing web sites. This too like .biz is gradually growing in popularity and there is more likelihood of you getting it.

Your first aim should be to get a perfect domain name for your business. Once you have done that you should then consider registering other extensions for the same domain name.

It is up to you to decide which extensions are most relevant for your business. It depends a lot on your customer base, range of products/services, and also your brand image.

You should always use domain forwarding service to redirect visitors from your other domains to your primary domain. This is quite essential since visitors may get confused about your web site address and may reach your competitor’s web site. For example, you domain name is home-appliances.net and your potential customers may reach home-appliances.com, which is your competitor.

Prevention is always better than cure. So, instead of buying a rival domain name from someone (at a high cost), it is always preferable to register that domain name yourself (at a low cost).

We find that name protection and greater coverage are the two key forces driving the need for registering more than one domain name. The accessibility of the site increases by registering more than one extension for a domain name.

There are other advantages of multiple domain name registration. It helps in creating a demand for similar domain names due to people realizing that so many domain names are available related to the primary one.

But some observers in the industry have a different viewpoint. They think that having more than one domain extension is very confusing for the visitors to these sites.

In conclusion, I would like to say that your primary target should be .com and thereafter, find out the relevant extensions for your business and try to register them also. I recommend you to register all relevant extensions so as to guarantee maximum coverage and minimum misguided competition.

Domain registration and copyright violation

2007-06-11T08:29:00.000-07:00

One of the most important aspects of choosing a domain name registration is that it should be non-infringing. This is not an easy task since most unique names have already been registered. The number of useful domain names from the marketing point of view have become extremely limited. Several companies now register variations of their trademark names as a preventive measure against infringement. For example, check www.coke.com, www.coca-cola.com, and www.coca-cola.com, or try www.3m.com and www.mmm.com.

All these factors have led to a crisis of domain names and given rise to increasing cases of infringement of domain registration. A number of companies have taken legal action against other companies or individuals over alleged copyright violation on the domain names.

There are some fundamental guidelines and cross-checks for selection of a domain name registration.

You must carefully select some names that are relevant to your business model. You must be able to justify your reason for using the name. Your domain name registration should principally consist of a name you are using as a trade name, trademark or corporate name.

It is better to select more than one name since you are not sure about the availability of the required domain name.

Now, search the website of one of the prominent domain name registrars to check if the required name is available. If the name has already been registered by someone else, the search result will provide you with optional names that are similar to your requirements. For example, for the name "ford", the search result may give you similar names like "aboutford.com" and "fordbusiness.com".

If the domain name that you are looking has already been registered but there is no content being displayed at the domain, try to find out the details of the owner of the domain. It is possible that he/she may be genuine and have yet not published any content.

It is also possible that the owner does not plan to create a web site and is willing to give you the domain at the original price. You must confirm that the seller has ownership rights for that particular domain name.

Choosing a domain name registration that is same as or quite similar to another well-known trademark, may lead to legal action. The regulations governing these issues are dealt by Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

It is very likely that you would lose right of your domain name registration if you have intentionally chosen a name similar to another domain name so as to confuse potential visitors to the site. For example, if your site deals in consumer electronics goods made by a Samsung competitor, do not choose the name "samsungbusiness.com" since a court is most likely to pass a verdict that you selected this name to divert attention of Samsung customers.

There could be others reasons of losing a domain registration. It may be found that you have never carried out any business under that name or there is no person in your company similar to that name. Another reason could be that you intend to sell that domain name to your competitor for financial gain.

If your domain name is same as your name then you may be allowed to continue to use it, inspite of the fact that it is similar to someone else’s domain name. But the usage of such a name is governed by certain conditions set by court. For example, Mr. Suki Nokia, who runs a cosmetics business, may be allowed to use the domain name "nokia.kr" but he would be barred from using his site to demonstrate any electronics-related information or advertising.

It is also possible for you to use a domain name that is similar to another's trademark if your objective is not to criticize the other person’s business.

In the non-cyberworld, two companies may have the same name if they do not conduct a similar business or do not have similar product lines. Roxy Electrical and Roxy Laundry can coexist comfortably. However, in the web world, both Roxies cannot own the "roxy.com" domain name. The laundry Roxy could register under "roxy.laundry" and the electrician under "roxy.electrical."

A very useful tip is to buy all three of the top level domains - .com, .net and .org. You should also buy all possible misspellings of your domain name before anybody else takes advantage of this fact.

You have put a lot of money and energy into building your business and if you are forced to give up the domain name, your business is likely to suffer due to it. So, you need to put your best efforts in choosing a domain registration that is both distinctive and non-infringing.

Web Hosting Providers Rule The Web

2007-06-11T08:26:00.001-07:00

It has been reported there are currently more than a staggering 50,000 web hosting providers all competing for the honour of hosting your website.

Every day dozens of new web hosting compaines are launching and struggling to get your attention and your web hosting business.

Even though the web hosting industry is really quite young, it is certainly one of the most competetive and cut-throat industries on the web today. Yet the growth of this marketplace is assured for the forseeable future.

Now each and every week it is estimated more than 50,000 websites are launched and need to be hosted somewhere online. This figure continues to grow and grow.

In fact the current monthly count for the number of searches at Yahoo for the term 'web hosting' is a whopping 2,149,851. That's right, over 2 million!

Also just recently it was reported that the popularity of blogs was seeing tens of thousands of new blogs launched each and every day. While many of these are hosted freely, the more serious bloggers each require an account with a reliable web hosting provider.

Of course every paid web hosting account usually requires at least one domain name registration. Here are some amazing domain name figures for you:

The registrar holding the largest number of domain names is said to be WildWestDomains. They may be better known to you as Godaddy. They currently hold over an estimated 5 million domain name registrations!

The registrar holding the second largest number of domain names is estimated to be Enom. The registrar holding the third largest number of domain names is estimated to be Networksolutions.

Domain Name Registration Growth:

By far the most popular top level domain is the .com There are currently over an estimated 40 million of these registered.

The .com top level domain currently holds over an estimated 70 percent of the domain name marketplace.

The .net top level domain currently holds just over an estimated 10 percent of the domain name marketplace.

The good news for web hosting and domain name customers is that incredible deals have become available as competition increases among web hosting providers.

In fact the price of web hosting has plumeted to just under $10 per month for a quality service. Domain names that cost up to $35 just a fews years ago can now be bought for as little as $4.99.

This is a winning situation for both the web hosting providers and their customers. The quality of service continues to grow. The new web hosting providers must impress their customers to compete with more established organisations.

There has never been a better time to find a web hosting provider and establish an internet presence of your own.

Expired domain registration still profitable?

2007-06-11T08:26:00.000-07:00

After the dot com crash, expired domain names and expired domain name traffic have been a source of potential income. It is important to inexpensively obtain the automated tools required to track the thousands of domain name registration and abandoned websites that are removed from the domain registry and become available for purchase.

Expired domain registration and the expired domain name traffic associated with them have been only available to those who had an automated system and tools.

Now, automated tools and resources are available for identifying, appraising and even buying these domain names on autopilot.

Expired domain names are those that had previously been registered to another owner. These domain name registration are available to the open market because of non-payment of the domain name renewal fees. Such domain names are returned to the open market about forty-five days after the expiration date.

Many domain names even point to fully functioning websites while many are registered for speculation. These names are registered by speculators in the hope of obtaining a profit on the resale of the domain name.

Numerous other domain names are registered for website development, but do not appear online. In a number of these cases, the domain name owners do not follow through with respect to the website development and allow the domain registration to expire.

However, there are a number of expired domain names with fully functioning websites, receiving daily traffic from the search engines, links and banner ads. The expired domain names that get this daily traffic can earn revenues if these are redirected to another website or marketed with affiliate programs.

Earning Profit from Expired Domain Names & Expired Domain Name Traffic:

1. Buying for speculation - There is now a large and highly profitable market for reselling domain registration at present, and speculators are looking out for developing technologies and trends. Evolution is constantly taking place in technology and trends. There are markets, being watched closely right now, that are expected to grow exponentially within a short span of time. It should be a good idea to locate and register expiring domain registration that are related to new trends, technology and markets in order to earn substantial profits.

2. Buying expiring domain names and redirecting the targeted traffic - Targeted keyword domain names can help to get traffic from those simply typing in keyword rich domain names into the address bar and hitting the enter key.

3. Buying expired domain name registration and putting up generic websites - Using tools like easy website building software, third party payment processors, auto responders and other applications, even a novice could put generic websites online with keyword rich domain names that should appear in the search engine rankings. These websites can be built using expired domain names to drive traffic to them and the domain registration and the developed website could then be sold together with the domain name, as a value added commodity.

4. Buying expiring domain names of websites that are already online – A number of expiring domain names are, actually, already functioning websites. The owners of these websites either did not renew their domain registration for some reason or simply stopped operating the website. In fact, quite often, these websites already have traffic from links to other websites, search engine rankings and even directory listings.

5. Buying expired domain names and using them for marketing affiliate programs - Affiliate programs are a good way to acquire an online business without even having a product. Affiliate marketers redirect traffic from the affiliate website to the website of the actual product or service and charge a commission or a fee when any of the redirected traffic results in sales. Affiliate programs have become an automated turnkey solution for a number of entrepreneurs, especially novices.

One can locate and register expired domain names that closely target the market of the affiliate programs and then draw that targeted traffic into the website with expired keyword rich domain names with content that satisfies the informational needs. Then the users can be led onto the sales page of the product.

Search Engine Optimization History

2007-06-11T08:24:00.000-07:00

Webmasters today spend quite some time optimizing their websites for search engines. Books have been written about search engine optimization and some sort of industry has developed to offer search engine optimization services to potential clients. But where did this all start? How did we end up with the SEO world we live in today (from a webmaster standpoint seen)?

A guy named Alan Emtage, a student at the University of McGill, developed the first search engine for the Internet in 1990. This search engine was called "Archie" and was designed to archive documents available on the Internet at that time. About a year later, Gopher, an alternative search engine to Archie, was developed at the University of Minnesota. These two kinda search engines triggered the birth of what we use as search engines today.

In 1993, Matthew Gray developed very first search engine robot - the World Wide Web Wanderer. However, it took until 1994 that search engines as we know them today were born. Lycos, Yahoo! And Galaxy were started and as you probably - two of those are still around today (2005).

In 1994 some companies started experimenting with the concept of search engine optimization. The emphasis was put solely on the submission process at that time. Within 12 months, the first automated submission software packages were released. Of course it did not take long until the concept of spamming search engines was 'invented'. Some webmasters quickly realized that they could swamp and manipulate search results pages by over-submission of their sites. However - the search engines soon fought back and changed things to prevent this from happen.

Soon, search engine optimizers and the search engines started playing some sort of a "cat and mouse" game. Once a way to manipulate a search engine was discovered by the SE-optimizers they took advantage of this. The search engines subsequently revised and enhanced their ranking algorithms to respond to these strategies. It was clear very soon that mainly a small group of webmasters was abusing the search engine algorithms to gain advantage over the competition. Black Hat search engine optimization was born. The unethical way of manipulating search engine resulted in faster responses from search engines. Search engines are trying to keep the search results clean of SPAM to provide the best service to customers.

The search engine industry quickly realized that SEO (Search Engine Optimization) as an industry would not go away, and in order to maintain useful indexes, they would need to at least accept the industry. Search engines now partially work with the SEO industry but are still very eager to sort out SPAMMERS that are trying to manipulate the results.

When Google.com started to be the search engine of choice for more than 50f the Internet users it was highly visible to anyone in the industry that search engine spamming had reached a new dimension. Google.com was so much more important to the success of a website that many webmasters solely concentrated on optimizing their sites for Google only as the payoff was worth the efforts. Again - Black Hat SEO took place, pushing down the honest webmaster and their sites in search results delivered. Google started fighting back. Several major updates to Google's algorithms forced all webmaster to adapt to new strategies. Black Hat SE-optimizers but suddenly saw something different happening. Instead of just being pushed down in the search results their websites were suddenly completely removed from the search index.

And then there was something called the "Google Sandbox" to show up in discussions. Websites either disappeared into the sandbox or new websites never made it into the index and were considered in the Google Sandbox. The sandbox seemed to be the place where Google would 'park' websites either considered SPAMMY or not to be conform with Google's policies (duplicate websites under different domain names, etc.). The Google Sandbox so far has not been confirmed or denied by Google and many webmasters consider it to be myth.

In late 2004 Google announced to have 8 billion pages/sites in the search index. The gap between Google and the next two competitors (MSN and Yahoo!) seemed to grow. However - in 2005 MSN as well as Yahoo! Started fighting back putting life back into the search engine war. MSN and Yahoo seemed to gain ground in delivering better and cleaner results compared to Google. In July of 2005 Yahoo! Announced to have over 20 billion pages/sites in the search index - leaving Google far behind. No one search engine has won the war yet. The three major search engines however are eagerly fighting for market share and one mistake could change the fortune of a search engine. It will be a rocky ride - but worth watching from the sidelines.

Link Building Strategy

2007-06-11T08:23:00.000-07:00

Website promotion is essential to promote your e-business. Building a website is not enough for carrying on a successful online business. You have to adopt right link building strategy to promote your website in a search engine friendly manner. Search engines consider link popularity as an important factor to determine the ranks of the websites.

A website with quality links is likely to rank among the top ten results of the search engines. The link popularity for every search engine is different from the other. You can find out the link popularity by typing “Link: domain name of the website” in any of the search engine. The compete details of the sites linking to your website will be in front of you.

You can devise an effective link building strategy to raise the link popularity of your website. You can incorporate three types of links for this purpose— internal, external and reciprocal links.

The best possible way to have a good linking plan for your website is to develop a site map. A site map is the plan of the whole website that contains entire links on a website. The links are specified according to the specific details of a topic. They are generally given in a hierarchical manner. The links must be text links containing the keywords related to your website. This makes the search of the search engine for links quite easy.

You can have a quality internal links and can get the pages of your website linked internally. The website is rated as a good quality website, if it has rightly placed internal links. The link building strategy also stresses up on the outgoing links. They make your website user-friendly.

Connecting to the right websites makes your website to access good content. If the content of the sites related to your site is not good or useless, the search engines will not consider such links as useful. The message is clear that you have to stress on the quality of the links rather than the quantity.

The inbound links are the most important for link building strategy. You can get other websites to link to your website by developing good content. According to the experts, content of a website is the primary decisive factor in link building. Others will be interested to link to your website, if and only if, you have a good content on it.

The expert link building strategy is also to build reciprocal links with your competitors. This is beneficial to both the parties of linking. Both of them will provide targeted traffic to each other. This link building strategy is the ultimate mantra for getting quality links and gain good link popularity as the information on both the links will be related to each other.

The accurate link building strategy pushes ahead your target of link popularity, resulting in high search engine ranks.

How To Pick A Web Site Domain Name For Your Company Or Law Firm

2007-06-11T08:16:00.001-07:00

Your web site is located by an IP (Internet Protocol) address such as 67.15.4.94 and is accessible on the Internet by typing http://67.15.4.94. Instead of typing a series of numbers which are difficult to remember, you can register an easier to remember domain name which becomes associated with your IP address. Visitors typing an easy to remember domain name will be pointed to your IP address. Similar to a 1-800 vanity phone number, some domain names pertain to the subject of the web site, while others may simply be the name or an abbreviation of your firm.

Lawyer-Advertising-Blog.com is the primary domain name for my blog, which is instantly obvious that it is a blog concerning lawyer advertising. When you type that domain name into the address bar of your browser, the domain name servers on the Internet know that you're looking for http://67.15.4.94 and take you there. You can have multiple domain names pointing to the same web site. For instance, I also registered LawyerAdvertisingBlog.com (without hyphens) which is used for branding because people never type hyphens. Because some people may remember the name incorrectly, I also registered many other domain names such as AttorneyAdvertisingBlog.com, LawFirmAdvertisingBlog.com and others, all of which will bring the visitor to Lawyer-Advertising-Blog.com.

Tips to help you pick a domain name:

1) Choosing: Choosing a domain name is a lot like choosing a name for your company or law firm. Ideally the name should be consistent with your branding. Determine whether you are branding the name of your company, product or service. Your domain name should be good for branding - short, easy to remember, and has a “ring” to it or creates an image in the mind of the consumer.

2) Trademark: Before registering your domain name, be sure to check the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to make sure that the name has not been trademarked. You can check at www.uspto.gov, click on Search under Trademarks. Assuming that your choice has not been trademarked and you have now registered a non-generic domain name, you may want to protect your name by filing a Trademark or Service mark application.

3) Ownership: When you register a domain name, make sure that you are the registrant of your domain name. Some web site design firms will register your domain name with their name as the registrant. This will give them ownership of your name keeping you hostage. You can easily register your domain name yourself for $8.95 per year at 8.95Domains.com or GoDaddy.com.

4) Hyphens: There have been misunderstandings about whether to use hyphens in a domain name. First of all, the domain name you give out to the public must not have hyphens. The domain name without hyphens is the domain name that everyone will type in the address bar of their Internet browser.

The reason that some people say that you should have a domain name with hyphens is to force the search engines to see keywords in your domain name so that your web site does better in search engine results. The bigger search engines can now see individual words without hyphens, however, smaller search engines may not and even the bigger ones may see a word differently than you want.

Thus, the importance of using a hyphenated domain name has diminished. If you wish to use a hyphenated domain name as I did with Lawyer-Advertising-Blog.com, you should also register the unhyphenated domain name which you will forward to the hyphenated domain name. Use the unhyphenated domain name in print and advertising.

5) Extensions: Domain names are available with various extensions, such as .com, .net, .org and many other extensions. If it's really important to you, you can register domain names in several extensions, however, for most firms only the .com extension is important. If you feel that you need to use .org, you should also register your name in the .com extension.

The .com extension is similar to 1-800 for telephone numbers. Most people automatically dial 1-800 even when they see 1-888. Likewise, most people will type
.com even when they see .net or .org. Additionally, many people including myself simply type in the domain name without http://www. or .com and press "Control, Enter". Pressing "Control, Enter" will type http://www. and .com for you, automatically taking you to a web site with .com.

6) Top Level Domain vs. Sub-Level Domains: A sub level domain is a second level domain under a first level domain name and can look like yourfirm.freehosting.com. You must have your own domain name. Do not under any circumstances use a free hosting service, since free hosting services will only give you a sub level domain. No one will ever remember it and it's sort of like handwriting your own letterhead.

7) Ethics for Law Firm Domain Names: A website name should be used as an address, not a trade name which is prohibited. Advertise your web site name as an address, a means for people to find your web site, not a trade name. Like a vanity telephone number, some web site domain names can violate legal ethics. Make sure that your web site name avoids use of certain words which could create a potentially incorrect expectation in the mind of the consumer or violate one of the other ethics rules.

Your domain name should not imply that you are better than another lawyer or that you can accomplish something that may not actually occur. Use of words such as "BEST", "TOP", "FOREMOST, "LEADING", "WIN" and similar words in a web site domain name could create a misleading expectation in the mind of the consumer and will violate ethics rules in most states.

