Let’s take a look at how you can use these different advertising methods to your best advantage:
Using Articles to market your web site
Short articles are a great way to generate traffic to your website. Articles can be used to keep the material fresh on the site so that your customers keep coming back, they can also be used to ‘advertise’ your site on web sites owned by others. Placing your article on article submission sites allows others to download it and use your article in their newsletters and on their web sites. Of course there are links in the article that point to your site for more information or other reviews etc. These links are great as they help increase your standings in the search engines.

The articles can be about any topic and you will find there are hundreds of article submission sites available to place your articles on. Most are free as they need fresh information so that their customers keep coming back as well.
Using Affiliates to market your web site
Affiliate programs can add thousands of independent sales people to help market your products and services.

Over the years I have been involved with many businesses, and one of the things I remember from my Amway days was that as an individual, I could only do so much. I have 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year in which I can work. I will hit a maximum point of sales that I can handle by myself. After that I’m done. The only way to do more is to automate and have others duplicate what I do. The same is true on the web. We need to automate and duplicate what we do so we can have others expand our sales for us. The first part of this equation is duplication. We can have others follow what we do and sell our products and services for us and pay them a portion of the profits. This is different than having employees. Employees have no requirement to sell. They are overhead that must be paid regardless of sales. That is NOT what you want for a new business. Keep your hard-earned cash for other things. What we need is someone that is willing to do the work for part of the profits. This is where affiliate programs come in to our formula for success. Affiliates are basically a partnership between web sites to advertise and promote products, services, or information for a share of the profits. When someone they refer to you buys, you pay them a percentage of the sales. Result? More traffic, more sales and less time required by you to find the customers as someone else does it for you.

What else can a good affiliate program do for you?

