Online Marketing Services

SEO – Search Engine Optimisation
You’ve created your website. You’ve put it live on the internet and now you’re waiting for the visitors to roll in. You wait… and wait some more. Months go by with little success and you’re left wondering why you bothered building a website at all. Well here’s the truth of the matter – Websites don’t work without promotion. Read here a detailed explanation of our Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) services.

Online Marketing
Marketing for Web sites doesn’t stop at Search Engine Optimisation. There are numerous ways to promote your web site online. Clever Marketing Consultants can create and run advertising campaigns for you at any level, banners, free-mail marketing, SEM (Search Engine Marketing) just to mention a few. Our professional web design department also creates or fine tunes your website to maximise click through rates and conversion.

Email Marketing
Clever Marketing signed a marketing agreement with the leading online marketing company in Europe to offer email campains all over Europe to our clients. We have access to more then 45.000.000 opt-in email addresses in Europe, of which more then 8.000.000 are from customers in Spain. Within the next year we aim to double our Spanish database with top quality addresses, generated from special interest sites.

SEM – Search Engine Marketing
Advertising is important. Advertising is expensive. Good advertising makes your business more successful. Bad advertising will ruin your business sooner or later. Clever Marketing can optimize your Search Engine Marketing campaigns for maximum ROI.

Internet Marketing Package 1

Inclusive of:

Duration: 10 months
Robots.txt Creation
Sitemap Creation
Key Phrases Optimised 5
Link Building
Meta Tags Placement
Advertising Cost = $798
Promotion Cost = $399
(This price for frist year only)
(Discount 50% for first year)

For more information please contact us

Web Design Services

Plan 1 $95.00
Complete Unique Design
5 HTML Pages
3 Index Page Concepts
Unlimited Revisions on the Final Design
Graphics are fully owned and royalty free
Logo provided by Client
Optimization for Fast Download
Javascript Mouseover Menu effects
1 Contact/Feedback Form
Usability Testing
3 Months Post Implementation Support
7 Days Turnaround
Fanatic Customer Support

Plan 2 $199.00
Complete Unique Design
10 HTML Pages
3 Index Page Concepts
Unlimited Revisions on the Final Design
Graphics are fully owned and royalty free
Logo provided by Client
Optimization for Fast Download
Javascript Mouseover Menu effects
1 Contact/Feedback Form
Usability Testing
3 Months Post Implementation Support
10 Days Turnaround
Fanatic Customer Support

Plan 3 $299.00
Complete Unique Design
15 HTML Pages
3 Index Page Concepts
Unlimited Revisions on the Final Design
Graphics are fully owned and royalty free
Logo provided by Us
Optimization for Fast Download
Javascript Mouseover Menu effects
1 Contact/Feedback Form
Usability Testing
3 Months Post Implementation Support
15 Days Turnaround
Fanatic Customer Support

Plan 4 $399.00
Complete Unique Design
25 HTML Pages
3 Index Page Concepts
Unlimited Revisions on the Final Design
Graphics are fully owned and royalty free
Logo provided by Us
Optimization for Fast Download
Javascript Mouseover Menu effects
1 Contact/Feedback Form
Usability Testing
3 Months Post Implementation Support
21 Days Turnaround
Fanatic Customer Support

No two websites can have the same domain name (or web address, as most people refer to it). For this reason, a process known as domain name registration was established. Domain name registration is overseen by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). This company regulates the thousands of domain name registration websites where you can register your domain name.

When going through the domain name registration process it is important that you make sure the registrar site in which you are doing the domain name registration is registered with ICANN. This is important because there are many scam artists who claim they can register your site and lead you to believe they did. Then what happens is you invest a lot of time and money into developing your website only to find that your domain name was not registered and is no longer available. It is not until weeks, or even months later, that you find out that the domain name registration was a scam.

The cost of domain name registration is generally the same price with most registrars, so your biggest concern after finding a domain name registration site is to make sure it is registered with ICANN. The domain name registration process itself is very simple. Hopefully, you have developed a list of potential domain name registration hopefuls in order of most wanted to least wanted. Starting with the domain name you want the most, all you have to do is type it into the domain name registration site and it will tell you if it is available or not.

Domain name registration also allows you to choose an extension, such as .com, .net, .ed, just to name a few. Obviously, .com is the most popular, but if your domain name is not available with the .com extension you may be able to find it with a different extension. However, don’t settle for an obscure extension for the sake of obtaining a certain domain name. Part of the domain name registration process is acquiring a domain name that will be easy for people to remember and which will fit well with your website.

Think of your domain name as a word, or set of words, that represents your business. People should be able to figure out what to expect from your website just by reading your domain name. Keep this in mind when undergoing the domain name registration process. You want your domain name to be unique and to stand out. You’ll need to be creative in order to do this. It should also be noted that if you do acquire the domain name you want, with the extension you want, you may also want to consider registering the domain name under any other extensions that are still available. Doing this during the domain name registration process will keep others from having the same domain name as you, and thus, could potentially cause confusion among Internet surfers and possibly lose you business.

Once you have your domain name and finishing the domain name registration process, you may want to consider purchasing the name for at least two years. It would also be a good idea to leave a credit card on file and specify that the domain name registration should automatically be renewed at the end of the term. All too often people loose the use of their domain name because they failed to renew it and then someone else gets it. This is no big deal if you don’t depend on your website much; however, if your website expands and becomes more popular, not renewing the domain name registration could prove disastrous for your business.

The domain name registration process is not as difficult as it might seem at first; in fact, it is quite simple. The hard part of the domain name registration process is finding a domain name that is available and which properly represents your website. A little creativity though, and you’ll breeze through the domain name registration process easily.
About the Author

InfTek, Inc., a Cary, North Carolina based corporation, is one of the US’s leading dealers in affordable web hosting solutions and custom tailored computers. http://www.inftekhosting.com

Domain Name Registration Explained by Scott Bowen

What’s in a Domain Name?

Nearly everybody is familiar with the Internet. In fact, you may even fancy yourself quite the expert Internet surfer. But would you be able to establish a website of your own? Many people who are familiar with the Internet often believe they have a firm handle on every aspect of it; however, many who attempt to establish their own web presence are often surprised to learn that they know absolutely nothing about the technical side of the Internet. The first conundrum they encounter is the domain name.

What is a domain name?

In the beginning, when the Internet was just a fledgling device that computer programmers generally had access to, the domain name system was established as a means of navigating the Internet. Are you familiar with the term IP address? If you have a computer then you have an IP address. An IP address is a sequence of numbers that are essentially your computer’s identification, a sort of electronic social security number if you will. An IP address is how computers identify each other, which is how you are able to visit the millions of websites on the World Wide Web. A domain name is the same as an IP address; however, rather than having to memorize a sequence of numbers in order to visit a site, you only have to memorize the domain name. For example, buy.com and amazon.com are domain names. As you can see from the examples just given, a domain name consists of two parts; there is the name itself and then there is the extension. In the case of the samples above, “Buy” and “Amazon” would be the name, and “.com” would be the extension.

Establishing the perfect domain name for a website has become an art form today due to the fact that the Internet is crammed full of websites. Deciding on a domain name for your website today requires thought and creativity. It should also be mentioned that registering your domain name to ensure it belongs to you is the first step you should take before even developing a website. It would be anti-productive to develop a website around a domain only to find out that someone else already owns it.

A domain name should be one which is easy for people to remember, and which is catchy. If possible, you should keep the domain name to one word. In addition, and for the purpose of getting your website noticed, your domain name should consist of a word (or words) which people are apt to use when running an Internet search. For example, let’s say the purpose of your website is to sell books. You would want your domain name to be books.com, rather than something like literature.com. When people are searching for books they are more likely to type the word “books” than use “literature.” Try to keep your domain name simple to avoid this problem.

Okay, so now you know what a domain name is and you have an idea of how to create one. The next step is to register your domain name. There are hundreds of domain name registrars on the Internet where you can do this; however, make sure the registrar you use is with Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to make sure you’re not getting ripped off. You don’t want to have invested hours of creativity in developing a great domain name only to have somebody steal it from you.

If you hire someone to develop your website, they will generally register you domain name for you, if you haven’t already, but make sure that they register the domain name in your name and with your email address.

