Building A New Website In Php

Writen by B Heard

New website owners and existing website owners alike consistently make a very common, yet extremely costly mistake. They find a web designer first and then an SEO second. Unfortunately, these entrepreneurs do not realize that literally every single thing that goes into building a new website will impact your SEO campaign. They commonly funnel thousands of dollars into a brand new website, only to find out that there are a lot of areas that must be rebuilt in order to have an optimum SEO campaign.

I will identify 6 major areas of concern, in hopes that even a small percentage of these website owners will come across this document at the right time, which is BEFORE they begin to develop their website.

1) Domain name registration & hosting. Make sure that when you register your website's address that you register it for at least 5 years. Sites that register their site for a short amount of time send up a red flag at Google, who end up thinking that site site has been registered short-term in the hopes of helping another website, that is owned by the same person/company, to rank well by linking to it. When choosing your domain name, do not choose a URL that is riddled with hyphens between all your keywords. It is more important that you target this to your visitors than to the search engines.

2) Creating static URL's. This is one of the most overlooked yet important things that you can do to ensure that your SEO campaign is a success. By eliminating dynamic parameters within your website's URLs, you are ensuring that search engine bots will have no problems indexing all of your pages. Creating static URL's can be accomplished by using the mod rewrite command in the .htaccess file in the root folder of your server. Here is an example of a dynamic URL (which you want to avoid), and a static URL (which you want):

Dynamic: http://www.yoursite.com/listings.php?ref=22
Static: http://www.yoursite.com/listings/22.html

Make sure that any potential programmer or designer that you hire understands that this will be a full requirement of the job.

3) Editing the head tag. There are three areas in the head tag that you will want to be able to either edit yourself or have your SEO edit. They are the page title, the description meta tag and the keywords meta tag. Having control over these for each of your top level pages (all the pages linked to from your home page), will be critical to your websites success in the search engines. You definitely do not want these to be the same on every page (they must be unique and reflect the nature of the content on the given page). For other pages that will be created in high volumes, you will want to make sure that there is a variable string (your web designer/ programmer will understand what this is) in place for each of the three areas in question, so that they will automatically be filled with content that is the right length and reflects the content on the given page.

Again, make sure that your designer/programmer understands that this is a requirement of the job.

4) Clean, simple code. Ideally you want to define all aesthetic properties that different types of text on your site are going to have in a separate CSS file. This means that you want to avoid using as many tags as possible, especially font, size and color tags. You also want to avoid creating PHP scripts that are either two long, and contain a lot of unnecessary steps, or ones that rely heavily on javascript. It is best to avoid using javascript as much as possible.

Remember, the most important thing your site can be doing is making it easy for search engine bots to easy scroll through the code of your website and follow all the links that it finds. When there is unnecessary code and script on your site, it makes it a lot harder for them, thus hurting your SEO campaign.

Make sure that whoever is helping you build your site understands that there job is to output the cleanest, simplest code possible. If you have any questions about this or don't understand it, it is best to talk to an SEO expert about it, to ensure that it is done properly.

5) Ensuring that visible written content is editable. The writing within the body of your site is one of the most important areas for you or your Optimizer to help your site increase it's rankings. Ensuring that either of you can edit it at your own convenience is extremely critical to the entire SEO campaign. This because from time to time search engine algorithms will change, and that might mean that a strategy that was implemented in the past might not suffice, so you must be able to change it to keep up with the most up to date SEO techniques.

6) Site structure. Considering the nature of PHP, your site will most likely (and should) be created by a series of includes that puts all of the pieces of a given page together. You want to ensure that the layout and placement of graphics and navigational links within these includes is strategically correct. Remember, you don't want to have to pay someone to go back and redo this, so it is critical to get it right the first time.

If you are unfamiliar with a lot of the information that I presented in this article, it is probably in your best interest to at the very least, consult with an SEO or SEO company during the entire design process. A good SEO will be very comfortable working with you and your design team to ensure that the end product will be one that will last you a long time, and will go a long way in helping your site generate revenue online.

Bobby Heard (bheard@abalone.ca) is the Vice-President of Abalone Designs (http://www.abalone.ca), which offers great SEO results at affordable prices.

A Simple But Misused Tactic Charged My Lead Capturing Minisite To Pull In 30 More Leads

Writen by Murtuza Abbas

Here's a simple secret. Infact there is no secret, it is so simple that many sites fail to utilize this tactic to boost up their sales, profits and conversion rate.

I made this same mistake but fortunately discovered it and ended up using this simple trick to increase my subscriber and customer list.

You might have the best quality product on the earth, a mind blowing customer service and you might be the most honest person on the web, your visitor will experience all these benefits only and only if your site converts your visitor into customer.

In short, your site is between your visitor and your product.

Your product will sell only if your site presents it in a way that clears all his psychological blocks that stops him to purchase your product.

