How to Choose and Purchase Your Domain Name

Copyright 2006 Alicia M Forest and ClientAbundance.com

One of the very first steps you need to take when setting up your business online is to choose and purchase a domain name for your website. Buying a domain name is actually cheap and easy, but there are some things to consider when choosing the best domain name for your business.

If you have a domain name that gives people an idea of what it is that you’re offering, it will make your site that much easier for them to not only find, but to actually visit. For example, the name of my website is www.ClientAbundance.com, so when people come across my URL anywhere, they can take an educated guess that what I’m offering relates to getting lots of clients.

This is what makes it so important to get a UNIQUE domain name, and not a sub-domain name (for example, www.WebHostingName.com/thenameofyoursite). And a unique domain name gives your website credibility and a much more polished and professional look.

Something else that’s important for you to know is that once you purchase your unique domain name, you own it. So no matter how many times you change web hosts, you, as the owner of that domain name, have the right to take it with you. If you have a sub-domain with your web host, that web host actually owns the domain name.

And just as important, if you do end up moving your website to a different host, all your marketing efforts to date will not have gone to waste because your customers and clients will still be able to find you under your unique domain name.

Your unique domain name can be any combination of letters and numbers, but it cannot include any special characters, except for hyphens (because the search engines actually prefer hyphens!). It can be as short as two characters or as long as 67. The shorter and catchier your domain name, the more likely people will remember it. Just don’t make it hard to spell…

Another strategy for increasing your search engine rankings with your domain name is to choose a domain name that includes the keywords that your niche is searching for. That’s not always possible, especially as more and more people get savvy about internet marketing and snap up those domains. But search engines do give more weight to domain names that include keywords because they have higher relevancy to what people are actually searching for. For example, www.howtobakeacake.com would get higher search engine rankings than www.sweetsandthings.com.

One of the most frequent questions I’m asked is whether or not to register any other domain levels, like .net and .org. I always strongly suggest to get a .com first. If you don’t, you are losing potential clients and customers. Most people (and web browsers) will default to a .com first. Remember, you always want to make it as easy as possible for people to find you online.

But, in addition, you should also consider buying the .net and .org domains as well, just so you’re not losing traffic to another site with the same name but a different extension. And since domain names are so cheap, there’s really no reason not to.

Another tip to consider is to purchase common misspellings of your domain name as well. For example, for my name (which I also recommend you register), I own www.aliciaforest.com and www.aliciaforrest.com.

Once you’ve decided on a domain name, you can check to see if it’s available at www.powerpipe.com. If it is, you can register it there and park it for free for $7.99 per year. I’ve been using PowerPipe for over 5 years and find them to be not only extremely competitively priced, but also to have excellent customer service. They also offer a free domain name brainstorming tool in case you need it. (I don’t get anything for recommending them; I’m just a happy customer).

So now you know what to consider when choosing your domain name(s), and you have an excellent resource for registering them. So don’t wait any longer to claim your space on the web!

How To Effectively Cloak Your Affiliate Links

Affiliate links are something we all have to live with in internet marketing, but unfortunately we sometimes find that unscrupulous people hijack them. Even if they don’t hijack them, some people will just strip the affiliate part in order to deprive you of a commission. They don’t even save themselves any money or gain anything out of this other than some perverse pleasure in ripping someone off.

Whilst there are programs out there that will cloak your links and also track the click throughs, here&s an easy way that you can employ on your own web site to both cloak your links and also improve the presentation of them.

Before I get onto that, can I just say that there are other methods such as using Tiny URL, but personally I dislike these type of links. They almost scream “Hey, look what I’m trying to hide”. I feel that this method is not only effective, but also provides great presentation and a recommendation from you as the web site owner as well.

OK, here we go.

Let’s assume that we are going to cloak the following link:-

http://www.the-greatest-product-ever.com/affiliate-area/start.php?offer=youraffiliate-id&pid=1

The first thing to note about this is that it is very long and ugly. Another danger with this link is that it could “wrap” in a text based email and lose its click through ability.

So what do we do?

OK. Open Notepad or a similar text editor or you can use Dreamweaver if it’s configured to run php files because we are going to write a very simple and straightforward php file.

In your editor type the following on a blank page. That’s very important. If you are using a HTML editor, make sure there is nothing on the page.

Insert Less Than Sign Here?php
header(“Location:http://www.the-greatest-product-ever.com/affiliate-area/start.php?offer=youraffiliate-id&pid=1″);
exit();
?Insert Greater Than Sign Here

That’s it. Yes, it’s as simple as that.

Now, save the file into a directory on your web site. I would suggest a sub-directory name “recommends” and upload the directory and file to your server.

The first thing to do now is to test the file to make sure it works as it should. Whatever you do, NEVER send out an email or put a link on a page that hasn’t been tested.

In your url address bar type:- http://www.yourdomain.com/recommends/filename.php and it should take you direct to the page of the affiliate product that you are selling. It bypasses your site entirely so people don’t see all the affiliate code in the php file.

Once you have tested the page and you are sure it works, you are ready to incorporate the page in an email to your list or even onto your web pages directly if you have done a product review or similar, but the link of course will be:-

http://www.yourdomain.com/recommends/filename.php

I think this looks so much nicer than a terribly long and convoluted filename and certainly much less secretive than a Tiny URL. It is also stating in the url that you “recommend” the site.

I employ this method on all my web sites and in my emails to people and with great success. I hope you enjoy the same.

For Registering A Domain Name You’ll Want These Tips

Are you planning for registering a domain name? Well, before you do so, here are some important points that you must know about the process for registering a domain name.

For registering a domain name, you need to consider that sole means to register and begin using a domain name is to apply the services of a domain name registrar. It is also nice to know that in terms of the domain name, the domain name industry is regulated and overseen by the ICANN or the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which is an organization that has the duty to certify companies as domain name registrars.

For registering a domain name, it is necessary to know that it is only the domain name registrars who are allowed to access and modify the leading database of domain names which is now maintained by the InterNIC. And speaking of the master database, it is considered that it contains the documentation on the entire domain names registered to date.

For registering a domain name, you should know that if you come across a said domain name registrar that is not on the list, it is probably a group that is solely acting as a reseller for one of the official registrars as only an official domain name registrar has the right to amend the domain names’ database.

For registering a domain name, another important point that you should know is that the ICANN or the recognized domain name registrars have the power to allot domain names for the TLDs of the top-level domain names such as .com, .biz, .info, .name, .net, and .org. In relation to that, if you are registering a domain name, the ICANN does not particularly make official registrars to provide registration supports or services for country code TLDs.

For registering a domain name, it is an important fact for you to know that the domain name registrar that you choose will identify the cost for registering a domain name. However, it is a general view that the registrars expect to pay a yearly fee from the domain name consumers. There are also some domain name registrars that provide discounts for registering a domain name for more than one year, but then the registrars have no right to sell more than a 10-year registration transaction for any domain name.

And for registering a domain name, there are some laws that regulate the process for registering a domain name, like registering a copyrighted name or registering a domain name for the mere aim of blocking a domain name holder form using it. So it is better for you to check with your registrar for the laws that greatly affect how you register a domain name.

How to install and run phpAdsNew

What is phpAdsNew? It is great script written in PHP which can be used to manage different ad campaigns on your website. PhpAdsNew supports banners of any size (including flash banners), pop-ups, text ads and many different types of rich media ads. Using this script you can manage third party ads, e.g. ads from banner exchanges. And the good message is that this script is free.

How to install phpAdsNew?

First, ensure that your web hosting provider offers PHP support (PHP 4.0.4 or higher) and MySQL database (3.23.3 or higher). Then download the zip or tgz package and unzip it to your hard drive. You can use WinZip or Total Commander to do this. Now upload the files to your web host. Change the permissions of the config.inc.php file using “chmod a+w config.inc.php”. Create new MySQL database with any name, e.g. phpadsnew (or use existing database). Now you are able to run the installer. Point your browser to http://www.yourdomain.com/phpadsnew (or another folder where you copied the files). Follow the instruction on the screen and finish the installation process.

Another and easier solution how to install this PHP script is to sign up for a quality web hosting service which offers pre-installed PHP scripts. Then easily go to your control panel, find the section with pre-installed scripts and select phpAdsNew. The installer will do all the job for you. All you need to do is to choose the script you want to install.

How to run phpAdsNew?

Go to admin interface and create at least one zone. Zone is the place on your website where the ads will be displayed (e.g. top banner on the home page can be zone 1, bottom banner on the section page zone 2 etc.). Then create a new client. When you’re done, create new campaign for this client. You can set up the zone(s), limit of banner / text ads / rich media… impressions, when the campaign will start and finish, the frequency at which the ad will be shown and many other options.