· How about driving more traffic to your site!
· Build brand awareness as more people visit your site from the hundreds or thousands of affiliates that are advertising for you.
· Obtaining qualified leads that you can follow-up on to increase or up sell to.
· Increasing the links to your site, which will increase the ranking of your site on the search engines resulting in more traffic and more sales.
There are all kinds of affiliate programs. Some programs charge to be a member and some do not. Some are web based and some are software programs that you load on your computer to set up and track the sales and affiliate yourself. Which one you use is up to you. Here are a few that I have found.
Affiliate Net - This is one of the more affordable server side affiliate programs. With this software there are no monthly fees only a one-time software charge. At the time of this writing this package sold from $49.95 to $99.95. Referral Software - This package is also server side although more expensive, it has many more features and is worth while to consider if you are serious about earning a lot of money with your Internet business. At the time of this writing this package sold for $299.00.
Click Bank - This is a web based affiliate program. By signing up on their web site you have access to over 100,000 affiliates. ClickBank is free to be an affiliate and has a charge if you want to run an affiliate program for your products.
clixGalore Affiliate Networks - This is a web based affiliate program. There are monthly and set up fees.
I highly recommend affiliate programs. For the reasons listed above. Remember they will help drive traffic to your site, which means more sales and you can use the affiliate programs to offer others services and make the commission once you are done with the client. This could be a good business all by its self.
Using Auctions to market your web site
Ok, you have a product or service you want to sell; you need to let people know about that product or service and you don’t have much money to spend. Imagine a place that gets over 3 million customers that are ready, able, willing and looking to buy everyday. It is a Super Mall!
Ask any businessperson what they would pay to be in a mall that got 3 million visitors a day. You can see the dollar signs light up in their eyes… both in terms of cost and sales potential. Remember my goal from earlier in the course when we talked about business planning? I need to have 4200 visitors a month come to my web site in order to sell 420 copies according to my business plan. Well E-Bay gets 3 million visitors a day! Do you think that might be a place that I would want to advertise my books or my web site? You bet! In fact I have sold quite a few of my other books on E-Bay as well as bottles, baseball cards, clothing, computers, software, training, video and much more. So can you.
Let’s take my Weekend Chef’s guides and see how I can sell them on E-Bay, Yahoo Auctions, or MSN Auctions. First I need an account. This is simple, but does vary based on which you are signing up with. Follow the instructions (at the end of this page is an excellent course on how to really make money on auctions, but this will get you started). Once you have an account, we now need to place something for sale. Think of the auction site as your web site As such we need to create a web page that offers you product/service for sale. I use a software package call Auction Wizard 2000. They have an excellent program that allows you to try it for 60 days before you have to register. It is so easy to use as well. Using Auction Wizard, I can create an auction page and automatically post it and re-post as needed to any of the supported auctions. No special knowledge of html is required. Simple fill-in the blanks and add any pictures or graphics and I’m done. It also will track the sales, send emails to successful bidders, track inventory and so much more. If you are thinking of doing auctions, this is one piece of software to take a hard look at.
Back to selling my guides and building my business. Within the auction listing, I can place a link to my site, offer a free download of some chapters of the book, of course, I will need your email before you can download. Remember that I need to keep you coming back. Be careful here, E-Bay does not like you selling outside of their auction so make sure the visitor is not allowed to buy from your site at that link. Well, now we have given something away for free (a chapter of the book), we have the visitors email address, and we hopefully will get a bid on the product/service. If not, we have the email to follow up. What has it cost us? Each item up for auction on E-Bay cost, are you ready for this, 30 cents to list it plus a small percentage of the selling cost. If I list my Weekend Chef’s Guide to Sushi on E-Bay with a starting price of say $1 it will cost me a total of about 30 cents for the week. 30 cents to reach millions of potential customers a day. If I sell the book, I will have recovered my 30 cents and started building my customer email list as well.
Now I could write a series on using auctions, but this page is just how to use auctions to market your business. You can sell items and make a profit or you can just list items and build a customer database to market too later. Either way Auctions make a great way to market your business.
I have on my website a couple more tips on using auctions as well at rd-webhosting.com or visit my eBay store for other e-books that are available from time to time.
Using Auto responders to market your web site
Depending on the products, services or information you are selling auto responders may be able to automate a good portion of your web site business. An auto responder is a piece of software that checks email for certain words or phrases and responds according to your wishes. For example, you may have received a newsletter by sending an email to me with Subscribe as the subject. My auto responder sees that email come in and has a set of actions defined that when the subject has subscribe in it that it will email back to you our newsletter. Another thing that the auto responders can do is following up with your customers at predetermined times with a predetermined letter. This is good for driving traffic to your site after they have visited and left their email address such as to subscribe to a newsletter or download a free chapter of an e-book or other information you have made available. For my training business I send up to 4 different emails to each person that request my guide to increase their income. Each email introduces them to other benefits and services that are available. Some of the emails will offer a discount or free training class as an incentive to sign up for a class. All of it done without me having to get involved.
Auto responders can be installed on your computer or used via the Internet. Some are free and others you have to pay either by the email address or based on the number of responses you want to program it to respond to. Here are some links to auto responders on the web as well as a software package with a trial version you can use yourself.
Promasoft: This is the one we use with our servers. I highly recommend. They have a trial version that is a full version. It places a header in the outgoing email, so you will want to register once you have it up and running. I think it is a great program.
GetResponse: This is also a great program, although, this one is a subscription service. It can be a less expensive way to try out an auto responder. They do offer a free account as well.

Learn how to start and build a successful home based Internet business with me. My name is Raymond Laubert and I am a Microsoft Certified Trainer teaching Database Management and owner of several web-based businesses including http://rd-webhosting.com which specializes in small and home based business web hosting, http://theweekendchef.com a free recipe website with over 350,000 recipes and http://zero2won.com which guides you from choosing a home based business to building a successful and profitable business within 6 months using the web. Look for more of my articles on this site and may the Lord bless you, your family and your business venture.

There are other forms of advertising as well. One of which we discuss in part 4 is a newsletter. Others include, your email signature, banner ads, e-books and affiliates. Each are discussed here. Click on the Marketing Resources to review each form of advertising..

Learn how to start and build a successful home based Internet business with me. My name is Raymond Laubert and I am a Microsoft Certified Trainer teaching Database Management and owner of several web-based businesses including http://rd-webhosting.com which specializes in small and home based business web hosting, http://theweekendchef.com for free recipes and cooking related information, great for the weekend chefs and http://zero2won.com which guides you from choosing a home based business to building a successful and profitable business within 6 months using the web. Look for more of my articles on this site and may the Lord bless you, your family and your business venture.