So you need to improve your website PRESENTATION. Here are 3 most important blocks that you have to keep in mind to improve your website presentation...

1. Website Design.
2. Website Copy.
3. Website Graphics.

The simple but misused tactic that charged my lead capturing minisite to pull in 30% more leads is using killer, eye catching, amazingly stunning benefit laden graphics on my site.

You might say, it is common sense, but it is a shocking fact that majority sites fail to use this simple but powerful tactic to its fullest extent.

Here's my story...

I learned to design simple benefit laden graphics for my minisites, salesletters and lead capturing page. I learned these tricks within one hour watching some amazing graphic design videos.

As soon as I pasted these graphics on my site, I noticed an instant jump in my...

1. Sales - My visitor to sales conversion ratio increased by 45%.

2. Leads - My visitor to subscriber ratio increased by 30%.

3. Traffic - It might sound insane, but the fact is I started getting repeat traffic to my site.

4. Credibility - Visitors started trusting my site due to its professional approach. Some of my site visitors visited my place and called me up complimenting my site.

5. Profits - This finally increased cash in my bank account. This is what we all are waiting for.

I noticed that many visitors subscribed to my list only by viewing the killer graphics on the page. They did not even bother reading the entire copy on the site.

The secret is to create simple graphics that locks your visitors eyeballs.

Create killer ebook covers, box covers, magazine covers, report covers, video graphics, etc and stick them on your site.

With graphics on your page visitors can see your product right in front of their eyes leading to high conversion ratio.

Then plug a benefit on your graphic that wets their appetite. Boom, this simple approach will increase your profits without putting any additional efforts on your site or increasing your website traffic.

Just do what this article says and watch your profits EXPLODE.

Murtuza Abbas specializes in creating simple 'Profit Pulling Minisites'.

Churn out simple, effective Profit Pulling Minisites in 3 Hours or Less. Grab your FREE $147 'Minisite Creation Pack' & learn how to start an internet business today.

How Domain Names Work

Writen by Tim Priebe

I often have to explain to clients why, when they first get a domain name and website, it takes up to 48 hours for someone to be able to see their website. This can happen if they switch web servers, as well. The key to understanding this is understanding a little bit of how domain names work.

Keep in mind, this explanation will be just a bit simplified, to make it easier to understand. I don't like filling my explanations to clients with technical jargon, so I'm going to attempt to avoid that here.

The first thing to understand is this. Web hosting (or web space) is completely different from your domain name. Where your website's files actually sit has nothing to do with what your site is called. In fact, you can even purchase your domain name from one company and your web hosting from another. Many people do.

So how, when someone goes to your web address, does it know where your web hosting is? Each web host actually has a numerical address. Let's say your web site is at www.yourcompany.com, and your actual web hosting address is 216.60.153.87. How does my computer know that by typing in www.yourcompany.com, it should actually go to 216.60.153.87?

It doesn't. Instead, it asks my Internet service provider (Cox, AOL, SBC, etc.). Each Internet service provider has all that information stored. So my computer sends my ISP the web address, www.yourcompany.com, and my ISP actually looks that up at 216.60.153.87.

Hopefully that clears up a little bit the association between the domain name (www.yourcompany.com) and what is referred to as the IP address (or name server) of your web host (216.60.153.87). Now, let's move on to why it takes up to 48 hours to update those records.

Let's say you buy a new domain name through Go Daddy. For every domain name someone buys through them, Go Daddy has their domain name and actual numerical address stored. That's thousands of domain names. But when you buy a new domain from them, at the beginning, they're the only ones who have that information. They then have to get that information out to the rest of the Internet.

So how does that happen? Let's use an analogy. How that spreads is similar to how the flu spreads. If you were spreading the flu on purpose, that is. Let's say you had the flu, and wanted to spread it to as many people as possible, but could only infect one person at a time. The key, then, would be getting those people to then also infect others.

That's how the spread of your domain name works. Go Daddy (or whoever), regularly contacts other computers out on the Internet and passes on this information. Then those computers do the same. However, one computer might send out this information every hour, another every six hours, another every fifteen minutes. The schedule of each computer is not the same.

So 48 hours is the maximum amount of time, the experts agree, that it will take the information about your domain name to spread to all those computers (called domain name servers, or name servers for short). The technical term for this, if you're interested in knowing, is propagation. 48 hours is the maximum amount of time it takes your domain record to propagate to all the domain name servers on the Internet.

As complicated as this sounds, I've actually simplified it quite a bit. But the essential concept is there.

Tim is the owner and senior web designer at T&S Web Design. His company has developed and maintained website for dozens of small businesses and organizations. Tim also maintains a blog with free website advice for small business owners, GetASiteOnline.com.