For instance, LeadingLawyer.com or BestLawyer.com will likely violate lawyer ethics rules by implying that you are a leading lawyer or the best lawyer. The question is by what standards are you leading or the best and in what? WinningLawyer.com or WinningCase.com may be better for a casino, because it will imply that the person who becomes a client of the firm will win money when, that may not happen and even if it does, it's an award for just compensation, not gambling.

Laura Hodes in her article for the ABA Journal entitled Vanity Phone Numbers Make Your Firm Less Forgettable, at http://www.hurt911.org/hurt-911-articles/ABAJournal.htm, quoted Will Hornsby, an expert on lawyer advertising and staff counsel in the ABA Division for Legal Services, who said that while there is nothing unethical about vanity numbers, "1-800-I-WIN-CASES would be unethical because it is making an unsubstantiated claim, creating unjustified expectations that can be true but still be misleading." The same can be said about domain names.

8) Advertising Your Domain Name: Be sure to include your domain name on your business cards, letterhead, and all advertising. When advertising in off-line media, always advertise your domain name with www. and without http://, such as www.LawyerAdvertisingBlog.com. Note that when publishing your domain name on the Internet, you may sometimes want to use http:// to ensure that you create a link back to your web site. When advertising in off-line media, always advertise a domain name without hyphens.

How to Find What You Want with Google

2007-06-11T08:16:00.000-07:00

Most people who search on the internet have a favorite search engine. In fact, the majority of internet users choose Google.

Do you fall into this category? If so, are you taking advantage of everything Google offers?

If an internet search means you go to www.google.com and simply type 2 or 3 words into the search box, hoping to find what you're looking for, you aren't even scratching the surface.

How Can You Get Better Results?

Google is the number one search engine for good reason - their results are generally the most accurate. Even so, there are ways to pinpoint what you're looking for even more effectively.

You have two options when it comes to fine-tuning your searches - you can use the Google Advanced Search screen or you can use "modifiers" in the main Google search.

Option 1: Google Advanced Search

When you go to www.google.com, there is a little "Advanced Search" link to the right of the main search box. If you click on that, you'll get the much more detailed Google search, where you can make very specific requests.

The first four sections, highlighted in blue, are some of the most important. Here you can specify any of the following:

1. All of the words - this will give you results with all of your search words, but not in any particular order. They can also be anywhere on the page.

2. The exact phrase - this will give you results with exactly the phrase you enter. The phrase must appear on the page exactly the way you enter it.

3. At least one of the words - this will show results with any one or more of your search words on the page.

4. Without the words - this will give you results that don't include your search terms at all.

These four sections can be used independently or combined to work together.

For example, you could search for the exact phrase 'free virus software' without the words 'trial' or 'tryout' if you're looking for free virus software but don't want trial versions that will expire after a short time.

As another example, you could use option #3 (at least one of the words) if you're looking for something but don't know exactly how to spell it. Put a few possible spellings in and it will find pages with any one or more of those spellings.

The rest of the sections on the Advanced Search page are pretty self-explanatory. One that I will point out is the Domain option. You can specify a website and either search for something only on that site, or anywhere but that site.

If you've found an interesting website that doesn't have a search function of its own, you can use this to limit Google to searching that site for whatever you're looking for. In fact, the Google search is often better even if the site does have its own search function.

You can also use it to find other references to something you might have read on a particular website. If you search for it and exclude the site you saw it on, you'll find other references to it that you can cross-check.

Option 2: Using Modifiers

Modifiers will let you use all the advanced features without having to go to the Advanced Search page every time. These modifiers can just be entered in the standard Google search box to get the same results as the advanced options.

There are quite a few different modifiers that can be used, but some of the most useful are as follows:

Putting "" around a phrase will search for the exact phrase. Searching for free antivirus software will show you pages with those three words anywhere on the page. Searching for "free antivirus software" shows you pages that contain that exact phrase.

Putting a - before a word is the same as the advanced option "without the words." So, to use the example used earlier, searching for "free virus software" -trial -tryout will show pages with that exact phrase, not including the other two words.

Using site: followed by the domain name of the website you want to search will only return results from that particular website. For example, searching for "virus protection" site:computer-help-squad.com will only return results from the www.computer-help-squad.com website.

Again, these can be combined so -site: will return results from any site except the one you specify.

How to Figure Out the Modifiers

The easiest way to see how to use modifiers in your searches is to try some searches with the Advanced Search page and see how Google formats them.

Using our example again, if you enter 'free antivirus software' in the "with the exact phrase" box and the words 'trial' and 'tryout' in the "without the words" box, the search that Google runs looks like this:

"free virus software" -trial -tryout

If you play around a bit with the advanced searches, you'll see how Google formats them for you. Next time, you can just enter them yourself in the standard search box instead of going to the Advanced Search page.

Once you get the hang of these options in Google, you'll find that your searches get even more accurate because you can filter out the stuff you don't want.

Link Popularity Reports

2007-06-11T08:08:00.000-07:00

As link popularity is one of the most important tools you can adopt to raise your search ranking, you need to take apt steps, from time to time, to stand ahead your competitors. And the one way, you can assure the effectiveness of your link popularity, is by getting your link popularity reports made. But how can you get them made? Link popularity reports can be achieved with the help of certain software and services.

Now to understand why you need to develop link popularity reports, you can continue reading this article further.

The link building reports are important as they make you aware about your link popularity for different search engines. There might be a case where you get the highest link popularity for one search engine but the number is not that good with the other search engines. It would certainly be horrendous for you. So, you should always avoid putting you in any such situation. Thus it is paramount for you to be always alert of your link popularity situation among the top search engines. And by getting link popularity reports made, you would certainly get a complete access to the total information of links on your website.

It is equally important for you to understand the various aspects of link building before you hire any services for getting these reports made for you. The link popularity of a website depends on a number of quality links it has. A website can have in-bound, out-bound or reciprocal links. Out of these, inbound links are the most important ones for the effective link popularity. All the major search engines give you good page ranking according to the high number of inbound links.

Similarly, you can also exchange reciprocal links with the various websites related to your business to raise your link popularity and achieve the targeted traffic. Perhaps, the exchange of links is the best internet marketing tool for quick link building. Moreover it is usually free of any cost.

Whatever links you chose for your link building, the key remains that the links added should be the quality ones. They should be optimized well for attaining the top page rankings among the major search engines.

Even after you have optimized your website aptly, you need to get the links reports made.
For, these link popularity reports would make you aware of all the types of links you are connected to. You can engage a service provider for this job. The service provider will give you complete details of your links. Time-to-time reports will keep you abreast with the latest developments in the cyber world.

Many times your link is added to some other websites without your permission. You are fortunate to get the information about all the websites linking to your website with the help of link popularity reports software. The software confirms the number and domain names of the websites linking to your site.

The market is loaded with some great link popularity reports software for you. The software can be purchased from a number of software stores. You can order it online as well by submitting the online purchase form. In fact the online purchase will also offer you with good discounts along.

Internet is a huge network. If you do not make persistent efforts on your own, you are likely to be lost in this big cyber world. Link popularity reports provide you a great indication of the internet presence of your websites. So do not lag behind and always keep you well-informed.

Set Up Your Own Blog Free

2007-06-11T07:56:00.000-07:00

I've received a lot of email lately from people asking how they can set up their own blogs for family, friends, or business purposes without spending much money or hiring an expensive programmer or web developer.

Well, ask no more because I will now show you exactly how to get your own blog without dipping too far into your own pocket (if at all) and get up and running, even if you don't have your own website, hosting account, or domain name.

You basically get two choices when it comes to setting up a blog: host it yourself, or use a service that hosts the blog for you.

Each one carries advantages based on your level of skill, experience and how many options you want to add to your blog.

If you choose to host your blog on your own website, then you can pick from a number of different options, including MoveableType.org and WordPress.org.

However, if you don't want to host it yourself, you can also go to Yahoo.com, put in the term "free blog" and obtain a long list of services that will host a blog for you, either free of charge or for a fee.

Probably the best-known free blog service resides at Blogger.com

Recently purchased by Google, Blogger boasts thousands of blogs on topics ranging from ecommerce to pet manners.

Blogger enables you to set up a functional blog in about 5 minutes and start posting your thoughts, rants, or family facts with the world.

Log on to http://Spaces.MSN.com and find another free option offered by Microsoft's online service, MSN.

This service makes it a bit easier to share photos than Blogger, which requires a separate software tool called Picasa (also available from Google for free).

MSN's blogger service also seems to appeal more to individuals sharing their thoughts than to businesses trying to scare up new customers or get their links crawled by search engine spiders (another advantage of publishing a blog).

So if you're publishing the family blog, this one might offer more of the user-friendly options you need.

The one drawback to using free services always comes back to the age-old saying, "You get what you pay for!"

These free blog services come with virtually zero customer support, so if you can't figure it out on your own, good luck finding anyone to assist you.

If you don't mind paying $5 a month, you can get a full-featured weblog at TypePad.com that offers a decent level of customer support.

The blogs available here offer many more features than Blogger or MSN, but also require you to understand a bit more about blogging's more advanced features like "trackback links" and "pinging" blog directories to let them know you've updated your blog (so others can come take a look at your new material).

Regardless of whether you choose the free or paid option, using a hosted blogging solution rates best when getting started.

However, once your blog really starts to take off and you find you need more "bells and whistles," you may want to consider upgrading to a more sophisticated blogging solution.

For a free video that explains "trackbacks" and more, check out:

=> http://www.igottatellyou.com/trackback.html

Ten Steps To Grow Website Traffic

2007-06-11T07:54:00.000-07:00

If you own your own website or have a page supplied by a program, growing website traffic will be one of the keys to your success. You need a growing, self-generating stream of website traffic and plenty of it. Preferably free and preferably preconditioned to buy your product of service.

This article provides some ideas for growing website traffic.

(1) Directories
Directories are website listings. The trick is to find a directory which receives huge volumes of website traffic. Start by applying for listings in Yahoo, DMOZ and Looksmart. These are huge portals with significant website traffic. Getting listed isn’t easy but once achieved you will see a significant lift in your website traffic. Look at other directories but make sure they have a good traffic rating (use Alexa).

(2) Traffic Exchanges
Every website you view in a traffic exchange generates credits which are exchanged for views of your site. This website traffic is free and can be generated almost instantly. The more sites you view the more people visit your website and the more your website traffic grows.

(3) Article Writing
One of the most effective methods of generating website traffic. Best of all its free. Magazines, Ezines and Webmasters are always looking for fresh content. Just write an article on any topic which interests you, optimize it for keywords and be sure to include your website URL in the bio line at the bottom of the article. Then submit it to ezine directories on the web. This will generate website traffic and create backlinks to your site, which in turn helps with search engine rankings.

(4) Search Engine Optimization
Making sure your website is search engine friendly will certainly help grow your website traffic. Ensure all the meta and alt tags are completed, optimize the text for your chosen keywords, ensure there is an H1 header, update your robots.txt, update your google sitemap and ensure google is alerted each time you make a change. There are a number of sites which provide a “spider simulation” which shows you what your site looks like to a spider and what you can do to improve its search engine ranking.

(4) Blogs
Ensure your blog is located on your site, that it links to your key pages and that you ping each time your blog is updated. A regularly updated blog will attract readers which in turn builds website traffic.

(5) Forums
Leaving your URL in forums will generate website traffic in two ways. First, people who read your post are likely to click the link to checkout your site. Secondly search engines will generally accept the link a counting towards your link popularity.

(6) Viral Advertising
If you have a message and you tell 10 people and they each tell 10 people and so on, by the time the message goes through 10 levels it has been passed on to a million people.

A similar principle can be used in marketing. If you produced a free report or ebook filled with links back to your site and gave it away, the chances are those you gave it away to would do the same thing. Your links would be spread all over the Internet and your website traffic will grow.

There are also couple of viral websites which successfully use the same principle to grow website traffic. Follow the link in the resource box below to see some examples.

(7) Reciprocal Links
By swapping links, webmasters hope that people will click on their link in other websites thereby generating website traffic. This strategy is one of the very best ways of generating free, targeted website traffic and should be high on your list of priorities. It also is highly rated by search engines

(8) Classifies Ads
Do a search for “classified ads” and you will find many sites, which accept classified advertisements. Make sure you place your ad in a site complimentary to your product. Generally sites at the top of google/yahoo searches will perform better than those lower down. Again make sure the site you are placing your ad on has a high traffic rating or it will not assist with your website traffic.

(9) Pay Per Click Advertising
Programs like Google's Adwords will deliver pre-qualified targeted website traffic to your site. I have found this to be an excellent way of delivering high converting website traffic.

(10) Expired Domain Names
Some expired domain names are still receiving traffic. If you are lucky you can pick one up quite cheaply. These can provide a very cheap source of long-term website traffic.

The greater your website traffic the closer you will come to your goals. I hope this article will help you grow your website traffic and reach those goals.

Choosing The Blog Software That’s Right For You

2007-06-11T07:51:00.000-07:00

If you’ve been hearing all the buzz about blogging and want to know what it is and how to get started, this article is for you. Here we will discuss what blogging is, what blog software you’ll need, and what you can do with it.

What’s a blog?

A weblog – blog for short – is a type of website. Blogs are unique from other static website in that they are usually updated often. The main page of the site usually contains the most recent post or posts of the author or authors of the website. Also, blogs often also allow readers to post their comments directly to the site.

All of the factors work together to make blogs a very popular form of website creation, and online community building. If you’d like to try your hand at blogging, here’s how to get started.

First, decided on the topic of your blog. Maybe you want to keep a diary of your daily life for your friends and family. If there’s a topic that you are interested in, say, politics for
example, blogs are a great way to discuss and share your interests and comments on current topics related to your interests.

Once you’ve decided on the topic of your blog, you’ll want to choose a blog software program. The great thing is, some of the best programs and blog services are free!

Many blogging services are based online, such as blogger.com. Just visit these sites and register with them – many will give you free webspace and allow you to start blogging immediately.

If you want to register your own domain name and run your blog on your own server, you will need to install server side blog software. Not to fear, many webhosts come with an automatic installer called fantastico that will make getting your site up and running quick and easy.

Some of the more popular free blogging software programs are Wordpress and B2Evolution. Doing a search for any of these will get you the free downloads if they are not available through your webhost.

Blogs can be useful for building many types of websites. Examples include, corporate sights for keeping employees and customers up-to-date, travel diaries, niche websites on
specific topics, interactive community websites, and more. The ease of posting and editing your blog website online makes blog software useful for many purposes.

7 Steps To Effectively Take Control Of Your Inbox And Reduce Spam

2007-06-11T07:44:00.000-07:00

Everbody hates spam! I am sure spammers hate getting spam too, but they still continue to dish it out. Why? Because it is still effective. Believe it or not, many of us still click on the links or follow-up with the spam message. As long as we continue to do this, spam will exist. If everybody understood this and paid no attention to spam, the spammers will eventually give up because it costs them realy money to send out emails. It is hard to quantify what the cost of sending out one, two or fifty emails is, but 1 million or 5 million emails certainly has a cost that is not negligible. When the payback starts to get so small that the spammers cannot make a decent living, they will find something else to do. This day will come and I cannot wait for it to arrive.

In the meantime, what can we do about it. Well, I am not going to tell you that there is a perfect solution that will stop all spam, but what I will tell you is that there is a way to reduce the problem and manage it effectively using the 7 steps outlined below.

Step #1: Get Your Own Domain Name

Fighting spam effectively starts with getting your own domain name. For example if your name is Andy Williams, you would purchase a domain name called andywilliams.com, which is of course already owned by the famous singer. This has some unique advantages over using an ISP given domain name or a webmail service such as Hotmail or Gmail. It also has some minor disadvantages. Let's examine these.

One major advantage is that you control the entire email address. You could create emails addresses like andy@andywilliams.com, info@andywilliams.com, sales@andywilliams.com and so on. This is in stark contract to an ISP assigned name like andywilliams@comcast.net. If you wanted another one, you'd have to open up another account or pay extra for each additional ISP assigned address. If you ever decided to switch ISP's, you would lose that email address and have to start over using a new one, and inform everyone you communicated with about it - a very messy proposition.

Many get around this problem by getting a Hotmail, Yahoo Mail or Gmail account which you can access from anywhere as long as you have internet access. These types of email accounts definitely have a place in your email toolchest, but do not suffice as your primary personal email address. One reason is that you do not have access to your email messages and address books when you are not online, like during a long flight. Anotehr drawback is that they do not allow you to export the online address books making portability very tedious.

I prefer owning my own domain name which I call my permanent email address. I will always have this email address as long as I renew this domain name every year. The cost of registering a domain name varies from $4 to $8 per year for most common ones. This is a small price to pay for the advantages it brings you.

The one minor disadvantage of owning your own domain name is that you need to manage it yourself, or have someone do it for you. This in my opinion is far outweighed by the advantages mentioned above.

Step #2: Create Private Email Adresses

A private email address is one that nobody but your inner circle knows about. Every person that you give your personal email address to is someone that you trust and want to receive email from.

Setup one private email address for every person who is going to need to receive messages. This could be you and 5 other members of your family or 12 employees that work for you. This part is quite straightforward, you simply login to your email control panel and create new accounts for each email address that is going to be used to receive email.

Step #3: Create Public Email Addresses As Aliases

A public email address is generally known to the public. It can be specific like andyw@andywilliams.com or generic like receptionist@andywilliams.com.

A public email address is created as an email alias. An email alias is not a real email address, but an address that gets redirected to a real email address. For example, you setup receptionist@andywilliams.com as an alias that redirects to mary@andywilliams.com. Whenever some sends an email to receptionist@andywilliams.com, it will end up in Mary's inbox. If you change receptionists, you simple modify the redirect for a very elegant solution. You can then publish this public email address on a website, in a brochure, on print advertising, business cards etc. without giving away your personal email address and without having to make much changes if Mary leaves and a new receptionist is hired. This is a huge benefit and maintains your privacy as well as those of others you have created email adresses for.

How does this help with spam, you ask? By using email aliases in a smart fashion, you could very easily shut down any spam that starts coming in. Let's examine how this can be done.

Step #4: Setup the Default or Catch-all Email Address

Your email control panel will have something called a "default address" or it is also sometimes called a "catch-all address". This is a valid email address that all unresolved emails go to. If you set this up to be your personal email address for example, then you will receive all emails that are addressed to "anything"@andywilliams.com, this includes sales@andywilliams.com, joe@andywilliams.com, andrew@andywilliams.com etc. Herein lies the secret to combat spam.

Step #5: Create Specific Named Public Email Addresses As And When Required

When you are forced to register on a website where you want to get some information from, you are usually asked for a valid email address. Well guess what, you now have an unlimited supply of valid email adresses. I usually use a specific format when registering at websites - it is "websitename"@andywilliams.com. So if I am registering at a website called www.get-rich-quick.com, I would use the address get-rich-quick@andywilliams.com as my valid email address. When the site sends me an email, it gets redirected to my personal email or whatever the default or catch-all address is.