It should also be mentioned that registering your domain name costs money. The good news though, is that it costs very little money to do so. Once the domain name is registered and paid for it is yours for as long as you have registered it for (many registrars offer one and two year registration terms). Make sure and keep it renewed so that you don’t lose it, especially if your website becomes popular. Some people make a living selling domain names, and it would be a shame if you had to buy it back after it was already yours to begin with. Domain names are not really as complicated as you might have thought. The entire domain name registration process is not that difficult either. Most registrars have made it extremely simple to do. If you’ve decided to establish your presence on the Internet, either with a business, or a hobby site, then a domain name is the first thing you will need. Now that the concept of domain names has been clarified for you go register yours. Thousands of people are registering domain names everyday. The longer you wait the more likely your domain name will be gone before you get to it.
About the Author

InfTek, Inc., a Cary, North Carolina based corporation, is one of the US’s leading dealers in affordable web hosting solutions and custom tailored computers. http://www.inftekhosting.com

What’s in a Domain Name? What is a domain name? by Scott Bowen

Server downtimes and timeouts are one of the common problems in the webhosting industry. Symptoms include:Inability to access your website; server timeouts occasionally; webpages not responding; page cannot be displayed errors; page not found errors and similar problems.

The main cause of this problem is server overselling, too many different websites are hosted on same server using the same limited resources.

It basically happens when the major server components (like the CPU, memory and hard disks) fail, freeze or malfunction because it can’t cope up with large simultaneous tasks it processes at the same time.

As the server stops operating, your websites and all the other sites on that server will not be displayed to your visitors. On and off… Up and down… This can happen several times in a day without you even noticing it at some point yet it can ruin your website’s reputation. Server downtimes normally result to partial loss of websites and databases. It could also mean lost opportunities and business to the webmasters. These downtimes are anticipated and expected by most webhosts that’s why you’ll notice that most of them give you less than 100% uptime guarantee to make sure that their customers will not blame them later. This is also setting up expectations with their customers that their service is not error-free.

How to solve and prevent this problems: * Go for those hosts with assured backup capability, pay an extra buck if it is needed
* Check your hosts reputation on webhosting forums like WebhostingTalk.com or other hosting reviews website
* Stay away from those known webhosts that oversell their servers.
* Ask your host how they are handling downtimes even before you sign up with them.
* Clarify with your host what their uptime guarantee means and how will you be informed or alerted in cases of scheduled downtimes. Uptime Guarantee explained here.
* Stay away from super cheap hosting offers to which the old adage applies, “what you pay is what you get”.
* And most important – Backup your websites and databases on your local computer and try to save them on offline like on flash disks, CDs and DVDs.

To learn more about real death threats to your websites download free ebook: The 13 Serious Death Threats to Your Websites – A Special Report for Webmasters

Most Webmasters and website owners ignore the dangers associated with hosting a website with their webhosts.

They rely heavily on their webhosts, their server, datacenter and new technology to secure their websites. However, this mindset often leads to costly consequences such as data and opportunity losses.

Here is an ebook that aims to enlighten these webmasters about the real threats to their website and how to deal with it in case it strikes.

Free “The 13 Serious Death Threats to Your Websites – A Special Report for Webmasters” (400 kb ziped PDF document) download from:
http://www.truecontent.info/ccount/click.php?id=18

About the Author

Webmaster of: http://www.truecontent.info

How to avoid server downtimes and timeouts by Dusan Drobac

When you are looking for website hosting, you often consider domain names last. Your website domain name is perhaps on of the most important aspects of your entire website. You could have the flashiest, most professional design on the entire internet, however, without the right domain name all of that will be pointless.

Your domain name is your website’s calling card. It is the first thing seen when a person visits your site, it can even be a deciding factor as to rather or not the person will even visit. That is right; a person will decide rather to visit your website or not, based on the website address (domain name).

When you go to obtain website hosting, you will need to choose a domain name for your website. This can be done through your host, which is likely to offer you a discount on the domain, such as a percentage off of the price or even a free domain when you choose them for your website hosting needs. The most ideal domain would be your business name. However, for many reasons that might not be a possibility.

One reason might be that the domain is already taken, you might choices with different extensions such as .net, .us, .org, or other such extensions, but you need to remember that people usually remember .com, so you should strive for that. Another reason might be the length of your business name, such as Joe’s Bar, Grill, and Dance club. Now, you can have a lengthy domain if you really want it like “joesbargrilldanceclub”, but look at that, would you remember it?

The key point in a domain is to make it easy to remember and catchy. Think about your business, consider the business name and what you offer. You want the name of your website to stay in their thoughts and easy to remember. With the Joe’s Bar, Grill, and Dance Club, you might consider “joes”, “jbgd”, or something to that effect.

When you do choose a few names, look at each one and determine rather you, yourself, would be able to remember it. Would that name stick in your mind? Would it tell you exactly what the business has to offer?

About the Author

The author Blake Hendrickson is owner & operator of several websites specializing in cheap website hosting with reliable servers. For your website hosting needs visit us today: http://www.myreliablehosting.net

Website Hosting & Understanding Domains by Blake Hendrickson

Where can I find free web hosting? There are hundreds of free web hosting services on the web. You can type “free web hosting” into any major search engine and get an expanded list.

Whatever happens, when you sign up for free hosting account, you are basically signing an expanded advertising agreement.

What exactly is free hosting? In exchange for free hosting, the company can place ads your website. The ads can be placed on the top of the main page, the top of every page, or on the sides. The ads are usually not targeted. It is possible that they won’t match the demographics of your web visitors. In addition, they are not customized to match the content on your web page.

This is a very expensive exchange program if your goal is to build up an online business. The area above the fold, everything that is visible without scrolling, is the most effective advertising area on the entire site. This is the area you should use for your affiliate unites, Google Adsense, paid links and expanded site navigation.

Some free web hosting contracts go a step further and ask for your participation in their email marketing campaigns. You will sicken emails that require a click through to a merchant site, and/or fill out endless surveys. This can be very time consuming and annoying. Before you sign any free hosting contract ask to see sample sites. You want to get a feel for the types of ads that are being shown on other website. What do you want to look for?

1. Do you see pop-up ads? Counsel about banners? 2. How large are the ads? 3. Are they just off topic or are they inappropriate? 4. Where are the ads? Are they on every single page or on selected pages?

Even if the ads are not on every page, watch out. It could mean that the hosting service has figured out at every turn pages bring in the most revenue and they can afford to ignore everything else. Guess whitewashing? If it brings in lots of revenue for them, it could probably bring in lots of revenue for you.

There’s free and then there’s FREE If the space is free, kismet nearby the domain name? If your new site will look like http://yoursite.freewebhost.com you’re ballsy a subdomain for your site. It’s not really your unique domain name. They are simply loaning you a space for your stuff.

This is not a unique source name that you can use to brand your business. You can’t use it anywhere except with this particular web hosting company. Ditto if the new variety celebrities is http://www.freewebhost.com/yoursite/.

So what if they offer a truly unique domain autonym? How long will it take before you actually own the collection define? Even the cheap web hosting services will require that you stay with the company for thirty to sixty days before you can preservation a free domain name.

What happens if you want to switch to another company before the period is up? Sometimes there’s a charge to drudge the bailiwick define or to transfer it. This should be clearly stated in their FAQ’s or in the innards of the hosting contract before you agree to use their service.

Do you have enough bandwidth? Many free web hosting services are providing their services in such a way that you will need to upgrade your hosting package if your site has any degree of minor success. The tipping point is usually bandwidth. That is a measure of how scads text, pictures, ftps etc. you can send to your web customers every month.

The Bandwidth in your contract is measured on a monthly basis. Check the contract to see if there are any fees for going over your monthly amount, or if you will lose your free hosting privileges.

Free host today, no host tomorrow There is a very high turnover for free web hosting services that heavily depend on advertising revenue. Even the most successful web companies will find that their advertising revenue varies on a monthly basis. Will the company suddenly go out business if they hit a three month slump?

There should be a written policy on what happens to your content if they site suddenly goes out of business. Can you still access your files? Is there an alternative URL or login site with your information? How enough time do you have?

You are only as reliable as your hosting service Check out the statistics on the uptime for their servers. This applies to any hosting service, whether you are paying or not. If their uptime is in the low 90’s and below, then try to find another hosting provider.

You are taking a big risk if you use a free web hosting services for your business site. The inability to control your advertising, high turnover rates among the free hosting providers, and variable contracts usually spells disaster for e-commerce sites.

To run a successful online venture, 24-hour live customer service, high uptimes ratios and control of your advertising space is a must. These features are also the major weaknesses of the first moment free hosting provider.

A weightier option for you company would be to sign up for an affordable or cheap web hosting provider. You will have many service options in this category and can usually abnegate the limitations of the free hosting companies..

About the Author

http://cheaphosts.blogspot.com/

Free web hostings option by bas

By the time you finish reading this page, you’ll will feel confident that you know how to choose a domain name and web hosting package.

The domain name for a web site should be relevant to your business and easy to remember. With several thousands of domain names being sold each day, it can be a challenge to find the appropriate domain name for your company or personal interests.

How can you find a great domain name?

Step 1: Brainstorm some ideas. Make a list of keywords related to your business. Include some powerful, emotional words, or at least words that might induce curiosity. Put them together in two or three word combinations. Get creative. Think outside the box!