Building Ecommerce Websites That Work Part 3

Writen by Richard Keir

An interesting eCommerce success factor that isn't precisely overlooked, but which is often thought about more in terms of being a way of feeding the search engine spiders has to do with providing content. In a very real sense the customer's job is to consume. That's why you're in business.

Think in terms of providing the information your customers need to do their job of consuming. What does that mean? Consider what you sell. The content on your site needs to focus on your products - whatever they happen to be. Reviews and comparative information on the items available through your web site can help focus and direct your customer to what they need, want and can afford.

Too often eCommerce sites use only marginally relevant information as content - or content that may match the general theme of the site but has nothing to do with what's being sold, promoted, etc. That could be more or less adequate as spider food, but it isn't going to help your customers do their job of consuming your products.

The better you combine these two goals - informing your customers and feeding the spiders - the better you'll do at both. Irrelevant search listings are pretty much a waste of your bandwidth. What you want is highly targeted customers interested in what you're offering and since the search engines love focused content and integrated sites, make that work for you.

And I'm not suggesting blatant repetitive hyped up sales copy. You want to inform, compare, offer added information that will help focus your customers. Use your content to develop desire and provide comparative information on similar products at varying price levels. Remember: desire not need.

While we all need things - and while you may be convinced everyone absolutely needs your product - we mostly buy based on desire - because we want it. The better you do at turning that need into immediate desire, the better your site will perform.

Again, not a fevered sales pitch. That's likely to turn off a large number of customers. Examples, stories and carefully chosen (and real) testimonials can support the process, too. Using video and/or audio can have a dramatic impact. Let your customers draw the obvious conclusions.

Along with providing plenty of comparison and review data, good search facilities are essential for a large eCommerce site. This also means that if you use a searchable product database that your keys and descriptions must be well-chosen and the links from search results to pages work smoothly and easily.

While we've talked earlier in this series about the importance of providing various ways to enhance the social aspect of your site, it's also important that customers be capable of using it without assistance. Never over complicate your site or your processes to the point that it's no longer obvious what to do to buy something (or complete whatever desired action you are focusing on).

A typical customer should be able to go from front page to product page to order page to thank you page easily and without hesitation or confusion. The simpler and cleaner the process, the better for you.

If you can manage it, test with 4 or 5 basically internet illiterate people. Watch carefully what they do, where they hesitate, what seems to cause confusion - but don't talk or help during the process. Then go over everything with them in detail working with your observations and their thoughts and feelings. Your site may be obvious to you, but is it obvious to anyone else?

And when you think you've covered anything, a few pairs of new eyes (or checking out your competitors' sites) can give you a whole new to-do list.

Your eCommerce site is an intentional business creation. Every aspect should be organized around what you want the site to do, what kind of visitors you want and what you want them to do. Everything on your site should be there for a specific reason that contributes to your goals for the site. And everything should be tested to be certain that it actually does contribute.

It's your site and your business so never take anything for granted, never assume something works if it can be tested. And never stop testing. With careful attention to detail and on-going testing you'll be able to make incremental improvements over time that will vastly improve the productivity of your eCommerce web site.

Copyright 2005 Richard Keir

Aside from writing, Richard teaches, trains and consults, on and off-line, on business and professional presentations, eCommerce, site building and programming.

Visit http://www.Building-eCommerce-Websites.com for eCommerce articles, information, resources and links and check our blog at http://www.Building-eCommerce-Websites/blog for opinion and ideas.

How To Earn Additional Income From Your Website

Writen by Steve Hill

So you have a nice looking website, which has good content and is well optimised, however you are looking to earn some additional income from the site. What are the next steps you can take to make this happen? This article gives useful tips and advice, which I hope will answer this question for you.

I have a large number of websites and am eager to learn about the latest website promotion methods, and about ways to increase your websites page rank in google.

One way of earning money from your site is by joining one or more affiliate schemes. Commissions vary, however if you have a high traffic site then you can do very well from these schemes.

Joining a program like google adsense is something which I prefer. This is where google place targeted adverts on your website and basically you earn money when people click on one of the ads. Depending on the website subject matter, these clicks can earn quite a high rate of commission. I had one click, on one of my hair loss websites which earned over ten dollars. This is quite rare and on average you will probably earn about forty cents per click. If you have a large number of content based, useful and interesting websites this can soon add up.

How much you earn will depend on how much time and work you put into each website. In my opinion hard work pays off and even though you may hear about certain ways to cheat the search engines, such as by using hidden pages or by joining a link building scheme, this will in the long term do you more harm than good. The search engines employ some of the top people and they are likely to find you out, ban your website from their engine and you also risk being kicked off the google adsense program altogether.

The hard work I wrote about earlier, is by promoting your website the natural way. I believe the key is to build up the number of backward links your website has, that is basically the number of other websites that link to you. These links should be built gradually and I would certainly not ever purchase a hundred backward links, from for example ebay. Where possible you should try and obtain these links from sites from your own sector or industry.