Step #6: Send Spam Back To Where It Came From, If Possible

Here comes the real bonus, if you subsequently start receiving spam addressed to none other than get-rich-quick@andywilliams.com, you simple create an email alias for get-rich-quick@andywilliams.com and redirect the email back to exactly where it came from, for example georg-bush@get-rick-quick.com. You will then never get another email from anyone using that email address ever again. This is cool and is my favourite part. Bear in mind that spammers usually send email from an address that is not their own, so if you see an address like noreply@get-rick-quick.com, then you would redirect it somewhere else, for example a Hotmail address that you setup just for redirection purposes. Please exercise some discretion here because spammers often use the email addresses of real people and we don't want these innocent people getting redirected email.

Step #7: Be Diligent In The Ongoing Management Of Your Domain

If you do this diligently for each website where you register by identifying the website name, you will very quickly know which websites are selling email addresses and which ones honor their promise not to share your information. ALl this while, nobody by your personal inner circle knows your private email address.

A real-life example in my case: I use a specific email alias for my Paypal account which nobody but Paypal knows. I have never ever received spam on this address, but I have received hundreds of spam messages on other email aliases that I have created. All of these emails supposedly come from Paypal and address me as "Dear Valued Paypal Member" or something similar, warning me that my account is going to be closed or suspended unless I click on their link and update my credit card information.

I hope that I have given you some food for thought on how to manage the ever growing spam problem by protecting yourself by taking some initiative and getting your own domain name. The added benefit is that you now have a permanent email address no matter where you choose to live or which ISP you use to connect to the internet.

There are many other ways to fight spam which I will perhaps address future articles.

The Money Keyword List - Superchrage Your Website’s Earning Power! - Part 2 Of 2

2007-06-11T07:43:00.000-07:00

Many webmasters are not making money or want to make money with Google AdSense. The problem is that some of them don’t know the keywords to use in their websites. It’s become necessary that those of us in the know share this key information with them to cut down their frustration. It should also help those webmasters boost their income.

Below are the keyword list I use when I build my AdSense websites. I call it “My Money Keyword List”. They pay from $1.00 to $100.00 per click. Can you feel the power in this list? The list is in alphabetical order. A few keywords may drop in and out of the list from time to time, but 99.9f them stay on the list.

In the interest of saving space and not make this a very long document, I’m presenting this list in 2 parts. This is part 2 of 2 of the list.

Drum roll please-----:-)

81. Online Poker Game
82. Online Poker Room
83. Online Trading
84. Online Video Poker
85. Pacific Poker
86. Party Poker
87. Pay Day Loans
88. Pay Per Click
89. Personal Domain Name
90. Personal Injury Attorney
91. Play Poker Online
92. Poker
93. Poker Blackjack
94. Poker Chip
95. Poker Download
96. Poker Game
97. Poker Game Online
98. Poker Online
99. Poker Room
100. Poker Rule
101. Poker Site
102. Poker Table
103. Private Jets
104. Quick Book
105. Reduce Debt
106. Refinance
107. Refinance Home Loan
108. Refinance Mortgage
109. Refinance Mortgage Loan
110. Refinance Quotes
111. Register Domain
112. Rehab
113. Rewards Cards
114. Royal Vagas Casino
115. Rule Of Poker
116. Satellite
117. Slot Gamble
118. Slot Machine Picture
119. Spam Filter
120. Spyware
121. Structured Settlements
122. Stud Poker
123. Taxes
124. Teeth Whitening
125. Term Life
126. Texas Holden
127. Texas Holden Software
128. Texas Holden Tip
129. Texas Poker
130. The Poker Club
131. The Poker Forum
132. Three Card Poker
133. Tip Poker
134. Tournament Poker
135. Tramadol
136. Trans Union
137. Transfer Money
138. Travel Insurance
139. True Poker
140. Ultimate Bet
141. University Degrees Online
142. Video Conferencing
143. Vioxx
144. Viop
145. Wagering
146. Web Host
147. Web Poker
148. Weight Loss
149. Wild Poker
150. Win At Poker
151. Windstar Cruise
152. Work At Home
153. World Championship Poker
154. World Poker Championship
155. World Poker Tour
156. World Series Of Poker
157. World Series Poker
158. Wrongful Death
159. Yellow Page Advertising
160. Zero Roulette

You can get part 1 at my website: http://www.extra-income-ideas.com/articles.html or my AdSense Money E-Book: http://www.bye925.com/adm

Search Engines - Buying Keywords - Inside Story

2007-06-11T07:41:00.000-07:00

Buying Your Keywords to appear in Browser Address Search Bars –

It seems like about two or three times per month we get a phone call that extol a 'sure-fire' way to drive key word directed traffic to your law firm's website. At first blush the pitch sounds very appealing: You can purchase keywords so that when someone types that specific keyword into their Internet browser they will be taken direct to your website.

Like many such scams, it takes further investigation to get the real facts. There are several variations of these plans and they all sound like you would be passing up a terrific opportunity if you do not immediately sign up to ‘own’ your important keywords.

After some in depth questioning, the real story can be summarized by the cliché “If it seems too good to be true, it often is. Like most scams, this one is based on a kernel of truth, embellished by the omission of material facts.

Here is what we found out:

One plan only works if the keyword is typed into the browsers address bar, not a search bar. The address bar is where the name of your website appears like

http://www.your-site-here.com. Most people do not type search phrases into this bar. Plus, in order to work, the person must have downloaded a program that replaces or modifies their Internet browser. This is the real key to this plan. These program modifiers are usually downloaded without the full knowledge of the public. Many times they believe they are installing an enhancement that will add some minor function to their browser at no cost.

In reality, they are being misled as to the real purpose of the program.

The other version of these ‘purchase your keywords’ programs is similar to the above plan, but has the search box of the Internet browser modified to redirect the searcher to the paid-for websites.

With both variations, the key to their operation is that they only work with a modified Internet browser. Many times, such software is known as spyware and piggybacked on some freeware
program to mislead the public into installing the software.

This raises some important questions. Do you want to participate in such a misleading program?

Also, the key to the potential success of such plans is the installed base of the modified browsers. Here is where you will hear all types of claims as to the installed base. However, judging from the comments on various Webmaster forums, it seems that this installed base is too small to be cost effective.

Just for fun, on the last two of these solicitation calls, I pretended to be interested. (One was in reference to a San Diego real estate site and the other was a Houston legal website where we are the Webmasters.)

I asked the caller about their installed base of rigged browsers. Needless to say, I received extraordinarily high figures. They tried to get me to sign up immediately, because the keywords I could get now might be purchased at any moment by others. When I asked them to please email or fax over some verifiable information on the numbers, I received assurances the information would be sent shortly. Surprise, surprise, no information was ever sent! The same scenario was duplicated when I requested a list of a few local attorneys who were using the service for at least six months.

Also, with many free programs designed to find and remove such spyware, upgrading of systems and computers, it is debatable whether this installed base will be increasing or
decreasing. Will your investment create a profitable return?

Again, based on Webmaster forums, it seems to be the consensus that you will get more visitors to your website by sliding your business card under the windshield wipers of cars in a supermarket parking lot.

Sex, ICANN, and Your Domain Name

2007-06-11T07:32:00.001-07:00

It's your domain, or so you say. One morning, you wake up to find that it's registered in someone else's name.

Can you prove it's yours? Can you get it back?

The sex.com story

One morning, Gary Kremen woke up to find that the domain name sex.com, which he'd registered in 1994, had changed hands and was registered to ex-convict Stephen Michael Cohen. In 1995, Cohen had allegedly written a fake letter with a forged signature to Network Solutions, the registrar. He stated in that letter that control of sex.com was to be turned over to him.

In 2000, the court found the letter to be fraudulent and ruled that sex.com was to be returned to Kremen. Cohen was ordered to pay $65 million in punitive damages and for lost revenue. He never paid it, however, fleeing the US instead.

The story continued with charges against Network Solutions for mismanagement of sex.com. A lower court ruled in 2000 that Network Solutions was not accountable for its negligence in handling the domain. A domain name was not tangible property, according to the judge. In 2003, the US Appeals Court ruled that Kremen did have property rights to the domain. The following year, Kremen reached a settlement with VeriSign, the owner of Network Solutions. While the amount was undisclosed, it was rumored to be over $15 million.

Domains and ICANN

It's doubtful that any other domain has the value of sex.com. Our domains are valuable to us, though, and we want them to be protected. If they are stolen, we don't want to spend years fighting to get them back.

ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) was created in 1998 to help manage domain names, among other responsibilities. At the ICANN website, we read that ICANN "…is dedicated to preserving the operational stability of the Internet…and to developing policy appropriate to its mission…."

Developed in 2004, ICANN's Registrar Transfer Dispute Resolution Policy (TDRP) provides detailed steps for registrars to follow if a domain transfer is disputed. Registrars aren't obligated to follow this policy, and it doesn't guarantee resolution to domain transfer disputes. However, it provides a suggested policy for registrars to help reach resolutions when domain disputes arise.

Domain theft and ICANN

What should you do if you discover that someone has hijacked your domain name?

First, contact the registrar where you had the domain registered. With evidence that you didn't authorize the domain to be transferred to another person, that registrar should take the necessary steps to try to return the domain to you.

Unfortunately, some registrars aren't inclined to make the effort to do this, particularly (but not necessarily) those with a lower profit margin per domain.

If the registrar for your domain won't take action on your behalf, go to the gaining registrar with your case. This registrar; the one where your domain is now registered; may or may not want to look into the situation, but you can try your luck with it.

According to ICANN's TDRP, registrars should "… first of all attempt to resolve the problem among the Registrars involved in the dispute…." If they aren't successful, they should then file a dispute with ICANN.

In this ICANN April 2005 report, the suggestion was made (on page 5) to make the dispute resolution process accessible to registrants. At this time, though, if neither registrar will work to help you or will take the issue to ICANN, the ICANN dispute resolution process isn't available to you.

Although ICANN's Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy is intended for disputes over trademarked domains, some registrants have used it to try to get hijacked domains back. You can file a complaint via one of ICANN's Approved Providers for Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy.

Domains and the courts

The legal route that sex.com registrant Gary Kremen took is open to you as well. Look for a lawyer in the country of the domain registrar who has experience handling domain name disputes.

At this point, you need to weigh the value of your domain with the costs involved in getting it back. The value of sex.com made the legal battle financially worthwhile for Kremen, but many of us would have to stop at this point.

Protecting your domain

Nothing you can do can guarantee that your domain won't be hijacked. However, you can take a number of precautions to greatly reduce the chances of it happening.

Are Free Domain Names Worth The Cost?

2007-06-11T07:32:00.000-07:00

Everyone likes a bargain. It's even wise to keep one's costs down. On the other hand, you can be so cheap that you cut your own throat.

Here are two ways to register a domain name for free and some reasons why you might not want to.

1. You Must Have Your Own Top Level Domain (TLD) Name

Your business website should definitely have its own top level domain (TLD) name. This means a name like yourcompany.com. It doesn't mean a subdomain of someone else's domain name, such as yourcompany.someisp.net.

Sometimes persons hesitate to register a proper domain name because of cost, lack of knowledge, or indecision. However, paying the nominal fee charged by the domain registrar for your own domain name can reap rich dividends.

A Uniform Resource Locator (URL) or Internet address like (ignoring the http part) someisp.net/hosting-accounts/yourco/, or yourcompany.someisp.net, just doesn't look as professional as yourcompany.com. It might be free (as in included with your web space) but it just doesn't cut it.

Consider: If you put your URL on your letterheads, business cards, signs, et cetera, which Internet address looks more professional?

If you mention your URL on your radio advertising or to a customer over the phone, which one will be easier to remember?

As well, what if your web host goes out of business or you decide that you want to change to another provider. Now, you need to notify everyone that you have now changed to yourcompany.someotherisp.net. You will also need to change all your stationery, signs, and advertising to reflect the change.

On the other hand, the domain name yourcompany.com, could be transferred from one web host to another simply by informing your domain name registrar of the change.

So, to avoid losing business and incurring unnecessary additional costs, be sure you have your own top level domain name.

2. Should You Get a Free Top Level Domain?

It is possible to get a free top level domain from Dot TK (@www.dot.tk). (You may also get paid dot tk (.tk) domains from them.) However, there can be disadvantages to using a free top level domain name.

Here are some of the restrictions noted on the Dot TK website.

You may register no more than three free domain names.

The ownership of the free domain remains with Dot TK. This means that you can't sell it. (Of course, if you pay for the domain you do own it and can transfer it to a new owner.)

Also, if you don't have 25 visitors come to your home page within a ninety day period, your free domain name registration is cancelled.

You need to have existing web content somewhere so that your dot tk name can be forwarded to it.

There may well be other disadvantages.

Apparently, Dot TK uses frames to show your website. This being the case, you may have issues with navigation (bookmarking or finding specific pages) and search engine friendliness.

Therefore, for serious business use, consider carefully the true cost of free domain names.

Why Hide Your IP Address?

2007-06-11T07:27:00.001-07:00

Hiding your IP address is the best way for surfing the net anonymously. IP address is the Internet protocol address. This is the unique address of a computer on the Internet. The IP address consists of four numbers divided by periods. These numbers indicate the domain, the subnetwork, the network and the host computer. Each IP address mostly has an equivalent domain name address, spelled with four letters. It is very important to hide your IP address online. Hiding your IP address online ensures that your personal information is not leaked out to the outsiders.

By installing software in your PC, you can hide your IP address. Anonymous surfing of the web will enable you to safeguard your Internet privacy. There is nothing illegal in hiding your IP address, for the proper reasons. If you have any doubt regarding this you can always consult your legal advisor. The legal advisor can guide you about the matter.

An IP address changer can help you change your IP address when you are surfing online. The tools of IP address changer will let you change your IP address anytime by routing your Internet traffic through an overseas server. The tool has drop down box that enables the user to choose an IP address from one of the countries mentioned in the box. Hiding your IP address is the best option to protect your self from any kind of fraud.

Hiding your IP address also enables you to protect your computer from spyware. Spyware is the software that monitors the activities of the user of a computer. Some webmasters and software producers offer free downloads for your computer. Most of the free downloads are embedded with spyware. After you complete the download, the spyware gets installed in your computer and your activities can be monitored.

Hiding your IP address also gives you freedom from the constantly bombarding pop up ads in your computer. Whenever you enter a website, you will be flooded by the pop up ads. Constant flooding of the pop up ads in the computer can be very irritating and disturbing for the user. The efficiency of the computer also gets diminished due to this. Your computer can stop functioning when you have an urgent piece of work to do. Hiding your IP address will protect you from such situation.

The main advantage of hiding your IP address is that you are protected from any website that wants to monitor your online habits and activities. Hiding the IP address also makes sure that you do not receive any junk or bulk emails in your inbox. Good software for hiding your IP address will keep your computer safe from the hackers. If the software has the ability to support frequent IP address change, the chances of protecting your privacy increases.

You can also use the web-based email to send anonymous email to people. This can sometimes be necessary for your work. Your IP address is meant for your personal use and nobody has the right to misuse this without your permission.

Use A Spam Filtering Tool To Manage Spam And Save Hours Everyday

2007-06-11T07:27:00.000-07:00

For most of us, changing our primary email address to get rid of spam is not really an option. This is because our email addresses are known and used by many of our contacts and may also be printed on business cards and other material. We certainly don't move to a different residence because of some junk mail in our letter boxes. Luckily, there are some very effective ways to combat spam and one such was is using a Spam filtering tool.

The particular tool that I am referring to is called MailWasher. It is a tool that I cannot do without. I've been using it for about 2 years now and my running totals shows that 72% of emails received are automatically deleted by Mailwasher. For more product information on Mailwasher, please visit: www.BSDRegister.com/products/mailwasher

Mailwasher is a piece of software that works at the source i.e. it connects directly to your inbox on the server and takes care of emails there. This is very different to using email filters in your email software for example Outlook or Thunderbird. The major difference is that Mailwasher wipes out emails on the email server so that you never have to download them. Having a filter in Outlook would mean that the email has to first be downloaded onto your computer and then examined and dealt with accordingly. For those messages spreading viruses, this could well pose a threat.

Mailwasher is easy to setup and takes a few minutes. There is a 30-day free trial of the software so that you can have ample time to decide if it is working for you. Initially, I started setting up my own spam filters and was having some success, but then I stumbled upon a link on the company's website that pointed to a link where an avid user was offering his filters for free. I downloaded those and installed them and have never look back. The amount of spam that was identified started to steadily increase until the 72% level that it is at today. This means that on average, 3 of every 10 eamils I receive are legitimate and are allowed through by Mailwasher. The rest are deleted at the source and I don't have to spend time downloading them. This is a big deal if you are using dialup access to the Internet.

There are many controls within the software. You can specify emails be deleted automatically without your knowledge or you could have the program mark them for deletion but let you glance at them just in case. This is useful initially until you get a good feel for it. There are many other options that fall in between these. The good thing is that they are all on one screen.

There is a concept of a blacklist and a whitelist. You can import all of your address book from Outlook with a couple of clicks and from other email programs as well. These go into what is called a whitelist. Mailwasher will allow all emails through that are on the whitelist. It will mark or automatically delete all those that are on the blacklist. Adding or removing someone from either list is a very simple point and click exercise.

Mailwasher also allows the setting up of legitimate filters. These are methods of specifying an email as legitimate. For example, if you identify all emails coming from your company domain name as being legitimate, then all messages from your coworkers will be allowed through without you having to specify each person. This is achieved using a wildcard setting such as "*@youworkdomain.com". This can also be used to blacklist an entire domain such that all messages are immediately marked for deletion or automatically deleted depending on your settings.

MailWasher is an independent program and does not interfere with your email software. It sits in the system tray and does its work diligently. In my case, it checks my inbox every 10 minutes and does a cleanout. I have my email software setup to only retrieve messages when I instruct it to so that MailWasher has the most opportunity to do it's work.

Mailwasher also has more advanced controls, one of them being something known as "Origin of Spam". There are servers on the internet which list known spam addresses. When you receive a message from one of these addresses, it is automatically marked as spam and deleted without your filters even being invoked. This is a remarkable system and comes free with MailWasher. A whopping 14% of emails that I get are identified in this manner and automatically deleted.

MailWasher is an indispensable tool in my email arsenal. If spam is a problem for you, it could do likewise for you. Download your free trial today and use it for 30 days. If you like it, you only pay $37 which in my book is a small price to pay for so much time saved everyday.

About the author:
Balraj Dhaliwal is an Internet Consultant for BSD Register, a well respected and liked domain and hosting provider because of its no nonsense simple approach to getting things done. Visit BSD Register at http://www.BSDRegister.com

Setting up a Web Server - The Most Important Step to Hosting your Website from Home

2007-06-11T07:25:00.001-07:00

You might be trying to decide whether you want to host your website yourself rather than pay a hosting company. Maybe you just want to learn how it is done, or you want to save some money by doing it yourself. In this article I'll discuss the most important part of hosting your website from home, the web server.