Part 3
Using email, e-books, letterhead and magazines

By Raymond Laubert
MCSE, MCDBA, MCT

http://www.rd-webhosting.com

Using Email to market your web site

This is a very touchy subject. One that needs to be addressed and that you need to understand. Email marketing falls into three categories. First is simple, you place a signature line in your email program that automatically adds your signature block to each out going email. This signature line identifies your web site and a brief tag line or catch phase. Every time you respond or send an email, your signature advertises your business, no problems with that. However, the next two types of email marketing are very touchy.

By now, everyone has heard of SPAM. Your definition may be different from mine and from the governments. However, you look at it, SPAM is unwanted email. Now email marketing requires that we send emails to our potential customers. This can be done either with or without their permission. Sending email without the permission of the recipient put us in a bad light. Often resulting is negative feelings and responses from the recipient. This is bad for business. If you piss off the potential customer, well, they are no longer a potential customer as they have deleted you email and won’t be visiting your site. You have wasted valuable time and money. So, the only people you will be sending any marketing emails to will be those that have requested information from you or have agreed to receive information from you. This is called permission-based email.

Where can you find people who are willing to receive your emails? First provide a place on your web site to gather the names and addresses of your visitors. Offer them something in exchange, such as a free publication, or your newsletter, or something else of potential value to them. Let them know when they sign up that you will from time to time be sending them information. Include in the email a means to unsubscribe at any time. As people sign up you are building your email list, which you can market to as often as you like. I wouldn’t recommend more than twice a month.

There are other web sites that maintain a list of people who want to hear from your. This permission-based method is usually based on a particular subject matter. Such as hobbies, business ideas, childcare etc. You can find them on the web by searching for mailing list.

Emails are an inexpensive way to keep in touch with your customers. If you have a brick and motor store, try to get the email addresses of your current customers and add them to the list as well. You will be surprised at how much extra business can come from a personalize email about a special you are offering for their support over the last year etc.

Using E-books to market your web site

What can your own E-zine or E-book do for your business or web site? How about:

* Sell more products or services. An e-zine/e-book can increase your credibility, making it easier to sell your product or service as well as those of others in which you have a stake.
* Attract more affiliates to help sell your products or services. This form of advertising is viral in it approach. E-zines and e-books get passed from person to person. Creating more interest which makes people want to jump on board and become part of that success.
* Establish yourself as an expert in your field, creating more ‘believability’ and trust. People don’t buy from strangers. With you e-zine or e-book you become better known to them. When the time comes they need or want your products or services, there’s no question who they’ll buy them from — YOU!
* Show your visitors and clients everything you can really do for them, maximizing your sales efforts.
* Build a base of customers who are ready to hire you, buy from you, evangelize for you and create more fans for you.
* Effortlessly spread the word about your business via “viral marketing.”
* Create new revenue streams from selling ad space and recommending other products that you’re an affiliate of. See our affiliate page for more information.
* Become a recognized publisher. Have others writing your articles, advertisers paying for exposure in your publication.

Here is an IMPORTANT point, capture the email addresses of your Web site visitors, gaining permission to market to them over and over again and multiple chances closing the sale. Not to mention the sales of other products or services.

Keep in touch with all of your customers, prospects, and associates on a regular basis.

Simple tips for creating e-zines and e-books

Package your knowledge on a regular basis into tips and articles that can be reprinted in other publications for tons of additional exposure and traffic. There are thousands of e-books and e-zines in publication today. Most are specialized in a particular segment of the web or interest. When you find an e-book/ezine that reaches the people that may be interested in your product or service. Contact them to see if they take outside articles. If they do, send them an article or two that you may have written. Include information on your business and your web site If they publish your article, your name and web site will be listed. This is a great way of getting free advertising and traffic to your site.

Another way to get articles for your e-books is to find someone to write them for you. Much like the process above but in this case you are the one publishing the material. Use your web site, chat rooms, forums etc to advertise for articles.

Save thousands of dollars printing and postage by producing your newsletter online instead of printing it. Adobe Writer is a good program for your e-books and any email program can be used for e-zines.

Using Letterhead to market your web site

Every business uses paper to correspond with its customers, vendors and other businesses. Many small businesses and home based businesses today use the computer a and a word processor to generate this correspondence whether it is printed or electronic we all do. So how can we use this correspondence to market our business? Simple, create a letterhead template and make it your default document when ever you create a business related correspondence.