The best way to increase this number of backward links is by writing articles. You are able to include a link to your website in the article and when other webmasters include your article on their website or blog, this then gives you a one-way link. One-way links are the most powerful form of backward link in the eyes of the search engine.

I have been writing articles for quite a while now and it has proven to easily be, the most useful form of website promotion I have found so far.

Yahoo have now introduced a similar scheme to adsense, which I believe is only currently available in America. I have not yet added these adverts to my websites as I am based in the UK, therefore am unable to comment anymore about them.

In conclusion you are able to earn easy cash from your websites. The more work you put in, the more you are likely to earn. I always see things in the long term, if I work very hard for a number of years, I will eventually have a few websites with good page rank and that is when I will be able to enjoy the fruits of my labour. In the mean time I will treat any income as a form of pocket money.

I wish you all the success in earning money from your websites and hope this article has helped you on your way.

Stephen Hill helps to promote a number of websites including:

stuttering child

fear of heights

hgh information

The Importance Of Setting Up Your Own Website Online

Writen by Mal Keenan

The importance of a website for any online endeavour cannot be understated. There are some who claim that you can make money online even without a website. This is true. It is possible to earn some income without the benefit of your own site. I would say that for the little money that it takes to set up your own domain name and hosting you are putting yourself at an disadvantage by not setting up your own storefront online.

Even if you register your own name(ie http://www.malkeenan.com) as your domain name, it is a start. Domain names can be registered for as little as $3 per year. When you become a famous online entrepreneur people will have a place to visit:-).

The fact is, a website will make your business a whole lot easier.

Let's look at the distinct advantages of having your own website:

A website is your headquarters in cyberspace. You can fully automate its functions and leave it. If you do things right, it is capable of handling almost every aspect of your online business.

A website can serve as your digital store. You can display your products or a description of your services as well your portfolio in its pages. You could include a payment system, with the process summarized by a payment button, to make purchasing very convenient for your prospective customers.

A website can also be a directory for your affiliate links. I absolutely discourage affiliate marketers using the affiliate website provided by most affiliate programs. What happens if they go out of business and you have spent time marketing their site? Better to market your own site and then change affiliate links if required.

A website is a must for branding your name and your business. Branding is an essential process in Internet marketing. Your brand is the reputation you will build for yourself which could spell the difference between success and failure in your chosen market. Having your own website is not only a mark of professionalism, but it is also a way to make yourself and your business more recognizable to your chosen market.

A website can serve as your calling card on the World Wide Web. With all the anonymity that pervades the Internet, potential clients many times feel hesitant about transacting online. Having your own website will allow them to perform a "whois" check on you, where they can find your personal details, verifying that you are a REAL person. I also suggest you post contact details and a photo on your website to further gain your visitors' trust.

With all the advantages that a website can provide for your business, failure to have one is simply not an option. If you wish to be competitive in the online world, you will need your own website.

Copyright 2006 Mal Keenan

Mal Keenan is editor and publisher of Home Business Tips Newsletter.
Visit his work at home jobs and opportunities website for more ideas, articles and resources PLUS your free 30 page home business success e-book.

Planning A Usable Website A Threestep Guide

Writen by Trenton Moss

A website is like an information flow, with you as the provider and your site visitors as the receivers of the information. If you don't plan your website with this in mind right from the start, you could find yourself with a brand new website that solves all your immediate needs... but not those of your site visitors.

Clicking away from your website has never been easier for Internet users. There are about 35 million websites competing with yours on the Internet (source: http://www.zooknic.com/Domains/counts.html). Search engine results are becoming better and better and Internet connection speeds faster and faster - finding one of your competitors' websites is now very quick and very easy.

1. Work out your site visitors' immediate needs

Your website has to provide information that fulfils the immediate needs of your site visitors. This is the fundamental principle behind usable website design, so let's repeat it one more time: Your website has to provide information that fulfils the immediate needs of your site visitors.

OK, now we've got that straight, we come up against a problem: Your goals for the website are probably different to the immediate needs of your site visitors. Oh dear.

Let's illustrate this problem, and its solution, with the example of a web design company's website. Their immediate goal is to get visitors to contact them and ultimately commission them to do some web development work. Their site visitors are probably interested in getting web development work done (if not, why are they on this website?), but it's unlikely that this is their immediate need when they arrive at the website.

The immediate needs of the site visitors' are probably to answer questions like:

- Can I trust them?

- Are they any good at what they do?

- Will they get the job done?

Before the website begins to sell to its site visitors, it has to answer their questions and put their fears to rest. This is fundamentally important, so one more time: Before the website begins to sell to its site visitors, it has to answer their questions and put their fears to rest.

In the case of this web design company, they could provide a portfolio, client testimonials etc. Can you think of any other information they should offer?