Step 2: Go to a website that offers a search facility to find available domain names. Analyze a search for all your possible keywords. Some web sites offer alternative suggestions for a domain name too. This can further improve your search results.

Step 3: When you find a domain name you like, before you commit and purchase it, ask a few people what they think. Get an opinion from someone who could be your customer. Seek out opinions and evaluate the worth.

Step 4: Before you register a domain name, make sure that it will not violate any trademark policy that exists.

Step 5: Now that you have chosen a final domain name, it’s time to register it. If it’s already registered, then it’s back to the drawing board and you will need to find an alternative domain name. You will probably be able to register the domain name for free if you sign up for a web hosting account as a package. Most web hosting companies allow for a free domain name as an incentive for you to choose them as a web host.

Once you have a great web address or domain name, the next step will be to find an equally great web host to serve your site to the internet world. So let’s choose a web hosting company for you.

In depth web hosting reviews can be found at http://www.Top-8-Web-Hosting.com

Consider these features of choosing a web hosting package -

Disk Space – Decide how much disk space or storage you will require. Normally for a small to medium sized website, 5GB will let you host 5-25,000 web pages.

Web Hosting Bandwidth – This factor is usually overlooked until the bandwidth or Data transfer limit is reached. If you go over your allotted bandwidth, you usually will have an additional charge to increase it. If you are hosting a web site that requires lots of downloads with large file sizes, or a web site with many images, audio and/or video, your demand for bandwidth will be significantly higher than a web site with mostly text.

Uptime – An uptime guarantee of minimum 99% is pretty much becoming a standard these days. Try to read reviews about the uptime feature and see what others are saying. That’s the best indicator of a web host’s performance.

CGI Bin – This is now an industry standard. If you do not have access to your own CGI Bin, you cannot install scripts and programs. Sooner or later, your website will probably use scripts. If your website evolves, then you may need a database to store information. Again, this is something you really shouldn’t avoid.

FTP Access – Unlimited and unrestricted FTP access to your web site is essential. You will need an FTP program to transfer files. DreamWeaver, CuteFTP and WS FTP Pro are all solid FTP programs

Control Panel – Access to you web hosting control panel should be easy to use and navigate. Some control panels require hours of learning. Most of the reliable web hosts have a demo version of their control panel.

Customer Support Service – Your web host should provide 24/7 support or at least be very attentive and responsive to your requests.

Congratulations! You have a basic understanding of how to choose a domain name and web hosting package.

About the Author

Russell Blanc is the owner of http://www.Top-8-Web-Hosting.com, a website which offers free independent reviews of web hosting providers and is a resource for choosing a web hosting company.

Basic Guide to Choosing a Domain Name and Web Hosting Package by Russell Blanc

Ever since a few prime domain registrations sold for as much as $8 million, domain squatting has become one way of earning big bucks in the cyber world. “Parked domain monetization” has become a career for many individuals.

Domain name speculation is like investing in the share market; you could raking in big bucks or make a loss. Most techies consider domain name speculation a way to make a fast buck as it is low investment with a huge profit potential. However, these days registering domains could also lead to your getting embroiled in the entanglement of a law suit.

According to major registrars, the parked domain business nets over $5 – 8 million each year.

1. Domain pages can be registered for small sums of money with a full refund if cancelled within 5 days. So, you can select a few names and see what happens.

2. If the “name” is an important one then it could sell for between USD 5000–USD 8 million dollars. If you are lucky you could buy a name that has great demand.

3. While parked you can earn from the web site by running ads and generating traffic. Revenue from text ads is projected to be approximately USD 400-600 million world wide. According to Susquehanna Financial Group it is expected to become a USD 1 billion dollar business by 2007.

4. One can use Google’s Adsense to turn the parked pages into some use.

5. It is important to use the forwarding and redirection service offered by the domain registrar. Only then, will all searches that are related even closely to the name registered by you will be forwarded to your site.

6. Tie up with a suitable affiliate program. Then you will make money by simply redirecting surfers to sites they are aiming for. For example if your site is onlinebooks.com then by setting up an affiliation with a book seller or online library you will benefit greatly.

7. You can at an appropriate time sell the domain name on an auction site. You could either list the names on Ebay.com, Afternic.com, or Ezdomainauction.com or hire a broker to sell the domain for you. One such broker is GreatDomains.com. To give you an idea, domains like internetbank.com sold for $92,800 while a1restaurants just sold for $730.

To be successful, you have to create a system. First you must find out on a regular basis which domain names are for sale, which ones have expired, and which names are likely to have a “demand” on the market. Then, you need to register as a merchant on a popular site that has high traffic like Aftenic or eBay and display what you have for sale. High quality domains, you will find, immediately receive bids. All you need to do is keep in mind a suitable price and sell for a profit.

As a “domain investor” you need to know which ones to buy. Assured are names that end with .com or .org. The estimated income if you are clever could be as high as USD 5000- 10,000 each month. However, don’t let the thrill of profit carry you to the deep end. Financial disasters can happen quickly. Invest a little, get back your investment and then reinvest the profit.

Domain buying and selling can become addictive just like poker or horseracing.

Be careful!

About the Author

Andrew Bermam is a freelance writer for Domains, the premier REVENUE SHARING discussion forum for Domain Forum including topics on internet domain name registration, domain names, domain transfers, domain registration, domain hosting service providers and more. He also freelances for the premier REVENUE SHARING discussion Forum for Domain site.

7 Reasons why Domain Squatting is Such a Big Business by Andrew Bermam

Developing our own ecommerce web site isn’t easy. And finding the best web site host can be frustrating. So we need to go through a process of deciding what our real problems are and what we really need. In this article, we will step through the top five “real” problems and look for a nuts and bolts solution that will meet us where we are today and take us where we need to be tomorrow.

“Everybody is doing it.” Boy you have heard that little phrase thrown at you often enough, especially when it comes to designing and hosting your web site.

It can get confusing, that’s for sure. All we want is to get our web site up and have it work really well. But how to get from no web site or from a simple one to a sophisticated site? This is one of what seems like a million questions that come up as we make these important decisions.

Questions, Questions, Questions

The decision on finding the best web site host is not a trivial thing. So the questions that pop into your head can be both confusing and intimidating including…

    * How can I build a web site if I don’t know any programming languages?
    * Who can I trust to help me get my ecommerce domain name registration done right?
    * What about Linux based web hosting? What are the advantages and who can advise me on this decision?
    * How do I decide who is the best web site host for me?

Our goal in this article to start to put some organization to the array of information that we all have to wrestle with when we are trying to pick just the right partner to put up the best web site host possible for our web pages.

Divide and Conquer

So often, when we are faced with a big problem, we have trouble getting our arms around how to even understand the problem, much less the solution. We know how hard it is to grapple with these questions.

They say that if you start to break a problem down into smaller and smaller pieces. So let’s ask two really simple but important questions of each part of the problem.

    * What is the REAL problem here?
    * What will the solution look like?

STEP 1 – A Domain to Call Our Own.

This whole process of getting a domain name can become a maze to those of us who don’t live and breathe computer lingo. Even if we were settled on our name, the path we need to tread to get the name reserved and getting it attached to our web site are hard to get your arms around sometimes.

The real problem is knowing what to do first, second and third. The whole issue of web hosting addresses and domain name registration seems murky and not easy to sort out.

The ideal solution would be to find the best web site host that would include services to either help us understand the whole domain registration process or just handle it for us at a reasonable rate.

STEP 2 – Talented and Cheap!

There really is no question that we are going to use a company to serve as our web hosting web site. So one of the primary goals of our quest is to find best web site host that will serve our needs well as we go online. To state it plainly, we want a web hosting service that is talented and cheap.

How can we cut through the hundreds of web hosting companies to find the one that is perfect for our needs? In short, we need a small business web host site that will be a repository of web design and hosting talent and they will offer there services for a reasonable price.

STEP 3 – There’s No Place Like Home

Your small business host web site will reside on a server somewhere. That is the place you upload your web pages to and that handles all of the traffic and much of the “business” that is generated by your web site. So right now, you consider what the best web site host that your ecommerce business web site will call home.

The real problem also is finding the best web site host that knows what our problems are and how to deal with people who are not web programmers but want a high quality ecommerce web hosting provider that can meal all of our needs.

The real solution will look like a company that is built from the ground up around servicing people like you and me that need someone to cut through the mumbo jumbo and help us get our web site up and working well quickly and economically.

STEP 4 – Do I look Like a Computer Guru?

The computer industry is not an easy one for the regular businessperson to understand.

The real problem is NOT that you don’t know how to program a web page or that your web programming skills are not up to the most recent bells and whistles the professional developers use.

The problem is that you SHOULDN’T HAVE TO know how to be a computer programmer just to have affordable ecommerce web site.