In your letterhead template make sure you have your website address and you company slogan (if you have one) prominently displayed. I have even seem some letterhead lately that simply has the website address listed and no physical address as many companies are Internet based or figure that you will have access to the Internet and can visit their site to look up the street address if needed. This is actually a clever move, in that it get you to visit the site, which is what our marketing is trying to do to begin with.

Using Magazines to market your web site

Those articles that you wrote or had written for your business can also be sent to magazine and newspapers for publication. Each one that is printed is free advertisement for your business that lasts for years. Just think how many issues are passed around from person to person before they end up in the trash. I saw several magazines at the Laundromat that were from 1996-1998 that people were still reading. You can do a search on the web for publications in your area of expertise. Visit their web sites and find the editors email address. Be sure to find out the policy for submitting an article for publication and follow it. Some editors don’t like it when the mailbox is full of unsolicited articles that do not conform to their policies and will just trash the email instead of replying to you.

This is part one of a multi-part series of marketing you web site. Please visit us at http://rd-webhosting.com for the rest of the series. In the next section we will cover marketing you web site using newsletters, search engines and the yellow pages.

Raymond Laubert is owner of http://rd-webhosting.com a web hosting provider specializing in home based business web hosting. He has written many articles related to web hosting and home based businesses which can be found at http://rd-webhosting.com.

INCREASED SALES

Increased business income can be achieved by selling more of your product. You, of course want to increase your sales. That’s the reason for offering your product to the market. Utilizing the best possible marketing techniques to display, present, advertise or showcase the product you provide is the best way to increase sales. Ultimately, the more potential customers you can attract to your product, the more likely you are to make increased sales.

INCREASED PRICE

This method of boosting business income sounds like a good idea on the surface, but it can be self-defeating, so you will want to be very sure of your ground before raising your prices. You will need to do extensive market research to determine not only what the market is, but what your competitors are doing.

Generally speaking, if you are priced at the top end of the market for a particular product, the product will need to have other features that will be perceived by the customers as reasons for the higher price. While there are always people who believe that higher price indicates higher quality, there are also going to be those who will realize they can get the same quality for less money elsewhere. After all, Starbucks Coffee successfully charges more for their cup of coffee than anyone else in town. They do this through successful marketing of their product.

If, however, you have a product which is absolutely unique or substantially different than anything else on the market, you can probably get away with boosting your business income by charging higher prices. If you are first in the field, your product and price will be the benchmark by which others are measured.

INVESTING CAPITAL

A third way to increase business income is to put temporarily unneeded existing income to work for you. This is an indirect method of business income growth, but it works just as well as the first two. You will need to do the research to find the best vehicles to grow the business income; or, you can select a reputable financial advisor to do the investment for you. If you decide to use this method of growing business income, you need to make sure that your needed operating funds are still available to you. Only invest those funds which you will not need to access for whatever period of time your investment vehicle requires. In other words, if you will need to purchase a new vehicle for your business within 6 months, don’t invest the funds in a certificate of deposit which matures in twelve months.

The Weekend Chef has over 300,000 recipes and 9,000 drink recipes, visit them today!

Posted in Articles for Home Based Businesses, Business Basics | No Comments »
What you need to sell info products!
Saturday, June 9th, 2007

There are a lot of people who would love to be able to create a cool informational product and be able to make a great living (even get rich) while sitting in a comfy chair in front of their computers knowing that never again would they have to drive in rush hour traffic with all those crazies or put up with an unrelenting, over zealous boss who never had and never would or could be pleased. What a beautiful vision! The truth is that that lovely vision can become a reality but you will have to pay your dues first. Successful niche markets for an informational product don’t grow on trees or fall out of the sky.

The first thing you need and must have to create an informational product is an idea…a subject…a topic…that will fill the needs, solve a problems, or just make life better for some particular and very specific segment of the general population. You are surrounded by ideas if you just look. Look at yourself first. What is your biggest problem? Do your friends share the problem? Are you passionate about a hobby or a sport? These kinds of things are the stuff of which informational products are made of. So the very first thing you need is to identify a topic and, thereby, a market.