2. Create an information flow

Now we've worked out what our site visitors' immediate needs are, we need to create an information flow, a path (or paths) that your site visitors will traverse whilst on your website. The path(s) will initially address their concerns and needs and will gradually take them towards completing your goal for them. To create this plan we'll need to:

- Identify the different groups of people who'll use your website

- Work out what you want each of these groups to achieve on your website

- Identify the information you'll need to provide for them to achieve this (and in what order)

- Work out what might put them off achieving this

- Identify the information you'll need to provide to prevent them being put off

From this, you'll be able to create a list of website pages and a rough idea of how they might flow together. You'll then be able to work out exactly what pages to include on the website and how to group these pages together.

Bear in mind though, some users will need more information than others, so you'll always need to provide them with a choice of continuing on the information flow or jumping off so that they can achieve the goal you've set for them.

Going back to the website of the web design company, an information flow that their site visitors might go on could look something like this:

1. Homepage
2. Portfolio
3. Client testimonials
4. Company background
5. Staff bios
6. Terms & conditions
7. Good web design tips
8. Contact us

The web design company's ultimate goal is for site visitors to contact them and request their services. Wherever users are in this flow, they must be able to easily and immediately jump straight to the contact page at any point.

You've probably already seen this in action on websites. You arrive at the homepage and there are two or three prominent links (often in the form of boxes) telling you some basic information and requesting that you click on them to take you into some other part of the website. You go to that page on the website, read the information and then choose where to go next. And this keeps going on, until you either quit or complete the desired goal of the website.

So, the web design company's homepage might look something like what you see at http://www.webcredible.co.uk/images/plan-usable.gif.

The three boxes in the middle answer some immediate questions that users may have and proactively address their concerns. The contact us button on the top-left can remain in that position on every page, so users always have the opportunity to jump to the contact page.

3. Usability testing

Once the website plan has been created, it's time to test it. This is the most important usability test that needs to be done and the one that will save you the most time and money in the long run. Every £1 invested in making your website easy-to-use returns £10 to £100 (source:http://www-3.ibm.com/ibm/easy/eou_ext.nsf/Publish/23/).

If you don't do any usability testing you may discover that the structure of the website doesn't make sense once the website's up and running. This can and has happened and it leaves you with two choices: redesign the website or make a new website - neither are attractive options.

The most common objections to doing usability testing are:

- It's too expensive!

- It'll take too much time!

- I don't know how to do it!

Wrong, wrong, and wrong! Usability testing, especially at this early stage, is incredibly cheap, quick, informal and easy to do. You just need to show five people the plan/site map of the website and ask them:

- What's the point of this website?

- If you were on this homepage, where you would click? And where after that?

- Is it what you need?

That's it! As long as these five people roughly fit into your user profile everything should be fine. It's been shown that using five people for a usability test will uncover 85% of the usability issues of the website (source:http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20000319.html).

This article was written by Trenton Moss. He's crazy about web usability and accessibility - so crazy that he went and started his own web usability and accessibility consultancy ( Webcredible - http://www.webcredible.co.uk ) to help make the Internet a better place for everyone. They offer fantastic accessibility & CSS support packages, which you can read all about at http://www.webcredible.co.uk/support .

A Turnkey Or Customized Website Which One Is Right For You

Writen by George Alarcon

No doubt transporting your business online has never been easier. But one towering question remains: should I use a turnkey software that's already been developed or a totally customized Website option for my business? Continue to read to learn the pros and cons of these two website building options, and to decide whether to choose a turnkey website builder or a purely customized solution for fulfilling your business requirements and expectations.

Below are major factors to consider when you are shopping for the right website building solution for your business:

Timeline and resources; budget; flexibility; scalability; maintenance; support.

Customized Website Solution

First, I will address a customized website solution. For some business owners, they would not be satisfied unless their website is totally custom-designed. There are certain advantages such as specialization and uniqueness when a website is completely built from scratch. With so many companies today that provide website development services, you can work directly with a web designer during the entire web developmental process to make sure that you receive exactly what you want. You will get mock-ups for each web page, reviews, and opportunities to suggest changes. When approved your web designer will implement selected designs within the site.

A 5 to 10 paged Website may cost you any where from $2000 up to $5,000. The timeline for completion is usually between two to four weeks.

A turnkey Website solution is one which has been developed and is available to you on a monthly rental basis. There are many providers that offer turnkey website software, but only a few good ones that offer shopping cart software, free support, and many features.

Beware of falling prey for those inferior shopping cart software providers which specialize in web hosting. You do not want to use a company that offers you ecommerce software as an added benefit. Be extremely careful of making this oversight. The "wrong" provider can cost you thousands of dollars worth of lost sales down the line.