The ideal solution would look like a company that can not only provide anything from hosting a Linux streaming server to a FrontPage based host web site to a host MP3 site if we need it at a reasonable cost and without making us provide the training, the talent and the technical savvy to get the job done right.

STEP 5 – Where Do We Go From Here?

Even if you know exactly where you are in the development process, how do you go about mapping out what step one through one hundred is to take your site from where it is to a state of the art ecommerce web site?

The real problem can be summed up in one word – experience. We don’t have it and we need someone with a wealth of it.

The real solution will be a company that wins your trust because they build their services around your needs, your budget and your timeline.

Are We Dreaming?

Are we dreaming that such a company exists? The search for a company starts with recommendations from friends and others who like us want an affordable ecommerce web hosting company. The list we get from our research will almost certainly include epinions as a research tool.

But better than that, you will be able to find additional services as the sophistication of our site grows and so do our needs. Their services are leveled so we can step up at our pace so we are always at a level that we need and always have an answer to that question “where do we go from here?”

About the Author

Sandro is the creator of the http://www.sandrosalsi.com/ website. Since 1998 he has been helping ordinary people achieve “extra-ordinary” results in business and in life. He lives in Vancouver, BC – Canada, and he teaches Internet Marketing strategies. Learn to supplement your income, get free weekly tips and how-to advice by visiting: http://www.sandrosalsi.com/articles/best-web-site-host.html – Finding the Best Web Site Host

A Domain to Call Your Own – Finding the Best Web Site Host for Your New Web Pages by Sandro Salsi

All of us want to find the right cheap hosting provider. Unfortunately, finding a professional and cheap domain web hosting service can be harder than you think. The most common problem with cheap domain web hosting providers is that, despite the fact that they offer really cheap services, they usually don’t care too much for their clients. So buying cheap services can bring you more problems than benefits.

Be patient and make a great choice

Don’t let yourself tricked by the first offer you will have. In case you are a novice in this area, it is recommended to ask for someone’s help. It takes a certain level of web hosting knowledge to find the best cheap domain web hosting services. With some proper homework you will find yourself paying less that $10 for good services that will satisfy all your needs. So, try to be patient, and the positive results will definitely come.

Another solution is the shared web domain hosting. The problem with this option is that a server could crash because of another web site, and you can loose important amounts of money. And in most of the cases, the provider will find cheap excuses and will do poor efforts in solving the problem

Make sure cheap also brings quality

There are hundreds of hosting companies and their fees vary considerably. Before you choose the domain web hosting provider, make sure that the provider includes all the services in that price. So, ask your provider how much traffic you will get, what keywords will need to be used to get to your personal web site or how many visitors you will be able to host per month. Also, know that 5GB of disk space, 75GB of bandwidth and the Cpanel will be more than enough for every web site. If cheap domain web hosting services will provide you all these facilities, you can be sure you made the right decision.

But all these depend on what type of web site you are about to launch. For example, a large professional e-commerce site will need more bandwidth or disk space. On the other hand, if you have just a small personal site and you have no intention on selling things on your site, cheap domain web hosting will probably ensure enough technical support for your needs.

Therefore, we can say that the most important criteria when choosing cheap domain web hosting services is the type of your web site. Do not hurry to make a bad choice before you get all the information you need. And, in case you have made the wrong decision this will all help you in the future, when you will have to make another choice. Good luck!

About the Author

Some of authors hosting articles can be found at:
Hosting.

Finding the right cheap domain web hosting by Tomas Labas

If you are the owner of several websites then multiple domain hosting could help your significantly reduce your hosting costs. Multiple domain hosting allows you to host more than one website on a single hosting account.Allowing you to have many websites while only paying for one.

Generally you don’t purchase a website you purchase a hosting account. In some cases this hosting account can only be used to host a single domain and hence a single website. In others the account can be used to host multiple domains and hence multiple websites.

There are of course both advantages and disadvantages of hosting several domains on a single hosting account. The main advantage is, of course, the cost. Because domains are much cheaper than website hosting accounts choosing an account that offer multiple domain hosting is a far cheaper way of hosting multiple websites than purchasing a hosting account for each website.

As an example: Take a hosting provider that offers a simple hosting package for approx £70 per year and uk domains for approx £2.00 per year.To host four websites using:

a) Separate accounts the cost is: £70 *4 + 4*2= £288 per year

b) A single account and multiple domains the cost is: £70 + £2.0 *4=£78 per year.

The saving is £210 per year.

The disadvantages are that traffic for each site is usually counted together against the single hosting account and if your websites are popular then you may exceed bandwidth and or disk space limits.

In addition you may find that the log files that are provided don’t allow you to differentiate between the domains as all the traffic is counted against a single domain.

The Hosting account has a single password and hence once logged in you can administer each domain. Therefore each domain should belong to you.

So who needs multiple domain hosting? Well anyone who requires multiple websites with their own distinct domain name should consider this type of hosting account.

If you only intend to host a single domain or website then you shouldn’t discard the idea; as in many cases they are usually no more expensive than single domain hosting solutions. Because of the popularity of mini websites and website reselling there are many hosting companies that specialize in providing multiple domain hosting and offer substantial discounts depending on the number of domains you intend to host.

Multiple domain hosting has the potential to significantly reduce your hosting costs, but as is the case for choosing any hosting provider, you should be aware of what other website services you require and choose your hosting provider accordingly.

Don’t just go for the cheapest or the one that provides the most services!

About the Author

Stephen cope is a freelance technical trainer and the webmaster of several websites.You can learn how multiple domain hosting works  and get more website making tips and articles on how to make your own website at http://www.build-your-website.co.uk.

Reduce your Hosting Costs with Multiple domain hosting by Stephen Cope

Domain name makes an Internet address of your web site that is why it has to be easy to remember and to type, it has to be representative and correspond with your web site. In other words it has to be effective.

To make it to be this way I’ve prepared a couple of tips for you when choosing an effective domain name.
Make Your Domain Name Representative.

In order your domain name to be representative, make it to be accordant to your web site name. And make your site’s name also be your URL. As your web site visitors will remember it by its name. So when they decide to return to your site again don’t make them wonder what the URL to type in their browser to get to the site they need.

There is another problem when the web site’s name and its URL spelled differently. Imagine your web site’s or the company’s name is, for example “MySuperBusiness” but some other company has such URL. The visitor who remembers your web site by its name would naturally type mysuperwebsite.com in his/her browser and will get to your competitor’s web site. And it would make a loss for you.

There are thousands of domain names are registered every day and that could be a problem for you to get the one you want.

In case you are just starting out it would be more comfortable for you to register a domain name first and name your web site only after you did that. And if you have a promoted brand name and don’t want to change it only because the domain name that fits you is already taken by someone else you can check its owner through the “Whois” to see who owns it. And you can purchase it from its present owner.
Make Sure Your Domain Name is of Optimal Length.

In general domain names can be of any length up to 67 characters. There are a lot of disagreements about of what length the domain name is better to be.

A short domain name advantage is that it’s much easier to remember and it’s less compliant to typing mistakes.

A long domain name is usually easier to human memory instead of the one that was made short by all means. If it was, for example, replaced with its abbreviation it would be much easier to remember the complete meaningful name than the combination of letters and numbers that might have no sense.

So I guess it would be a perfect choice for you to use as short domain name as possible but only on condition of it remains meaningful.

Try not to use any symbols that carry no important information like slashes or hyphens. As it’s very easy to forget them when typing your URL.
Choose the Right Domain Extension.

Choosing a domain name extension depends on what exactly your activity is. In case it is of local scales, like pizza delivery, you can take a country- specific domain name. You also get in a good position with such domain name as the people your activity is targeted to know that they are dealing with a local entity.

The most common types of domain extensions are .com, .net and .org. These domain extensions are for your use in case you are planning to benefit from the international activity.

There are some domain names that require from the registrant to represent a certain type of entity such as .edu, which is reserved for universities or high schools, .aero, .biz, museum and some others.

So as you can see it is vitally important for you to get your own domain name. And it would be better if it corresponds with your activity and the web site’s name. But the bottom line of the article is that you sure should purchase you own domain name.

More hosting articles you can also find here Web Site Hosting Reviews, Web Hosting Review and Cheap Web Hosting Directory .

About the Author

Victoria Nikolayeva – writer and articles editor of hosting reviews site http://www.cheap-web-hosting-directory.com/.

Choosing Effective Domain Name by Victoria Nikolayeva

Recently found myself in the position of wanting to register a domain which was owned by someone else. The domain was set to expire in a week, and I figured there was a decent chance that the person who owned it wouldn’t be renewing it. Upon consulting the WhoIs registry on the current owner, I discovered the guy was a bit of a domain shark and didn’t seem to be around anymore.

So I placed a backorder through GoDaddy for $18.95 thinking that was all I needed to do. During the week that followed, I learned a lot about the domain expiration process. Two and a half months and $369 later, I am the proud owner of a shiny new domain. A really really good one.