Ok, we have some campaigns now and they are sucessfully running. But every advertiser wants to check the results of his campaign. From this reason phpAdsNew has very detailed stats section. Your advertisers (or you if you use this script to manage your own ads) will be able to see how many times was particular ad viewed by the website visitors and click through rate (how many % of visitors clicked the ads). In addition, you can watch weekly and daily stats. Stats can be exported to *.csv file (data from *.csv files can be opened by software like MS Excel on your computer).

I hope you will find these information helpful when you will start using phpAdsNew. If you will need some advanced functions I suggest to open phpAdsNew/misc/documentation folder where are stored three *.pdf files with very detailed description of this script. The first one, administrator-guide.pdf, will help you with the installation process and configuration. Developer-guide.pdf is for advanced users with PHP knowledge. The most important file is user-guide.pdf which will provide you by all the functions. Btw. this file has 109 pages. Good luck!

The Dot Edu Domain Name Extension Explained

When we talk about the domain name, we cannot escape the presence of top level domain names or commonly called as domain name extensions. It is for the reason that the domain name extensions are a great part of a domain name.

Given such idea, it is no doubt that many companies or the domain name owners in particular have their own domain name extensions for a much better identification. It is in fact a general view that all of the domain name extensions, whether it is a dot com, dot net, dot org, or dot edu domain names, really play a great part for identifying a domain name.

If the dot com, dot net, and dot org is the most common types of domain name extensions and has contributed a great part in the field of domain name, the dot edu domain name is also of great importance. Many domain name holders today cater to dot edu domain names for certain purposes and for certain functions.

Generally, the dot edu domain name is a descriptive domain name extensions that is designed to imply an educational institution or a degree granting university. So whenever you see a dot edu domain name, now you know that it is an educational institution or a degree granting university. To better show a concrete idea about the dot edu domain name, take for example the University of Portland’s domain name at up. edu which is the official site of Oregon’s Catholic University, the University of Portland.

Just like some of the top level domains such as the dot gov, dot net, and dot int, the dot edu domain name is also known as part of the generic domain names that is one that would not immediately be related with a company. Given such fact about the generic domain name to which the dot edu domain name belongs, it is therefore understandable that the dot edu domain name is such that defines an entire category of business and with the dot edu domain name, that business would be the “educational” business.

And speaking of the generic domain names to which the dot edu belongs, it is considered that as many of the domain name extensions have been approved today, many companies have gone on to create successful brands based on a generic domain name, and these domain names tend to be very important.

Furthermore, the dot edu domain name is such of great importance for identifying the educational institution since many of the people today are looking for some resources or information about certain educational institutions or degree granting universities maybe for some purposes. And by knowing that the dot edu domain name exists in the real world, they will be able to locate a certain educational institution through the dot edu domain name extension.

The dot edu domain name, finally, as it is one of the noted important domain name extensions therefore exists for the dot edu domain name generally affects how easily the visitors of the degree granting universities will find them. So when looking for a degree granting universities or some educational institutions in general, you better tahe as much care in considering the dot edu domain name as you do in the actual name for the fact that each is just as significant as the other.

ICANN Violating Free Enterprise

Message to ICANN: Let those who want to create a tld, simply register it with ICANN.

If the tld is not already taken, if they have the technical capability to mange the tld, and they have the desire to market domain names on that tld, then let them do so.

It should be similar to the registering of a domain name, except on a higher level, with the added technical requirements. ICANN should be sort of an uber-registry for tlds.

It would be ludicrous for a domain name restrar like go daddy or enom to ask you for a business plan, or a non-refundable application fee, before allowing you to register a domain name. It would be ridiculous for a registrar to have “rounds” of domain name releases of names “they chose” in advance.

Okay, this month, go daddy will be allocating cheaperwebhosting.com, doggrommingmadeeasy.net, and virtualinternetwebnetwork.net. We will be taking applications and public comment during the month of february. We will then spend another month reviewing the applicants business plans to decide who we will allocate the domain name to. If you are not approved to manage the domain name you apply for, your application fee will be held by go daddy until further notice.

Some people will say that is not a good analogy, but it is a perfect analogy. Here is why. If info.com was still available and I registered it. I could then start selling subdomains like car.info.com, computer.info.com, icann.info.com or any other subdomain someone wished to purchase from me. The subdomain is one dot removed from the domain name the same as the domain name is one dot removed from the tld.

There is no longer any reason to believe ICANN is doing anything other than restricting free enterprise and free trade by not opening up the market for tlds. It is no longer acceptable that ICANN should be the one to decide which tlds will or will not be created nor is it acceptable that ICANN gets to choose who can or cannot run a tld.

Do you present a businesss plan to the city you live in before they allow you a business license? No.

Does the city ask you to prove you are financially stable before issuing you a business license? No, as long as you pay the registration fee.

If you apply for a business license to open a clothing store, does the city ask how you will run your clothing store or if you have the necessary expertise to run a clothing store? No.

Does the city think you will hurt them economically if your clothing store goes out of business? No, it’s none of their business.

Is the city concerned that there may not enough demand for yet another clothing store? No, again none of their business.

ICANN not allowing me, or anyone else in the world, to create a tld of our choice in any language we choose, is a blatant violation of our rights. In many countries, America among them, the right to free enterprise still exists. ICANN is denying me that right as an American citizen and doing so when even their own organization exists under American law.

There are no needs for auctions or rounds or anything else. If you want to run a tld, then you register it and start selling domain names. If you fail, you fail, just as in any other business venture you take on.

Artificially restricting namespace to make a few business IP interests happy has to stop.

Ebay

If you peruse Ebay a lot, you’ll see a lot of members selling website businesses. Often advertising these as “Turnkey”, they claim that the site has been making X dollars a month for the past X months. The businesses include expired domain name searches, online auction sites, credit repair sites, dating and adult sites, etc. Take a look at the current bids or prices – $1.99? What gives? If this site is making money, why would they want to sell it??? Here are some tips to help avoid buying a waste of time.

Take a look at the domain name. Do a Google search for it. Does it show up? Keep in mind how long the seller claims the site has been in business. Go to Internic and do a Whois on the domain name…how long has it existed? Chances are less than a month.

Are there any bids on it? the number of bids is generally a good indicator on how legit this “business” is. If there’s only 25 minutes left on the auction, and there is one bid for a very low dollar amount, this one&s most likely a dog. If it is down to 25 minutes and there are 60 bids on it up to 500 bucks, it’s most likely a keeper.

Proof of income. Some sites show a screen shot of their payment processor. Visit the website. Is the payment processor the same? For example, is the screen shot on Ebay from 2Checkout, and Paypal is the only payment method on the site? Smells fishy to me.

Most of these sites claim to be “100 Percent custom hand coded by experienced developers”. Do some Googling for “website templates”. Look through some of the places that offer web templates for sale. You will most likely run across the design of the website that is for sale. View the source of the site that&s for sale – you may find that the seller forgot to remove the comment code that states that “This site was developed by ” . There are actually websites that SELL turnkey web businesses specifically for sale on Ebay, and they use these templates all the time, over and over again.

If you are still skeptical, email the seller with your questions. If this site is truly on the up-and-up, they&ll be honest. If not, they&ll dodge your questions like a bullet.

One more thing to consider: Often these sites will come with “Dirt Cheap Web Hosting”, for something like $6.99 per year. Think about it – would a TRUE e-commerce site that was getting tons of traffic and sales rely on lowest-bidder web hosting? Nope.

Now, don’t get me wrong – there ARE some good web businesses available from time to time on Ebay…but with the availability of so many free website scripts and templates, they seem to be few and far between. Caveat Emptor, my friends – let the buyer beware.

However, if you want to learn more about running a real ebay business and selling real goods and making good sales,

take a look at this site, “ebay auction software” to find some great tips

Hosting Domain Name Options

Probably you have heard the term “hosting domain name” and maybe you know something about it. This term “hosting domain name” is much given emphasis by many resources that are concerned about the domain name in general, however, we cannot deny that there are still who do not know even just a tidbit about hosting domain name. So for those who haven’t known anything about hosting domain name or those who even heard a little about it, below are some of the basic principles behind the term “hosting domain name” for you to know. So read on.

Hosting domain name is actually considered as an act or a process of providing the domain name customers with space on the domain name hosts computers which are called as servers for the main reason that such servers serve the details that they hold to the internet. With the act of hosting domain name, anyone using the internet can view the site.

When we say hosting domain name, we are somewhat referring to web hosting since these two are synonymous. It is important to know that those companies who handled the act of hosting domain names also provide email to go along with the account involved in hosting domain name. As such, the domain name holder will then be granted to welcome email through their domain names.

Recently, there are a lot of companies that are concerned about the act of hosting domain names. Such companies offered products and pricing that vary widely. It is just necessary to note when it comes to hosting domain name companies that these recent companies for domain name hosting have been around for a while as these companies come and go regularly. But many of those companies have really good pricing and have been stable companies to work with.