A number of competent turnkey ecommerce software packages are available to you at a very reasonably low cost. Keep in mind that these companies have invested years in research and a lot of money to develop their ecommerce software. They can afford to provide you a high quality turnkey website solution at a remarkably low cost. Because their focus is to attract the masses, their turnkey software has to provide a sizeable number of features in order to fulfill a vast range of business requirements. In addition, the price you pay monthly will be quite low since such software providers have thousands of customers.

The resources that are required to use a turnkey software truly depend on how many services or products you are planning to sell. You will either get manual or automated product updates.

Be certain to create a list of the utmost important features you will need to run a successful business online. Then, compare your list of needs with their list of features to make sure that most of those features that you require, are available once you sign up. Never be in a hurry. If you got questions, never hesitate to call or email. Make an informed decision when all of your questions are answered to your complete satisfaction.

Some turnkey software providers may fail to deliver a high level of support to their customer base. Bear the support factor in mind when shopping for a good turnkey software provider.

The vast majority of turnkey software companies provide web-based administration so you can easily use point-and-click features to quickly make updates whenever you need to. Maintenance of a website through turnkey software is relatively simple, efficient, and very cost-effective since the cost is already included in your monthly rental fees.

The budget requirement for a turnkey website usually runs under one hundred dollars a month. The timeline to launch a new website can realistically be done within a day, depending on how involved the project is.

The Pros and Cons

So what are the pros and cons of each described website option? A customized website gives the business owner less control over content update, takes longer to create, and costs much more to build, but it does offer a more unique look. A turnkey software provider, on the other hand, gives the business owner total control over content updates, takes less time to build, costs incredibly less, but the look and feel of a finished website is not as unique and personal as of a customized web project.

At turnkey-websites.info see how a turnkey website builder can help you build a professional website. Try a 10-day trial--for free.

Even 800 Pound Gorillas Die

Writen by Richard Yawn

Many software vendors are in their infancy. Yet these infants have predominant and bullying arms. They push their weight around with their unfair trade practices and they use their control to place long term licensing anchors on their customers. They use their controlling arms to force competitive businesses out of business and they use their monopolizing entry points to place free services in the hands of consumers to cripple their innovative competitors. The infant fears the unknown and attempts to destroy any and all alpha males that pose a threat.

So, the 800 Pound Gorilla attempts to build a house of stone with a fence of iron but in essence may be building a house of cards. The controlled market is built on a very young technology. The technology has weaknesses and many barriers. The weaknesses include many crafts that are candidate for automation. The barriers include high cost, complexity, and illusions of greatness with a future that is relative to mediocrity.

What happens when the barriers are removed? What happens when a word processor on the Internet works as well as an expensive and bloated word processor that must be bound to your physical computers? What happens when the operating system is light weight and is only a proxy to re-centralization of systems? What happens when software has the ability to be defined on the Internet by the business people that require the functionality? What happens to the Gorilla that has built a livelihood around a house of cards and the licensing anchors are blown away?

Richard is a practicing architect in the field of information technology. His primary focus is Internet enabled composite software that is available at http://www.netprocesses.com

Give Your Business A Cash Infusion

Writen by Melinda Robb

Whether you have your own business already, or are looking for a way to cash in on the profit potential of reaching millions of internet users – you can't afford NOT to read this……..

Say goodbye to the Daily Grind!

If you are like me, you are tired of dragging yourself to a 9 to 5 job every day - working like a dog - so someone else can reap the rewards! I am here to tell you that it is YOUR TURN to cash in, and unchain yourself from that desk!

I will share with you the secrets of the most successful internet marketers – why should they be the only ones profiting from the vast opportunities on the Internet?

Don't be fooled by ads promising huge amounts of cash with little or no effort on your part. That is simply not a realistic expectation – you've been around long enough to know that you can't get something (at least something of VALUE) for nothing.

What I will show you is a way to start your own website with links to some of the most profitable affiliate programs on the internet. There are a lot of companies paying generous commissions to people willing to promote their products! Selling the products that are in highest demand is one of the biggest keys to your success!

The task of setting up your own website seems huge, doesn't it? Don't worry! I will have your site set up for you - complete with all your affiliate links – within 24 hours! If that isn't enough, I will do it for FREE!

Start generating income within 24 hours!

The only thing you have to do is get yourself a domain name, and you can be on your way to financial independence by this time tomorrow! Since it is your domain name, You will own this site, and You will have CONTROL over how it looks, what links to provide etc.

Many affiliate programs out there make big promises, get you set up with a website and then leave you high and dry - with no idea what to do next. Believe me, I have spent a lot of time (and MONEY) promoting someone else's site with no idea of my progress – or even if any one had visited the site and purchased anything.

When you join this program, you will be connected to a vast network of people who are there to SUPPORT you and are genuinely committed to your success – including me!

After all, your success is literally my success as well. When you join the program with me as your sponsor, it means that every time you make money - I make money. In turn, as you recruit new members, their success becomes your success!