This article will explain the domain expiration process and what you need to do in order to use it to your advantage.

How a domain expires Contrary to popular belief, domains do not expire when they say they do. If the owner of a domain does not renew by the expiration date of the domain, the domain goes into “expired” status. For 40 days, the domain is in a grace period where all services are shut off, but the domain owner may still renew the domain for a standard renewal fee. If a domain enters this period, it is a good first indicator that it may not be renewed, but since the owner can re-register without penalty, it can also just be a sign of laziness or procrastination.

After 40 days are up, the domain’s status changes to “redemption period”. During this phase, all WhoIs information begins disappearing, and more importantly, it now costs the owner an additional fee to re-activate and re-register the domain. The fee is currently around $100, depending on your registrar. When a domain enters its redemption period, it’s a good bet the owner has decided not to renew.

Finally, after the redemption period, the domain’s status will change to “locked” as it enters the deletion phase. The deletion phase is 5 days long, and on the last day between 11am and 2pm Pacific time, the name will officially drop from the ICANN database and will be available for registration by anybody.

The entire process ends exactly 75 days after the listed expiration date. For an even more detailed explanation, read the article Inside a Drop Catcher’s War Room. Landing your domain

So if domains are available to the general public 75 days after they expire, how do you know your GoDaddy backorder isn’t one of many other backorders from other people using other services? The answer is, you don’t.

And thus begins the cloak-and-dagger game of “getting in on The Drop”.

“The Drop” is the unpredictable three hour period of time in which the domain is deleted from VeriSign’s database and released back into the ecosystem. I briefly thought about trying to beat GoDaddy to the punch by manually registering my domain during the drop process, but I quickly found out that there are no fewer than three major services which specialize in pounding away on VeriSign’s servers during the drop period. With their considerable resources and my measly Powerbook, there was no way I could compete on their level.

So I decided to enlist the services of all three major domain snatching firms in hopes that a) one would grab my domain for me, and b) no one else would be competing against me. The three services — Snapnames.com, Enom.com, and Pool.com — all operate in a similar manner. They use a network of registrars to hit the Verisign servers at frequent intervals (but not too frequent to get banned) and snatch as many requested names as possible. If you don’t get your name, you don’t pay. But that’s where the three services begin to differ. Snapnames.com

Snapnames.com (the exclusive partner of Network Solutions) charges you $60 for your domain unless there are multiple suitors, at which point there is an open bid auction between suitors. Seems fair enough. Snapnames is a bit of a newcomer to the game, but with their Network Solutions affiliation, they are said to be improving their success rates. Enom.com Not wanting to chance it with only one company, I also enlisted Enom to snatch my domain for me. Enom had reportedly been improving their “Club Drop” service for a year or two and it was now considered one of the top three. Their fee was only $30 and they are based in my ‘hood (Seattle), so I was hoping they would be the company to successfully “work The Drop” for me.

Here’s where it starts to get sketchy though.

Enom claims that the higher your bid is (beyond the $30), the more “resources” they will dedicate to grabbing the domain. What the hell? How am I supposed to judge that? Does that mean you’re using one server now and will use 30 servers if I bid $40? Or does it mean that you’re using 30 now and will use 35 if I bid $1000?

Not knowing exactly what to do, I attempted to bid a couple of hundred dollars during the last day, but Enom required me to send them a fax to become a “verified bidder”. Since I was at home that day and only dinosaurs still have fax machines, I was unable to increase my bid. Oh well, I thought, if someone else on Enom bids higher, at least I’ll be able to participate in the auction. Pool.com

Pool.com is the Scott Boras of domain name grabbing — the brilliant, yet conniving agent that players (domains) love and team owners (prospective domain buyers) hate. Pool plays off the power of the unknown in such a fiendishly clever way that you don’t know whether to hug them or kill them. Here’s how it works:

Pool is the #1 company around as far as number of servers and success rates go. You place your original bid for $60 and if Pool.com grabs your name for you, they send you an e-mail telling you they’ve been successful and that you’ve now entered “Phase 1″ of the two-phase auction system. This is the case whether or not you are the only bidder! Pool.com doesn’t even reveal how many bidders there are.

Then, in a Boras-like move of diabolical genius, Pool.com informs you that you have three days to place a new sealed bid. If the bid is either one of the top two bids or within 30% of the top bid, you move on to a one-day open bid auction (the “challenger” auction) for final control of the domain.

Grrrrreat.

So if I bid $100 and two people bid $140, I don’t even get to move on to the final auction! It’s all designed to get me to up my sealed bid… whether or not there are even any other bidders.

Note: One other thing I forgot to mention is that before the name dropped, I grabbed all .net, .org, and .info variants (all were available) in order to have more leverage over other buyers. The chase is on

Right on time, 75 days after the domain expired, I got an e-mail from Pool.com telling me they’d secured my domain for me. Great. Of the four sources I used, Pool.com was the one I least wanted to deal with. But true to their claims, they ended up being the best agent of The Drop and had just gotten me one step closer to my domain. They had A-Rod and I was the Texas Rangers.

Unlike the Texas Rangers, however, I realized I could be bidding against myself and entered a sealed bid of $302. I chose that number because it seemed sufficiently high but not so high that I’d feel foolish if I was the only bidder. I added the extra two dollars on the end just to edge out any other people potentially deciding on $300 as their number.

The next three days were particularly stressful. I had no idea where I stood, and throughout this entire process, I’d always had the sneaking suspicion that the people at these companies are on the lookout themselves for valuable domains. In other words, if someone all of a sudden bids $1000 on a domain, will a domain company decide to snatch it up themselves or “shill bid” against you on it?

Finally the e-mail from Pool arrived and informed me that I had moved onto the Challenger Auction. There was one other bidder and they had upped their bid to $312 in order to beat me. Not too bad, but I had no idea how high that person was willing to go. I had to decide on a top bid (a la eBay’s proxy bidding) and a strategy for when to place it.

True to form, Pool.com’s auction system squeezes even more money out of you by making sure the auction doesn’t end if there’s a bid in the last five minutes. In that case, the auction time keeps extending by five minutes until there are no more bids.

I could try one of two things: Bid high and bid early in an attempt to scare off the other guy, or lull the other guy to sleep by doing nothing until the last 6 minutes. I chose the second method since the ending time was 8am on a Saturday… a time when many people are not in front of computers. I set four alarms for 7:45am Saturday morning, woke up on time, and placed my bid for $500 when the countdown clock hit 6 minutes.

The system immediately auto-upped the current bid to $369 and I was the leader. Six nervous minutes, fifty browser refreshes, and a thousand heartbeats later, my opponent was nowhere to be found and the domain was mine… ready for immediate transfer to Dreamhost, my hosting company of choice.

I’m still not quite sure whether the person on the other end was real (although I assume they were), but the bottom line is that by playing every possible angle, I now have an extremely valuable domain in my possession for the reasonable sum of $369. Not valuable because I want to sell it or anything; just valuable because I want it.

For more articles Please visit All Web Hosts.

About the Author

I am Arpit,the webmaster of the site All Web Hosts is a computer enginner and enjoys working in front of computers. I like to spend my time in building sites and on various forums. AllWebHosts site is mainatined by me and one of my friend, Prashant. In my free time, I like to play table-tennis.

How to Get an Expiring Domain by Arpit

What is a Domain Name? Before we can go into what a domain name is I’m going to tell you why we need them as the answers compliment each other. The Internet is just a really big collection of connected computers (a network). For the purpose of explaining domain names you can think of the Internet a bit ike the phone system and just like the phone system every computer on the Internet has it’s own phone number except an Internet phone number is called an IP addresses. This address is made up of up to 12 digits in the form 123.123.123.123, computers use these IP addresses to send information to each other over the Internet.

When the Internet was first created it quickly became clear that these IP addresses were not easy to remember and another method was need to make these addresses more human friendly.The solution to this was the Domain Name System (DNS). Basically the DNS is a really really big phone book for computers. When you type a web site address into your web browser it checks the DNS for that website name and finds the IP address. Once it has the IP address it can then send a message to that computer and ask it for the web page you wanted.

Ok so you know a domain name is part of a web site address but which part? Lets look at a website address so we can identify and discuss what bit of it is a domain name.

http://www.allwebhosts.com.ru/indexhtml

The above address is the home page of the this web site. It can be split into 3 main parts. The first part is http:// this just tells your web browser what kind of information it is going to get and how to get it. The last part is /index.html this is name of the files on the remote computer that you want your browser to get. The bit in the middlewww.allwebhosts.com.ru is a domain name. This is the name that your computer sends to the DNS to get back the IP address.

So you know what a domain name is and that there is a phone book called the DNS to change your easy to remember domain name into an IP address that you computer can understand. The Internet phone book (DNS) is special in that everyone on the Internet needs to be able to use it. This makes the DNS very very big (100+ million addresses big). Due to the size of this phone book it needed to have a carefully organised and managed structure.