In hosting domain names, you need to use a template, have a professional design and then code it, or you should know about html or some other codes in order to create a web site. Today, many of the domain name registrants point their Domain Name System to a company that handles the act of hosting domain names and so such hosting domain name company affixes the specified domain name to the code that the domain name user then uploaded to their web site, and this act is done typically by the File Transfer Protocol. So with the act of hosting domain name, the users on the internet can now access their server and then view the web site.

Lastly, those companies that cater to the service of hosting domain names typically offer several levels of service. It is in fact noted that those small web sites with not so much traffic don’t actually use up much space on the server and even not a lot of bandwidth because not much people are searching at the web site. So in relation to hosting domain names, it is noted that a small account of hosting domain name is thus not very expensive. The opposite situation happens to those large web sites with much traffic and bandwidth.

Changing Domain Name – The Best Way!

Accept the fact that there are really some times that you need to change your domain name. Changing domain names is not in fact a very rare situation, but the fact that is widely common today. Many were now changing domain names for certain purposes, and along with that, many people were also encountering problems.

The process of changing domain names, according to some veterans in the field of domain name, is somewhat very time-consuming and the potential for some mistakes is very huge. Well, every problem has its own solution, right? So a fairly simple solution and a safe alternative for a smooth and seamless switch in changing domain names is made possible through the application of the mod_rewrite and a .htaccess file.

Now, what is a mod_rewrite and .htaccess file?

According to certain studies, a mod_rewrite as it becomes important in changing domain names is an Apache module that grants the mode for the rewriting of the URL. Many considered this tool for changing domain names as transparent to the end-user and thus require no special software on the user’s end.

In an instance of changing domain names, the user who applies the mod_rewrite in changing domain names will still see the old domain name in their browser address bar on the first page that they visit, but then will typically be seeing the content under the new domain name. By using the mod_rewrite in changing domain names will also provide you with a very user friendly search engine.

On the other hand, the .htaccess file plays a role in changing domain names as containing particular Apache directives for specific requests, including security, redirection issues, and it also contains the answers on how to handle certain errors. Such function of the .htaccess file is very necessary in changing domain names for the reason that the Apache that it contains is a very common web server that helps a smooth and easy process of changing domain names.

Knowing the facts about those two important tools, it is therefore important to note that before you do anything, you should consider some issues that surround such the domain name change. These issues must be considered for these will help for a smoother transition. So according to some experts for changing domain names, the first important move is to check the web host to make sure that they support the mod_rewrite module, otherwise the attempt procedure will not work. Then it follows that you must activate your new domain name. It is just necessary that you ensure that the file base construction and naming is accurately similar when it was under the old domain name.

After that, you create an .htaccess file. It is interesting to know that the .htaccess file in changing domain names can be done with a simple text editor like the notepad, and it should be noted that the file has no tail extension; the name should then be just .htaccess. If done, the syntax should then be inserted. Just be aware that when changing domain names, the old domain name will still appear in the browser window but you are viewing the content of the new domain name. Of course there are still some rules behind these steps for changing domain names, but unfortunately, that is beyond the scope of this article.

Domain Name Registration Basics

The domain name registration process can be confusing to first time buyers. There are a number of terms to worry about. Hopefully, with the information below, you’ll be able to successfully register domain names while avoiding the pain that can sometimes come from the domain registration process.

What the heck is a nameserver anyway? Nameservers refer to a service that runs on servers belonging to a web hosting company that hosts the account that the domain name will point to. Every domain name on the internet must point to an IP address but each IP address can have multiple domain names on it thanks to shared hosting. Entering the nameservers of the hosting company you have for the domain name you are registering lets the big DNS nameservers on the internet know where to find the hosting account for the domain name in question. Without this service, it would be impossible for any computer to find any web page. This is all usually done very quickly – in a fraction of a second.

Whois information is another thing to get knowledgeable about. Whois refers to the owner of the domain name. This information is provided by you when you register a domain name. This information in turn is offered to anyone who cares to search for it. For this reason, it is important to consider privacy issues when entering your information for a domain name. It is not advisable to falsify domain name information. At the same time, you may use the most generic information you can when entering your domain. If you have a work address and home address, use the work address. If you have a post office box number and a street address, include the post office box number only.

How many years should you consider registering your domain name? I would argue that it depends what you are going to use the domain for. If it is your business name and you intend to be in business for at least the next five years, I would register it for five years. That way, you don’t have to worry about it for a long time. In fact, you can register domain names for up to ten years. If you register your domain for that long, you won’t have to worry about it for a decade. Maintenance and stress free.

Make sure you lock your domain. After you’ve registered your domain name, log into the control panel for your domain name and confirm that it is locked. What does locking do for you? It prevents anyone from transferring your domain name to another registrar without your authorization. Most registrars require you to approve the transfer by clicking on a link but some registrars may simply allow the transfer if you don’t expressly forbid it. Miss an email and you could lose your domain name. Don’t take a chance. Lock your domain name right away.

13 Steps to Successful Blogging

Blogs can be a very marketable and very profitable tool if used correctly. Profiting from blogs is just a matter of grabbing the attention of an audience and not doing any actual salesmen selling. In this article you will learn the 13 most essential steps to successful blogging.

1) Where to start?

You should begin your blog with a free blog hosting service such as Journal Home. I don’t say that because I’m the owner, but a free blog host is very rewarding for a new blog. Starting with a free blog hosting service allows you to begin blogging instantly without having any advance knowledge of scripts, hosting, or programming. It allows you to build an audience and buzz for your blog. It allows you to focus on your content and not the internal maintenance of the blog. The best benefit of starting with a free service, is in the case your blog doesn’t become successful you do not lose any money or are you left holding the bill. The great thing about a blog is that they are organized in chronological order, your latest entry is displayed first. When your blog traffic grows greatly and you are ready to upgrade to your own domain then you can simply make your last blog entry the announcement of your “move”. Simply add a last entry stating that your blog has “moved” and type the new blog URL address. Which directs visitors to your new blog site, keeping your following, without a major inconvenience to anyone. Upgrade as you need to…but only when you need to!

2) Niche

A niche is a targeted product, service, or topic. You should first decide on a product, service, or topic which interest you. Choose an area which you can enthusiastically write about on a daily basis. You can use keyword research services like Google Zeitgeist or Yahoo! Buzz Index to find popular searched topics. It does NOT matter if your topic is popular as long as there is a audience for your topic and the topic is precisely focused then your blog should be successful. Anything can be considered a niche as long as it has a target audience no matter how large or how small the audience is. A blog about your cat can be a niche or a blog about the species of the cat family can be a larger niche market, if there are people who are interested in hearing about your cat or the species of the cat family, then you have a niche…you can even choose to build your audience for a market which an audience does not exist, but first you must build your blog.

3) Update Daily (nothing less)

This step is a must and not a suggestion. Updating your blog daily not only keeps your blog more interesting to readers, but it also gives your blog fresh content on a day to day making it more appealing to search engines. Not updating your blog on an occasional holiday or one day here and there is understandable to most, but missing days at a time or weeks is unacceptable and will most likely result in your blog being unsuccessful. To keep your blog traffic and retain your visitors interest it is a must to update your blog daily with multiple entries. Though, I am seeing a growing trend of successful blogs that are not being updated daily, but they are successful and have a stable audience who continue to visit their blog daily. Regardless, these blogs are still updated weekly with multiple entries. Until you have a steady audience you should try to update your blog everyday with at least 3 or more daily entries. The best way to accomplish this is to set aside 1-2 hours a day for tending to your blog and adding new entries. It may even be wise to schedule a set time which you dedicate to your blog each day. Give yourself work hours and treat your blog as a job, what happens if you don’t come to work for days or weeks…you lose money or worse you get fired! Same applies here…if you don’t update your blog for days or weeks you’ll lose visitors.

4) Traffic

It’s no secret. You must have traffic to profit from blogs. There are numerous ways to build traffic. Paid advertising, free advertising, viral marketing, search engine marketing, RSS/XML feeds, and word-of-mouth. You should always use your blog URL address in the signature of your email, forum discussions, message boards, or any other communication media. You should submit your blog URL address to search engines and blog directories. You should submit your RSS/XML URL feed to blog ping services like Technorati, Ping-O-Matic, and Blogdigger. You should confidently share your blog with family, friends, co-workers, associates, and business professionals when it relates. Many blogs can be considered as a collection of articles, for this purpose you should submit your blog entries (those that are valuable and lengthy articles) to content syndicators like GoArticles.com or ZapContent.com. Once submitted your articles can be picked up and published by others. The trick is to make sure you include your Blog URL address in the “About the Author” passage. What this does is create link popularity and backlinks for your blog, when someone picks up your article from the syndication then publish the article on their website the “About the Author” passage is included with each publication and the link you included is followed, crawled, and indexed by search engines. Imagine if your article is popular enough or controversial enough to produce 10,000 publications across the web. The search engines is bound to find your blog in no time with that many publications and credit you a authority on the topic, in return increasing your rank on search engines. The small effort of writing a well written article is rewarding. You should try to write at least 1 full length article every week for syndication and submit your article to at least 10 article syndicators.