The word "server" sounds scary and because of this many people think only a professional hosting company can host a website. This is not true. A server is nothing more than software that runs in the background listening to requests from "clients." The client in our case is an internet browser, like Internet Explorer.

How do you get a web server? Most Windows operating sytems come with a web server that just needs to be installed. There are also web servers than can be downloaded for free, like Apache. I'm not going to go over how to do this. In this article I'll discuss the concepts and what's needed to get your web server up and running and serving your site to the public after it's been installed. Every web server is different but the concepts are the same. By
going over the general concepts that are true for any web server, you'll know what to look for regardless of the software you are using.

Like I mentioned before, a server is just software that runs in the background. A web server is a server that listens to requests from internet browsers for a specific page, finds that page in the computer it is running on and then sends it to the browser that requested it. Keeping this in mind, can you believe there are actually just two things you need to do to have your web server configured?

1) Tell your web server where to find your web site. Your website probably consists of multiple pages. You need to tell the web server the path of the folder where you keep
your pages. For example, when someone types www.yourdomain.com/main.html, the server will look in the folder where all your pages live, and look for file main.html.

2) Tell your web server about your default page. This is the page that is displayed when someone types www.yourdomain.com in their browser without specifying a page. The web server already has some default page names like "index.html" so if you have a page with this name
it will be displayed by default when no document is specified in the request. You may also add some more default file names to your web server. If you don't want to name your file "index.html" you can tell your web server that your default page's name is "mainpage.htm."

This is basically all there is to configuring your web server. Actually, there is more, but these two steps will allow your web server to start serving your website. Of course, there is also more to hosting your website from home, like getting a domain name, dealing with your router if you have one, but these topics are beyond the scope of this article. I hope I've convinced you of how easy it is to set up a web server, which happens to be the most important step to hosting your website from home.

Web Hosting Basics

2007-06-11T07:25:00.000-07:00

If you have decided you or your company is in need of a website, you will have to purchase web hosting services from a hosting company. There are many different web-hosting companies to choose from, and they can easily be found on the internet. If you do a quick search for them in any search engine, you will find that there are almost too many to count. Choosing the company that is right for you can be a harrowing experience, but there are really only a few basic things to consider.

The first factor to consider when choosing a web hosting company is how much space they will give you for your account. If you merely want a single page on the Internet with little or no graphics, you can get by with purchasing an account with the smallest amount of space available. However, if you are planning to create a full e-commerce site with multiple pages and order forms, you will need to make sure you have enough server space to support your entire operation.

Before you sign your web-hosting contract, you will first have to choose and purchase a domain name. Though many of the names you might want are already taken, you can often find one that suits your needs, especially if you get creative with it. For instance, if your business is called Cards For You and that domain name is already taken, you might consider choosing More Cards For You or Cards For You Today. The possibilities are endless, and with a little thought you will be able to think of a snappy domain name.

You can often purchase a domain name through your web hosting company, or you can purchase it through a private domain name retailer. These companies are very easy to find. Often times, if you type the domain name you want into a search engine, a domain name seller will pop up if the name is not already taken. You can purchase a domain name for a year at a time, or for several years, depending on how much you want to invest at the get-go.

Once you have a domain name, you will of course have to create a website to put on the Internet. There are many do-it-yourself web design programs that are fairly user friendly. Software like FrontPage makes web design a cut and paste, fill in the blank soft of affair. However, if you would like a more professional look, you can use programs like Dreamweaver or Image Ready to make your sites. There are always freelance web designers looking for work who are ready to take on your cause if you are not savvy enough to do it yourself.

Web hosting companies give passwords to allow you access your space on their servers. You can upload files and pages using their own interface programs, or you can utilize the upload tools built in to your web design program. Once you upload a page, it is important to make sure it looks correct on a variety of different web browsers. Because each browser interprets information differently, you may run into trouble if you build a site while only previewing it in Internet Explorer. There are often compatibility issues between Safari and Mozilla browsers that distort site tables and images.

However, once you work out the kinks and create an excellent site, all you have to do is pay your web hosting bills, and your site will be available for the whole world to see. Web hosting companies usually offer options regarding payment plans. You can pay for a year at a time, or you can monthly or quarterly to maintain your place on the World Wide Web.

Email Etiquette – More Than Just Manners

2007-06-11T07:21:00.002-07:00

We all understand the importance of good “people skills” when it comes to our interpersonal communication – it helps us get the results we need. Our communication determines the opinion others have of us – knowledgeable or ignorant, pleasant or rude, professional or immature. Most of the time this is in face-to-face or telephone conversations where we have some control over the impression we make on others.

When it comes to netiquette (Network Etiquette), it’s not as easy to control how others perceive us, and yet it’s even more important. Why? Because what you write and how you use email can affect whether your email gets delivered, read, or responded to – and what that response is! In addition, there are numerous “technology traps” that are easy to fall into. Have you ever seen someone accidentally send an angry or sensitive response to a huge group of people by using the ”Reply All” key?

And before you say to yourself "I already know" and stop reading this article, realize that every single one of us could benefit from a few simple reminders on the proper use of email, not just from a personal view but also from a business standpoint. If you're doing business on the internet – and using email to communicate with your customers – then this article is a must read for you! You may already know many of these tips, but even the most experienced user will find a few rules you were not aware of or have fallen into the habit of breaking.

Think, write, and think again.
Email is a static, one-way channel – unlike live communication, there’s no way to get immediate feedback (from facial expressions or voice responses) to know if we are being effective or even understood. So think twice before hitting the send key. Is there ANY chance that the recipient might misinterpret what you want them to understand? Do your thoughts come across as abrupt or angry? Could this email accidentally affect your reputation? The hastily written word may lack feelings and the true emotion you intended. You might be smiling as you type, but your note could come across as sarcastic or mean-spirited. Remember – there’s a person on the other end, not just a computer.

Use a meaningful subject line.
This is the first thing your reader will see, so use the space to help them understand the contents of the email even before they open it. Using the same rule from above, type in a subject that relates to the message you're sending, rather than leaving the subject blank. Without a subject line your note will probably be seen as another piece of junk mail – not everyone will recognize who you are just from your email address. Many internet service providers (ISP’s) filter out suspicious looking email, and a blank subject is a big red flag. Also, try to avoid generic words like "Hi" or "Check This Out" to avoid having the recipients spam or virus software delete your message!

The beginning, and the end.
Always use a salutation, even if it’s short. Start your message with "Hi", or "Hello", or "Dear", whatever works best for the intended recipient, and whatever reflects your personality. Think about this: when you call someone on the telephone, don't you say "Hello" before telling them what you want? Email messages should be no different. At a minimum, address the email to the person.

Don't forget the end of your message too! Always sign your messages with your name, and say "Thank You", or "Sincerely", or something else appropriate. You can even setup a signature in your email program that will automatically display your information at the bottom of every email message you send. For directions, use your email programs help file and do a search for signature.

Protect your recipient’s identity – use “To:”, “CC:” and “BC:” properly.
There are a few simple netiquette rules for using the address fields in email.

If your email is being sent to just one person or email address, place it in the "To:" field. This should be the person who is responsible for sending you a reply.

When your email is being sent to more than one person and all the recipients truly need to know who else is receiving it, put all the addresses in the “CC:” field.

For email sent to multiple recipients who have no real reason to know the names and email addresses of everyone else to whom it is being sent, put all the addresses in the “BCC:” field.

(Some email software requires at least one address to be placed in the “To:” field. Put your own email address in the “To:” section if this is required.)

By default, not every email program has the BCC field available for viewing. If you cannot see the Bcc field in your program, check your programs help file for directions.

Give memory a helping hand.
When replying to emails, include a copy of the prior notes you’ve traded with the person on the topic, don't just send a new one. I may receive 50 emails a day that need a reply and it’s not always possible to remember every single 'conversation' with every single person. Please don’t make your reader go looking through their ‘sent items’ folder or email ‘recycle bin’ to refresh their memory!

Use the ‘Read Receipt’ sparingly.
In some cases, it's crucial for both parties to know that a message was received. However, in normal day-to-day activities you should not request a read receipt for every single message you send. It's annoying to the recipient to have to click that pop up box every time they get your email. And it is an invasion of privacy. Don't forget – just because they have received it doesn't mean they have necessarily read it, so receiving a read receipt doesn't actually prove anything other than that the message was received. And for day to day communications, is that really necessary?

URGENT!
The boy who cried wolf. Do not send all your messages as URGENT, or HIGH PRIORITY. If your recipients keep receiving messages marked that way, then eventually the red exclamation point loses it's effectiveness – except to reinforce how important YOU think you are. Reserve these messages for those that are of utmost importance!

Avoid special formatting.
For your day-to-day messages, don't use colored email backgrounds, colored fonts, special fonts, images or other "pretty" type of formatting to your messages. Keep them clean – this makes it easier for the intended recipient to read them and reply. It's best to send messages in plain text to ensure everyone will be able to read them, since not everyone has their email set to receive html emails. You would be amazed at how bad your note may look to someone viewing their email on a handheld device or an older computer. By keeping your emails clean, they will also load much faster for the recipient!

Don’t SHOUT!
If you type in all capital letters, your reader will see this as yelling, or they will think that you were just too lazy to use proper text formatting. It’s also hard on the eyes – did you know that it takes longer to read something written in all caps than it does to read something that is properly formatted?

Proof, spell-check, and use proper formatting.
Poor writing skills are a direct reflection on you! And the reader never forgets the person who writes an undecipherable message. Spell checking will prevent most misspelled words, but you should always proof your email in case you've written the incorrect word (that was spelled correctly). For example, month and moth, where and were, all look correct to a spell-check program. Use proper capitalization, punctuation and formatting. Break your paragraphs when the subject changes, or if they become too long. Don't use excessive formatting (too much bold, too many exclamation points and question marks, etc.) Too much of anything will make your message harder to read. You want to make your message easily readable, as well as understandable. Proofread it to ensure it make sense, and never assume the reader knows what you mean, always spell it out for them. The time it takes to proof and spell check is minimal compared to the lasting impression you will make if you don't take the time.

Take the time to send a reply.
Even when someone emails you something that doesn't need a direct response, follow up with them in a timely manner just to let them know you received their message. It’s amazing how often people will ask for advice, and not even reply with a short “Thank you” when they receive their answer. A simple message telling the sender is sufficient. And this lets them know you did receive it, that it didn't just get stuck in cyberspace somewhere.

If they didn't request it, don't send it!
No matter what you think may be acceptable, you cannot email someone about your product/service without their permission. Unless they request that you send them an email, or you have previously done business with them, then it is illegal to send them an email, period. Any recipient can easily forward your email to their ISP and report you for sending unsolicited email messages (SPAM).

This report would result in the immediate removal of all your websites/email address from most servers. You would then join a list of “prohibited senders” meaning that servers would not allow any messages attached to your domain name to be received by their customers - the people you are sending your messages to.

You might be thinking, “but I get emails every day about products/services that I didn't request information about.” Sending unsolicited email messages (SPAM), is kind of like speeding. Lot's of people do it, but it is against the law, and no matter how long you may get away with it, you are bound to get caught!

Compress, Compress, Compress!
If you are sending an email with several large attachments, it is often better to send them in a few separate emails, so that you don’t send a document that is too large to even open. Or, you can try compressing your messages into a zipped file. It doesn’t reduce the size of images or pictures very much, but it works great for text, spreadsheet and program files. This is very easy to do, and will make your file size much smaller, and make the recipient much happier. Check out www.winzip.com (for those on pc).

Hoaxes as helpful hints.
If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Do not forward everything that gets sent to you. We've all seen them – the chain-letter emails that promise if you forward to x number of people you'll get paid, or you'll win something, or you will be lucky forever. It's all a hoax, a scam, and the only result is huge numbers of email transmissions that slow down servers all across the country. If you receive one of these emails from a friend, reply to them (in a very nice way) and explain to them why this isn't true, or ask them to stop forwarding them to you.

Virus, or virus advice?
Many viruses are spread by email masquerading as warnings about – a virus! If someone forwards you a virus warning, which usually contains instructions for removing a virus from your computer... check google.com for that virus BEFORE doing anything. Chances are, it's also a hoax, and if you do remove that "bad file" from your computer, you're actually removing a necessary component crucial to your system!

Wow, that was a lot of information to take in at one time, but I congratulate you for sticking it out and reading the entire article. Please share it with your family, friends and colleagues.

Domain Name Scams: Have You Fallen for One?

2007-06-11T07:16:00.000-07:00

Have you received information regarding your domain name through postal mail? Did you receive numerous invoices regarding your domain name? Ever been stuck in a contract for well over a year? If any of the above apply to you, you may have fallen for a domain name scam.

Domain name scams occur when a domain name registrar sends you and “invoice” to renew your domain registration, but it really is an agreement to switch to their services.

Scott Karlo, founder of Internet Know How (IKH), LLC, offers these helpful tips on how prevent your company from falling for domain name scams.

Prevent Domain Name Scams by:

• Setting up automated renewals with timely advanced warnings prior to billing period. This allows you to know when a renewal date is scheduled and in turn you can ignore any other “invoices” you may receive from other companies since you know exactly how much and when your next payment is due.

• Using the registrar’s domain locking feature to protect it from being taken without authorization. This prevents registrar companies from initiating a transfer request to pull your domain to their system. By locking your domain you save yourself the time, hassle and cost of switching back away from them.

• Carefully review invoices from the registrar companies before mailing in the requested payment due. Many companies assume that the invoice is real. It passes through accounts payable, who recognize the web address, pay it. Since they are fearful of losing the domain they don’t tend to question the invoices legitimacy. Investigate who the invoice is from before paying it!

• Finding an internet consulting firm that will be able to monitor your domain names on a regular basis and keep track of renewal dates. Hiring an internet consulting firm relieves the headache of domain name scams. Your company can ignore all mailings regarding your website domain registration.

Domain Registration For Great Search Engine Ranking

2007-06-11T07:14:00.000-07:00

A solid keyword domain name is the key to establish a strong presence and making the resources of the Internet more reachable. With a great name, it's always easy to reach new and existing clients. Therefore, a number of companies are ready to spend a large amount of money to get hold of and promote a good keyword rich domain name.

Choosing a keyword domain name can be vital to the success of a website. In order to take advantage of search engine traffic, people choose keyword domain. By selecting a domain that is equivalent to a keyword search, websites are able to rank higher for targeted keywords and thus benefit from added traffic and more potential clients. Whether to opt for a brandable domain or a keyword domain is a choice one must make in accordance with their business plan.

Follow these simple rules to maximize the benefit of a keyword domain, accomplish success in directory submissions, and enhance site keyword density:

Structuring

Order the URL (Uniform Resource Locator) in such a manner that more vital keywords are listed before those that are less important. For example, if he target keyword is "money" then money-online.com would be more effectual than online-money.com.

Length

1. A majority of studies confirms that a number of people use two words or more in a search; as a result phrases are very useful.

2. Always stick to two-three keywords, with hyphens in between.

3. A lengthy, complex URL is more likely to be rejected by directory editors’ sites from which one would like to receive links.

Correct English and Must Make Sense

1. In order to execute directory submissions and link popularity campaigns, the URL should be grammatically correct.

2. When examined by an editor, "money-online-white.com" might sound like a less-reliable resource while "white-money-online.com" sounds more justifiable and is less likely to be questioned.

Put together "power words"

In order to create a distinctive domain name that is still available, one way is to add another less important word to the mix. A few examples include: now, top, just, goto, pro, guide, online and find etc.

Avoid using most popular keyword phrases

There is intense competition for keywords in the marketplace, so stay away from the most popular keyword phrases. It is impractical to think that a new website could rank number one on a popular phrase like “Shop Online”. A number of well-known companies who have been on the Internet for a few years will have the big advantage of link popularity and click popularity.

Try to register a .com domain

Always use ".com". In case it is a business website, avoid using domains ending with "ru" or "org". At once, one can consider registering a ".net" domain, but as most people are familiar with ".com", it is better to stick to convention.

In addition to the above, an understanding of the domain name system (DNS) is also vital while choosing a domain name. The DNS is set up to make regular words map to IP (Internet Protocol) addresses. In order to connect all computers on the Internet, an IP address is used by networks. A domain name can be up to sixty-three characters, comprising of letters, numbers, or the dash symbol. For example, in the world of computer networking, the web address fishing.com becomes the IP address 124.133.1.1. However, it's the domain name that people around the world use when looking for Web sites or sending an e-mail.

Finally, it is very important to choose a keyword phrase very carefully. This can be considered as one of the most critical decisions one will make regarding the success or failure of a website. One must identify the exact phrase that searchers will use to find a website. The more targeted the campaign is, the more increase in sales will be achieved.

Protect Yourself with a Porn Filter

2007-06-11T07:11:00.000-07:00

The harmful affects of pornography use and addiction are well documented by science. As with most things in life, prevention is the most effective way to avoid ever having a problem with pornography.

The internet is a wonderful place to access information, read updated news, and connect with people from all over the globe. Unfortunately, pornography on the internet is everywhere, and it isn’t always easy to avoid. Even people taking responsible measures to keep porn off of their computer screens can stumble across it sometimes. The tips found in this article will help you protect yourself and your family online from inappropriate pictures and text.

Take measures to filter spam. Spammers can make money if only one person of the thousands of people they send sexually explicit emails to clicks on their ad and pays for their service. Do everything you can to keep those emails from ever reaching your inbox. If you have allowed your children to have their own email accounts, filtering spam is the best way to ensure inappropriate images never become accessible to them through email. A quick list of things you can do to eliminate spam includes:

• Only give your email address out to people you know and trust. Do not put your personal email address down for every mailing list or website that asks for it. Many free email services exist now – set up a free account with one of them and use that to sign up for mailing lists.

• Never click on any links in spam and if at all possible, avoid ever opening the email. Both of these actions confirms to spammers that you actively use your email account and you will likely start to receive more spam.

• Purchase and use a spam filter. Many come packaged with a porn filter as well as other features that will help keep inappropriate content off of your computer screen.

Be careful what you download. This should be a universal precaution you take by now each and every time you download something off the internet. Viruses, spyware, and pornography can very easily be hidden in the files that you download – prevention in this case is much easier than fixing the problem after the files have already made their way onto your hard drive. Only download files from sources that you trust, and if you ever have a question as to whether something contains a virus or pornography, do NOT download it.

Use a search engine to find websites. Pornographers use domain names that are similar to popular websites or brands in hopes that people will type in the address incorrectly and end up at their pornography site. I knew a child that wanted to look up codes for his favorite video game, so he typed in the name of the game and “.com.” He had the presence of mind to close the browser and tell his parents, but was still exposed to the material. One of the best ways to avoid this is searching for the address in Google. Then you can preview the results in a text-only format before clicking on the link to go to the page. Many of the popular search engines have a built-in porn filter that you can adjust to control the type of content you don’t want to appear in the search results. Others even offer “for kids” versions of their search engines that only return pages deemed appropriate for children.