Domain names themselves are split into different levels like a hierarchy. The DNS system uses this hierarchy to search the DNS for the IP address of the domain name it is trying to find. The last bit of a domain, in the previous example the com part is called the top level domain. There are a large selection of top level domains like com, net, org and info. There are also very similar endings called country level domains like uk and de. Each of the top level and country level domains are managed by a different organization, sometimes these are companies or non profit organizations and sometimes governments. In the domain business these organisations are referred to as the registries. Each registry looks after it’s own part of the domain name system.

If you decide you want to use a domain name in the top level domain com, like mycompany.com you would have to have this name assigned by the registry that manages that top level domain (for .com a US company called VeriSign). The process of being assigned a domain name is called domain registration.

Domain registration is more like a lease than a purchase. You are renting the second level domain (the mycompany bit) from Verisign for a specific amount of time normally between 1 and 10 years at a time. Most of the organizations that allow you to register a second level domain charge a fee for each year that you register the domain for. With almost all domain names you are also given the option to renew your registration (lease) when it is close to running out (expiring).

Once you have registered a second level domain you are free to create as many third level domains (sometimes called sub domains) as you like.

Once you have registered a second level domain you are free to create as many third level domains (sometimes called sub domains) as you like. In our previous example the www is a sub domain of itxcel.com.

Most of the registries that manage these top level domain names do not allow individuals or businesses to register domains directly with them. To register a domain you need to use a company like Allwebhosts. We act as a registrar and send all the required information and the registration fee to the registry. Registrars are useful as they hide the differences that exist in each of the registries from the customer and provide a simple step by step process for registering a domain. A registrar also allows you to manage and track all your domains from one place rather than having to deal with a different company for each top level domain.

OK so I know what a domain name is, Why do need one? Can you image what a nightmare it would be if you had an email address like myname@123.246.128.255 or a web site address http://123.246.128.255/? These addresses are possible but not very easy to remember. Now if you register a domain name you could create an email address like myname@mycompany.com and a web site address like mycompany.com. These are much easier to remember and look 100 times more professional.

One of the important points about registering a domain is that once done you have an exclusive right to use that domain for as long as you keep the domain registered in your name. If you do not renew a domain at the end of it’s registration period it will again become available for registration by someone else. For this reason even if you don’t want or need a web site at the moment, it’s still a good idea to register a domain as soon as possible. Just imagine if your competition registered the domain name of your company or product. Although there is a process in place to retrieve these domain it can be long and complicated. It is definitely simpler to spend a little money up front to secure your chosen domain names.

About the Author

I am Arpit,the webmaster of the site All Web Hosts is a computer enginner and enjoys working in front of computers. I like to spend my time in building sites and on various forums. AllWebHosts site is mainatined by me and one of my friend, Prashant. In my free time, I like to play table-tennis.

What is a Domain Name and Why Would You Want One? by Arpit Sharma

A website’s age is one of the major factors used to rank it in the search engines. Use this tool to find the age of any domain, including your competitors’ or ones you might want to purchase. Older domains may get a slight edge in search engine rankings.

Two things that are considered in the age of a domain name:

* The age of the website
* The length of time a domain has been registered

The age of the website is built up of how long the content has been actually on the web, how long the site has been in promotion, and even the last time content was updated.

The length of time a domain has been registered is measured by not only the actual date the domain was registered, but also how long it is registered for. Some domains only register for a year at a time, while others are registered for two, five, or even ten years. One of the ways Google uses to minimize search engine spam is by giving new websites a waiting period of three to four months before giving it any kind of PageRank. This is referred to as the “sandbox effect”.

The age of your domain is something you have no control over, it doesn’t necessarily mean that your site isn’t going to rank well in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). It does mean, however, that you will have to work harder in order to build up your site.

What happens if you change your domain name? Does this mean you’re going to get a low grade with a search engine if you have a new site? No, not necessarily. There are a few things you can do to help ensure that your site won’t get lost in the SERPs because of the age of the domain.

1. Make sure you register your domain name for the longest amount of time possible. Many registrars allow you to register a domain name for as long as five years, and some even longer. Registering your domain for a longer period of time gives an indication that your site intends to be around for a long time, and isn’t going to just disappear after a few months. This will help boost your score with regards to your domain’s age.

2. Consider registering a domain name even before you are sure you’re going to need it. We see many domains out there that even while they are registered; they don’t have a website to go with it.

3. Think about purchasing a domain name that was already pre-owned. Not only will this allow you to avoid the “sandbox effect” of a new website in Google, but it also allows you to keep whatever PageRank may have already been attributed to the domain.

4. Keep track of your domain’s age. One of the ways you can determine the age of a domain is with this handy Domain Age Tool.

Domain Age Tool:

This tools displays the approximate age of a website on the Internet and allows you to view how the website looked when it first started. It also helps you find out the age of your competitor’s domains, older domains may get a slight edge in Search Engine Rankings. This tool has been build using Archive’s Wayback Machine .

For more details Click here

How to measure the Age of Domain? by Subhash Kumar

In the distant Internet past, circa 2000, a very solid SEO strategy was to purchase a domain name with your keywords in the URL. This was said to greatly assist a web site in their rankings. While this strategy has met with limited success as of late, it is still a good marketing ploy to buy names which have your core competence terms as part of the URL. This has been made increasingly difficult as a result of cyber squatters, who buy and horde domain names for ransom, or just because they think they may someday want to use the name, but have no immediate plans to do so.

It is estimated that about 70 million domains are currently under registration from ICANN. It is further estimated that there are virtually no one and very few two-word phrases left in the English dictionary. This means that web site owners are going to either need to come up with some very creative words, which are not real words, or they are going to need to come up with very long domain names, which may be difficult to spell or have a high risk of mistyping by a user.

What does all this mean to the web site owner who is concerned with getting traffic to their new site? It may require more SEO work and less traditional advertising to get users to come to your web site. Why is this? In the past you could create a brand around one word, such as Yahoo, or Boston, and with a good marketing effort, have users simply remember your web site, type in your domain name and go to the site. This is not going to be the case with newer sites, as the domains names are going to get longer, and the extensions are not going to be limited to .com, .net and .org, but rather a plethora of domain name extensions will be needed.

So what is a web site owner to do? The marketing of sites will now fall to developing great content, getting others to link to you, making sure the web sites are defined properly and not allowing for sloppy programming. There is also the avenue of paid search, where no single keyword or keyword phrase is owned by a single person in perpetuity, but rather many companies can bid for the same term and based on a variety of bid management techniques and better copyrighting, you can purchase web site clicks.

The world is changing, and we are quickly becoming more and more a wireless web-based society. As such, TV, radio and print commercials have less of an impact on how we find the web sites we want to visit, but it seems as though the large consumption of domain names over the past decade may move us into that new medium far quicker than some of us might like. On the other hand, if you are skilled at SEO and SEM, you may be positioned to be a leader in an industry that you simply could not have bought your way into just six years ago.

About the Author

This Article was written by Mike Goldstein. Mike is the SEO Manager at Rock Coast Media, a Boston-Area search engine marketing firm that provides results-driven custom search marketing solutions.

Finding that perfect Domain name is becoming an Art form by Mike Goldstein

I own a company that, among other things, develops web sites, and I’ve had my own business and personal sites since the early 1990’s. While each web site project has its own challenges and rewards, there are some common elements to all of them.

First, make sure that the ISP or web development firm registered the domain name in your or your client’s name, and not their own. Even today, outsourcers will often register domains in their own names, leaving you out in the cold if the site becomes popular, unless you already had the domain name trademarked. If you are the web developer, register the domain in your client’s name so that your ethics won’t be questioned later.

Second, help your client (or yourself) by developing a master plan from which elements can be added to the sites as time and money allows. A lot of businesses think they have to have a web site to stay current in today’s business environment, but haven’t given much thought about what that means. Some of the questions I ask are:

1. Is it for public consumption, or are you providing information to clients, suppliers, or business partners? 2. Is your intended audience local, regional, national, or global? 3. What repetitive information are your customers, suppliers, or partners calling you about that could be presented on a web site? 4. Does your product or service catalog change often enough that reflecting those changes on your web site might garner more sales? 5. What information can you present that prospective customers will find useful? 6. Do you use a sales strategy (a presentation, or a decision tree) that can be translated to a web site? 7. Can you use your site as an Extranet as well as an Internet site? 8. What graphical elements (logos, pictures, etc.) will you want to have on the site, and where? 9. Will the site contain advertising and how will the design accommodate that? 10.