5) Track Your Blog

How do you know if your blog has traffic? Just because no one is leaving comments doesn’t mean your blog isn’t growing. Many visitors do not leave comments but they are returning visitors. I know it sounds crazy but with blogs people are more interested in what “you” have to say! Many visitors do not comment their 1st, 2nd, or 3rd time. Some do not comment at all, but are active daily visitors.

Tracking your blog does not have to be overly sophisticated usually a simple free page counter like StatCounter.com or Active Meter will do the trick. Install (copy/paste) the code into the html of your blog template and start tracking your visitors. Its better to use a service which gives you advanced traffic analysis, such as keyword tracking information, referral information, and search engine information. Visitors, returning visitors, and unique visitors should be standard for any page counter service you choose.

6) Listen to Your Audience

When using the proper page counter you should begin to see how others are finding your blog and if through search engines then which keywords are being used to find your blog. If constantly your blog is being found by 1 or more keywords then focus your blog around those keywords to make it even more powerful. When writing entry titles and entries use the keywords as often as possible while keeping the blog legible and interesting.

7) Multiple blogs

Use multiple blogging accounts (free) to attract more people. This means you should have a blog with JournalHome.com and others. The more blog accounts the better (be sure to read and adhere to the Terms of Service for each site). You can copy/paste from 1 blog to all others. Having different blog accounts is like having a publication in different newspapers. This enables you to attract more visitors and this also increases the chance that 1 of your blogs will be in the search engine results for your focused keywords.
Short and Concise

Aside from the lengthy article a week for syndication and publication your blog entries should be short and concise (if you can help it). Sometimes there are exceptions to the rule and you have no choice but to blog lengthy entries, but try to avoid this as much as possible. You do not want your blog entries to become hours of reading. Visitors like to easily find information and skim through your entries. It is good to be detailed and provide useful information, but do not include useless information or run away sentences that veer away from your topic. Stay keyword-focused.

9) Digital Art

Try to include non-advertising graphics, pictures, photos, and art in your blog entries. Not too much. Once a week is fine. Graphics can sometimes bring your blog to life. Of course, the content of the blog is the most important aspect and you do not want to overshadow your content with graphics, but displaying graphics can add a bit of spice to the blog. Be choosy about your graphics and make sure they fit your entry topic. You should add content with the graphic, at least a caption. Original graphics, photos, pictures, and art is recommended.

10) Keep it Personal

A blog is most successful when it is kept personal. Try to include personal experiences which relates to the topic of your blog entry. Stay away from the business style of writing. Write with a more personal style and use first-person narratives. Do not write any of your entries as sales letters, instead share product reviews and personal endeavors.

11) Interact With Your Visitors

You now have the traffic you deserve. You should begin interacting with your visitors. Create a regular theme such as: “Monday Money Tip” or “Picture of the Week” which entices your readers to look forward to each week.

Give your readers advance notice about a product, service, or topic which you are going to review and then talk about later. If the President was scheduled to give a speech then in your blog you should state that you “will discuss the speech and give your opinion after the speech airs. Comments will be appreciated”.

Try your best to find exclusive information that not many have. Do not disclose any confidential or secret information which is deemed illegal or can potentially get you into trouble, but try to get the scoop before everyone else does. Such as: If your blog was about Paris Hilton (the socialite) and you had a blog entry about “Paris Hilton Getting Married” then it would be interesting to your readers if you had a actual picture of Paris Hilton engagement ring. Give your best effort to dig and search the internet for exclusive information and you will possibly come up with something useful. Your readers will appreciate this and they show their appreciation through word-of-mouth referrals. Imagine how many readers will tell their friends, family, and others about information they only can find at your blog.

12) Make Money

Once your blog has gained some real momentum and your blog traffic is increasing then it is time to start thinking about turning your traffic into profit. You should use contextual advertising, like Google Adsense or Chitika. Contextual advertising is usually text links which use the content of your blog to publish targeted ads on your blog. The payout is usually based on a pay-per-click model, meaning for ever click an ad receives you are paid a small percentage of the profits. In addition to contextual advertising it is good to also use graphical advertising such as: BlogAds.com, Amazon.com, MammaMedia, or General Sponsored Advertising.

13) You’re a Professional

You’re a professional now! What are you still doing with that free blog hosting service? It is time to upgrade to a domain hosted solution. You need to get a web host and choose a domain name for your blog then check its availability. Select the blogging software you wish to use, such as: Squarespace.com, WordPress.org, MovableType.org, TypePad, etc. When you have your new blog domain setup and ready for traffic then it is time for you to announce your move on all your previous blog accounts. Your last entry to the blog should be a “move” announcement. The title should be “Moved” and the blog entry should state something like “I have a new home for my blog, please bookmark and follow the link: http://www.YourNewBlogDomainName.com”. This way all returning visitors and new readers should not have any problem finding your new blog domain. Plus, search engines can easily index and crawl your new blog, since your old blog should already be popular with the search engines.

At the level of a professional blogger you may want to team up with 1 or more other bloggers. This will create a more interesting and more powerful blog. The old saying “two heads is better than one”, more authors mean more advertising and exposure because each author will have a vested interest in the blog. The idea of a team blog is to make it profitable and rewarding for all authors, while continuing to target the blog topic and keeping the blog interesting for visitors.

Following these blogging techniques should make your blogging experience much more rewarding. There is no guarantee that your blog will become popular or a household name, but the effort should at least put you one step closer. Making money online is not an overnight experience like many may think, but making money online is definitely a foreseeable possibility. As well, growing popularity on the web is not an overnight experience, but through time, dedication, and persistence you will be rewarded with all the royalties of blogging.

To learn more about successful blogging subscribe to the Journal Home Newsletter

Sorting Out Different Domain Name Registration Cost And Services

There are a number of different domain name registration cost and services out there that you can consider when registering the name for your website or websites. Some services are included in registration costs while others are usually included only when additional fees are paid. In order to totally understand what you are getting from a domain name registrar, it is important that you understand the different domain name registration cost and services and what the function of each one really is. By doing that you will find that you can better decide which registration services is best for you and where you can get the best value for the services you receive.

The most common of the different domain name registration cost and services are included in the initial domain name. For most companies, simple domain name registration will cost you less than $10, but will also generally include a number of other services. With most domain registrations, your fee will get you some basic services.

First of all, you will usually get email forwarding addresses that go with the domain you register. These are email addresses that, when used, will direct mail to an existing email address you are already using. That way, you can begin using and advertising your domain name even before you have established an actual site.

Another of the many different domain name registration cost and services is some sort of web-based service account. This is so you can manage and keep track of domain names you have registered. Your contact information as well as domain time left is often included and the service account allows you access 24 hours a day if your contact information changes and you want to be able to sell the domain name.

There are though other domain name registration cost and services that are add-ons. For instance, most companies will charge you a fee to get a catch-all email service. This means that when people send an email to your domain, no matter what the prefix, it will get caught. That way you never miss messages because of a customer miskeying or misunderstanding an email address.

Another of the domain name registration cost and services that may be added on in many cases is domain parking page. For a few bucks, some companies will put up a “park” page where your domain is. That way when someone goes there before you have set up an actual page, they will know that a page is going there and who it is from. Your contact information my be displayed so that potential buyers or customers can get in touch with you through your domain, even if you don’t have a site yet.

There are a number of different domain name registration cost and services available out there. Some are free with your domain name registration, and there are a number of other features that may be added for additional costs. If you build a relationship with a company, sometimes you can get features for free, so that is something you should consider. When shopping for your domain name registrar, you should always shop around to see which features you can get for free versus what you will pay for so that you end up with the service that best fits you.

EU Domains

If you own a website and are located anywhere in Europe, especially the U.K., you’re probably well aware of all the attention surrounding the Eurid offering of .eu domains to the public. .Eu domains have been long awaited and their popularity is expected to be similar to .com domains. These domains were originally only available in what was known as the Sunrise 1 and Sunrise 2 stages. Sunrise 1, the first of the three stages, began on December 7, 2005. To be considered for a .eu domain, applicants chose a domain name had to be related to a registered trademark. This policy greatly restricted the number of applicants that could apply for a domain. The Sunrise 2 stage was offered on February 7, 2006 and allowed applicants to reserve domains related to both unregistered trademarks and company names. The purpose of the Sunrise phases was to allow well established companies the first rights to their desired domain names. As with other types of domains, many times people will purchase a number of domain names hoping to resell them at an elevated cost. Unfortunately, some individuals have even tried using domain names that are similar to well known companies hoping to gain exposure for their product or business.