Another thing that you need to have in order to create an informational product which will become successful is research. Every topic and every subject are not going to make money. Many of them will…but just as many will not. The best research is accomplished by reading and talking to people who have succeeded in niche marketing informational products. Savvy niche marketers can spot a great topic from forty paces with one eye shut. Ask. Read. Research.

When you have an idea and have done the research that has proven that there is a market for your informational product, the rest is just a matter of creating the product building a great website and advertising it.

New Project Information:

Please check out Zero to Won, Guaranteed Internet Success Program that I am writing. The program is designed to help those looking to start a home based business, The program includes everything they need  to start and grow a successful business including domain registration and web hosting from RD-Webhosting, over 1000 articles and e-books on all aspects of business and over 20 software packages for managing and running a business.

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Using Yellow Pages to Market Your Web Site
Saturday, June 9th, 2007

If you have a local business then you probably already have a business phone number. Most business phone services come with a listing in the local yellow pages. Be sure to list you web site address. This is much more powerful form of advertising then just placing your address and phone number.

Let’s take a look at how your business can use the Yellow Pages, even if you only have a web based business. First as a form of communications, it is always more professional to list a phone number on your site as a form of contact. You can always have a recording to take the call. But it makes people feel more comfortable when they can reach a human if they have questions or problems. Now with that business phone number you also get a listing in the yellow pages. This listing usually includes your business name, address and phone number and is place in a specific category. Not much for the client to go by. If you have an advertising budget, you could purchase a bigger ad and provide some more details about your business, but these are expensive, I have seen 1-inch column ads cost several hundreds of dollars and it only covered one area. If your business falls under several categories, you will need to place your advertising under multiple headings, again an added expense. Now if you have your web site listed in your listing, the reader can go to the web site and read all about your business.

Your web site can start by giving the reader a more warm and fussy feeling about you and your business. It can explain how long you have been in business, your background and experience. Who you have performed services for and even provide testimonials from some of your customers. Next you can provide information about common problems or issues that the reader may be of interest to the reader in the form of articles. While the reader is looking at the site, you can offer them a pamphlet on what your services are or on the article of the month etc, in the form of a newsletter. Maybe provide a free service or information when they sign up. Having a forum for them to post their problems is another great way to get their email and to build a good solid relationship. When you set up the forum require that they provide an email address and verify the address. Then they can post their questions, which of course you or other members of the forum will answer. Now that you have their email address you can send them additional information and notifications of specials or new products that they may be interested in. Some web sites send out notifications when they update the web site with new articles, which brings the reader back to the site again.

Your web site is the center of your business, whether you have a physical location or are strictly online. This is the only form of advertising that works 24 hours a day when the reader is actively looking for information related to your business. Linking your phone book listing to your site is the most cost effective use of the yellow pages you can have. Take advantage of it.

Remember your site can offer specials, gather email or contact information, give away items or gifts to your customers to get them to visit your store, tell the customer so much more than you could afford to do in the phone book itself. Plus many people will bookmark your site and return time and time again once they see all the great information that you have available on the site.

Raymond Laubert is owner of RD-WebHosting which specializes in Home Based Business Web Hosting. He is an author of over 20 articles and several e-books related to finding, starting and running a home based business. His latest venture to help home based business owners is the Home Based Business Library which has over 1000 articles related to Home Based Business Management.

For my article I outlined 4 things

Warnings
Initial cleaning
Oils to use
Curing Process

With the outline I can begin to write.I find when I am writing a technical piece that it is best to ask myself questions.Such as why do an initial cleaning or how do I initially clean the Dutch oven? Then proceed to answer the questions.Each question becomes a new paragraph.So this article will have an opening paragraph that will provide an overview on curing a Dutch oven, 4 paragraphs or more on the actual process and a closing paragraph which sums up the process and maybe provides links to more information.

Nothing says you have to be an expert in order to write about a topic.Finding the information and putting it into your own words helps you understand it better and in many cases will help others as well.As a trainer I often found that just rephrasing a topic will help someone who has problems understanding it.

I know this seems like a lot of work, but lets take a minute and see how this article can be used.Some places it can be used are:

Many books have been written purporting to tell you how to become wealthy; most of them have some of the same tips in common. By having an attitude of wealth, you have already taken the first step toward becoming what you want to be.