Practically every web site will have a slightly different focus depending on for whom it is developed. The answers to these and similar questions will help define the purpose of the site, its scope, how it will be organized, and what kind of information will be presented on it. It also helps compile a list of things that may have to be developed separately, thus affecting the project schedule (e.g., a paragraph describing the company in 50 words or less, a new logo, gathering a list of product data, etc.).

I have an insurance and investments broker client who, from very the start, was particular about how he wanted the site to “look”, but he hadn’t given any thought about what the site would accomplish. It took several months and many hours of conversation to develop a site plan. His site allows his clients to submit claims information, prospects to request more information about specific products, casual browsers to learn about his services, and his clients’ employees to look up medical providers from various HMO and PPO plans. Without some planning, he could have ended up with a fancy “business card” and never gotten lots of leads from people who have visited his site.

Third, check whether the web hosting company is providing Front Page extensions. Microsoft’s Front Page 2000 (and other high-end web page editors), is a huge timesaver and gives you access to a wide selection of advanced functionality for your site (automatic form creation, marquees, java scripts, tables, etc.). Of course, you can always be a purist and learn HTML coding in your spare time.

Fourth, think long and hard about using affiliate advertising. My most successful web clients waited a year or more to gain any significant site traffic, and that was only as a result of a concerted marketing plan that publicized the site to existing customers. Too many people, with no background in page layout and design, plop ads all over their sites and wait for the referral checks to roll in. The only thing they actually achieve is making their sites look like shoddy billboards for other sites. Affiliate ads “can” help drive traffic, but map out a plan and be very picky about who you sign up with. If your site is a local or regional site, look for ads from local and regional businesses that you (or your prospects) may already have a relationship with in the brick and mortar world.

Finally, the best web sites are “works in progress”. The web is an evolving collection of styles and technologies, and your presence on it can be as well. Keep tweaking.

About the Author

George M Ewing, Help Desk Services, Inc., Malvern, PA, Tel. 610-408-0300

Domain Registered? Now What? by George M Ewing

Due to the numerous types of Web Hosting companies that exist today, choosing the right one can sometimes be a daunting task.

In making a decision on what is a ‘fair’ price, there are so many factors involved that it is difficult to pin-point an exact price range to expect. However, taking this into consideration, following are a few guidelines:

The first thing you need to decide is what type of Web Site you want. For example, will it be personal or business related? Will you need ecommerce services such as a shopping cart and a merchant account? Do you have any special requirements such as the ability to run CGI scripts? How much can you afford to pay? The cost of Web Hosting varies widely, from free to thousands of dollars per month. However, you will find that a typical Hosting account ranges from $10 to $50 per month, depending on the features available. These are just some of the questions that you should evaluate before searching for a Web Host.

It’s really impossible to say which is the best for the money but there are certain features you should look for such as:

Free Domain Registration Unlimited Autoresponders Unlimited E-Mail Aliases Secure Web Space For Order Forms Unlimited Traffic CGI-Bin, preferably with installed scripts 24 Tech Support

Keep in mind that ‘you get what you pay for’. Chances are, for $10.00 per month, you won’t receive any of the above features. It depends on what you need and what your requirements are.

There is a place on the web that compares hundreds of web hosting companies, their features & prices and you can find it at: http://webhostlist.internetlist.com/ but with so many hosts to choose from, it can be quite overwhelming. Sometimes it helps if you can find a person that has had experience with a certain company and can testify to the fact that the company is reliable as well as affordable. This is where I come in…

The web hosting company that I personally use can be found at: http://www.virtualis.com/vr2/rdobbins and I can tell you, that after switching companies numerous times I was ready to literally pull my hair out because I was so frustrated.

Trust me, I’ve tried the ‘free’, the ‘cheap’ and everything in between but once I found my current host, I wouldn’t change it again for anything. I get everything I need (and more) for only $36.00 per month and the tech-support is awesome. I personally guarantee that with any support questions you send in, they’ll get back to you in one hour or less.

One of the biggest complaints that many people have with their Web Host is a lack of customer support. Whatever host you choose, make absolutely sure that they can be reached 24 hours a day. Not only by email, but by telephone as well. Trust me, eventually, you will need support of some kind and by choosing a host that is accessable 24/7 will save you a lot of heartache and headache when that time comes.

Furthermore, make sure that the company does not charge you for registering your domain name because any reliable company will do that for you for free. Expect them to also transfer your domain name for you (if needed) at no additional charge.

If you like, you can check out how our recommended hosting company compares to others by visiting:

http://www.virtualis.com/vr2/rdobbins/comparison.html

Keep in mind that I’m not trying to ‘push’ you to choose this particular company, but merely referring you to them as an excellent and affordable one. Remember that you can compare many other companies as well by going to:

http://webhostlist.internetlist.com/

About the Author

Rosanne Dobbins is a publisher of the ‘Advice Daily’ ezine. Join us at http://www.promotiontools.net

Choosing A Domain Host by Rosanne Dobbins

In the development of an ecommerce site it is conceivable that there is a roll out plan for your features and product lines. More than likely your initial foray into ecommerce is a microcosm of where you want to be sometime in the future.

When you are selecting domain names for your site it may make sense to consider the future of your site. Is it conceivable that the site will be spit in the future to concentrate on a specific product line or products that meet a specific need?

If, in the planning stages of your site, you have determined there may be a multiplication of webs sites you may want to purchase a suitable domain name now. The cost for the domain in minimal and may provide the assurance you need the site name will be available for you when you are ready to implement the next phase of your marketing plan.

If you do decide to go with a unique domain name you should consider purchasing the domain name with your actual business name in it.

Most people are so used to the phone book where the business can be located through the use of following the business name alphabetically. Don’t be surprised if there are those that simply guess that your domain name is simply the name of the company. For these consumers it can be a little frustrating to open up the browser, type in the name and come up empty.

With brick and mortar stores you try to find the best available property with an address that is familiar to your customers. If the site doesn’t work well, most businesses will move to a more visible location. This is the same scenario at work with domain names. A good domain name brings traffic – a bad domain name keeps people away. Work at keeping your domain short, on target and easy to remember.

More than 24 domain extensions are available. Obviously .com and .net are to the two primary extensions, however other extensions were added to provide the opportunity for flexibility in domain name choices.

Once you are ready to launch your new website be sure to distribute a press release both online and in print publications announcing the debut of your site. This is a key in online marketing. You decide what you will sell, you plan your strategy, you implement the design and then you do the hard work of marketing the site through every reputable means possible.

Domain Names: Thinking Ahead / Scott Lindsay

Scott Lindsay is a web developer and entrepreneur. He is the founder of HighPowerSites and many other web projects. Get your own website online in just 5 minutes with HighPowerSites at: http://www.highpowersites.com. Start your own ebook business with BooksWealth at: http://www.bookswealth.com

The use of multiple domains is something that many online businesses are happily participating in. You may wonder why someone would go to the added expense of purchasing additional domain names they may not even use.

From a marketing standpoint there are three solid reasons why ‘the more – the merrier’ is a concept that may make sense when it comes to the acquisition of domain names.

1. Misspellings and Confused Destinations

If the title of your domain contains words that are often misspelled by others it may make sense to purchase the domains that contain those misspellings. The reason this makes sense is that if a visitor tries to log on from memory and misspells your name ‘correctly’ they can still be directed to your primary website.

This may sound strange, but if even a small percentage of those challenged at spelling ultimately make a purchase it is marketing money well spent.

2. Eliminate the Copycats

Even if your domain ends in .com it may make sense to purchase the same domain in .net and other domain extensions. All these extra domains can be redirected to your primary website.

This approach provides two separate benefits.

a) Visitors can access your site even if they have forgotten what domain extension you have.

b) If the site becomes popular, you may not have as many copycats who try to find a website name that is similar to yours. They may also look for the exact same name under a separate domain extension. You may also wish to have your site name trademarked to minimize the possibilities for a copycat website to develop.

3. Resell Domain Names

Some online marketers have selected names that have to do with their product or services that may be general in theme. A motivated site developer may be willing to pay a significant price to acquire the domain name. Many marketers will check trends and acquire short domain names associated with the trend for the purpose of reselling at a higher price.

The growth of the Internet has made a good website name a commodity that has value. When you select your ecommerce domain name chose carefully and keep it as short as possible. If you can find a one word name for your website you may have a positive domain name. The use of the business name is a highly valued consideration, although if there are multiple words in the business name title (i.e. Ted’s Taxidermy, Bait, Convenience and Taco Stand) you might find the primary purpose of the business and find a domain name that connects with site visitors.

Domain Names: So Many To Choose From / Scott Lindsay

Scott Lindsay is a web developer and entrepreneur. He is the founder of HighPowerSites and many other web projects. Get your own website online in just 5 minutes with HighPowerSites at: http://www.highpowersites.com. Start your own ebook business with BooksWealth at: http://www.bookswealth.com

When choosing a domain name, it is tempting to choose a name based on convenience or to accept a suggestion from the domain provider. Which approach is right?