The last stage known as the “Landrush” became available on April 7, 2006. This final stage allows much greater flexibility for persons wishing to register a .eu domain. Basically anyone who resides in the European Union or who has a business located there can qualify for a .eu domain. Much like other domain extensions, .eu domains are now being assigned on a first come basis. This has caused many companies and businesses to scramble in an effort to acquire their desired domain name. If a domain name under the .com extension is not available, a similar domain ending in the .eu extension may be available instead.

After the opening of the Landrush stage, the sale of .eu domains has skyrocketed. To date there are well over 1.7 million registered domain names and the numbers are expected to keep growing. Many experts believe .eu domains will some day come close to the number of registered .com sites. If current registration trends continue, this could very well occur.

Discount Domains, a company specializing in website design and web hosting, offers .eu domains to the public at an affordable price. They hope to soon become an accredited registrar with Eurid in order to provide additional high quality service to the public. Customers can purchase top level domain names from Discount Domains for their business or organization. The only requirement is that domain names must be registered for a minimum period of two years. The company also offers a wide range of services including domain transfers, web hosting, marketing expertise, and search engine submissions. Discount Domains offers many options for customers wishing to register a .eu domain.

When choosing .eu domains for your business, there are some important points to remember. As with any type of domain name, it is a good idea to choose a .eu domain that is the same or very similar to your business or website name. This will make it much easier for customers and clients to remember. Even if they forget your website address, by running a search on your company name, they can quickly locate your domain name and link to your site. Using your business name within you domain name is a valuable resource for search engine purposes.

If your requested domain name is not available, the provider may suggest similar domain names to the one you suggested. Be careful when considering this option. First of all you will need to make sure that your domain name is not easily confused with other similar names. When marketing your site, be sure to use the entire .eu domain name. This will help to alleviate any misunderstanding or confusion. Lastly, it is much easier to purchase your domain name first before designing a new business or choosing a company name. Trying to come up with a domain name for a well established company can sometimes be a headache. Often times the desired domain name may already be taken. If you plan on establishing a new website or opening a business in the near future, you can greatly benefit by choosing your .eu domains ahead of time.

Online Turnkey Sites – Good and Bad

You have decided to open a site online, but are not sure where to start. This brings us to the subject of the online turnkey sites.

Online Turnkey Sites – Good and Bad

An online turnkey site comes in a couple of variations. All of them are designed to give you a base to work off for your ecommerce efforts. The idea is to create the fundamentals of a site and then let you go to town with it. Depending on the platform, using one of these platforms can be a good or bad move.

Let me save you a ton of money from the outset. If you are considering an online turnkey site that is fully contained, to wit, it gives you a site, domain and products to sell, you are going to have a very difficult time making money. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, your site is no different than all the other turnkey sites sold by the same company. Why would prospects come to your site instead of any of the others? Simply put, there is no way to make your site standout. Further, your marketing will be a major pain. Many pay-per-click search engines will not let you list the site because they only allow one listing per affiliate program and they will consider a turnkey site as one. Further, you will have difficulties pursuing any search engine rankings because you will have little ability to change the site. I strongly encourage you to avoid these online turnkey sites like the plague.

There are online site builders that work fine. These services essentially give you the ability to control the design of your site, and require you to have a domain as well as your own products and services. On the high end, you can find massively flexible page builders with databases tied in covering everything from customer service management to inventory tracking. Most can also be customized to your particular needs.

This second set of platforms, known as online site builders, are really the way to go. The days of learning and hammering out html code for pages has gone the way of the horse and buggy. The online site builders give you convenience, flexibility and control over your online venture. This allows you to manipulate the site as you gain a better understanding of your market and all things Internet. Minor elements of html coding are still needed, but nothing that will set you back or be confusing.

An online turnkey site sounds like a great thing at first blush, but it can cost you in the long run. Make sure you understand what you can and cannot do before committing to a system.

So you want to sell online.

So you wanna take the jump and open a online shop?
Scared at the cost or even where to start?

Look no further I can help you set everything easy with out the need of a web designer. How and why you ask are you gonna tell us this when you have your own web design company?

It all started about 3 years ago when a good friend of mine was being ripped of by a media company charging him £6000 + for a web site you could build for less than £100. I took the site on and vowed I’d never do the same to anyone so I started out and created my own web design company.

And 3:16 Designs was born, now you are the first people to know what the 3:16 means from the title of my company and simply put I wanted my company to have numbers in it somewhere and I love the WWE wrestling scene. My favourite wrestler being Stone Cold Steve Austin and his catchphrase is “Austin 3:16 just whooped your a*s” and my company name was created 3:16 Designs.

So I had a name I had a dream time to start building it.

Job 1: Buy your domain name

A good place to get your domain name from is www.123reg.co.uk with prices starting from £2.59 per year on some extensions e.g .uk

Job 2: Get your hosting plan

I use this company for all my hosting needs as they are reasonably priced and the support is good. Hosting-Unlimited.net the basic hosting plan (which is all you need to start with) is £22.95 a year.

So you now have a company name, an idea, domain name and a years hosting all for less than £26.00 now lets build you a shop.

Job 3: Build the shop

I have tried many scripts in trying to find an easy to use shop that looks good and has the support to go with it, after trying OS Commerce and Zen Cart I stumbled across a small program called CubeCart now when this script started out it was called E-Store and has progressed into the CubeCart store I use now myself. It is easily installed and simple to use and populate. Whats even better is using a service called fantastico you can install this automatically through your hosting plan in under 10 minutes. CubeCart is owned by a company called Devellion Ltd and run by a very friendly man called Allistar Brookbanks (or Brooky to his friends).

One of the big benefits of using CubeCart is the support and the main reason I stopped using OS Commerce. If you get stuck or want to make a couple of changes you can visit the cubecart forum
here, and post your question. The forum members and moderators (I myself am one of them and can be found in the forum under the name of EvilHomeR) will 9/10 times help and assist you. We will also point you in the right direction and make suggestions to help you on your way. Now the other big part of the forum is the mods for CubeCart, these are snippets of code we have produced to improve CubeCart. There are many mods available free of charge and some are for sale for only a few $$$’s, now trust be paying out $5,$10,$15 or even $20 for a mod may seem a lot to some people but when you consider some web designers charge $20+ for an hours work and buying a mod could save you hours of coding and errors. Trust me I have been there myself and now produce mods for the community.

If your still unsure why not pop into the forum and say hi before you try it you will find a bunch of happy people willing to answer your questions.

To install CubeCart go to your Hosting CPanel and locate the icon called Fantastico and click it, now you will see a list of programs find the E-Commerce section and click on Cubecart this will start the installation process. Just follow the simple steps and answer a couple of questions and that’s it in under 10 minutes your shopped is installed and ready to use.

The shop itself is split into 2 area’s the shop front and admin section. The shop front is the area the customers see’s and admin is your part where you can view your customers, orders etc and add your categories and products. The admin is set up in such a way its easy to navigate and use so there you have it in less than 10 minutes and under £26.00 you now have an online shop.

We still have 2 more points to cover to finish the set up properly tho and cover the gateway and copyright issues.

Now CubeCart is free to use software as long as you leave all the copyright info intact however if you want a professional looking store I would suggest paying the $69 (app.£40) to remove the copyrights, it justs looks better all round. You can purchase a license here Purchase CubeCart Copyright Removal Key

If you are going to sell online you need what they call a payment gateway to take money online. If you are just starting out I would suggest signing up for a PayPal business account, you can do this here www.paypal.com. The reason I say PayPal is they don’t charge you for set up and its already fully integrated with CubeCart for normal and digital purchases. So again its easy and free to set up you just pay a small fee on any transactions you put through.

So anyway that’s about it all said and down in less than 24 hours and under £100 you can set up your own E-Commerce shop online and start trading.

So what are you waiting for its time to enter the new digital era and sell online.

Useful links to get you started

www.123reg.co.uk – Domain Names

www.Hosting-Unlimited.net – Hosting Plans

www.paypal.com.- PayPal Business Account

www.cubecart.com – CubeCart License

www.cubecart.com/forum – CubeCart Forum

www.3:16Designs.co.uk – My Digital article submission site. Feel free to post your own articles here.

Reverse Domain Name Hijacking Now!

Reverse domain name hijacking is one of the serious problems in the world of domain name today. Many people were engaged in such silly activity and so create a great bang in the domain name industry.

Accordingly, the reverse domain name hijacking is such a ploy that is applied by a complainant in bad faith to attempt to deprive a registered domain name owner. In fact, there is a certain rule for reverse domain name hijacking and it was under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy or UDRP rule 1. Aside from that, there is also a certain rule under the same policy that the panels finding a reverse domain name hijacking are not just sanctioned to deny the objection, but they are really directed to positively locate the presence of bad faith.