1) Wealth isn’t the amount of money in the bank; it’s about an attitude of success. A study of the wealthiest people in America found that they spend only a few minutes per day on average on matters such as their bank account balance. They’d rather be doing what gives them pleasure. The money and the possessions are often just a footnote.

2) Keep a positive attitude. If you can conceive it and believe it, you will achieve it.

3) Think differently than others. Challenge your mind by taking a procedure that has always been done that way and figure out a different way to do it.

4) Decide what you dislike doing the most and stop doing it. If you continue to do a task in quiet desperation no matter what the reason, you will never have the energy left over to do what you want to do.

5) The other side of the equation in number 4 above is to find what you love to do and find a way to make it your job. Another trite old saying which is nevertheless true is: “Find a job you enjoy doing and you’ll never work a day in your life.”

6) Determine to find out who the real you is. That could be through career counseling, reading, personality tests, even sitting down with a ream of paper and start listing all the things you like to do. Some people never take the time to discover who they really are.

7) Become an entrepreneur. The opportunities are endless, particularly with the internet reaching more people every day. Books, courses, counselors and mentors are available to help you realize your dream of financial success. If you invest in yourself, you will succeed both in self-esteem and in financial matters as well.

Live and enjoy every minute. Some have called it “Live with passion.” No matter what your surroundings, find a way to enjoy them. If you do what you enjoy, you will always have something to enjoy. If you only live for money, you will never have time to enjoy it.

9) Live in the present. If you never truly enjoy the life you have as you pass through, because you plan to enjoy something after you retire, or after this next bonus arrives or after the kids are out of the house, you will have a life that’s truly bleak.

10) Help others achieve. Share your positive attitude with those around you, even if you don’t have a dime to share. Your positive attitude will attract friends and that’s the true meaning of a successful life.

The Weekend Chef has over 300,000 recipes and 9,000 drink recipes, visit them today!

First, should you use a free web hosting client. Simple answer is: Yes, IF…
Now the if comes into play depending on what you are using the website for. If you need a site to test out modifications, if you need a site to post some family pictures, if you need a temporary website for some reason, if your site is for your own or a small group of users to exchange ideas or information then I would definitely say yes, free web hosting is appropriate. In addition, if you are a small or home based business and just getting started on the web and the free web hosting provider you are going to work with will allow you to use your own domain name then again I would feel fine with using a free web hosting provider.

However, if you are going to use the site for a growing business, exchanging files with a lot of friends and family, going to be using the site long term, doing a lot of transferring of information via the web site, running any web business more than a startup site then I would say spend the extra $40 a year or so and get a paid web hosting provider. Web hosting is not that expensive for the basic packages and it is a tax write off.

How much free web hosting space will I need? – This is a question that depends on what you are going to do with the web site. Most family and home based and small business sites will hardly ever use more than 100 MB. I have a dozen sites and the largest site uses 80 MB or so. Now I am not hosting a lot of music or picture files. They will require more space. In fact another question I get is:

How much space will i need for a Picture forum? – This is going to depend on the resolution used when you took the picture. Today it is common to see 5 Mega Pixel cameras which can store 5 million bits of information per picture times the quality of the picture. So a 3.1 Mega pixel camera at low quality will take 3.1 Million Bytes of storage and high resolution the same picture can take over 25 MB of storage. Simply put you could store approximately 48 pictures on a web site that had 150 MB of storage at low resolution. Naturally there are compression routines and better storage methods that can be used. For example you could change the format of the picture to jpg

Some times it is just a matter of knowing what you actually need. Among the Free web hosting companies there are a wide range of plans. So how much free web space will a personal/family web site with few Logos/images need? – Again depending on the images I would say 25 MB will do for the vast majority of web sites.

My pages average less than 10k how much bandwidth do I need? - A 10 k page accessed 10,000 times would use approximately 100 MB per month. Honestly, if you follow the advise above and you are getting more than 10,000 page hits a month it is probably time to look at going to a paid web hosting provider.

How Much will a Flash file Use? – Flash sites are most commonly used for gaming. As such they kind of fall into the realm of business. Fine to start with a free web hosting provider but after a while you will want to move to a paid hosting service. In general Flash files are small less than 50 M. But the bandwidth will be much higher and you may find yourself in trouble with the free hosting provider very quickly. If you start getting the emails from the host saying you are exceeding the bandwidth, it is time to look at a paid hosting provider.