To prove my commitment, I will pass on a step-by-step guide called "30 days to Success" which will show you day by day how to promote your site in ways you may never have thought of! These money making techniques have already been proven to work for those so-called "internet gurus" – make them work for YOU!

Don't re-invent the wheel!

Why spend all your time, effort, and money trying to figure out ways to promote your site when the information you need is right here at your finger tips – FREE!

Many people spend hundreds, even thousands of dollars trying to get visitors to their site and buy their products. They spend Hours…Days… Years … learning the tricks that I am offering you for free, right now!

Don't waste any more time … start living your dreams today!

Your Partner in Online Success,

About The Author

Melinda Robb publishes "Cash Infusion", a fresh and informative newsletter dedicated to helping people like YOU achieve Internet success! If you are looking for the best rated internet opportunities, the latest time saving tools, and helpful support from an HONEST friend in business, stop by and get a FREE subscription today at: http://www.melzbiz.com or melzbiz@getresponse.com

Discover How To Attract More Interested, Enthusiastic Prospects... More Customers... And More Cash Profits From Every Ad, Sales Letter, Web Page, Or Any Other Marketing Piece You Ever Use -- 100% GUARANTEED!

The 2 Most Common Web Site Mistakes

Writen by Halstatt Pires

When we review the sites of potential clients, there are 2 mistakes we see over and over. If you are having problems with your site, make sure these 2 problems aren't killing you.

Traffic

Just because you think something is a good idea doesn't mean the general public agrees. A web site should solve a problem that is common to some part of the population. If people have a problem, they will be compelled to find an answer to it. If they don't, they are not going to visit your site for anything other than browsing. Browsing doesn't pay the bills!

Do the research on Overture or your favorite tool. If there isn't a significant amount of monthly searches for your topic, move on to another one. If you think you can both alert people to a problem and solve it, you are in for a difficult time. It can be done, but your chances of success are pretty small.

Database Parameters

If you have a database driven site, you absolutely must get control of the sub-domains. Examples of database sites include sites selling products or providing some version of a listing service such as real estate or jobs. Programmers and designers have a bad habit of putting session ids in the sub-domains. Session ids are an indication of dynamic pages, pages that are built on the fly when the domain is triggered. A dynamic domain looks something like:

http://www.your-site.com/default.cfm?sid#####LLLLaaa#####

The problem with dynamic domains concerns search engine robots. A robot is designed to recognize the meta tags and content of a page. The robot will then include the page in the search database. Robots often refuse to index dynamic pages because the robot cannot predict the content on the page. From the robot's view, the page could show different things each time it is accessed. As a result, the search engines can't list it under any particular keyword with any confidence that the content will be relevant to the search. If you have dynamic pages, most of the pages of your site will never appear in Google, Yahoo and MSN. That's a disaster.

Planning is the key to setting up a profitable e-commerce site. Make sure you are solving a known problem and set your site up to be friendly to the search engine robots.

Halstatt Pires is with http://www.marketingtitan.com - an Internet marketing and advertising company in San Diego, California.

8 Good Reasons Every Business Needs A Web Site

Writen by Daniel Wadleigh

1) A study by American Business Journals revealed that "companies with a web presence grow 46% faster than those without!"

2) To begin with, an Internet web site for your company has some rather critical values built into it. At the least, they are instantly flexible, and, very measurable, a marketers delight.

3) They are also a very economical vehicle from which to supply a lot of your latest catalog, technical or marketing information. There is a phenomenal growth in corporate sites because they deliver values. Why bother with the Internet, you ask?

4) $48,800 average income, 75% with credit cards!

5) $2.2 trillion in year 2004!

6) The fact is that a professionally created web presence has rapidly become the minimum level of declaring that this company is "with it" and is on top of the technological changes that are beneficial to conducting business.

7) You can supply clients or potential clients with valuable information, specials you are running, prices for all your products/services, status on an order, specifications on all products, instructions on all products for installing or using, and, free bonus tips on something of value.

8) The tenth value in web sites - more sales and profits! You can get at who would not naturally have gone out of their way to be introduced to you. A major benefit of a professionally created web site comes from the proper use of selling every link on the site. You have to sell them on going there in the first place, then you have to again sell them on clicking on any link on your site, then you have to sell them again on responding to your irresistible offer in order get them to go to the next step. It isn't effective to say "check it out". Why should they bother? A link should not say "Services", it should say "Services that save you time, grief and money."

Additionally, watch out for small Internet service providers, they have limited capacity and will fill up and gag your customers access to you. When the line is busy, your cash register isn't!

Daniel Wadleigh is a nationally published marketing consultant and has programs for start-up and existing businesses including effective web sites, e-mail/database, other non-internet ways to drive them to your website, and low cost ways to get more new customers.