Use filtering software that includes a porn filter. No matter how careful you are about the sites you visit, chances are good that someday you will accidentally come across a porn site. A porn filter will help ensure that inappropriate material is blocked when you or someone in your family stumbles across a pornographic website. The parents of the boy who stumbled across pornography while looking for his favorite Nintendo game quickly installed a porn filter to make sure their son was protected in the future.

Avoid pornography offline. Porn was around long before the internet. Carry around your own internal porn filter and avoid places that you know will have inappropriate images, movies, or books displayed. If your children are with you, be extra cautious of where they are in the store. If you think there is a chance that they may be able to access inappropriate material while you are shopping, let the store manager know of your concerns. Likely, you are not the only one who is worried about the issue, and real changes can come about from one person simply speaking up.

Take the appropriate precautions now to avoid pornography. If you or someone you know has a problem with pornography use or addiction, seek professional help. Pornography problems not only affect the individual viewing the picture but everyone who interacts with that person.

Reseller Hosting Defined

2007-06-11T07:10:00.001-07:00

Reseller Defined:

The term Reseller according to the dictionary means to sell again i.e. to sell a product or service to the public or to an end user, especially as an authorized dealer, while making sure that you make a profit on the sale.

Reseller Hosting

Reseller hosting is no different either, a reseller buys a Web hosting package from a hosting company and tries to sell it independently. The profit for the reseller lies in either the discount or in the commission s/he gets from selling an account.

For example: The reseller might purchase a package whose features are valued at $100 for $90. So, the reseller stands to make a $10 profit on selling the package to customers. Normally as the customers increase, so does the profit margin for the reseller.

Or, you can get some money by earning commissions from a hosting company. This happens when you refer potential customers to the hosting company. If the customer signs up with the company then you earn a small recurring commission until the customer uses the services.

Most web hosting companies try to outsource their services to resellers as it helps them to extend their business reach without the cost of marketing and sales and also helps them to concentrate on the business side of things.

What can be resold

As a reseller you can decide what kinds of services you can sell.
You can provide shared, dedicated or co-location web hosting or merchant accounts, store fronts etc.

If you go with hosting then it might be useful to offer some other hosting related services like domain names, search engines etc.

Of course, if you have problems selling these value added services in the beginning then you can sell them later.

The cost and resources involved

The cost of becoming a reseller and the equipment and people required in order to be successful depends on many factors.

If you just plan to earn commission by referring people to the hosting company by using the Internet, then you do not have to put up a lot of money, all you need is an Internet ready PC and an Internet connection.

For a small start-up not a lot of money and resources are required. You can purchase a good reseller package from a hosting company by paying them some money upfront. All that is needed is a decent computer that can manage the accounts of customers and a good Internet connection.

It is advisable to start small if you are very new to the concept of web hosting and reselling. Then you can expand as you go on and start getting more and more customers in which case offering domain registration is also a very good way to make profits.

If you have the money and the experience then you can go as far as buying all the server equipment required, in which case you will also be responsible for all the server maintenance costs.

The other option could be leasing a server as this will be cheaper than buying the server, but here as well you are responsible for all the maintenance and running costs of the server.

In the above two cases you also need to make sure that you have multiple connections with the hosting company so there are no complications in case a connection goes down.

Upside

The best thing about being a reseller is that you do not require a lot of upfront investment.

There is no need to have a lot of technical knowledge. Account management and Internet skills are all that is required. However, it would be really handy if you have some sales and marketing experience so you can interact with your customers better.

The hosting company generally provides and maintains all the hardware and software.

You do not need to hire a lot of IT staff to provide support. Providing basic support and leaving the more technical issues to the parent company support staff can be easily achieved.

Downside

Support can sometimes be delayed, as you are dependent on the parent company to handle the technical aspects. If there is a delay from their side then you along with your customer are affected.

Sometimes customers leave you if they find out that you are a reseller and not a real hosting company.

Tips for marketing yourself

If you are starting out on a small scale then visiting message boards and posting your services there is a good idea. A lot of potential clientele with relatively small hosting needs also frequent message boards and outline their desired services.

Having contests is a great idea for bringing awareness and interest about your services.

Online ad campaigns, signatures, and text links are very helpful techniques.

Once you have gotten a bigger budget then you can go for Google ad words or PPC search engines.

The best strategy is to try out various combinations of these approaches and work out the best one for your needs.

Avoid, Shun, Thwart, Prevent, and then Filter Spam

2007-06-11T07:08:00.001-07:00

Email is rapidly becoming the standard means of communication among businesses, associates, and even friends. While many people have now been using the internet and email for years, there are thousands of new users on the internet each day. With inexpensive web hosting, free email services, and the blog burst upon us, getting your own slice of the internet pie has never been easier.

Whether you’re a seasoned professional looking for a refresher course, or you’re new to the internet and email and want to start off right, here are some easy steps to follow to reduce the amount of spam you receive.

Don’t choose an obvious email address. Spammers will generate lists of email addresses based on common names. A common list would be something like: nick@yahoo.com, nick1@yahoo.com, nick2@yahoo.com, etc. If you create an email account with less obvious combinations of your name plus some numbers, chances are better that you won’t find your way onto one of these lists.

Treat your personal email address with care. Only give out your personal email address to close friends and family who you trust. Give your direct business email only to clients and other contacts you trust to only use your address for legitimate business purposes.

Use different accounts for different functions. Create different aliases with your business’s domain name or create a few free accounts from free email servers like Hotmail, Yahoo!, Excite, etc. Use one account that you don’t care about for posting to forums or discussion groups. Use another to subscribe to newsletters and newsgroups. When any of these addresses starts to get spammed too heavily, simply delete the account and switch to a different one.

Remove your email address from your website. Between blogs and cheap web space, it seems everyone has their own piece of cyberspace. Before you put a link to your email address on your site, remember that spammers have bots that harvest these addresses. They will even find addresses printed in plain text. Consider using a web-based form for communication from you website, or place your address as a gif or jpeg.

Do not open, respond to, or purchase from spam. Interacting with spam in any of these ways indicates to the spammer that not only is your address valid, it’s also active. Do not respond with “unsubscribe” in the subject line, or click on any links to remove your name out of the database, as both of these are common ploys to confirm your email address. Remember, because sending email is so inexpensive, spamming can be profitable even if only a small percentage of people purchase what they’re selling. Don’t support what you’re trying to stop.

Finally, Filter you incoming email using filtering software. Even if you guard your email address religiously, you’ll likely still receive spam. Filtering software is usually inexpensive and effective, but there are some important features to consider with any filtering package:

• Make sure you can control what comes to your inbox and what gets deleted. The best programs create a spam folder for you to review before permanently deleting emails.

• The software should block images from incoming emails. Many jpegs in spam actually hide code that notifies the spammer when the email is viewed. Blocking images will not only keep offensive content off your screen but will also help prevent more spam in the future.

• Choose software that provides you with updates - as new spamming techniques are created and proliferated, filtering software should keep up.

While eliminating spam from coming to your email address is nigh unto impossible, following these simple steps will mean you’ll have to spend less time deleting spam from your inbox, giving you more time for the important things of life – like reading this article.

Changing to new host? No more worries!

2007-06-11T07:08:00.000-07:00

John's online business is expanding. His customers are increasing day by day. However, he feels very frustrated at the moment as he finds his website is 'down' about every 4th day. Whenever he calls up the support team of his web host, he gets the same old answer that his problem will be rectified soon. If the problems do persist it will surely hamper his business. He has been with his present hosting provider for the last year but now he feels he has to find a new web host as soon as possible because his present hosting package is also not able to meet up with his growing demands. This is not a one-off occurrence that has happened only to John, it happens with many people like him. Changing the web host might become a cumbersome task if John and other people like him don't know the correct procedure of doing it. So, let's have a look at the following easy and simple steps:

First of all, it's very important to have a backup of your website and everything related to it, like databases, scripts etc. It will be very helpful in case there is data loss because of any unforseen reason. Save at least 2 copies of everything and store them separately, so that you can work with one and the other one will function as a backup. You can take backup in various ways. One is by using software programs like a FTP program (e.g. Smart FTP http://www.smartftp.com/) for downloading data.

Now, the time is to look for a new web host that meets all your requirements and provides better technical services than your previous host. Since you have already been through the search procedure it won't take you much time to come across a reliable hosting company.

Once you have taken a new web-hosting plan and you are ready to upload your web pages, databases etc., check that you have received an IP number, FTP or FrontPage login, and password from your new hosting company. Now, upload all your files to the new server; you are just repeating the same procedure that you've done in the past when you uploaded your files for the very first time.

Only a few more steps more and you will be completely done. Before transferring your DNS servers over from your previous host to your new one, debug and test the new site from an individual IP number. Check that all the web pages exist, the links point to the right pages and that all your scripts are running. One important point which people always forget is their domain name expiration date. If you plan to move near the expiration date, it could cause you lots of problems. To be on the safe side, make sure that you have at least 3-4 weeks in hand before the domain name expires, or just renew it for another year.

To transfer domain name service to a new host identify registrar using "WHOis" lookup http://domreg-m6.net/domains/WHois.asp, verify registration of your domain name, identify the name server information for the host your are transferring to, and make changes in the DNS information at the registrar. During this DNS transition period new DNS information has to be propagated throughout the world's DNS servers. This propagation might take 2-4 days as an International root name server will firstly have to check all the various Domain registrars for updates, and then every ISP provider will update their DNS setting to show the new changes. Not only this, even Internet, i.e. Internet routers and caching engines have to update/clear its DNS cache as well. During this propagation period, you keep your old site running so that the visitors whose ISP provider haven't updated can still visit your website.

It's advisable that you don't cancel your old hosting service during the transition period, as you will need to check your mail from both the hosting providers, as some will direct e-mail to your old server whereas other Internet regions will send mail to your new server. After one or two weeks you can annul the account with your old host.

On the very first notion it sounds like a painful task to find a new web host and make all the necessary changes, but with the steps known, people like John will not find this procedure problematic. With so many automation software packages available, it has now become easier to switch over your web site from old host to new host. If both hosting providers have the same operation system platform, the procedure will become even simpler. But remember, the most important task in the whole host-changing scenario is to find a host that meets your requirements so that you don't have to go through this entire procedure again in the future.

Is Your Domain Name a Sitting Lottery Ticket?

2007-06-11T07:05:00.000-07:00

At the end of 2003, the domain Men.com sold for 1.3 Million Dollars. And this lucky domain name investor originally paid $15,000 for it in 1997.

Not a bad investment huh?

Let me make one single point, the domain market is a lucrative one. Domain names are sold and bought daily for big money. The Internet is only in its infancy so owning a great domain name is like owning a nice piece of real estate.

Domain names are the “real estate” of the superhighway.

So are you one of the lucky people that own several domain names? You may be sitting on a winning lottery ticket.

Here are a few main characteristics of valuable domain names:

* Usually single word .com’s are worth big money. Why? Because they get natural type in traffic. If you owned Men.com and put up some advertising links or affiliate products related to men, you could make a nice income by doing nothing. You wouldn’t even have to promote it.

* 2-3 Letter .com’s are also worth lots of money. Why? Because for one they are all taken and secondly big companies will usually seek them out if it is an acronym of their company. Having a short, memorable domain name is key for people to remember it. And 2-3 letters is perfect!

* Typo domains of popular, well established companies. Although, if you own one of these, the big company may come knocking at your door to ask you to turn it over. For example, if you owned gooogle.com (note the extra “o”), Google could get the name because it is trademarked and it is too close to the original website name. In this case, Google.com owns, Gooogle.com.

If you want to find out the true value of your domain name, you can use different domain appraisal services. One of the best is Appraisalblast.com. For a very low price, they will give you a detailed report and let you know if you are sitting on that lucky lottery ticket.

In some cases, names you don’t think are worth much...are. It all comes down to how important the name is to somebody.

The domain name business is a lucrative one and there are still great names out there. It just takes some looking and also a creative mind to think ahead of what will be popular.

How To Tap The Profit-Producing Power of Pay-Per-Click Search Engines To Drive Qualified Traffic To YOUR Website...

2007-06-11T06:58:00.001-07:00

I have been a strong advocate and user of PPC's (pay-per-click search engines) for several years now.

I have thousands of keywords and phrases on bid at a number of PPC search engines and, as a result of managing and tracking those bids over time, I have developed a lot of valuable performance information on a number of the PPC search engines.

My on-going research reveals critical data about such factors as traffic, ease-of-use, return-on-investment, etc. This information could be invaluable to you in assessing your options regarding the use of PPC search engines to market your business.

I consider the use of PPC search engines to be an essential lead generation tool.. The days of building a website and developing enough traffic from conventional search engines and directories to be profitable are over. The competition is just too intense given the number of new sites clamoring for attention and rankings.

And...the competition is going to get heavier...not less. Given the estimated sale of over 70,000 new domain names a day, we can anticipate a lot more demand for a piece of the traffic pie.

The use of paid advertising, through PPC search engines and other media, should be a regular part of all savvy marketing plans. This should not be viewed as a negative development, however. The simple fact is... you will generate more highly qualified traffic from PPC's at a higher return on investment then you will receive from almost all other marketing approach.

Why Pay-Per-Click?...

Generate High Quality Traffic Instantly: Depending on which PPC engine you are using, you can begin receiving qualified traffic within minutes. Considering that ranking on conventional search engines could take you weeks or months (or never), this has to be a major benefit. If your site is a direct selling tool... it is essential that you generate potential buyers to your site quickly and inexpensively if you are to begin making sales and profits. Waiting around for conventional search engines to list you is just not a viable option in e-commerce.

Control Costs: Budgeting your PPC advertising is simple and easy. You can define the budget you have available to the penny and only spend what you can afford to spend. No surprise billings!

PPC Advertising Is Measurable & Accountable: You will know precisely what search terms are pulling profitable traffic and which are not. The reporting systems of most PPC search engines is very comprehensive and allows you to make fast decisions regarding allocation of funds. Bidding is in real-time which means you can increase or reduce your bids, on given terms and phrases, almost instantly.

Low Start-Up Cost: Most PPC's require a minimum deposit to set up your account. This can range from a nominal few dollars...or as much as $50.00 depending on the PPC search engine. Charges for your click-thru's are deducted from this deposit amount. Some PPC's have promotions which add significant bonuses to your bidding account if you are a new customer.

An initial deposit of $25 would generate 2,500 click-thru's to your site at a 1 cent bid. Even at the more expensive PPC search engines (Overture), which have a 10 cent minimum bids, you will still generate 250 qualified visitors to your site for that $25.00 deposit. Assuming your conversion rates and profits per sale are high enough... this could be a fine return on investment.

Free Research Tools: Most of the better PPC search engines provide keyword and bidding research tools which can be very useful in determining what search terms and phrases to bid on... and how much to spend. Careful use of these free tools will give you the timely information you need to make informed ad buys.

Instantly Respond To Opportunities: This is one of the most useful uses of PPC, in my opinion. You have the ability to generate instant traffic to short term promotions, opportunistic situations, and unforeseen conditions in the marketplace. If you don't have to worry about how you are going to generate traffic to a particular offer, you can spend more time exploring new markets, ideas, etc. Broadening your market is one of the ways you will maximize returns on traffic. Keep your offers closely related so that traffic for one offer will be interested in all your offers.

Testing New Concepts, Products, Services: Testing new ideas, copy approaches, offers, pricing, etc. are fast and simple with PPC. Driving targeted traffic for short periods allows you to test those elements which have the greatest impact on your conversion and profitability. This is really the essence of good direct response marketing.

RECOMMENDED PPCS:

The following Pay-Per-Click search engines are ranked in the order of traffic generation. Please keep in mind that these are my results. Your results may be different based on the search terms you are bidding on and other variables.

1. Overture (GoTo.com)

2. FindWhat.com

3. GoClick.com

4. 123Search.com

5. 7Search.com

6. Xuppa (formerly RocketLinks then Bay9.com)

7. Kanoodle.com

8. SearchCactus.com

9. Findit-Quick.com

10.Lycos Insite

Ranked in the order of Return-On-Investment:

1. FindWhat.com

2. Overture (GoTo.com)

3. Lycos Insite

4. GoClick.com

5. 123Search.com

6. 7Search.com

7. Findit-Quick

8. SearchCactus.com

9. Bay9.com (now Xuppa)

10.Kanoodle.com

A strong new entry into the PPC arena is Google Adwords Select. This is a bit of a hybrid ad product but it can prove very powerful and responsive. The major drawback is the price. Unless you are careful to learn the nuances of this PPC you can spend a lot of money very quickly. Spend some time with this engine before you commit to large expenditures. The traffic from Google can bury you in a matter of hours and eat up a lot of money before you realize that the ROI (return-on-investment) is not sufficient to create profit dollars. Before you jump into the Google Adwords Select program you would be well advised to educate yourself on the proper strategies to use.

In summation, my results with PPC search engines have been from good to great. They have allowed me increased flexibility in my overall marketing programs, have shortened my selling cycles, increased my sales and profits, allowed me to respond to changing conditions quickly, and given me the ability to quickly act on opportunistic events. Pretty good list of benefits...don't you think?

Blogs for Dogs: Create Web Domains for Dogs, Cats and Other Pets

2007-06-11T06:58:00.000-07:00

(ARA) - What do you get the pet that has everything? How about its own domain on the Internet? A new online service, DomainsForYourPet.com, lets you register a Web site address for your dog, cat or any other nonhuman companion.

The U.S. pet population numbers 353 million companion animals, including 141 million cats and dogs (about 65 million dogs and 75 million cats), with an estimated 62 percent of all U.S. households owning at least one pet, and three- quarters of those households owning two or more pets.

“We know how passionate people are about their pets, so we think it’s a doggoned good idea to have a customized Web site for showcasing your pet to friends and family. It’s said that every dog has its day. Now every dog can have its own domain,” said John Lee, director of marketing for the new service. “This is another example of the trend we see in which everyone eventually will have a personal Web site to use as the basic platform for communication. Getting to that point requires an easy, low-cost way of registering an Internet domain name. We’re pleased to provide that part of the solution, as well as a variety of value-packed Web-hosting plans.”

Pet owners or their friends can use DomainsForYourPet.com to establish full ownership of a Web site name for Spot or Tabby, set up a free “under construction” page, and have access to an online control panel for managing the site. Cost of the service is $6.95 per year.

And why stop with the domain name? Proud pet owners can use an online service called InstantSite to build a simple, customized Web site for sharing pictures, training-graduation announcements, milestone moments, whimsical Weblogs or “blogs,” and more.

Congratulations! It’s a Web site

2007-06-11T06:55:00.000-07:00

(ARA) - The next big thing in baby-shower gifts just might be an Internet Domain Name for the little bundle of joy. A new online service is registering Web site addresses for newborn infants.