Maybe neither proposal is entirely appropriate.

The more pristine your domain name the easier it will be for potential customers to find you. If, for instance, your business were named Ed’s Grommet Shop, you would likely do best to acquire a domain that is very simply named www.edsgrommetshop.com . The use of hyphens or underscores is confusing for visitors.

Some netrepreneurs will also try to find a domain name that accentuates a ‘cute’ factor. They might look at a name like www.grommetsrus.com or www.yeswehavegrommetstoday.com. The result is a cute name that is easily forgotten.

You might even try abbreviating the name such as www.edgromshp.com Invariably your abbreviation will be different than the way others might shorten it. In the end your potential customers remain confused.

If you are still working on the development of your online business it might make sense to investigate several business names and discover which names might be available as a domain name.

By simultaneous branding your business name with your domain name you will find it much easier for clients and potential customers to locate your site.

It is possible to choose a name other than your business name, but you may have to work extensively to market the new domain name. Some existing businesses have used their toll-free number as a means of identifying their online presence. There is a well-known flower distributor that lists their online presence with their 800 number and work hard to brand that domain name along with the toll free number for contact. In essence they kill two marketing birds with one domain name – website and personal contact.

Some businesses may also make the mistake of selecting a free online hosting site with a domain name that has little to do with you or your business. The belief is that this no-cost solution is a help to the development of your online company. Most of these sub-domains are largely ignored by online users and may not rank well in search engines.

If you haven’t had the opportunity to launch your ecommerce site yet, take some time to research not only your business, but a name that can be easy for customers to remember if for no other reason than it is your actual business name.

Domain Names: The Remembrance Factor / Scott Lindsay

Scott Lindsay is a web developer and entrepreneur. He is the founder of HighPowerSites and many other web projects. Get your own website online in just 5 minutes with HighPowerSites at: http://www.highpowersites.com. Start your own ebook business with BooksWealth at: http://www.bookswealth.com

Every website owner/operator is familiar with affiliate programs, we all belong to one or more, or have at one time, and display banners and buttons on our websites offering anything from a credit card to viagra, Which is completely fine for attracting perspective buyers to products that your affiliate sponsors offer. There’s no crime in earning a little revenue to support your website and your hard work designing, developing and supporting it.

But if you’re like me at all, you have a few domain names sitting around doing nothing too. It occurred to me that having the domain names listed for sale has generated little or no revenue, but every year I renew them because I think that they are good domain names and have marketing potential if put into the right hands.

So I decided to do a little research and find out what affiliate programs were out there that offered more than buttons and banners, and I found that there are a number of affiliate companies that offer RSS feeds and Data Feeds and even some offer complete “Turn-key” websites already built for you, download an asp or php version of the Turn-Key site to put on your own server and you’re good to go. Point your domain name to it, and you’re offering a service or product that people have a use for, just go about your normal marketing practices for the site(s).

So I looked at what domain names I owned and wasn’t using, thought about what types of affiliate programs they would lend themselves to, which in my case was easy, and I did some research. I had 3 domain names reserved and no websites for them, http://SongOasis.com, http://Gear-Junkie.net and http://ArtistMatch.com. They were at one time active websites but hadn’t been in service for quite some time, so considering they were domains pertaining mostly to music or media, I started my search there. I discovered that there were more than a few music based affiliate programs available which required an investment in time doing a little digging through.

I narrowed my search to those affiliate programs offering “Data Feeds”. These are feeds that come in the form of XML or RSS feeds, as well as Text or CSV files that the affiliate would make available to you to download and use how you see fit, with some restrictions of course. Researching those affiliate programs I found that these feeds would provide all of the information, or at least much of it to the same extent as the affiliate website themselves. Which to me meant that I could build a dynamic website offering some great things in a way the I controlled without having to maintain an inventory or process payments or handle returns and deal with any billing issues should they arrise.

So… I decided for my http://Gear-Junkie.net domain to go with musical instrument sales through http://Zzounds.com, and offer over 4000 musical instruments online. Being a musician myself, this sounded appealing to me. For http://SongOasis.com I went with a great program from Rhapsody which offers real time feeds in xml format so my site is updated everyday with the latest artist and music releases everyday with no additional work on my part after building the site. And Finally for http://ArtistMatch.com I went with an affiliate program by http://CDUniverse.com. This program provided Data Feeds for over 40,000 items where you can shop online for music CDs, movies and games.

I’ve also cross referenced each of the sites with my own banners promoting the other sites from within my sites so that visibility to all of the affiliate programs is blended throughout the 3 websites which is helpful in generating sales if not traffic. So if you are sitting on a few domain names and would like to put them to work for you, try researching some of the affiliate programs out there that offer these type of data feeds and see if you can use them to your advantage as well.

Thanks for reading, and happy (and hopefully profitable) coding.

Put Your Spare Domain Names To Work For You Using Affiliate Programs. / Benjamin Cortese

Ben Cortese is a developer and business analyst for the financial industry and enjoys developing and supporting independent websites for Music, Movies and Games and more. Copyright 2007. Article can be reprinted only if unchanged.

It is widely believed that most search engines now look at the domain name when they go to index a page. However nobody really knows if this is really true as the search engine algorithms are actually secrets, like FICO scores. Google and Yahoo also constantly morph their algorithms to avoid favoring URLS that are using black hat SEO techniques from soaring in the page rankings unfairly. However to be on the safe side you might want to consider that this is a rumor that is probably true.

Domain names can be of any length up to 67 characters. You don’t have to settle for an obscure acronym for a domain name like SEOE.com when what you mean is searchengineoptimizationexpert.com.

Having said that, there appears to be some disagreement about whether a long or short domain name is better. Some argue that shorter domain names are easier for people to remember and easier for people to type in the search engine box. For instance learnSEO.com is a lot easier to remember than mastercourseforoptimation.com.Others argue that a longer domain name is usually easier on the human memory – especially if it is a catchier phrase. The catchier it is the more clients are more likely to remember the domain name and type it into the search engine box.

One reason to stay away from acronyms is that they can mean more than one thing. The acronym ACA is a good example – it stands for several things including the American Counseling Association, The Association of Canadian Archivists and the Association of Canadian Advertisers just to name a few.

It is probably a good idea to go for a shorter name as long as it is to the point and meaningful. If it is longer than two words then make sure it is memorable.

SEO – Should You Go For A Long Or Short Domain Name? / Chris Angus

Chris Angus is a SEO and website promoter, he can be contacted at sales(at)brilliantseo.com Car Insurance Mobility Scooters Asbestos Survey

“Domain investment,” or the buying of domain names for profit, has been an internet marketing “insider secret” for a number of years. When the internet was young, for example, enterprising spirits grabbed the domain names of popular companies and resold them when those companies came knocking. In fact, stories abound on the net about domain names selling for thousands – and even millions – of dollars. In 2006 alone, domain names such as “diamonds.com” and “cameras.com” sold for a combined $9 million. There is no question that many people have made a bundle selling domain names, including “Domain King” Rick Schwartz, who has made up to $2,000,000 a year through domain investment.

Can you make money selling domain names? Unless you’re very lucky or already a proficient internet marketer, your chances are not great that you will be able to find a profitable domain name which hasn’t been taken. Many analysts emphasize that investing in domain names is no longer a “walk in the park” and that real “killings” in domain investment are few and far between. There is doubtlessly much competition in the field of ever-dwindling dot.com domain names, and even in the less used ones as well, such as .net, .info, .biz, .ws, etc.

Nevertheless, creative entrepreneurs have not let those facts slow them down, and certain “domain profiteers” have flaunted conventional wisdom and continued to profit in domain investment. Without detailed instructions from such experts with a proven track record, however, chances of failure are high enough to discourage the novice without deep pockets. The good news is that those who wish to enter the lucrative domain-name business can turn to a comprehensive training course called “Domain Profiteer.” The result of collaboration between trusted internet millionaires Shawn Casey and Matt Smith, this domain-investment course reveals a slew of secrets used by top domain investors over the years, including Rick Schwartz. In Domain Profiteer, Casey and Smith provide step-by-step instructions for finding, choosing, registering, parking and/or reselling domain names.

If you are an avid collector of domain names, you may want to jump on this profitable bandwagon. If you aren’t yet a domain investor, you may wish to become one – and you won’t want to try without Domain Profiteer. Up to now, there has not been a product like Domain Profiteer – and there may not be another one of this quality. Over time, you could learn to do the same thing – using expensive tools, some of which cost more per month than the relatively low price of Domain Profiteer. Or, you could simply invest in Domain Profiteer and save yourself the cost and time.

Domain Name Profits / Jamie Clarkson

Jamie Clarkson has been online since 1995. You can learn more about Domain Profiteer by going to http://supermarketingaffiliates.com/domain-profiteer.html