Go to: http://www.more-new-customers.com to get free copy of "Marketing to Men vs. Women- the 8 different responses" and a Free copy of "Market Research- 7 Questions to Ask to Start-up and 7 to Ask to Improve Any Business."

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Take Action Create A Website Strategy That Generates Revenue

Writen by Stephanie Diamond

Why should you care about your website strategy? Wouldn't it be easier just to put up a website and hope you hit on something that makes you money? If you're like hundreds of thousands of other online business owners, that's probably what you did. But now it's time to re-assess the results and develop a strategy that will increase revenue consistently.

Decide what Business you are in NOW

When you put up your first website, it was a snapshot of your business at that point in time. As your business evolves your website should reflect that. Have you added new and different products? Have you changed the focus of your services? Like websites, the businesses they support are organic. They grow and change. Your strategy for meeting those goals and objectives must change with it. Adding content piecemeal is necessary to keep your site updated, but at some point during each year you need to re-assess the big picture.

Take Action: Make time to sit down with your key staff and review what your main business is today. Don't cling to old notions about what it was or should be. Decide what it IS. Make sure that you are taking advantage of opportunities that will propel your business to the next level.

Analyze your Website Content

Does your content match your current goals? I recommend using a tool called a Mind Map (developed by Tony Buzan) to analyze your website. But you can use any tool that allows you create a map showing all the main branches on your home page. The key here is to strip away the graphics and really look at your content and navigation path. Don't be distracted by pretty colors and pictures.

Take Action: Create a specific path on your home page for visitors to "walk" For example, if the main goal of your website is to get visitors to call, don't put up extraneous links to distract them. You want to them to write down your phone number and call you. Everything on your home page should support that! An 800 number in the banner area is a great idea. Links to books they should read on the subject is not.

Compare the Competition

It's always a good idea to look at what the competition is doing on their website. Create maps for their home pages as well. But don't assume that because they are bigger, that their website has a better strategy. Deep marketing pockets can often mask website failures.

Take Action:
Compare your maps and see what emphasis the competition places on their home page. Do they focus heavily on promotions? Are they using free content to attract visitors? Note the best strategies and see how they apply to you. But have confidence that your content has value.

Revise and Test

Be prepared to change your home page content based on what you learned. Be bold, try new things. But be sure you test what you've done. You don't want to change something that was working. Your webmaster should be providing you with the statistics you need to test and revise.

Take Action:
Carefully analyze the changes you've made. Buy the best website analysis tool you can. Make sure you know what kind of content generates sales. Then pour it on and watch your revenue grow consistently!

A seasoned 25+ year management/marketing professional, founder Stephanie Diamond is experienced in building profits in a broad range of product and services businesses. She created a highly successful line of multimedia software products that sold millions of copies for America Online, and has developed unique business strategies and products for a variety of companies, including AOL Time Warner, Redgate New Media and Newsweek, Inc. Visit her website at http://www.DigMediaWorks.com

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Internet Evolution

Writen by Richard Yawn

I hope to be able to read this article or another one like it in ten years and read retrospective reviews that wonder why we technologist were in such a state of denial. Complexity leads to simplicity. Until something becomes turnkey, people will evolve that form of transportation, device, or technology until it is turnkey. There appears to be at least two primary reasons. The first is a desire to empower the individual, and the second is a gain in revenue by marketing to the masses.

Software is and has been in a state of complexity. There are many dis-joined technologies and complex orchestrations that require advanced and rigorous management techniques with highly skilled resources. This is still true even after many technological advances. Many vendors and entrepreneurs are aware of this. Prior to the bubble bursting, there were many vendors attempting to market Application Service Providers through the Internet. There were many issues with this at the time with respect to performance, acceptance, and the complexity of automating technology. Then the bubble burst. So, ventures to provide Software As A Service have been deemed too risky by capitalist. On the other hand, vendors that provide online Site Builders, CRM's, and Store Fronts are successful and gaining acceptance.

Why is it that the database, servers, object programming, and other technological complexities not automated? If the technologies were automated to the extent that complexity is hidden from the end user, then the end user could just define what they need through composition. Yes, this is complex to do in this day and time, and at the same time this is completely possible and provides many Possibilities. One reason for this type of service not being readily available is that instead of changing technology we continue with current technical trends, and do no more than put additional weight on the end of a branch. Another reason for this type of service not being readily available is that it can weigh considerable impact on large software vendor business models.

Online forms, online databases, and business processes created by end users is now possible on the Internet. The Internet is the delivery mechanism for content, is gaining ground as a mechanism for composite web services, and has nothing stopping it from being able to deliver tools for end users to define complex business systems with relative simplicity. With that said, the Internet is evolving through automation of the underlying technologies.

Richard is a practicing architect in the field of information technology. His primary focus is Internet enabled composite software that is available at http://www.netprocesses.com

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