Speaking of the bad faith as the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy holds, it is considered that in the true statement of the rules for reverse domain name hijacking, there is really no vivid view of what a bad faith means and what makes for a bad faith UDRP objection as well as the facts that justifies a finding of reverse domain name hijacking. As such, it is then necessary to look at some clear illustrations about this thing.

Essentially, according to a current rulings of the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy, the reverse domain name hijacking basically surface when an objection is taken regardless of the knowledge that the domain name owner has an authority or justifiable willingness in the domain name or the case in which the domain name was registered in good faith, with or without the frustrating situation of nuisance or proven bad intent by the plaintiff who is in search of owning the domain name.

For further interest, the reverse domain name hijacking is in fact mentioned in the ruling for the Goldline International, Inc. v. Gold Line with the statement as “To prevail such a claim (of reverse domain name hijacking), Respondent must show that Complainant knew of Respondent’s unassailable right or legitimate interest in the disputed domain name or the clear lack of bad faith registration and use, and nevertheless brought the Complaint in bad faith”.

Another important distinction of the reverse domain name hijacking was the Goldline panel’s adoption of a rule that was set down in Smart design LLC v. Hughes, in which the panels also found out that there is a reverse domain name hijacking not because of an established bad intent, but for the fact that the allegations of the respondent’s bad faith were established in a mode that the panel concluded as unsatisfactory to the plaintiff.

Out of those two cases about the reverse domain name hijacking, there are still others and others that continue to create a booming impact to the world of domain name and to the lives of the domain name holders. So if you think that the rules for reverse domain name hijacking leaves a lot of room for interpretation, well, you are right, but it is just necessary to know that it does not end there. Such is how the reverse domain name hijacking bangs the domain name disputes.

Domain Name Extension And Its Types And Options

What is a domain name extension? This is the most popular and foremost question when it comes to domain name extension. Many people were really asking that question times every time a subject about domain name and its extensions is tackled. Well, fortunate for them that they are actually left with answers on their hands. However, many of the people today are still not aware of the nature of domain name extension and its types especially those who haven’t heard anything about domain names.

For such matter, it is indeed a nice idea to present some of the facts about the domain name extension and its types for the people to know what a domain name extension is and how it functions in the world of the internet. So here it is.

Essentially, a domain name extension is also called a top level domain name such as .com, .org, .net, and a lot more. It is considered that a domain name extension is the top most part if the domain names under which all of the domains on the web are registered. To further create a vivid idea on the uses of a domain name extension, it is interesting to know that a domain name extension like .com is particularly intended for the commercial organizations. The .net domain name extension is then designed for network services just like the Internet Service Providers or ISPs, and on the other hand, a domain name extension like .org is specifically designed for non-profit organizations. Along with that, it is also interesting to know that such mentioned domain name extensions – .com, .net, and .org – are the most common and they belong on the international front.

For further information, such mentioned domain name extensions are called as the “Big 3” for the reason that they accessible to anyone, without limitations, and now widely recognized in all parts of the globe.

In terms of the a country by country basis since most countries now have a matching top level domain name, under which domain names are sold, the most common domain name extensions are based on two characters ISO country codes.

In terms of a country by country basis, the common domain name extensions are based on the two-character ISO country codes and this is for the main reason that many countries offered these kinds of domain name extensions. Among such kind of domain name extensions is the .fr for France, .jp for Japan, and so on and so forth. Most popular country top level domains include the .fr for France, .jp for Japan, and http://.co.uk. It is well noted that these domain name extensions are generally under the control of the government and so adding a level of stability and durability seemed so tough to match.

Besides, during the year 2000 the ICANN approved a new set of domain name extensions which is composed of seven new top domains such as .aero, .biz, .coop, .info, .museum, .name, and .pro. They are generally called “alternative top level domain names” and that they are officially known, thus they will work in all parts of the globe, in any browser or other software.

And just recently, five organizations have proposed for the creation of the newest domain name extensions which are noted to be applied or to function officially on 2005 if the proposal will be approved. And it is interesting to know that what is included as the newest domain name extensions are .asia, .cat, .jobs, .mail, .mobi, .post, .tel, .travel, and .xxx.

Sell Your Art Online With Your Own Unique Website

If you are serious about selling your art online, then you should be serious about developing your own website. I am not referring to those free website builders your Internet Service Provider gives you or any other free website providers. I am talking about a professional website with your own unique domain name: www.yourname.com.

There are good reasons why you should never use a free design service. The company that provides the free service owns your website space and they can do whatever they wish with your site, namely advertise on it.

There is nothing more unprofessional than unrelated banner advertising and popup windows that are usually associated with free websites. Not only are they annoying, but they also distract visitors from your art.

There is also the risk that your website provider may go out of business. That free site you spent all that time promoting is gone and your efforts were in vain.

With your own unique domain name, the worst-case scenario is you have to change hosting accounts. Your domain name remains unchanged and your customers can still reach your site.

Having your own website with a unique domain name tells your potential customers that you are a professional and serious about your business. It also looks wonderful on business cards!

Can you imagine handing out business cards at art shows or to other interested people with this printed on your cards: http://www.some freewebsite.com/artists/yourgallery/index.html. This is unprofessional and it’s difficult for your customers to remember.

Having your own unique website offers convenience for you and potential customers. For instance, lets say you are traveling to another state, or another part of the world for that matter. You meet someone who is interested in seeing your work, but you don’t have your portfolio with you. You may have just lost a potential customer. If you have a nice business card, with your website address printed on it, the potential customer can simply visit your website at his or her convenience to view your work, and it doesn’t matter if they live around the corner or on the other side of the world! Your website is available 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

Now that you see the benefits of having your own website, you will need to take the first step, and that is to register your domain name (http:www.yourname.com).

Registering your own domain name is easy and extremely affordable today. My recommendation is to register through a site called Godaddy.com. They are amongst the lowest priced domain registration services online at around $9 for the entire year (this was the price at the time of writing this article). Once you register your domain name, its time to begin your website design. You can either hire a web designer or do it yourself. Whichever method you choose here are some general guidelines:

My advice is to keep your site clean and simple. Do not load your site with lots of fancy graphics or long multimedia presentations. These only annoy and distract visitors away from your art and increase the amount of time it takes for pages to download.

Make your site navigation is easy to follow and consistent throughout your entire site.

Make it easy for your visitors to contact you. Put a “contact” or “contact us” link on every page in clear view.

Avoid animated graphics, moving text, or other animated features on your website.

Make all of the links on your site standard colors and underlined. Blue is for unvisited links, purple for visited.

Resources for do it yourself web design – There are many places online where you can learn HTML and web design completely free. One of my favorite sites is W3 Schools – http://www.w3schools.com/. W3 Schools is a wonderful site packed with lots of great information on HTML and web design. The tutorials are informative and very easy to follow.
If you are not the type who enjoys learning online, there are also a handful of great books you can purchase. “Learning Web Design” by Jennifer Niederst is a book that gives you a good all around introduction to web design. There are other great books. Just head over to a site like Amazon and a do a search for “beginner web design”. Find books that have good feedback ratings from customers. Read through the feedback to make sure the book is the right fit for your experience level.

I hope this article has got you excited about getting your own website. If you have any questions about anything covered in this article, do not hesitate to contact me. Please send your question to: ralph@sellingartnews.com.

Be sure and head over to http://www.sellingartnews.com, for more great articles and tips on selling your art.

25 Free Tips for Marketing your Blog

With so many blogs being created every day, it’s a mystery to many bloggers how to make their blog stand out. It’s simple. People want to read good content, and with good content comes ad revenue. Well, maybe it’s not that easy… We’ve finally unleashed the secrets of successful blog marketing. Do note that these are not guaranteed to increase your click-through ratios and they will not bring good karma to you or your ads.. If only.. Nonetheless, these tips should benefit your blog and make it more user-friendly, more easily accessible, and more content-enabled.