More than 4 million babies are born each year in the United States, according to the U.S. Health and Human Services Department.

Parents or well-wishers can visit www.DomainsForYourBaby.com to establish full ownership of a Web site name for the new baby, set up a free “under construction” page, and have access to an online control panel for managing the site. Annual cost of the service is $6.95.

And why stop with the domain name? Proud new mamas and papas can use an online service called InstantSite to build a simple, customized Web site for sharing baby pictures, birth announcements, milestone moments and more.

“We’re not far away from the day when everyone will have a personal Web site,” said John Lee, director of marketing for the new service and himself a father of three including a newborn boy. “Today’s babies will grow up in a world where the Internet is a necessary and important part of life. DomainsForYourBaby.com helps give them a head start. We are happy to offer moms and dads an easy way to establish an online presence for their new babies through our low priced, fully-featured domain name registration service.”

More information is available at www.DomainsForYourBaby.com.

Tips and Tricks To Getting Top Money for your Domain Names

2007-06-11T06:52:00.001-07:00

Would you like to be that lucky person who sells their domain for thousands or even a million dollars? It IS possible to find quality domains and resell them for huge amounts of money. The time is ripe for acquiring top domains and selling them. Now that the Internet Boom is behind us, valuable names expire everyday. The best way to find these domains is to use services on the Internet such as DomainsBot to weed out the bad names. Or just check out Hot Lists on sites like Namewinner or Pool.

So what makes a "good" domain name? Usually short, single word domains and 2-3 letter .coms, .nets, and .orgs are the best. The more specific the better. These can be hard to come by but when you find them, you can almost guarantee that you can make good money from them. Once you have purchased a nice domain name, get a good appraisal of the name to get an idea of the possible worth (see http://www.appraisalblast.com). In order to sell your newly appraised name, you have to find a buyer. Here are your basic options for selling your domain name in a nutshell:

1. Sell it on Ebay

This is the easiest and quickest way to sell your domain name. There are several tricks to landing a good sale at Ebay. One is, start your price low. People want a bargain. Once you have received an initial bid, it will draw peoples attention to your name and create more bids. You may want to set a reserve price if you want to make sure you get X amount of dollars. When selling your domain on Ebay, make sure your domain name is in the title of the description. Also, include an appraisal to show to possible buyers the value of the domain. Keep your description short, clean, and really emphasize how important and rare your domain is. For example, if your domain is 3 letters and ends in "I", stress how most 3 letter domains that are highly valuable end in "I" because it usually stands for "Incorporated". If it ends in "E" it could stand for "Enterprise". A little bit of marketing saavy can go a long way. I once sold the domain 0pp.com for over $200. It even has a number in it making it worth very little. But I emphasize its possible uses and potential. Also, spend the extra $1 for the Bold Listing and make sure your auction ends on a Sunday afternoon or evening. This is when most people are browsing Ebay. It will make a big difference.

2. Sell it on Domain Sites

The only sites you should even consider putting your name up for sale is on ebay.com, Afternic, or Sedo. These are the most popular and where some huge sales have taken place. The only downside is that there are high numbers of domains already for sale and usually the site will get a commission of something around 10%. There also may be a small fee to join. Appraisal Blast charges a minimal fee but no commission. Your domain will get more exposure there just because there aren't hundreds of domains for sale. You may also have luck selling it on forums such as DomainState. The prices of sales there seem to be lower.

3. Contact Large Businesses with Deep Pockets

This approach takes some time and patience. Let's say you have acquired a great domain name that would work great for any business in the field of the stock market. You may want to locate some of the bigger sites or businesses and make an offer to sell your domain name. Make sure the name you own doens't have any elements that are already trademarked because you may be forced to give up the name. You may want to go on the Internet and look up current websites that deal with stocks and find ones that don't have the greatest domain names. Make offers to these sites stating how your domain is much better and will HELP them. If you get a company to bite, the rewards are usually very generous!

In summary, selling domains for high amounts of cash depends on two key elements. First you must have a quality domain, one that doesn't have numbers or isn't too long. It must be clear and easily recognizable. ".com" is the best, but even domains such as the ".us" are gaining popularity. The second key is Marketing, Marketing, Marketing! I can't stress that enough. You have to create a good reason for someone to buy your domain. How can THEY benefit from it. When these two steps are fulfilled, a sale is almost guaranteed!

Web Hosting & Web Development: Unravel the Technobabble and Create a Great Site

2007-06-11T06:52:00.000-07:00

If you’ve ever browsed the World Wide Web and wondered how you could stake your claim on the Internet, like the millions of others that have done so already, then web hosting can provide you with the services to do just that. The Internet is a great way of sharing information and it is possible for you to take a portion of the web and make it your own. This article introduces the term “web hosting” and provides some useful tips for web development once you’ve obtained some web space.

What is the World Wide Web?
The “World Wide Web” is the network of computers from all over the world that communicate with each other using the HTTP protocol, a language that allows the transmission of web documents. Be careful as this term is not synonymous with the “Internet” because it is defined as a network of networks, where the computers communicate with protocols other than HTTP. The web is what you see on your Internet browser, the web pages complete with graphics, sound and other information. All this has got to come from somewhere, and this is where web hosting comes in.

Web Hosting
The information that you see from your web browser is contained in web pages. These web pages are kept on computers called web servers. Web hosting is about the storage of the web pages so that people can access them. It is possible to host your own websites yourself but the reasons stopping most people doing this is that there are issues to consider with having the right hardware and software to successfully host your web pages. Your web pages will take a certain amount of space, users will need to download each page to view them and your Internet connection needs to be fast to offer good performance to your viewers. Using specialised companies that offer web hosting capabilities on their web servers will take most of these worries away from you but you will need to choose wisely and weigh up the costs and your needs. In addition to having access to a web server, you will also need to register a domain name (for a cost) that uniquely identifies your website.

What Web Hosting Can Do For You
The most basic service that web hosting offers is that it exposes your web pages for others to see. The other services are: email capabilities that allow for email to be received and sent from your server; database capabilities that allow for large amounts of information to be updated and accessed on the web; and dynamic content which allows for users to interact with the web pages you’ve made.

Website Development
Poorly designed websites will most likely turn away users and harm the credibility of the information it contains. Thought should be put in on the way it looks and the way you intend your users to interact with the content. It is also recommended for more complex websites, a structured development process should be followed. Here is a guide to the logical steps of web development:
· Requirements Analysis: What is the purpose of the website? What content should it contain?
· Design: How should the pages be linked? What structure should they take? How should the pages interact with the user?
· Implementation: This step is the actual coding of the websites in accordance to the previous websites.
· Testing: Does the website do what it should?
· Maintenance: Is the information on the website up-to-date?

Some useful hints for web development below are taken from software quality aspects but they apply to the development of websites as well. They are described in terms of web development:

Reliability: Is the website reliable? Do faults allow for the system to continue running?
Robustness: How does the website respond to incorrect input?
Performance: How fast does the web page respond to user’s actions? Is it efficient in processing requests and inputs?
Usability: Is the website easy to navigate and understand?
Maintainability: Is the website easy to change? Can new functionality be added?
Portability: What software requirements does the website require? Will this limit the amount of potential users?
Understandability: How well do you understand the website you’ve developed?

When designing your website, keep these quality aspects in mind as they will help you develop pages worth visiting. How to choose the way to host your website is half of the problem, the other half is to create a website that people would want to visit and come back to. Knowledge of producing a good design can help you get the most out of your creations.

Having a domain name and web site gives your business the key to the door

2007-06-11T06:46:00.002-07:00

Just like all things in life, the ways to run a business are rapidly changing and evolving. The potential involved with having a domain name/web site is staggering to say the least. A web site gives the consumer a ‘shop front’ that is not only open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but is also situated right on their desktop. Instead of being locked into only the immediate area, the whole world’s marketplace becomes your sphere of interaction.

Customers can access information on all your products, no more salesperson with limited knowledge trying to explain something they know little about. No more waiting in lines for help, all people have access immediately.

The domain name of the website gives great freedom to the business process. Having your own name is like having an address, then infinite emails can be added to the name so different departments within the company can be reached without having to wait at reception. For example, sales@ Mary’s Plants.com will put the shopper in direct contact with Mary’s sales section.

As a business, the domain name adds professional authenticity, as your address is not affiliated with other companies. In the area of communication, the email system opens up many avenues. Instead of having to put clients on hold because of limited personnel, innumerable emails can arrive at once, even when there’s no one in the office. Then you can pick and choose which one’s to reply to first (the most urgent), while people browsing can wait till later. First come, first serve becomes obsolete as necessary customers automatically reach the front of the line.

Getting a website and domain name is an easy, simple, cost-effective process. You can register your name through web domain registrars like DomReg-M6. Net for as low as $15.00 U.S. per year. That is definitely a very limited risk compared to opening a store, renting a location, and the thousands of dollars involved in overhead costs. How can this be true? A key to the door for anyone who wants to enter a mega-mall that is as big as the Earth. Let’s hope you’ve got something special to share and trade with the global community!

Elements of Web Hosting

2007-06-11T06:46:00.001-07:00

When you first start out trying to get a site on the Internet everything seems so confusing. Obtuse acronyms flow freely through the 'Beginner Friendly' information sites and definitions can be hard to come across. The main reason for this is that the Internet and the process of getting a website online is really very simple, and once people get past the first stumbling steps they rarely remember the difficulty they once had, which leads to them being unable to understand the next wave of dot com newbies.

So let's begin with defining some of the basic terms that are commonly thrown around when looking for a web host. You'll quickly realize that computer geeks like using big words for simple concepts. What do you expect from a group of people that decided to call half a Byte a Nibble?

Web Host: These are the people that supply your website with somewhere to sit and be accessed from. They're often a wealth of information, so when you're trying to find your feet it will often be worthwhile to contact their tech support and get your questions answered. Because of this, it's important to contact them BEFORE you sign up for any packages to ensure that you'll receive a timely response. Just fire an email their way and see what happens.

Disk Space: This is the same as the space on your own PC's hard drive. Web Hosts will allocate a certain amount of space to your website, usually in Megabytes (MB) or gigabytes (GB). This determines how much you can store on your site.

Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the amount of data that can be retrieved from your site within the bandwidth period. The bandwidth period is the length of time before your bandwidth gets reset once again, usually about a month. Bandwidth is measured in MB and GB, like disk space. Always find out the consequences of exceeding your allocated bandwidth before you purchase a hosting package.

Domain Name: The domain name is your personal identifier on the Internet. This is what gets typed into a web browser's address bar to reach your site. Some hosting companies will offer a domain for free, while others will have the facilities to provide one for a minimal cost.

SQL (MySQL, SQL Server etc.): Structured Query Language. This is the language used to interact with databases. Chances are that if you don't know about it when you start looking for web hosting, you're not going to need to know about it for at least a little while longer.

HTTP: Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. Basically, how the Internet works. It is the protocol governing the transfer of web pages from one place to another.

HTML: Hyper Text Markup Language. This is (usually) what you'll be using to make your website, whether directly or indirectly. Don't be scared by the name, the 'language' is very easy to learn.

FTP: File Transfer Protocol. This is a method for sending pages and files from your home PC to a server. It is quite simple to use and your host will provide login information if this is the method that they use for file access. Typing "FTP://[server details]" into My Computer on a windows box allows you to use FTP as if your server were a regular windows folder.

POP3: This is a common email 'post box' system. It is use to store emails for retrieval.

SMTP: Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. A common protocol used to send emails.

The beginner will not really need to know too much about the above two email technologies. If they're listed, good. It means you have email accounts with your website (i.e. the email name@yourdomain.com will reach you, somehow)

There are many 'languages' used to enhance websites, such as Java, Perl, ASP, .NET, PHP, etc. If you're just starting out you should try to learn simple HTML first before you worry too much about these more advanced languages. In general they're not too difficult to learn, but you'll want a solid grounding before you tackle them.

The Internet is a wonderful source of knowledge, so whenever you want information just fire up your favourite search engine and type in your problem. The Internet is full of sites about the Internet, so the information you want shouldn't be too hard to find.

Building professional websites takes a lot of time and skill, so many companies hire people to do it for them. If this is the situation that you're in, talk to the designer you're hiring about hosting, as they may have struck a deal with a webhost to provide clients with cheaper hosting packages. Also, the professional designer will know what features you're going to need in a hosting plan.

The world of web hosting is not as complicated as people would like to make out. Just make sure you do a little bit of research before diving in and you'll be less likely to get burned by a shifty 'here today, gone tomorrow' company. Check out the host's rankings on a few Web Hosting Directories, do a search for reviews of the company, contact the support staff before signing up and enjoy the world opened by having your own online presence.

This fearful, ignorant guy has got a blog on the Internet. It must be easy!

2007-06-11T06:39:00.000-07:00

Of all people in the world I was easily one of the most pessimistic about computers, the Internet and now that I even know they exist-blogs. I think blogs are pretty cool but I never thought I could have one. I thought the processes of getting a site; domain name and the actual building of the blog would just be out of my league. I’m a complete novice when it comes to technology, but I do like writing a journal, and I thought having a journal on-line would be both fun and make life simpler for me. No more writing with pens, other people can read my stuff and comment on it, and I could add pictures to illustrate my points and make things look more interesting.

Well, now I’ve got one! It’s awesome. I won’t lie and say it was easy, but I think if you hook up with a good web hosting company it’s not such a daunting experience as you might expect. I got a few work mates to help me. I went through a couple administrative hitches when filling in my personal information forms for the registration-just because I’m a bit silly in the head. We had a little trouble with the blog program we used, but these challenges were eventually overcome. My boss says he’s going to make a simple program that people can hook up easily.

I chose my domain name: thepowerofeverythingthatis.com. It’s my own name-no one else on Earth can have it. I own it. I picked a nice picture out for the background-it looks really sweet, much better than a blank sheet in a diary. I got it from a site that gives photos out without charging a royalty (the first few): www.istockphoto.com.

I just want you to know the great feeling I got when I first typed in my domain name and my site came up! It was the equivalent to a person who’s afraid of heights being accepted into an astronaut’s mission into outer space. Or maybe it was like a turtle driving a Ferrari 300km per hour. Possibly it was like all the ants in the world getting together for peace talks.

It’s a real blast having this blog. I can write on it any time, anywhere, from my laptop, at an Internet café etc. I can write as much as I want, and I’m hoping one day my writing may inspire others to communicate with me about the subjects that I’m interested in.

Look, if you like writing about anything, and want to have your thoughts and opinions on the Internet, maybe meeting others similar to yourself in the progress; you have to get a blog and get it now. Don’t be afraid any longer, the world is in the palm of your hands; it’s time to get on!

Tips on Domain Name Choice

2007-06-11T06:37:00.000-07:00

Before buying your domain name, give some thought to the followng:-

1) If possible use your sites name as the basis of your domain name e.g www.discountdomainsuk.com for Discount Domains UK. This might seem common sense but not every site follows the convention. If you use your name in your URL it will be much easier for your customers to find you.

2) Generic names – if you can register a generic domain such as toys.com that’s great, but most of these have already gone. Also getting ranked in the search engines is likely to be harder. Selected a domain closer to your market segment will cut down the competition. E.g toyplanes.com

3) Hyphenated Names – Its easy to forget the hyphen! Which is the problem, particularly if your customer remembers your name but not your URL. Though on a positive note hyphenated names are less likely to be registered already.

4) If the .com or .co.uk extension is not available then consider the alternative TLD ( Top level domain types) such as .net or .biz. If your domain name has already been registered then approach the owner and ask if they’ll sell. They may accept a £100. If you ask, they can only say no.

5) Plurals. Very often a domain name will be free in the plural but not in the singular form. It’s a personal choice, but if your prefered choice of domain name is not available you might be stuck.

6) Short or Long domains – A short domain name is more memorable, but less likely to be available. A longer domain is harder to remember, but can contain more keywords which is important as some of the search engines, use keywords in a domain name as part of the search algorithm.

7) Which Top Level Domain Type - .com, .co.uk , .net etc This is a question I am often asked. There is no evidence that any domain name type is given preference by the search engines. However some search engines such as Google, have local searches e.g www.google.co.uk which do select local content. Customer often get re-assurance from seeing a local TLD as they know they are dealing with a local company etc. You can, of course, register all of them!

8) Variations – If your prefered domain name is not available then its always worth trying a prefix my e.g mydomains.com or suffix e.g domains4U.com etc

An Informational Website Provides the Ultimate Flexibility When You Are Ready to Create a Domain Name

2007-06-11T06:34:00.000-07:00

Content is King
If you provide great content online users will make sure that they can find your website. You can create a domain with hyphens, longer phrases and words. You don’t want to use the 67 character maximum allowed for domain names, but 15 plus characters is totally acceptable.

To make your domain name memorable, it should be a short phrase that describes your website, your products or your particular area of expertise. If you provide reliable, accurate information, web users can use bookmarks or type the phrase directly into a search engine to get back to your site. This means that you will have to really focus on getting your domain name listed on as many search engines and directories as possible.

The other advantage to creating a domain name for an informational site is that most surfers search by typing in phrases and entire sentences into the search engines. A domain name that uses all of the words of a small phrase or sentence will easily filter to the top of the listing and keep your customers coming back.

Hot tip: If you don’t trust the engines to help your customers find you on a regular basis, make it easy for anyone to bookmark your site with a reminder button on your home page.

Choosing Domain Names for Professional Sites: Six Guidelines

2007-06-11T06:32:00.000-07:00

A professional or business site is one where the primary purpose of the site is to facilitate business transactions. You can sell items directly online or exclusively offline, but the result is the same. You want customers to buy products and/or service directly from you.

To create a domain name for this type of website here are a few guidelines:
1. Shorter is better
2. Make the name easy to pronounce
3. Think long term
4. Stick to Categories and Topics
5. Do a trademark search
6. Always have a tag line

Shorter is better
If you want to make real money online, try to keep your domain name as short as possible. In the online world, the choices of where to shop and get information is overwhelming. A shorter name will instantly be memorable. It is always easier to remember short words and phrases.

A shorter name is good for word of mouth advertising online and offline. Customers can easily remember the the URL and therefore they’re more likely to pass it on and return to the website. The name will also stand out when it is printed on brochures, business cards and other business collateral. Liz, Dick, Kate, Feds are all examples of our incessant need to reduce every term in the English language to three syllables or less.

Easy to Pronounce
If you want a short name, you must be very creative. To be creative and strategic make sure that your domain name is easy to pronounce. It is perfectly acceptable to create a name from scratch, but it must sound like a real word when you try to say out loud. Any three or four syllable term will do a long as it easily rolls off the tongue. If you are at a loss for words, try writing a description of your product or service on paper.

This is a very easy way to come up with those little words that you can use without losing the meaning of what you’re trying to say. You can also use a dictionary and a thesaurus to come up with additional words. You can also choose a longer word but shorten it or use acronyms only. When you decide on a domain name, say it out loud a few times. If it doesn’t sound right, go back to the dictionary and try again.