I want to host direct downloads for my site, how much space will i need? –This is an area that free web hosting is NOT meant for. If you have a lot of files to transfer or make available it is time to go with paid hosting. Most free web hosting companies strictly limit the amount of bandwidth that you will get. Bandwidth is the expense that all of us have to pay for on a monthly basis. So Forget it.

First we all know that files are stored on the computer. These files may be data, music, pictures or programs. When we access this information we make a request to the computer by clicking on the file or typing the name of the file into one of the many programs that we use. The computer then finds the file in what is called a directory. The directory is a listing of the files and where they are stored. To make the directory a little easier to manage we use folders.

In the world of the Internet this is basically the same process. We make a request for a website by typing in the name of the website (it’s address), the computer goes to a domain name server or DNS which is a directory of websites and their location, finds the location or server that has the files and presents the information in that location to your web browser.

Each website is really nothing more than a collection of files that present information. The first file that is always returned will be an index file. These index files are usually the home page for the website. From there, the information displayed will depend on what you want to see next.

A very basic web page then is nothing more than a text document such as written in Word. In fact, you can use Word to create web pages. Now a days you can get as fancy as you want. Putting pictures, sound files, movies, automations, just about anything that you can create on a computer can be used on the web page. Once you are finished, simply save the file with the proper extensions (3-4 characters after the period) such as htm, html, php, or jsp and you have a web page. Put several web pages together and you have a web site.

Now that you have a web site, there are other things to keep in mind as well. You have probably heard of SEO or Search Engine Optimization. These are things you do to your web pages so that the millions of people on the Internet that are searching for you can find you. Let’s see what SEO really means.

We know that there is a directory (domain name server) that the computers use to find the server that stores your web site. But there are other directories on the Internet as well. These directories are kind of like the Yellow Pages. They are used to help humans look up website addresses so that they (the humans) can go to that site. The most popular web site directory is Google. These directories are called search engines. They consist of a set of databases. When you place web site on the Internet, eventually the search engines find out about your site and enter information into their databases. The information entered is based on what is found on your website, both visible and hidden. The visible information is what you typed on the page. Notice I said typed. Music, pictures, flash, etc are not stored in the database and can not be used to find your web site. Hidden information is the stuff that the search engines find that make up formatting, information tags about objects on the web page such as names of pictures, audio files and movies and specific information that we can add to the page to help the search engines catalog our web page. This specific information is called Meta tags.

When you create a web page then you are in fact deciding on what information will be in the search engine’s database. Now, let me make one point clear. When you search for information on the web, you are searching for ONE piece of information, a word or couple of words related to your subject. The search engines take that one or two words and use it to search the database, returning records (web sites) that match your request. So ideally, if your site has those words or terms typed on the page, your page should be returned when the query is run.

There isn’t enough time nor space in this article to cover every aspect of SEO, nor is that my purpose. So as the last part to this article, I want to discuss a very simple way to perform SEO for your web site. Here it is….

Every page for your web site should be related to one or two related facts, items or what the industry calls keywords. Keywords are the terms that you are going to type into the search engine to find the information you are looking for. So, if your site is about cooking in general, you have a lot of work to do. Because each page of your web site should be limited to one specific aspect of cooking. Too many sites try to cram baking, stews, cookies, cakes, spaghetti, etc into one or two pages. If you want your site to do well, each page needs to be specific in the topic. Then it will be easier to rank well in the search engines.

Most of the regular domain names have been bought up and used now, so it is a real challenge to find ones that are unique, describe your business and are easy to remember. That’s why you need to get creative.

-First off, there are a few general ground rules to ensure that your visitors remember your domain names. This is obviously the most important part of choosing an URL, so keep the following in mind:

-Limit yourself to a maximum of three words. Longer phrases tend to be difficult to remember and also they take too long to type in. People want information fast and if they have to try and remember a twenty letter URL, they probably won’t bother.

-Use words that are easy to spell. If you use weirdly spelled words just to get the domain names you want, you will lose a lot of visitors. For example, if myspace.com is taken, don’t go for myspayce.com, you will just end up sending traffic to the other domain name.