There are many types of blogs or purposes for blogs and a certain number of tactics are applicable to just about all of them, so here is a -short- list of tips for marketing and optimizing a blog:

1. Decide on a stand alone domain name www.myblog.com or directory of existing site www.mysite.com/blog. Sub domain is also an option blog.mysite.com. Avoid hosted services that do not allow you to use your own domain name!
2. Obtain and install customizable blog software – WordPress and Moveable Type are my favorites.
3. Customize blog look and feel templates – aka design.
4. Research keywords and develop a glossary – Keyword Discovery, WordTracker, SitePoint, SEOBook Keyword Research.
5. Optimize the blog:
* Template optimization – RSS subscription options, social bookmark links, HTML code, Unique title tags, URLs, Sitemap
* Add helper plugins specific to WordPress or MT
* Create keyword rich categories (reference your keyword glossary)
6. Enable automatic trackback and ping functionality.
7. Create Feedburner Pro account and enable feed tracking.
8. Setup Google acount for Sitemap, validate and prep for future submission.
9. Identify authoritative blogs, web sites and hubs for outbound resource links and blogroll.
10. Format archived posts, related posts.
11. Enable statistics for tracking – Performancing, Google Analytics, ClickTracks.
12. Submit RSS feed and Blog URL to prominent RSS and Blog directories / search engines.
13. Engage in an ongoing link building campaign.
14. If podcast or video content are available, submit to Podcast and Vlog directories.
15. Submit blog url to paid directories with categories for blogs – Yahoo, BOTW, bCentral, WOW, JoeAnt.
16. Optimize and distribute a press release announcing blog.
17. Request feedback or reviews of your blog in relevant forums, discussion threads. If you have a resourceful post that will help others, point to it.
18. Research and comment on relevant industry related blogs and blogs with significant centers of influence.
19. Post regularly. If it’s a news oriented blog, 3-5 times per day. If it’s an authoritative blog, 3-5 times per week, but each post must be unique and high value.
20. Monitor inbound links, traffic, comments and mentions of your blog – Google Alerts, Technorati, Blogpulse, Yahoo News, Ask Blogs and Feeds.
21. Always respond to comments on your blog and when you detect a mention of your blog on another blog, thank that blogger in the comments of the post.
22. Make contact with related bloggers on AND offline if possible.
23. When making blog posts always cite the source with a link and don’t be afraid to mention popular bloggers by name. Use keywords in the blog post title, in the body of the post and use anchor text when you link to previous posts you’ve made.
24. Use social networking services, forums and discussion threads to connect with other bloggers. If they like your stuff, they will link to you.
25. Remember when web sites were a new concept and the sage advice to print your web address everywhere you print your phone number? The same advice applies for your blog.

Affiliates, 3 Things You should Own though You dont Own a Product

1. Your Own web site:

Most affiliates put a redirect link directly to their affiliate
product. It is not such a good practice.

*Register a domain that closely resembles your affiliate product
website. For example, if you are an affiliate for affiliateproduct.com
web site, try to register affiliate-product.com or affiliateproduct.net.

*Follow the lay-out of your affiliate product web site.

*Put content on your web site (minimum of 10 pages). Like articles
and reviews related to your affiliate product. No need to say to put up
links leading the visitor to your affiliate web site.

*If you have a multiple different affiliate products, don’t mix them up
and put all of those links on same web site. Choose a multidomain host
and host your different affiliate web sites for cheap.

2. Your Own opt-in list:

You need your own opt-in list **no matter** what you sell and your own
or your affiliate product.

Start giving free ecourse or an ezine related to your affiliate product
and collect email addresses.

You need a follow up autoresponder or a maling list manager to manage
this process of collecting emails, follow up, sending promotional emails
etc. etc.

Here is a PHP script that you can use as BOTH follow up autoresponders
and mailing list managers:

http://www.scripts4webmasters.com/follow-up-autoresponder-pro/index.shtml

3. Your Own Ezine articles:

Yep! You have to spread the word about your affiliate product. Don’t You?
Write articles related to your affiliae product and publish them on your
web site, send them to publishers, submit them to content sites.

Do a search on Google or Altavista like &submit+article&, you will get a
big list of sites. Keep your favorites on your Favorites folder and submit
to them on regular basis.

Few tips in writing ezine articles in the affiliates perspective:
=Don’t expose your affiliate link directly in your resourcebox.
=Usually affiliate links comes as long URLs. These tend to breakup.
So use some kind of redirection.
=Only promote one product in one article.

More on hiding affiliate links:

http://www.webmasters-central.com/t/siteprotection/affiliatelinks.shtml

Power Blogging – Blogging For Business Or Pleasure?

Blogging for business
Because the search engines index blogs very quickly, blogging can be a good way to get your company or product to a wider audience. There are two ways to do this, either closely align your blog with your product, or blog about the market your product serves and reference your product. For the first it makes a deal of sense to include either your company or major product name in the blog title and domain. In fact you could just install a blog in a sub-directory of your main website which would tie it in very closely with your company. Many web hosts now have a domain control panel which enable WordPress blogs to be installed almost completely automatically. I would suggest WordPress as suitable blog software as there are an enormous number of add-ons and plugins available to make your blog look and act exactly as you want. A second option would be to register a suitable domain, install WordPress on it and go from there.

If you want to initially distance yourself from your product, then you might well find it easiest to register a blog with one of the major blog hosts and set yourself up as a special interest blogger. You may wish to do this to attract visitors who might not frequently visit your site but are interested in the markets you serve. If you sell wine for instance you could blog about wine in general and reference the special offers that you sell, maybe including short tasting notes. It might be beneficial to come clean about your association in an About Me page, as being professionally involved in a specific market adds a certain authority to what you write. It would be clear to frequent visitors that you only mention one company but they would have initially been attracted by the content, and would most likely continue to visit as long as the content is valuable to them. The important thing about doing it this way is that your content should hold up regardless of your promotion of your product otherwise you won’t get visitors returning.

Blogging for pleasure
If anything this is the most rewarding way to blog. Writing about something you have a passion for is most likely to get visitors who share the same passion and can grow a community as you link to other blogs which have the same focus. I am an Arsenal Football Club supporter and have a blog http://blogs.goonerville.com/blog/LGS_blog.php where I vent and applaud everything about the club and football in general. If you leave the comments turned on, you will get visitors posting their replies to you which can help you gauge reaction to your opinions. But beware, you may not always like what people say about you! It’s not compulsory, but you may also be able to make a little money from Adsense or affiliate sales as long as you don’t overdo the adverts because you will have a very targeted audience reading the blog.

Whether you are blogging for business or pleasure, the important things to remember are:

1. Write in your own style, don’t try and copy anyone else.
2. Use original content. You can use other material, but make sure you are not breaking copyright and add your own content.
3. Pace yourself. Don’t start out intending to post every day if you don’t have the time and inclination. It is better to start slowly and increase if you can rather than gradually tail off.
4. Use humour if you are humorous. Even if the blog is factual, visitors like to be entertained.

If used well, blogs can be a tremendous aid to communicating whatever message you wish to advance. There are many things you can do to make your blog more accessible and popular, but that are beyond the range of this article and will be covered in future articles.

Getting The Right Domain Name

Once you are comfortable with working online, you should buy a domain name for your site or sites. Domain name registration, if you do it right, is one of the key components of having your site rate high in the search engines. The right domain name is memorable, and can get your site to rank higher than other names. The wrong domain name won’t do you any good at all.

The Basics of Domain Name Registration

The first thing you have to do is come up with a good domain name for registration. Don’t even think about a one-word domain name; they’re all gone at this point. Instead, come up with dual-word combos. If you’re putting together a professional site, try your name before anything else.

Don’t get fancy with spelling when selecting your domain name registration, or use 2s and 8s to represent their sounds. You can try the number 1; that sometimes works. You can also try the names of products you offer, or a description of your site content offerings: Romanceforgirls, popcornpalace, fluffykittens. Memorable is always better; short and memorable is best, but very difficult to accomplish.

Come up with a couple of dozen names that will do for your site, and test them on a registry. Don’t buy a domain name for which the .com extension is gone, but you have access to the .net or .info. These domain names are not by any means as valuable as the .com. If you pick up the .com, though, and you expect the site to be lucrative or have a lot of competition, it’s not a bad idea to pick up the other extensions as well. Domain name registration is NOT expensive, and if you register in bulk you can get an even better price.

The .UK Extension

This doesn’t mean you should avoid anything but .com. If you have a business in the United Kingdom, you have access to the .uk domain name set, which UK customers are likely to look at before anything else for UK-specific businesses.

If you anticipate most of your business will come from British customers who are aware your business is in Britain, the .uk extension may be a better choice than the .com; and if your customers are unhappy with Internic’s control of Internet domain registration or they are very pro-Britain, the .uk extension is certainly a better choice.

If you’re fortunate enough to find both extensions for your domain open, and if you run a British company, it doesn’t cost much to buy them both, and you definitely should.

It also gives your online presence an immediate “identity” geographically which can be crucial in building online relationships- where trust is a key component. By being a .UK domain, you are very likely to gain UK clients.

The .UK domains market is one of the fastest growing and lucrative registration areas on the internet.

Tips for Domain Name Registration

Have a website ready to plunk into your domain as soon as you buy it, and submit it immediately to the search engines. The search engines take time to index new sites and your domain name registration is only as valuable as the search engines make it.

You can also have more than one domain name pointing at a single site. If you’ve bought multiple extensions for your domain name (as in the previously-suggested .com/.uk combination), you can set up your site under one domain name and then direct traffic from the others to the main site. This is called web traffic forwarding and has been around for years. It may be as simple as parking your domain name on a server and putting a line of code on the page, or as complex as going through another website to use their online web forwarding services.