Think long term
You want a domain name that will last a very long time. If you pick a name that is a slang term or too cutesy, you could find yourself looking for a new name in a year or two. This is not the best way to proceed. Once you build a certain level of online success, the traffic will follow the domain name. You don’t want to mess with your brand and your online reputation with redirects and ‘we have moved’ notices. Online customer will buy, but only if your site makes it convenient for them to do so. If you don’t see yourself using the same domain name three to four years from now, get a new name before you set up your website.

Trademark Searches
Do a trademark search. If you build up your online business and domain name, you don’t want to find a court order ordering you to give it up because it belongs to another company. Remember, the traffic and therefore your sales will follow the domain name to the new company.

To do a quick trademark search go to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (http://www.uspto.gov) for domestic searches and the International Trademark Association (http://www.inta.org) for international searches. If your name is cleared, then consider getting a trademark to protect your business.

Tag line
Tag lines are the work horses of the marketing industry. An interesting, professional tag line can bring you more word of mouth advertising than you can ever buy from a search engine company. It will bring your name into random conversations in newsgroups, newsletters and casual conversations. This can help you save money on paid advertising and create the ultimate viral marketing campaign without very little effort.

Keep these six tips handy to brand your domain name and bring in more site traffic.

There are many free web hosting options on the web, but do some research before you use one for your online business.

2007-06-11T06:28:00.000-07:00

Where can I find free web hosting?
There are hundreds of free web hosting services on the web. You can type “free web hosting” into any major search engine and get an expanded list. However, when you sign up for free hosting account, you are basically signing an expanded advertising agreement.

What exactly is free hosting?
In exchange for free hosting, the company can place ads your website. The ads can be placed on the top of the main page, the top of every page, or on the sides. The ads are usually not targeted. It is possible that they won’t match the demographics of your web visitors. In addition, they are not customized to match the content on your web page.

This is a very expensive exchange program if your goal is to build up an online business. The area above the fold, everything that is visible without scrolling, is the most effective advertising area on the entire site. This is the area you should use for your affiliate links, Google Adsense, paid links and expanded site navigation.

Some free web hosting contracts go a step further and ask for your participation in their email marketing campaigns. You will receive emails that require a click through to a merchant site, and/or fill out endless surveys. This can be very time consuming and annoying.

Before you sign any free hosting contract ask to see sample sites. You want to get a feel for the types of ads that are being shown on other website. What do you want to look for?
1. Do you see pop-up ads? What about banners?
2. How large are the ads?
3. Are they just off topic or are they inappropriate?
4. Where are the ads? Are they on every single page or on selected pages?

Even if the ads are not on every page, watch out. It could mean that the hosting service has figured out which pages bring in the most revenue and they can afford to ignore everything else. Guess what? If it brings in lots of revenue for them, it could probably bring in lots of revenue for you.

There’s free and then there’s FREE
If the space is free, what about the domain name?

If your new site will look like http://yoursite.freewebhost.com you’re getting a subdomain for your site. It’s not really your unique domain name. They are simply loaning you a space for your stuff.

This is not a unique domain name that you can use to brand your business. You can’t use it anywhere except with this particular web hosting company. Ditto if the new domain names is http://www.freewebhost.com/yoursite/.

So what if they offer a truly unique domain name?
How long will it take before you actually own the domain name? Even the cheap web hosting services will require that you stay with the company for thirty to sixty days before you can keep a free domain name.

What happens if you want to switch to another company before the period is up?

Sometimes there’s a charge to keep the domain name or to transfer it. This should be clearly stated in their FAQ's or in the text of the hosting contract before you agree to use their service.

Do you have enough bandwidth?
Many free web hosting services are providing their services in such a way that you will need to upgrade your hosting package if your site has any degree of minor success. The tipping point is usually bandwidth. That is a measure of how much text, pictures, ftps etc. you can send to your web customers every month.

The Bandwidth in your contract is measured on a monthly basis. Check the contract to see if there are any fees for going over your monthly amount, or if you will lose your free hosting privileges.

Free host today, no host tomorrow
There is a very high turnover for free web hosting services that heavily depend on advertising revenue. Even the most successful web companies will find that their advertising revenue varies on a monthly basis. Will the company suddenly go out business if they hit a three month slump?

There should be a written policy on what happens to your content if they site suddenly goes out of business. Can you still access your files? Is there an alternative URL or login site with your information? How much time do you have?

You are only as reliable as your hosting service
Check out the statistics on the uptime for their servers. This applies to any hosting service, whether you are paying or not. If their uptime is in the low 90’s and below, then try to find another hosting provider.

You are taking a big risk if you use a free web hosting services for your business site. The inability to control your advertising, high turnover rates among the free hosting providers, and variable contracts usually spells disaster for e-commerce sites.

To run a successful online venture, 24-hour live customer service, high uptimes ratios and control of your advertising space is a must. These features are also the major weaknesses of the average free hosting provider.

A better option for you company would be to sign up for an affordable or cheap web hosting provider. You will have many service options in this category and can usually avoid the limitations of the free hosting companies.

Five effective ways of making money out of web templates

2007-06-11T06:25:00.001-07:00

Web templates are the in-thing now-a-days and most of them are selling like hot cakes resulting into huge profits for web template providers. You too can cash-in on this web template craze and make money. Discussed in this article are five effective ways of making money out of web templates.

Five effective ways to make money out of web templates

1.) Creating turnkey pages from web templates

Turnkey websites are the hottest resource on the internet. If you are a web designer, web hosting company or simply own a website you can make good money by creating turnkey websites from readymade web templates.

What are turn key websites?

Turnkey websites are completely functional websites having relevant content, domain names and hosting. Depending on the type, turnkey websites can have shopping carts, interactive scripts, graphics forms, forums, live chats etc. All that a buyer needs to do is buy the website and he is ready to do business.

What you need to do?

In order to set up a turn key website business, you need to do the following;

1) Purchase professional looking web templates with resell rights or join a template membership program

2.) Modify the web templates by adding relevant content, links, images and graphics

3.) Purchase domain names and hosting accounts

4) Host the completed web templates as websites

5) Advertise/promote your websites for sale/rent by SEO and Email marketing

What will be your ROI?
You ROI Will surely be very high. This is because of the fact that the retail value of turnkey websites is around $200 - $500 per website and can also go higher based on the website quality. You can also go for renting your websites instead of selling them. As you will be purchasing web-templates for a cheaper cost your ROI will be higher. The best way to go about it is by joining membership programs that will give you access to a host of http://www.buytemplates.netweb templates at a low one time cost. Also make sure to host your sites with hosting service providers who offer unlimited domain name hosting. One good example of a turnkey website service is ready-set-web.com.
2.) Joining an affiliate program
Affiliate programs are quite popular over the net. If you have a well ranking website with a good traffic margin then you can very well join an affiliate program offered by many if not all web template providers. All that you need to do is promote their templates and you can make easy money in the form of commissions.
What you need to do?
In order to join an affiliate program you need to register yourself for the program. As soon as the registration process is over you will receive a link or banner advert that you can place on your website at strategic places. In case your website visitor clicks the banner and makes the purchase you get a part of the commission. Commissions can range from 2% to 10% of the actual sales proceeds. Most companies use tracking software programs or individual services like clicksgalore, commission junction etc. for tracking sales.

Some good web template providers who offer affiliate programs are buytemplates.net, templatehunter.com, templatemagic.net and webzonetemplates.com Before joining an affiliate program make sure that the template provider offers allied/complimentary services like web hosting, search engine optimization, content insertion, domain name registration, template customization etc. In fact the more the complimentary services offered the better will be your returns.

3.) Reselling/redistributing web templates

If you own a website that attracts good traffic or is likely to attract traffic in the future, you can go for purchasing templates as a bulk and reselling them. To get redistribution rights all that you need to do is purchase reseller templates that many web template providers offer today. Some good web template vendors who offer reseller templates are http://www.buytemplates.net , http://www.templatemagic.net and freewebsitetemplates.com. Purchasing reseller templates on your own and reselling them can fetch you more returns than by joining an affiliate program.

What you need to do?

All that you need to do is purchase web templates that come with resell rights. You can then modify the templates and sell them to potential customers with non-exclusive rights. You certainly need not be a html pro to start this business; instead you can partner with template providers who offer related services like template customization, hosting, SEO etc. and earn good commissions by referring your customers to them.

4.) Joining Referral based programs

Referral programs are very unlike affiliate programs in the sense that they do not involve you to place links or banner ads on your site. This is basically a word of mouth program and requires you to promote products by word-of-mouth. In case a customer referred by you joins a membership program or buys a web template and refers your name in the referral section, you get a commission. But such referral programs are offered by very few template vendors today.

5.) Web designing with web templates

If you are a professional web designer you can earn higher returns by making use of web templates. Firstly you can satisfy your clients with the speed at which you complete the work and at the same time get more ROI as the readymade website templates are way cheap. All that you need to do is buy exclusive templates and resell them after making modifications. One way to go about it is by joining membership programs offered by web template providers. This will give you access to a host of web templates at a one time cost. Most web designers can almost double their profits, take care of multiple projects and also retain customers by making use of this technique. Also web designers can attract new customers by lowering their service charges.

So what if you can’t make web templates on your own, you can still cash in on web templates by making use of these sales techniques.

Six Ways To Create a Keyword-Rich Domain Name

2007-06-11T06:21:00.000-07:00

An effective domain name can help to brand your site. It can also communicate to your customers the types of products you sell online. An easy to remember domain that describes your services should be the goal of every site owner. Here are some techniques that you can use to create the best domain name for your company.

Describe your products or services
One way to come up with an effective domain name is to describe your product or services. Write down every word or phrase that comes to mind when you think of your product or service. The easiest way is to keep writing for two to five minutes without stopping. It’s a creative writing technique that can yield a huge cache of keywords that you can plug into any registration application until you find a domain name that fits. This technique is effective, quick and free.

English has a large vocabulary list
The English language has one of the largest vocabulary lists in the world. If you can’t find a way to describe a product or service, take a break, come back in a few minutes and try again. Try to see how many different ways you can say the same thing. You already have access to the vocabulary list and ideally you will know your product or service better than anyone else. Pretend that you’re describing it to a friend and in a few minutes you will have a long list of words that you can use as your domain name.

Most short words are taken
Yes, many of the shorter words such as “men”, “women” and “book” are taken. In today’s marketplace, you can’t rely on such generic terms to bring in traffic. An effective, memorable domain name must go beyond being a novelty to being an asset that helps customers remember your site and your product. Try putting two or three words together. This will make it easier for them to come back to your site and make a purchase.

Brainstorm your way to a great domain name
Brainstorming is the only way to get a good domain name. Whether you write, use a name generation software, a dictionary or try random words, it’s your creative approach that will give you quality results in less time.

Here are 4 easy domain name generation ideas:
1. Write about the product(s) that you plan to sell
2. Write about the topic or theme of your site
3. Write about the type of customers you want to visit your site
4. Start with one word descriptions and then add secondary words until your get an effective word or phrase that you register as your domain name.

Check out your competitor’s websites.
Are they using words that fall into a specific category like product names, rhyming words, or names of cities? These can all give you clues about what types of words and descriptions that make the best domain names for your type of service. It can also give you some clues into what works best with customers and search engines. In this case, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel, you just tweak it a bit to get better results.

You’ll also have words for your Search Engine Marketing Campaign
The cool thing about this technique is that it will also help you to generate a list of words that you can use later on as part of your search engine optimization campaign. Whether you plan to do this on your own or through a Pay-Per-Click service, you will be ahead of the game with a long list of keywords to choose from.

Yes, You Can Use Hyphens in Your Domain Name: It Makes Them Easy to Read.

2007-06-11T06:18:00.000-07:00

Most of the desirable one-word, two-word, and three-word dot com domains are taken. However, if add plurals and hyphenated terms, there is still some gold left in the domain name game. If you find that you need or want to use a phrase or a compound word with two or more words strung together, you can use hyphens. All of the search engine robots read a hyphen as a blank space so you don’t gain or lose anything when you use hyphenated words.

The most important reason for using hyphens is readability. Your keywords are ranked by robots. Your website is read by human beings. If your domain name is theanythinggoesguide.com, it would be much easier to read it as The-anything-goes-guide.com.

A domain name as well as an online business is a long term proposition. You might have to put a bit more effort into your upfront marketing efforts, but don’t be afraid to use hyphens in your domain name. If it’s easy to read, memorable and enhances your online image, hyphens can add to the lasting appeal of your domain name.

Remember that the purpose of the domain name is to make sure that customers remember your web address when they need to get information or buy a product. Anything that is easy to read easily wins out over a long jumbled mess of letters.

Busting Online Copyright Thieves

2007-06-11T06:06:00.000-07:00

How safe is anyone's copyright online?

Well imagine my surprise when I clicked on a website link to discover that someone had not only copied my website to their server - but was selling my ebook and undercutting me in the process! Some dishonest person operating from Eastern Europe had literally stolen my entire business and I discovered it only by sheer luck.

After some very lengthy and threatening emails I got them shut down, but the question remains, how safe is your copyright online and what can you do to protect it?

Traditionally written works have enjoyed copyright protection not only through the rule of law, but also because of the physical difficulty in stealing another person's work. Let's face it, photocopying a 200 page book rates about as much fun as watching paint dry and at 5 cents a page you're talking a quick ten dollar printing bill.

If you steal someone's book, print up a thousand copies and try to get it onto the local bookstore's shelves, the chances of getting caught rank pretty high.

But the online world has changed those rules and physical safeguards significantly. The Internet, email and the Web make it easier than ever to steal someone else's work. With the most basic skills and a few mouse clicks, someone can take your book, your website, and along with it weeks, months, and even years of your hard work.

Though intellectual property and international copyright laws apply to online works, enforcement of those laws is expensive and, in many cases, hard to enforce.

Well don't despair, you do have options if you find someone has violated your copyright online. Anytime I find someone violating my copyright, which isn't very often, I take these three steps in rapid-fire fashion.

First, make 100% sure the other person realizes they have violated your copyright. You can send them a nice but firm note telling them to stop whatever activity violates your copyright. If that doesn't work move on to step two.

Second, once you know with 100% certainty they understand they have violated your copyright, yet refuse to respond or stop, you need to shut them down by eliminating their ability to do business!

Send them an email with a carbon copy sent to their Internet Service Provider (ISP), their credit card processor, their web hosting company, and even the company that sold them their domain name.

Finally, follow this email up with a hard copy letter to each party sent via registered mail. In the email and letter detail exactly how they have blatantly violated your copyright and you want them to desist immediately.

By taking this approach you can often just bypass the offending party because the companies enabling them to transact business don't want any trouble. If you can show copyright violation they will shut the perpetrator down to avoid getting sued themselves.

Though not foolproof, this strategy can help you when facing down a blatant online copyright violator. Just remember to act quickly, thoroughly and don't hesitate to contact your attorney for advice.

Author's Note: By no means let this article dampen your enthusiasm for operating your business or selling your ebook online!

In my opinion there is no better way to make a living!

Your copyright is basically as safe online as it is offline. However, if a sneak thief entered your home - you'd call the cops. Well, now you know what to do if a sneak thief ever gives you trouble online!

You can also get more information about copyright law by going to http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/

Cheap Web Hosting is No Bargain

2007-06-11T05:35:00.000-07:00

Ever heard the saying “Penny-wise and Dollar-foolish”?

Well bargain priced website hosting may just represent the perfect example of watching a jar full of pennies while bucket loads of dollars fly out the window!

When I launched my first website way back in the “dark ages” of 1997 I paid almost $150 a month in hosting and data transfer charges.

My web host watched how many files I uploaded like a hawk and always seemed to send their hefty invoices earlier with each passing month.

I’m obviously not the only one who felt that way, because suddenly a whole industry of “bargain” web hosts sprang up all over the web.

On the surface they all sound great, especially when you think you can go from $150 a month down to $4.95 a month!

Five bucks a month sounds great, until you realize the amount of data transfer (number of page views) and bandwidth (the amount of data transfer your host allows in a 24 hour period) you get for that low price severely limits your ability to do business.

This realization - along with a panic attack and a quick lesson in how data transfer and bandwidth get calculated - usually comes at the least convenient time.

When you exceed your limits, a bargain host usually just shuts you down with no warning.

Most webmasters realize they’ve made a mistake by choosing a bargain host when their site suddenly gets shut down in the middle of a big promotion because of a traffic spike. Believe me, everything just stops!

Here are a few bargain hosts that provide good service, but you really need to really check the fine print for how much bandwidth they allow.

www.FeaturePrice.com

For $24.95 a month you get to host up to six independent websites with a single account. You get unlimited data storage, unlimited email and a variety of other higher end services, but their bandwidth policy seems hard to understand.

www.HostSave.com

Host Save is another low price hosting company that delivers a wide range of services for only $6.95 per month. They recently raised their allowable data transfer, but their policy on how much bandwidth you can use at a given time seems non-existent.

www.DotEasy.com

For $25 DotEasy offers a domain name purchase along with one year’s hosting. Sounds incredible until you read the fine print to discover they limit you to 1 Gigabyte of data transfer a month. Not much data once you start getting reasonable site traffic.

The moral here? Either be prepared to have your business shut down mid-stream if you get successful, or pay a few extra bucks each month to ensure you have enough bandwidth and data transfer.

At a minimum, specifically ask and read the fine print about the host’s bandwidth and data transfer policies before it’s too late!

3 Secrets to "Striking it Rich" in Cyberspace

2007-06-11T05:20:00.000-07:00

In the few seconds it takes you to read this another domain name gets registered at www.NetworkSolutions.com, the Internet's oldest and largest domain name registrar.

Everyone from industrial giants to corner flower shops currently wants to stake a profitable claim in cyberspace.

The lure of low startup costs compared to brick-and-mortar operations and the promise of high rewards draws an ever-swelling crowd of merchants to the online marketplace.

Yet despite the optimism statistics tell us that 80% of these "e" businesses will fail within their first 12 months of operation.

People from all over the country ask me what it takes to succeed in the e-commerce world once they've completed the basic steps for getting online.

The following three keys virtually *guarantee success* for any online enterprise.

The First Key:

A Quality product or service with highly evident and readily understood benefits for consumers.

If your product or service does not represent the highest quality and value possible, and if consumers don't understand exactly why they should buy from you, the speed of the Internet will just expose your shortcomings to the marketplace that much quicker.

In the offline world a product's benefits, not the features, cause consumers to make buying decisions.

A man doesn't buy a car with a 5 liter engine because of the horsepower, he buys it for the feeling of supremacy and control he thinks it will give him.

Kids don't want a 1000mHz computer for computing power in doing homework, they want to play the latest games.

The Internet magnifies this "what's in it for me" benefits-driven evaluation by consumers.

Products or services presented with readily understood, self-serving benefits for consumers sell best online (and off).