-Think carefully before using anything apart from .com as an ending for your domain names. It is the most common and often people will forget if you use a more unusual ending such as .name or .tv.

Now that you have the basics in mind, it is time to brainstorm. Start by writing down all the words you can think of that relate to your business. For example, if you have a diaper service, you would end up with a list of keywords that include “diaper, diapers, baby, bottom, cloth, wet, dirty, clean, service” etc. Include any slang or nicknames as well, such as “nappy, stinky,” etc.

Once you have a good long list, start trying to put the words together in a form that would work as domain names. You should be able to come up with at least a dozen that fit the description of your business. For our diaper service example you might end up with nomorestink.com, dirtytoclean.com, nappybottom.com, etc.

Next, you need to go to a domain names registrar such as RD-Webhosting and check to see if your domain names are available. Start with the ones you like best and work your way down the list. Chances are you will find at least two or three that are available. These are then your choices for domain names!

This whole process works best if you have two or more people to bounce ideas off of. Domain names that are wacky and outrageous are sure to come up as you work your way through a brainstorming session with friends or coworkers! And at the end of it all, you should have a handful of domain names that you can go with.

First we all know that files are stored on the computer. These files may be data, music, pictures or programs. When we access this information we make a request to the computer by clicking on the file or typing the name of the file into one of the many programs that we use. The computer then finds the file in what is called a directory. The directory is a listing of the files and where they are stored. To make the directory a little easier to manage we use folders.

In the world of the Internet this is basically the same process. We make a request for a website by typing in the name of the website (it’s address), the computer goes to a domain name server or DNS which is a directory of websites and their location, finds the location or server that has the files and presents the information in that location to your web browser.

Each website is really nothing more than a collection of files that present information. The first file that is always returned will be an index file. These index files are usually the home page for the website. From there, the information displayed will depend on what you want to see next.

A very basic web page then is nothing more than a text document such as written in Word. In fact, you can use Word to create web pages. Now a days you can get as fancy as you want. Putting pictures, sound files, movies, automations, just about anything that you can create on a computer can be used on the web page. Once you are finished, simply save the file with the proper extensions (3-4 characters after the period) such as htm, html, php, or jsp and you have a web page. Put several web pages together and you have a web site.

Now that you have a web site, there are other things to keep in mind as well. You have probably heard of SEO or Search Engine Optimization. These are things you do to your web pages so that the millions of people on the Internet that are searching for you can find you. Let’s see what SEO really means.

We know that there is a directory (domain name server) that the computers use to find the server that stores your web site. But there are other directories on the Internet as well. These directories are kind of like the Yellow Pages. They are used to help humans look up website addresses so that they (the humans) can go to that site. The most popular web site directory is Google. These directories are called search engines. They consist of a set of databases. When you place web site on the Internet, eventually the search engines find out about your site and enter information into their databases. The information entered is based on what is found on your website, both visible and hidden. The visible information is what you typed on the page. Notice I said typed. Music, pictures, flash, etc are not stored in the database and can not be used to find your web site. Hidden information is the stuff that the search engines find that make up formatting, information tags about objects on the web page such as names of pictures, audio files and movies and specific information that we can add to the page to help the search engines catalog our web page. This specific information is called Meta tags.

When you create a web page then you are in fact deciding on what information will be in the search engine’s database. Now, let me make one point clear. When you search for information on the web, you are searching for ONE piece of information, a word or couple of words related to your subject. The search engines take that one or two words and use it to search the database, returning records (web sites) that match your request. So ideally, if your site has those words or terms typed on the page, your page should be returned when the query is run.

There isn’t enough time nor space in this article to cover every aspect of SEO, nor is that my purpose. So as the last part to this article, I want to discuss a very simple way to perform SEO for your web site. Here it is….

Every page for your web site should be related to one or two related facts, items or what the industry calls keywords. Keywords are the terms that you are going to type into the search engine to find the information you are looking for. So, if your site is about cooking in general, you have a lot of work to do. Because each page of your web site should be limited to one specific aspect of cooking. Too many sites try to cram baking, stews, cookies, cakes, spaghetti, etc into one or two pages. If you want your site to do well, each page needs to be specific in the topic. Then it will be easier to rank well in the search engines.

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