When you do register a domain and start building traffic to it, go out and renew for multiple years before your renewal is due. It is surprisingly easy to forget to register your domain name on time, and if someone else sneaks in and registers it, you’ve just lost a ton of work on that domain.

By making your domain name memorable, you will help other webmasters remember your site easily when building anchor texts in their links- a crucial component of SEO.

Final tip: don’t just think about price when looking for a domain registration company- also think about quality of service. While you shouldn’t be paying over the odds, it really is better to be safe than sorry and go with the more established registrars. Then you can have peace of mind that should any problems arise, you will be well looked after.

Blogging to the Bank

Are you looking for a way to make money online without spending any money to get started?
I have just recently come across an ebook called Blogging to the Bank. This book is filled with step by step instructions and screenshots to make sure you have no trouble at all in setting up your blogs. Blogging to the Bank is written by Rob Benwell and even includes several videos showing you how to get your blog indexed by the search engines.

Why should you use blogs to make money online?
If you wanted to create 10 or 20 websites to make you money, you would need to register domain names, pay for webhosting, and know how to setup a website. But with blogs, your account is free and you can create lots of different blogs on any topic you wish for free! You do not need to know any web programming or even how to build a website to setup your blogs.
You can review a product and place an affiliate link to the site and earn you money. Another good reason is that you can include google adsense in your blog to create even more revenue.
I purchased Blogging to the Bank and have setup a few blogs already which are making me good money. One of the blogs I created is Guitar Lesson. Check it out at http://guitar–lesson.blogspot.com .This is a blog I created thanks to the information I learned in the Blogging to the Bank ebook.

Lets look into this a little further. If you open a new window and go to MSN and search for guitar lesson you will see there are over 2.5 million pages in the results. Now if you look at the first couple of pages of results, you will see my http://guitar–lesson.blogspot.com is ranked number 11 at this time, and I am just getting started. I was very excited to see my recently created blog dominate over 2.5 million other pages! Most web browsers do not look past the first couple of pages so this is where you want to be. I was able to get my blog ranked this well thanks again to the information in the Blogging to the Bank ebook.

Start building your money making blog empire now and you will see just how easy and profitable this is.

Public Domain – The easy way to create articles!

There are many webmasters that find writing articles for their site to be a very tedious task. Many people who need to write articles also procrastinate as much as they can to delay the amount of writing they need to do. Many people dread writing articles because they find researching for the topic and writing down original materials will be too taxing on them.

You need to have your creative juices flowing and simply downloading an article would be plagiarism or tantamount to stealing, not exactly. Have you ever heard about public domain? These are articles written down by many authors that have declared their works to be public domain, which means anybody can use it for whatever purpose they want.

While most authors would prefer to copyright their work for their rights, there are also a number who doesn’t mind sharing their work. Public domain articles are not owned by anybody and can be used and abused by anyone. The writers have waived their rights to their works and it is out there for the public to make use of.

You can use public domain articles in helping you write your articles. With the public domain articles you can simply edit them to your own style and rewrite them as you please to make it suitable for your needs. All the ideas are there already and its just a matter of finding the write article with the topic or subject you need.

This is probably the easiest way to write articles. You don’t need to scour around the library or the internet for hours for information and start an article from scratch. For webmasters who are looking for articles to fill their site and to generate a high ranking for their website in search engine results, they can just modify the article by infusing keywords and keyword phrases related to their site.

A webmaster or website operator do not risk any chance of getting sued for copyright infringement because they are public domain, once again meaning that anybody can use it. Writing articles by using public domain wont require as much work as writing one from scratch would. You save a lot of time also.

One good factor in using public domain articles for your site or for any project is that you save a lot of money. You dismiss the need to hire experienced and seasoned writers that some website operators use to write their articles. While a single five hundred worded article would only set you down 10 to 15 dollars, this cost will drastically increase when you need hundreds of articles to fill the needs of your site.

For those who needs articles to generate newsletters or an e-zine, public domain articles will be very beneficial. You do not need to count on your contributors or pay writers to write down articles for your newsletter or e-zine. You can fill all the pages without any cost or the worry of being sued and sought after by the writers. You can simply copy the articles and place them on your newsletter and e-zine.

Public domain articles are a virtual untapped resource that many people fail to realize the true value. The power of articles, keywords and keyword phrases have been deemed invaluable these past few years for many internet based businesses and sites that want to rank high in search engine results.

The number of article and content writers have grown significantly due to the rise in the demand for articles. As newer and newer topics and subjects have arisen, there are many demands for new articles to be written. An industry has been formed and this is a worldwide demand.

Public domain articles have given a great alternative for those who are cash strapped as well as do not have the time nor the skills to do their articles for themselves.

Searching for public domain articles is as easy as 1 – 2 – 3. You can search for them in search engines and do searches in many directories for the topic or subject that you need. Read them and simpy copy paste them to a word processing program and simply edit them to suit your needs.
More information can be obtained here:

Where Do I Find The Best Affiliate Programs?

Seasoned Vets and Newbies alike frequently ask the same question, What and where are the best affiliate programs?

My answer to this question will require answering the question with several questions.

First you’ll want to ask yourself, what are you interested in?

Then, what do you know a little something about?

There are many sources as well as an affiliate program that would match just about any interest you may have or know something about.

Let’s see if we can’t simplify the process of chosing the best affiliate programs to promote.

Head on over to http://clickbank.com/
This is my favorite source of the most popular programs. They tell you the percentage you’ll recieve on each sale and they also put it in dollars and cents. They also reveal other stats about each program that will help you to determine if the program you chose is right for you to promote.

Your next choice is http://www.linkshare.com/
LinkShare pioneered online affiliate marketing, and today runs the largest pay for performance affiliate marketing network on the Internet. With over 10 million partnerships in the network it is the most successful pay for performance network of its kind.

Next is Commission Junction http://www.cj.com/
Maximize your revenue opportunities by developing sustainable relationships with top-tier advertisers. Perform and get paid for every sale and lead you generate. For qualifying publishers, take your program to the next level with their industry exclusive solution for top-performers.

There are more equally as credible affiliate program sources on the web but for the sake of simplicity and to keep this article to a minimum length I’m going to limit these resources to the top three. If you like, you can simply go to your favorite search engine and continue your search fo “Affiliate Program Resources”.

Knowing a little something about what you want to sell will be to your advantage but not required. After all, this is The Information Super Highway and whatever information we need can be found here. The tools at are disposal are many. You just need to know where they are and what they will tell you.

Google.com would be a good place to start your search. If you type “affiliate programs” into the search box you you will get a list of literally millions of potential programs. At the time of this writing (7-12-06) there were 111,000,000 possible affiliate programs to chose from. That blows my mind (:-(

You don’t have to weed through that many sites. The first few pages should give you a few ideas as to what you want to promote. Try and stick with something you’ve got some background in.

For example, let’s say you’ve been working in a pet store for awhile. See if you can’t find an affiliate program related to pets. Maybe pet food, pet training, pet care, etc. Perhaps you’ll want to target specific pets like dogs or dog training. Dog Training and Dog Breeds are very “HOT” Markets right now and I suspect they will be for quite sometime to come.

Let’s say you’ve chosen Dog Breeds as a topic of interest. It’s time to research that topic and see if there is indeed a market for it.

Go to Overture.com and type Dog Breeds into the search box. I found the amount of searches done for this topic to be 184,184 in April 2006. This would certainly be a topic I’d want to further investigate.

I’d follow that bit of information up by going to Nichebot.com and typing those same key words into the search box. The information returned will prove to be an invaluable tool for making you affilate program choice. Pay particular attention to the far right column. The numbers that are closest to zero determine less competition. Look for something in that category and copy those keywords back to Google.com and do another search. I’m sure you’ll be able to find a program to join and promote.

Try and find a Program with at least a 50% commission, which comes out to at least $20. for you. More if possible. You can chose a program with a lesser commission if it is what&s called a high ticket item. A good rule of thumb to remember is “It takes as much effort to promote High Ticket Items as it does to promote a program for a $20.00 Sale”.

So why waste your time and advertising dollars promoting products that only bring a $20.00 commission when the same amount of time and money can bring you a commission of $200.00. It’s good sense and the math tells the story as well.

The time and effort spent promoting small ticket items is the same as high ticket items. The benefit is you don’t have to make as many sales with the more expensive item as you do with the smaller one.

The best advice I can give is to be patient, utilize as many free resources to promote your programs as you can. There are many. Get your own domain and web host. You&ll want to put together a site that is unlike the generic affiliate site that the owner provides. This will put you in a different category as you will not be promoting the same page as a thousand other marketers. It will also make you credible and establish you as someone who is serious about their business on the web.

Patience is a Virtue. Posess it if you can and by the way, Happy Marketing!