The Second Key:

An excellent website that loads fast, provides pertinent information to targeted consumers, and allows them to make online purchases quickly and securely.

Your website should: · Load fast by making conservative use of graphics. (Go to yahoo.com for an excellent example.)

· Provide exactly the information your potential customers want and need.

· Make it extremely easy for surfers to navigate your site and find exactly what they want.

· Look good on both the Netscape and Internet Explorer web browsers at various screen resolutions (640x480, 800x600, etc.).

The Third Key:

Consistent, targeted website traffic by consumers capable of buying your product or service.

Imagine buying a 50 foot billboard and, instead of putting it out by the highway, you hid it in your basement.

Nobody would see it!

The same thing happens if you don't actively and continuously promote your website to attract visitors.

With its incredible speed and communications power, the Internet acts as a magnifying glass for any organization's strengths and weaknesses. E-commerce, e-mail, and a website won't do the job of marketing, selling, and customer service for any company.

They will, however, help every organization perform all of those business functions better, faster, and less expensively with the real and tangible result of "striking it rich" in cyberspace!

How To Become An Expert In Your Niche Business.

2007-06-11T05:15:00.000-07:00

What is a niche business? A niche business is one that caters to the common needs and interests of a focused group of people. For instance, people who play golf forms a niche market and people who are golf instructors form an even tighter and smaller niche.

The advantage of going niche is that you can become a specialist in that chosen market. Instead of knowing a bit of everything, you concentrate your efforts on the one area.

Becoming an expert in your niche does not happen overnight. It takes time, skills, dedication and money to build up your knowledge.

Here are 7 great ways to become an expert in your niche business:

1. First and foremost, you must have a strong interest when selecting your niche. If you are going to spend a lot of time researching on this area, a strong interest will help sustain your efforts and keep you going.

2. Read aplenty and stay current! Surf the internet for industry news and related fields to your niche. Go to the bookstores and the library. Subscribe to newsletters or ezines of your competitors.

3. Attend workshops and learn from the super experts. Learn also in related topics so that you can expand on your knowledge base.

4. Test out tools, resources, software or just about anything that can be used for your particular niche. For instance, if you are a florist selling exotic flowers, knowing what is the best way to take care of the delicate blooms will help make you an expert!

5. Hang out in forums where your target market is likely to be. This is an excellent way to get to know what are the common problems and obstacles faced by your prospects. Make sure that you find out the answers or solutions to these problems so that you can post your comment and findings. Some forums even allow you to insert a link back to your website.

6. Use branding for higher perceived value: Buy and register your name as the domain name. A good example is http://www.EvelynLim.com . Brandnames are built gradually overtime. So set aside time each week devoted to promoting your brandname. This could be giving free advice, lectures and giving press releases.

7. Have an opinion. People like to look up to experts who articulate their views. You are likely to be a winner if you can also justify your opinion with facts.

How To Really Profit from Domain Names

2007-06-11T04:50:00.001-07:00

Have you heard about domain names that sold for over a million dollars? Inspired by this, you imagine registering a great domain name, hanging onto it for a while, and then selling it off to become the next multi-millionaire. It could happen, but don`t count on it!

First of all, many of the truly great domain names are already taken. Second, the dot com bust took some of the wind out of inflated domain name prices. (If you sell your domain name for millions of dollars worth of stock in a publicly traded dot com flop, what is the name really worth?)

The cybersquatter buys domain names totally on speculation. Sometimes he will register names of famous brands, companies, or individuals. Time and again, these domain name speculators learn the hard way that they must respect intellectual property rights. They hope that some large corporation will pay big bucks to them for the use of the company`s own (already trademarked) name. Instead, they end up with threatening letters from a law firm for their attempts at extortion.

However, you can still make money from domain names if you are sensible in your approach. Here are some suggestions on ways to profit.

1. Affiliate Programs: Use your domain name to promote an appropriate affiliate program. Either redirect to the affiliate site or write a review that links to them.

2. Informational Sites: Create content and then profit from it by earning advertising revenue through Google AdSense or a similar program.

3. Redirect to Your Own Site: Some reasons you might want to do this include preventing competitors from using a particular domain name and benefiting from searches some users perform by domain name. (For example, if they wanted to order flowers, they might just type "flowers.com" in their web browser. You could get some traffic and sales this way.)

4. Product Sites: Create your own or sell someone else`s product appropriate to your domain name.

5. Park Your Domain Names: You might feel that your name has real potential for resale value. There are companies that will allow you to park your domain on their servers, advertise that your name is for sale, and split advertising revenue with you.

The trick is to generate traffic for your domain name. That traffic in turn will create revenue. Then, when you go to sell your domain name, you will have a few things going for you.

First, you will have a fully developed website. A fully constructed building on a piece of land increases the value of the real estate property. Similarly, the value of your domain name is enhanced by a complete and operating website.

Second, you have traffic. Just as a shopping mall with no traffic results in no sales, so a website must have traffic to generate income.

Third, you have income. An income property, such as an apartment building, can be appraised on the basis of its income (as well as other factors). Similarly, the gross income, net profits and cashflow of a website have value. For example, if someone offered you $1,000 for your domain name and website when it was generating $10,000 per day in profits, you would likely laugh at him.

You really can profit from your domain name investments by adding value and properly developing your web properties.

Creating Personal Web Sites (Part 2)

2007-06-11T04:43:00.000-07:00

This is the second part of a two-part article about creating a web site on the Internet and the tools that you will need to do it.

Some basic terminology that you should take a look at before proceeding further:

Web Page: A document that contains information created with the help of HTML.
Web Site: A collection of web pages on a particular subject.
HTML: Also known as Hyper Text Markup Language it is used for the creation of web pages. Information is written in between HTML tags to instruct the web page as to how the information will be displayed. You can also put images into the web page by using this language. Some other languages like JavaScript, VB script, ASP, ASP.NET etc. are also used to display dynamic content on web pages and for performing user driver events.

There are basically two main categories of web sites:

Personal web site: These include websites that are about individual human beings.
Business web site: Includes web sites that advertise and inform users about the products and services that a company is selling.

This article will deal with creating web sites for small businesses and putting them on the web.

The Internet is one of the best ways to reach out to people and advertise your services. If you are a small business you will think twice before advertising your services in traditional forms of media like radio, TV and newspapers. However, advertising on the Internet is very cheap, for a fraction of the price that you might pay for advertising on TV you can reach out to millions of people.

Your site acts as a virtual storefront through which you can sell almost any type of good or service.

Having a presence on the web gives you a competitive edge and puts you on equal ground with others to compete while enabling you to reach millions of customers who browse the Internet on a daily basis.

You can create your own site and you do not even need to have knowledge of programming. All you need is creativity and an eye for design.

It must be mentioned that you can create your site by going to web sites that provide free hosting services. On the other hand, you will notice that these kinds of sites do not give you your own domain name. You will always get something like: http://www.somesite.com/yoursitename

This simply doesn’t look very professional if you want to project an image of a serious business. Think about it yourself, would you buy from a site that does not even have its own domain name?

There is lots of software out there that can help you make a web site. These types of software are basically WYSWYG editors i.e. ‘What You See Is What You Get’. They have a point and click interface and are suited for both beginners and advanced users.

1st Page 2000 –http://www.evrsoft.com/1stpage2.shtml
NVU – http://www.nvu.com/

These are two of the best sites that I would recommend and have a very easy learning curve.

Build and Maintain Websites For Profit

2007-06-11T04:32:00.000-07:00

Even with limited knowledge and experience, you can build and maintain websites for profit. Here are just some ways you can do so.

1. Develop Websites for Local Businesses

Approach local business persons and sell them on the necessity and financial benefits of having a professional website. Local advertising may get you started as well, but expect to get a large portion of your business from referrals.

Charge your clients for the initial design and setup of the website. Work with them to develop a theme for their site based on their unique advantages over the competition. Keep the site simple to start with so that the cost of producing it is not prohibitive to the business and you can complete it profitably in a short time.

In this business, you can also make money on the maintenance and ongoing support of the website. Charge recurring monthly fees for such services needed as web hosting, updates and improvements to the site`s content, search engine optimization and submission, increasing traffic, traffic analysis, mailing list production and maintenance, and much more.

You don`t have to be a master Internet programmer to provide needed, additional services. There are many free and low cost sources of scripts and other resources available to you on the Internet. Offer your clients (and charge extra for) flash introductions, animated graphics, syndicated content, traffic counters, submission forms, chat rooms, pop-up windows, autoresponders, and more.

2. Sell Websites on the Internet

Build web stores, search engines, shopping portals, and other websites and sell them on the Internet.

Some develop sites from templates sold by others. Others build websites from scratch. These websites have been sold on the Internet as turnkey businesses through eBay and other websites.

Another option is to take existing free services and resell them. For example, you could take advantage of free web stores available to you on the Internet. Register a suitable domain name, obtain free or low cost web space, and host that free store at your domain on your web space. Promote your website and increase traffic. Finally, sell your website to the highest bidder on eBay. Be sure that either your Reserve Price or Opening Bid is high enough to make it profitable to you. You will need to transfer the domain name to the buyer.

3. Become an Internet Marketer

Build your own unique website based on a niche theme that has a sufficient market. Then tie in your content with appropriate affiliate programs and your own as well as other peoples` products and services.

To increase commissions and sales, you will need to regularly maintain your site by updating content, increasing targeted traffic, adding appropriate products and services, et cetera.

These, then, are just a few ways that you can profit financially from building and maintaining websites.

Creating Personal Web Sites

2007-06-11T04:25:00.000-07:00

This is a two-part article about creating a web site on the web and the tools that you need to do that.

During the last decade we have truly entered the information age. More and more people are becoming a part of the ever growing and wondrous community called the Internet. It was just over a decade ago that ‘Internet’ was just another new concept that a lot of people were skeptical about. Today however, it would be difficult to imagine living in the world without this amazing phenomenon. It really has enabled humans to reach new heights.

Some basic terminology that you should take a look at before proceeding further:

Web Page: A document that contains information created with the help of HTML.
Web Site: A collection of web pages on a particular subject.
HTML: Also known as Hyper Text Markup Language, this is used for the creation of web pages. Information is written in between HTML tags to instruct the web page as to how information will be displayed. You can also put images into the web page by using this language. Some other languages like JavaScript, VB script, ASP, ASP.NET etc. are also used to display dynamic content on web pages and for performing user driver events.

There are basically two main categories of web sites:

Personal web site: These include websites that are about individual human beings/people.
Business web site: Includes web sites that advertise and inform users about the products and services that a company is selling.

This article will deal with creating personal web sites and putting them on the web.

You too can make your presence felt on the web (if you have not already done so) by creating a web site.

The demand and popularity of personal web sites have increased at a great rate since the start of the web. People have found web sites a great way to express themselves.

A personal web site is your message center where you can upload information about friends and family and share them with the rest of the world. They can even act as a personal Blog (on-line journal).

Having a personal web site on the Internet has a lot of advantages:
* Gives you the freedom of self-expression. You can tell the world about your favorite hobbies, special interests, post your resume etc. for the whole world to see.
* Ability to keep in touch share your life) with friend and family who are far away.
* Great opportunity for making new friends and forming online communities.

Now comes the question of actually creating a web site. Surprisingly it is not a difficult task at all. In fact there are a lot of web sites that will provide you with all the tools you need to create your own web site and put it on the web, and you do not even have to know HTML to make them!
You do not even have to worry about buying up web space; almost all these sites will provide you with free hosting services. The only disadvantage is that they will probably put in banners (advertisements) of their sponsors on the site.

For example:
http://geocities.yahoo.com/
members.lycos.com

These are two of the most popular web sites where you can create your own web pages. Yahoo gives you multiple options for creating web pages. It has yahoo page wizard and yahoo page builder, which are two very powerful yet simple editors for creating pages and have a point and click interface.

http://www.webspawner.com/
http://maxpages.com/
www.expage.com/

These are some other sites where you can create your own web pages. You can also search on the Internet for more sites like these as well. All you need to do is register and then you can create your own web pages.

However, there is one little drawback when creating a site on these sites: you do not get your own personal domain name, so the address of your web site will be something like http://www.site_where_you_registered.com/yourname

Where ‘yourname’ is the name under which you registered.

However, taking everything into consideration, this is the simplest way to get on the web and start expressing yourself.

Information on Domain Names: Multiple domain hosting, Domain parking, Sub domains, WhoIs Record, Domain Renewal

2007-06-11T03:40:00.000-07:00

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.
http://features.m6.net is an URL with the sub domain name: "features".
Here the:
.net: is the first level domain,
m6: is the second level domain,
features: is the third level 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.

Some "Free Stuff" Still Survives Online

2007-06-11T03:20:00.000-07:00

Way back in the good old days of the Internet (mid to late 'Nineties), you could find all sorts of free "stuff" online.

Everything from website hosting and email, to software and long distance phone calls came free of charge.

Some of the free services survived, while others used their venture capital to pay for the mansions and yachts of their CEO's and then closed up shop within a few months – leaving investors high and dry.

A few free services still exist on the 'Net in today's more realistic dot-com economy and today rates as good time as any to take a closer look.

** Free Email **

Log on to HotMail.com and get yourself a free email account you can access from anywhere on the planet you can find an Internet connection.

HotMail.com and http://mail.Yahoo.com (with twice the free storage space of HotMail) rate as two of the most successful and long-lived no cost services left over from the "free" glory days of a few years ago.

** Free File Storage **

http://briefcase.Yahoo.com still ranks as the number 1 free remote file storage service on the Internet.

Store up to 30 MB of files remotely for access and sharing from any Internet connection anywhere in the world.

Instead of lugging floppy disks around between office, home, and laptop, you can store them online in your own password-protected briefcase on the Yahoo high-speed servers.

A great way to back up and share files worldwide.

** Free Website Hosting **

Tripod.com allows you to set up your own website absolutely free.

They support their service with third party banner ads at the top of every page you display.

A great way to get started, but any serious entrepreneur will eventually want to get their own low-cost hosting account costing as little as $5 a month.

DotEasy.com presents an excellent alternative to Tripod.com if you want your own domain name and a year's hosting for only $25 a year.

Other free hosting services include: GeoCities.com, gurlpages.com, and myfamily.com.

** Free Software **

Freeware and shareware, two ways software developers distribute their creations, either in a "try before you buy" mode, or as truly free software.

Many developers around the world create software for their own personal use but, lacking a huge buying market or the skills to sell the software, some of them just give it away or sell it for a nominal fee after you try it.

If you know where to look, you can get everything from graphics programs and website builders, to FTP programs and recipe books.

Log on to Download.com and Zdnet.com for two of the most popular places online to find software before paying full retail.

NOTE: make sure your anti-virus program is up-to-date and backup all your important files before installing any software.

Free stuff online will never disappear because, when appropriate, it represents the perfect way to start and develop a relationship with customers. Unfortunately, the "boom" days of the truly free online "lunch" seem gone forever. Sigh.

Reseller Web Hosting - A Cheaper Alternative ?

2007-06-11T03:15:00.000-07:00

There comes a time when the internet bug hits us all and we tend to acquire a wealth of domain names and web sites to feed our frenzy.

We start out with the best intentions, set up a personal home page with a few details about ourselves, then create more for our family, then our business and before we know it we have several domain names and web sites spread across several web hosting companies.

A more convenient approach would be to set yourself up with a reseller account with one hosting company.

Most people assume that to have a reseller account, you need to be in the business of selling hosting. This is not true. Anyone can set up a reseller account and enjoy the benefits of saving money and also having the convenience of only dealing with one company for all your hosting needs.

I'll take my hosting reseller http://www.HostingRevolution.com as an example. They provide a very competitive reseller account priced at $35. Their Reseller's Package allows you to host 100 Domains. You are allowed to give every Domain you host up to 20GB's of monthly transfer and up to 2.5GB of storage.

Previously I had over ten domain names and associated web sites that were costing me around $5 - $10 a month to host. The average months hosting costs were around $50 - $60. Therefore, by setting up a reseller account and transferring my domains and web sites over to my reseller account I made an instant saving of $15 a month.

Now, another extension of this would be to start selling hosting to your friends, after all, you have a reseller account. So if you have ten friends, ask them if they would like web hosting on your server, maybe offer it free to them and ask them to recommend your services to their friends, these can then become "paying" customers. Now YOU can get people to pay for hosting and make back the monthly reseller fee. Just sell ten accounts for $3 a month and you have instant income of $30 to offset the $35 reseller fee you are paying. So you get hosting for $5 a month for as many domains and sites as you like.

So, with the reseller account you have helped yourself, helped your friends, and possibly started making money as well.

My Top 10 Favorite Internet Tools

2007-06-11T03:05:00.000-07:00

When you make your living on the Internet, you can sometimes forget that the tools and resources you take for granted might rate an incredible discovery to someone who doesn't already know they exist.

Whether they help you save time, save money, or avoid frustration, these tools and services rate my highest recommendation for just plain making life easier, faster and cheaper.

1. Short Keys -

Available free at www.shortkeys.com/lite.htm, Short Keys allows you to create shortcut keys to cut down on repetitive typing tasks. I absolutely love this program because of the amount of time it saves me every single day.

2. Good Keywords -

Available free at www.goodkeywords.com, Good Keywords enables you to condense hours of keyword research into a few seconds. Find out the top keywords your target audience searches for so you can put your advertising dollars in the right spot to catch the biggest fish.

3. Mail Washer -

Available free at www.mailwasher.net, this program enables you to spot and delete spam and viruses before downloading them to your computer. With so much spam clogging my email in-box, I couldn't survive any more without this program!

4. ClickBank -

If you sell a downloadable product such as an ebook, report, or software, you can't beat clickbank for processing credit card payments. Not only do they take the payments and send you a check twice a month, they also plug your product into an existing network of thousands of affiliates who can sell it for you.

5. GoDaddy.com -

Cheap, reliable, easy to use domain name registrar that only charges $8.95 per year for each domain name you register. Godaddy rates cheaper and just as, if not more, reliable than any other domain registrar.

6. GroupMail -

Visit www.infacta.com to download the free version of GroupMail. The program allows you to email and do mail merge to your entire database of contacts. It's a great way to stay in touch with customers, family, and clients.

7. Google -

As far as I'm concerned, Google.com rates as the Web's best search engine. When I need to find something online in a hurry, Google usually produces exactly what I want to locate!

8. Front Page -

Say what you want about Microsoft, but the FrontPage html editor has served me well for the last 5 years and counting. Though I don't use the more advanced features, I can always count on FrontPage to help me get my web pages done quickly and easily.

9. Smart FTP -

Log on to www.smartftp.com and download a free copy of the easiest FTP program I've every used. If you need to transfer files to and from a web server and you know how to use Windows Explorer, Smart FTP will enable you to upload files to the web like a pro in minutes.

10. Note Tab Light -

Perhaps my favorite tool of all. Note Tab enables me to easily format text messages for my newsletters, manipulate html code and remove formatting from word processing documents. Log on to www.notetab.com for a free copy of the "light" version.